All Janeites
know the scene in S&S when Elinor first speaks to Marianne about her
feelings for Edward:
"I do not attempt to
deny," said she, "that I think very highly of him—that I greatly esteem,
that I like him."
Marianne here burst forth with
indignation— "Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than
cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will
leave the room this moment."
In the
novel, we next read Elinor’s convoluted, rationalizing speech about those
feelings, but Emma Thompson’s film version shortens Elinor’s reply to one
sentence, before giving Marianne an effective comic turn not present in the
novel text:
Elinor: “Very well. Forgive me. Believe
my feelings to be stronger than I have declared but further than that you must
not believe.
Marianne
is flummoxed but she rallies swiftly and picks up her book again.
Marianne: 'Is love a fancy or a
feeling?' Or a Ferrars?
Elinor: Go to bed!
Elinor
blushes in good earnest. Marianne goes to the door.
Marianne: (imitating Elinor) 'I do not attempt to deny that I think highly of
him greatly esteem him! Like him!'
Marianne’s
mocking speech in Elinor’s voice, spoken by Kate Winslet, is one of many
wonderful small alterations that Thompson makes to JA’s first published novel,
to universal acclaim. After all, S&S arguably required same, because it contains
much less of the kind of memorable repartee that is found in many places in her
much more theatrical, enacted second published novel, P&P.
The
primary reason I mention all of the above, however, is not in relation to either
S&S or P&P, but because of something I noticed for the first time yesterday
in JA’s third published novel, Mansfield Park. I.e., I recognized with
surprised delight that Mary Crawford actually engages in a mocking imitation in
the voice of another person in the novel’s
actual text -- an imitation which,
as far as I can tell after checking various online sources, has never been
noticed before, at least by any published Austen scholar, or in either Janeites
or Austen-L.
I’ll
tell you about that speech by Mary shortly, but first let me say that I find Mary
Crawford to be the wittiest of all of Austen’s characters; even more so than
Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Bennet, or Lady Susan, who are the three other Austen
characters who I’ve seen mentioned as most deserving to be ranked in that
rarefied category. Above all, Mary, like her creator, dearly loves a pun, as
all Janeites know from Mary’s famous, totally disingenuous denial of making what
appears to be a very scandalous pun indeed:
“Fanny would rather have had Edmund
tell the story, but his determined silence obliged her to relate her brother’s
situation: her voice was animated in speaking of his profession, and the
foreign stations he had been on; but she could not mention the number of years
that he had been absent without tears in her eyes. Miss Crawford civilly wished
him an early promotion.
“Do you know anything of my cousin’s
captain?” said Edmund; “Captain Marshall? You have a large acquaintance in the
navy, I conclude?”
“Among admirals, large enough; but,”
with an air of grandeur, “we know very little of the inferior ranks.
Post-captains may be very good sort of men, but they do not belong to us.
Of various admirals I could tell you a great deal: of them and their flags, and
the gradation of their pay, and their bickerings and jealousies. But, in
general, I can assure you that they are all passed over, and all very ill used.
Certainly, my home at my uncle’s brought me acquainted with a circle of
admirals. Of Rears and Vices I saw enough.
Now do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat.”
Edmund again felt grave, and only
replied, “It is a noble profession.”
“Yes, the profession is well enough
under two circumstances: if it make the fortune, and there be discretion in
spending it; but, in short, it is not a favourite profession of mine. It has
never worn an amiable form to me.”
“ END QUOTE
In
previous posts, I’ve repeatedly suggested the error of the universal belief
among Janeites that Mary’s account of a sexually transgressive circle of
admirals is a gratuitous salacious non
sequitur, a faux pas which Mary blurts
out and then perhaps instantly regrets. I see a very different Mary in that
scene, one who uses the mask of a careless wit to give her safe cover to blow a
serious moral whistle. I.e., I see Mary as trying to alert Fanny to the “price”
William has already paid, or will shortly pay, for the naval promotion he has
just received courtesy of the “generosity” of Henry Crawford and his admiral
(but not admirable) uncle. That “price” will be the submission of William’s body to the carnal lusts of Uncle
Crawford (and maybe of the polymorphously sexual Henry Crawford, who wished to
make holes in hearts everywhere he turned).
And
that brings me to the point: can you spot, in that passage, the part where Mary
mockingly speaks in the voice of another person, in exactly the same manner as
Kate Winslet’s Marianne Dashwood mockingly imitates her sister’s unconvincing
denial of feelings of love for Edward? Hint: as my Subject Line suggests, it is
the very words which Mary speaks “with an air of grandeur”!
Now I
hope you see that JA has hidden in plain sight a narrated stage direction that
alerts us that Mary adopts an air of grandeur, to alert her audience that she’s
speaking not for herself, but in the voice of one of the “we” of admirals who
“know little of the inferior ranks”! And, if you read Mary’s entire speech through
on this point, it rapidly becomes clear that the conventional reading of Mary’s
seemingly snobbish identification with her uncle’s circle of admirals becomes
utterly untenable. Why would Mary speak, unironically, in the first person
plural, as if she were just another one of the admirals who sneered at
post-captains, and then spend the rest of her speech drily critiquing those
same admirals for their many foibles? It would turn Mary into a kind of
multiple personality, which of course is absurd.
And, as
if that were not enough, Mary herself states later, without a trace of irony: “I
have been so little addicted to take my opinions from my uncle”. So the last
thing she is going to do is to think of herself as part of any “we” with her
uncle and his cronies, let alone the “us” in the next line: ““Post-captains
may be very good sort of men, but they do not belong to us.“
What
is, upon such close examination, obvious, is that Mary is actually mocking the
pretentious snobbery of admirals like her
uncle who think themselves far superior as people to post-captains --- conveniently
ignoring the fact that many of those same admirals were once post-captains
themselves! I’m reminded of both Mrs. Ferrars and Fanny Dashwood in S&S,
both of whom I’ve long suspected of coming from humble origins; but then, upon
achieving rank via marriage, became the most cruel and zealous defenders of
privilege against those less fortunate, who uncomfortably remind them of their
own former impecunious selves. And I believe JA makes this clear at the end of
S&S, when it becomes apparent that the power of both of these pretenders
will be usurped by the most accomplished social climber of all, Lucy Ferrars
(Lucifer).
But
back to Mary – I say she is either mocking admirals who wish to forget where
they came from; or, even worse, those who did not even rise through the naval
ranks, but reached the level of admiral without having earned that advancement the
hard and proper way, i.e., via service at sea, but instead were given it by
nepotism or other preferential treatment. And if that uncomfortably reminds us
of William Price, who (like both of JA’s real life sailor brothers) might one
day himself rise to the rank of admiral if he lives long enough? Well, then
that might also be on Mary’s fertile satirical mind, too.
But,
some of you will now object, I’ve veered far offcourse from JA’s actual
intentions – why can’t it be that JA in this scene is simply showing us Mary as
a snob about hierarchical status? And so maybe Mary really is just borrowing
her uncle’s feathers, claiming to be special because of his elevated status? After all, you might add, shortly after that
scene, we read how Mary is appalled when she first learns that Edmund intends
to take orders and become a country clergyman. Isn’t that the final proof that she’s
just a snob?:
“If Edmund were but in orders!”
cried Julia, and running to where he stood with Miss Crawford and Fanny: “My
dear Edmund, if you were but in orders now, you might perform the ceremony
directly. How unlucky that you are not ordained; Mr. Rushworth and Maria are
quite ready.”
Miss Crawford’s countenance, as
Julia spoke, might have amused a disinterested observer. She looked almost
aghast under the new idea she was receiving. Fanny pitied her. “How distressed
she will be at what she said just now,” passed across her mind.
“Ordained!” said Miss Crawford;
“what, are you to be a clergyman?”
“Yes; I shall take orders soon after
my father’s return—probably at Christmas.”
Miss Crawford, rallying her spirits,
and recovering her complexion, replied only, “If I had known this before, I
would have spoken of the cloth with more respect,” and turned the subject.
Fanny
certainly infers that Mary is a snob, but that doesn’t make it an accurate
perception of Mary. I suggest instead that a different, more complex picture of
Mary’s character emerges when, at her next opportunity, Mary pursues this very
same topic of a career in the clergy with Edmund:
“At length, after a short pause,
Miss Crawford began with, “So you are to be a clergyman, Mr. Bertram. This is
rather a surprise to me.”
“Why should it surprise you? You
must suppose me designed for some profession, and might perceive that I am
neither a lawyer, nor a soldier, nor a sailor.”
“Very true; but, in short, it had
not occurred to me. And you know there is generally an uncle or a grandfather
to leave a fortune to the second son.”
“A very praiseworthy practice,” said
Edmund, “but not quite universal. I am one of the exceptions, and being one,
must do something for myself.”
“But why are you to be a clergyman?
I thought that was always the lot of the youngest, where there
were many to chuse before him.”
“Do you think the church itself
never chosen, then?”
“Never is a black word.
But yes, in the never of conversation, which means not very often,
I do think it. For what is to be done in the church? Men love to distinguish
themselves, and in either of the other lines distinction may be gained, but not
in the church. A clergyman is nothing.”
“The nothing of
conversation has its gradations, I hope, as well as the never. A
clergyman cannot be high in state or fashion. He must not head mobs, or set the
ton in dress. But I cannot call that situation nothing which has the charge of
all that is of the first importance to mankind, individually or collectively
considered, temporally and eternally, which has the guardianship of religion
and morals and consequently of the manners which result from their influence.
No one here can call the office nothing. If the man who holds
it is so, it is by the neglect of his duty, by foregoing its just importance,
and stepping out of his place to appear what he ought not to appear.”
“You assign greater
consequence to the clergyman than one has been used to hear given, or than I
can quite comprehend. One does not see much of this influence and importance in
society, and how can it be acquired where they are so seldom seen themselves?
How can two sermons a week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the
preacher to have the sense to prefer Blair’s to his own, do all that you speak
of? govern the conduct and fashion the manners of a large congregation for the
rest of the week? One scarcely sees a clergyman out of his pulpit.”
“You are speaking of
London, I am speaking of the nation at large.”
“The metropolis, I imagine, is a pretty
fair sample of the rest.”
“Not, I should hope, of the
proportion of virtue to vice throughout the kingdom. We do not look in great
cities for our best morality. It is not there that respectable people of any
denomination can do most good; and it certainly is not there that the influence
of the clergy can be most felt. A fine preacher is followed and admired; but it
is not in fine preaching only that a good clergyman will be useful in his
parish and his neighbourhood, where the parish and neighbourhood are of a size
capable of knowing his private character, and observing his general conduct,
which in London can rarely be the case. The clergy are lost there in the crowds
of their parishioners. They are known to the largest part only as preachers.
And with regard to their influencing public manners, Miss Crawford must not
misunderstand me, or suppose I mean to call them the arbiters of good-breeding,
the regulators of refinement and courtesy, the masters of the ceremonies of
life. The manners I speak of might rather be called conduct,
perhaps, the result of good principles; the effect, in short, of those
doctrines which it is their duty to teach and recommend; and it will, I
believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they
ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.”
“Certainly,” said Fanny, with gentle
earnestness.
“There,” cried Miss Crawford, “you
have quite convinced Miss Price already.”
“I wish I could convince Miss
Crawford too.”
“I do not think you ever will,” said
she, with an arch smile; “I am just as much surprised now as I was at first
that you should intend to take orders. You really are fit for something better.
Come, do change your mind. It is not too late. Go into the law.”
“Go into the law! With as much ease
as I was told to go into this wilderness.”
“Now you are going to say something
about law being the worst wilderness of the two, but I forestall you; remember,
I have forestalled you.”
“You need not hurry when the object
is only to prevent my saying a bon mot, for there is
not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being,
and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without
striking it out.”
A general silence succeeded. Each
was thoughtful.”
In that
first lengthy exchange on the topic, Mary holds her own, and presents a nuanced
argument to back up her wish that Edmund not become a country clergyman. She is
a cynic, for sure, but she doesn’t sound to me like a mere status hound. After
all, law wasn’t exactly a high status profession in JA’s day—recall Uncle
Phillips in P&P and Mr. Shepherd in Persuasion.
Mary says nothing about any dream that Edmund might one day become Chief Justice,
like Lord Mansfield.
What
she is micro-focused on is the clergy in particular as a poor career choice.
And, in the next lengthy discussion, which is again initiated by Mary, she
clarifies her principal objection to Edmund becoming a clergyman: that all
evidence suggests that the average country clergyman in England is a lazy, selfish
pig like her own brother in law, Dr. Grant. It then makes perfect sense that Mary
does not want Edmund to become another Dr. Grant, so she will not find herself
in the same trap as her elder sister. Again, a cynical point of view, but at
least one that is not founded on status snobbery.
By the
way, that last passage, in case you need help finding it, begins when Mary
says, “…My other sacrifice, of course, you do not understand.” And Edmund
replies, “My taking orders, I assure you, is quite as voluntary as Maria’s
marrying.” And it ends with this memorable exchange:
“…I
wish you a better fate, Miss Price, than to be the wife of a man whose
amiableness depends upon his own sermons; for though he may preach himself into
a good-humour every Sunday, it will be bad enough to have him quarrelling about
green geese from Monday morning till Saturday night.”
“I
think the man who could often quarrel with Fanny,” said Edmund affectionately,
“must be beyond the reach of any sermons.”
And so,
I conclude by reiterating my claim that Mary assumes an air of grandeur in
order to mockingly portray the kind of admiral who thought themselves better
than post-captains. And how characteristic it is of Mary to make her point
wittily and subtly –and, speaking of her making a satirical point by imitation,
it is, I assert, no coincidence whatsoever that, a few chapters later, we read
the following:
“Sir Thomas is to achieve many
mighty things when he comes home,” said Mary, after a pause. “Do you remember
Hawkins Browne’s ‘Address to Tobacco,’ in imitation of Pope?—
Blest leaf! whose aromatic gales dispense
To Templars modesty, to Parsons sense.
I will parody them—
Blest Knight! whose dictatorial looks dispense
To Children affluence, to Rushworth sense.
Will not that do, Mrs. Grant? Everything
seems to depend upon Sir Thomas’s return.”
As I’ve
written about not that long ago, what Mary does here is to do her own
additional satirical imitation of Browne’s satirical imitation of Pope’s
original work --- so, that passage shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that satirical
imitation is part of Mary’s satirical toolkit, making it that much more likely
that Mary had engaged in satirical imitation earlier in the novel.
And, if
we expand our search to include all of JA’s novels, we find the following
passage in Northanger Abbey, which
involves (what else?) the imitation of the “air” of another character:
“Mrs.
Thorpe was a widow, and not a very rich one; she was a good-humoured,
well-meaning woman, and a very indulgent mother. Her eldest daughter had great
personal beauty, and the younger ones, by
pretending to be as handsome as their sister, imitating her air, and dressing
in the same style, did very well.”
And
also, how even more characteristic it is of Jane Austen to make that same
point, via her creature Mary Crawford, the enigmatic, riddling character who I
believe most closely mirrored her creator’s default mode of erudite, witty,
satirical irony. We may even look upon that entire mocking, punning, riddling
speech by Mary which ends with her infamous rears and vices pun as a kind of
prototype of the riddling, enigmatic riddles and charades of Chapter 9 of Emma – if you will, an earlier Austenian
Rosetta Stone.
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
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