Painting by numbers
Posted by Patrick on January 12, 1998 at 14:59:32:
In response to Throwing off the 'shackles' of reason? , written by Erin/mr on January 11, 1998 at 11:36:54
Erin:
] I'll grant that in P&P, Elizabeth and Darcy provide examples of Enlightenment autonomy --individuals who shirk the tyranny of their respective roles. However, I also believe that (in P&P) Austen does not sketch a method of how to renounce one's social context. Rather she proposes alternatives that permit the individual to remain in society (or relief from), while at the same time preserving one's autonomy (or sovereignty of the self) so painfully achieved. It's a freedom with committment.
Patrick:
I think it is useful to keep in mind the constraints that JA operated under, that she had to be aware of if she wanted anyone to read her novels. It was hard enough anyway to get them published. If she had expressed the view that Lizzy should damn convention and live in sin with Darcy (for example), she would not have been published, let alone read, in her time.
In addition, there is a question here about the extent to which "right living," whatever JA may have thought that to consist of, could be managed without appeal to "rational order." In my own very humble opinion, JA thought that right living could be managed quite well without rational analysis of the world. Rationality, measurement and analysis, treating the world as object, were the things that got society into the pickle it was (and still is) in. Balance has a nice sound to it, but can you have balance between, say, being a burglar and not being a burglar?
Erin:
] As for her attitude towards rationality, I'll use the Austen Happy Medium scale. With the character of Mary Bennet, Austen criticizes an extreme form of rationality that lacks sense and is not tempered with experience. But Austen counters this sketch with an extreme view of 'experience' (decision- making) that lacks rationality, in the form of Lydia...and in Elizabeth, we have the ideal union of rationality and emotional expression.
Patrick:
It's an interesting view. But an alternative is that Mary and Lydia are not divided by their polarity on the rationalism dimension, but united by their lack of genuine emotional contact with other people. Lydia is semi-hysterical most of the time, but she is no more engaged with other people than Mary is. Even her lust for Wyckham is not about him. It does not take him into consideration as a particular person with particular characteristics. He is simply a convenient object, more convenient than any of the other soldiers because he wants to be with her.
Erin:
] I recall Patrick your comment (to me) that you find such delineations to be a 'paint-by-numbers' interpretation.
Patrick:
I hope that comment didn't offend :-) I meant only that JA was good enough to create a world, in which storytelling needs would be answered, without deliberate attempts to "use" characters for particular purposes. Your analysis of the Lydia - Mary contrast above is compelling, but must it have been deliberate?
Erin:
I think we have to realize that, in constructing P&P, Austen was buttressed by a philosophy of the world that proscribed clear definition and explication. I detect that you dislike over-arching interpretations that lack ambiguity (or more grey as opposed to black and white).
Patrick:
What I dislike about them is that they are very likely to be wrong. But they do tell us something about our interlocutors :-)
Erin:
But personally, the only ambiguity (generally speaking) I detect in P&P is Austen's attitudes towards sex and sexual attraction.
Patrick:
But is that her ambiguity about sex, or her sensitivity to the feelings of her reading public?
Erin:
] I also wonder to what extent Austen wished that her society to be otherwise.
Patrick:
Pretty strongly, I think. That's why she wrote P&P, and Persuasion.
Cheers,
Patrick
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