This is the first of three posts about Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice (1813).
Method: I’m going to start with the presupposition of the Trinity–the three persons in one of the godhead-as the basis for my evaluation of the book. If you read intro handbooks on lit, the interpretive process can seem rather arbitrary. I don’t think interpretation is arbitrary, and I’m serious when I see I want my interpretation of literature to be indebted to the library.
All this is to say: look for 3s: grammar, logic, rhetoric…plot, theme, style…historical interpretation, mythic interpretation, rhetorical interpretation….and count on the source of those 3s ultimately being the trinity.
So, where do we start?
I’m going to use the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) to structure my basic response to Volume 1 of Pride and Prejudice (Chapters 1-23). I think the three parts of the trivium roughly translate to an overview of plot (what happened), theme (what it means), and style (how it’s said).
Plot: Some new men show up in a small English country village. By the end of part one, our heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, has turned down one unwanted proposal and incited the unwanted amorous attentions of another suitor. Elizabeth’s sister hoped for a proposal but was disappointed. Elizabeth’s friend received and accepted a proposal from the man Elizabeth had rejected. This is typical for a Jane Austen novel in that these sentences really do summarize everything that happened and miss everything important at the same time.
Theme: Look at the book’s title. Austen tends to focus more on theme than plot. I will have occasion to explore this theme more below, but let’s just say that the vices of pride and prejudice animate the entire book. By sheer frequency, “pride” is more important that “prejudice” in this first volume. We’re told early on by Mary Bennet that pride’s double is vanity: “Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” Mr. Darcy and Mr. Collins are both proud. Mr. Darcy has more reason to be proud than Mr. Collins. We know that Mr. Collins is “not a sensible man” because he adds to his pride a sense of vanity. Mr. Darcy doesn’t really care what others think of him. That’s his problem! To sum up, pride is about correctly interpreting yourself.
Prejudice, on the other hand, is about correctly judging others. Elizabeth, the heroine, is the character most associated with this folly. This is ironic as the only time the word comes up in the first volume is when she asks Darcy, ““And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?” It is Elizabeth who is constantly blinded by prejudice, both positively (of Wickham because he’s so handsome) and negatively (of Darcy because he insults her the first time he sees her).
I’ll expand on the theme of the novel below, but I can say here that it involves correctly interpreting yourself and others.
Style: Three things about Austen’s style…
First, the novel’s tone is ironic (there’s a gap between what the narrator and characters say and what the narrator and characters mean). Almost always more is meant than is said.
Second, the bulk of the novel’s energy comes through dialogue; almost everything interesting that happens in the opening section occurs in conversation.
Third, the narrator provides needed commentary to confirm observations made by characters. That is, we not only see characters most clearly when they are in conversation. We also see characters most clearly when the narrator adds commentary about them apart from any character’s observations.
THEME, EXPANDED: My premise here is that we can look at the work’s meaning in three ways: historical, mythical, and rhetorical. I’m not going to offer exhaustive interpretations right now of the book. I’m only looking at a third of it. What I’d like to do is outline what each point of this interpretive triangle would be most interested in.
The HISTORICAL approach would would begin with data about Jane Austen’s biography, the publication history of the novel, and the historical references inside the book. You can find an example of this kind of interpretation in the opening essay in the Penguin Edition I own. The author, Vivian Jones, argues that the book thematically marries Edmund Burke and Mary Wollstonecraft, two contemporaries of Austen who have entirely different conceptions of marriage. That is, Jones goes to history to argue that the book is making a progressively conservative representation of marriage. That’s what a historical perspective would look like from 10,000 feet. However, the historical approach might also explain why British militia show up in this tiny town of Meryton (Napoleon!) or why Darcy would say, “I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.” What are “days as these,” and why would they demand a library?
The MYTHICAL approach would begin with the most obvious literary precursors to Austen’s work: the marriage comedies of drama and epistolary romance novels of Richardson and Burney. A couple getting married is a longstanding plot in literature and while Austen’s execution of that plot is unique, the general form of boy-finds-girl,-boy-loses-girl,-boy-regains-girl is not. From a Christian perspective, the marriage plot is even more important because the marriage of Christ and the church is the true reality to which every human marriage points. In short, this approach looks at the way in which Austen’s work uses pre-existing imagery and conventions.
Finally, the RHETORICAL approach would begin with the hallmarks of Austen’s style, looking at her idiosyncratic word, structure, and character choices. Something I noticed this time through? The word “never” appears over 200 times in the novel. Here’s just a sample of how the word is used in Volume 1.
- “[E]verybody hoped that he would never come there again.”
- “I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life as I have this evening…”
- “I never in my life saw anything more elegant than their dresses.”
- “You never see a fault in anybody.”
- “I may safely promise you never to dance with him.”
- “It is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it.”
It goes on like that. Everyone engages in hyperbole. Conversation is a competitive sport, and every statement must be exaggerated.
In addition, I was struck by the beginning and ending of the first volume: a pair of bookend conversations between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. The novel’s first dialogue belongs to Mrs. Bennet, the volume’s final line to Mr. Bennet. The main difference between Elizabeth and her sisters and the men they want to marry is that Elizabeth et al live with their parents. The parents of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley have died. Were the marriages of these men’s parents happy ones? (Side note: variations of the word “happy” appear over 200 times in the novel too). We don’t know. The beginning and end of the first volume, however, reveals that Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s marriage is not a happy one. They vex each other and thus present an active example for their daughters to avoid.
Goodness, that’s a lot.
What’s missing right now is a way of incorporating the covenantal worldview analysis that I want to deploy: the issues of sovereignty, hierarchy, cause, effect, and time that inevitably permeate a literary work and give us a sense of how it reflects a redeemed or fallen imagination.
I will have to think more about this.
Experiments in Criticism 