LONA MANNING
  • Home
  • Books
    • Shelley Novella
  • Research
    • About Shelley
    • Peterloo
    • Kitty Riddle
    • 18th C. love poetry
  • Jane Austen
  • Blog
  • About Me
    • Teaching Philosophy

CMP#90   Poor Household Management

2/28/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Clutching My Pearls is about Jane Austen and the times she lived in. Austen engaged with many of the same topics and issues that other novelists of the long 18th century wrote about, including the topic of female education. Click here for the first in the series.

 A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.                                                                                                                 -- Samuel Johnson

CMP#90    The Consequences of Poor Household Management
PictureSuggested by Lady Catherine herself!
    I have always been struck by the passage in Mansfield Park where Fanny waits in vain for a cup of tea upon her arrival in Portsmouth: "The next opening of the door brought something more welcome: it was for the tea-things, which she had begun almost to despair of seeing that evening. [Fanny's sister] Susan and a [servant] brought in everything necessary for the meal; Susan looking, as she put the kettle on the fire and glanced at her sister, as if divided between the agreeable triumph of shewing her activity and usefulness, and the dread of being thought to demean herself by such an office.”
   Though their household is in chaos, the Prices still cling to the appearance of gentility. Pouring and serving the tea is genteel, carrying in the tray and heating the water is not. We recall as well how Mrs. Bennet is offended when Mr. Collins supposes that one of her daughters had a hand in preparing the dinner she served him. Financial disaster stalks the family if Mr. Bennet dies, but Mrs. Bennet wants the world to know that her daughters don't know how to cook. On the other side of the coin, Austen holds Lady Catherine De Bourgh up to ridicule for her vulgar interference in the minutia of Mrs. Collins' housekeeping. Such details should be beneath her notice.
   The novels and conduct-books of the day were unanimous in agreeing that all young women should have some education in how to run a household, even if they never had to do any of the common household chores, and many warned that a genteel education which stressed accomplishments might be useful for the season of courtship, but it was a poor preparation for married life...


Read More
0 Comments

CMP#64 The Meaning of Money

8/9/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Clutching My Pearls is my ongoing blog series about Jane Austen and the beliefs of her times. Click here for the first in the series.

CMP#64   The Meaning of Money, or Plot versus Protest
PictureMr. Bennet, not the most involved father
     In my last two posts, I shared examples demonstrating that many authors of Austen's time focused on money in their novels; the topic was by no means unique to Austen. ​
     Many critics do more than point out how important money matters are in Austen's novels; they draw conclusions about Austen's attitudes toward her society, based on the mentions of money in her novels. Professor Robert D. Hume, for example, is certain that Austen intended a critique of her patriarchal society. He is more indignant on behalf of the Bennet girls than Austen is herself. In "Money in Jane Austen" he spells out the very unfunny failures of Mr. Bennet, who hasn't saved money for his daughters, and concludes that we ought to despise him. Although Hume acknowledges that Austen does not condemn Mr. Bennet, he nevertheless thinks "Pride and Prejudice is a glum but telling satiric protest against the socio-economic position of early nineteenth-century women, elegantly camouflaged in a fantasy romance."


Read More
0 Comments

CMP#63   Money as a Plot Device

8/4/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Clutching My Pearls is about Jane Austen and the times she lived in. Lately I've been placing Jane Austen's novels in the context of other novels written during the same period. Click here for the first in the series. 

     "And you know there is generally an uncle or a grandfather to leave a fortune to the second son.” [says Mary Crawford]
   “A very praiseworthy practice,” said Edmund, “but not quite universal. I am one of the exceptions, and being one, must do something for myself.”            
                                                                                                     -- 
Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
​

CMP#63   Money as a plot device, or the rich uncle
PictureReading the Marriage Contract
  Money, or more specifically the lack of money, comes up in every Jane Austen novel. Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, has financial security but Jane Fairfax doesn't. The Bennet sisters  are saved from poverty and spinsterhood by good marriages. Young Lieutenant Wentworth doesn't have enough money to be an approved contender for Anne Elliot's hand. Fanny Price is condescended to by her wealthier Bertram cousins. Catherine Morland isn't rich enough to suit Henry Tilney's father. 
   Money could be an important plot driver. Mr. Wickham turns his attentions from Lizzie Bennet to Mary King after Miss King acquires ten thousand pounds. Willoughby betrays Marianne Dashwood for Miss Grey and her fifty thousand pounds.
  Even beyond romance, money dictates the opportunities for Austen's characters. Anne Elliot's father is a spendthrift, so the family must rent their estate and move to Bath. The poverty of Miss Bates and Mrs. Smith affects the roles they play in 
Emma and Persuasion respectively.     


Read More
0 Comments

CMP#62 Shocking Compared to Whom?

7/27/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture

Clutching My Pearls is my ongoing blog series about my take on Jane Austen’s beliefs and ideas, as based on her novels. Folks today who love Jane Austen are eager to find ways to acquit her of being a woman of the long 18th century.  Click here for the first post in the series.

CMP#62  Shocking Compared to Whom? 
You could not shock her more than she shocks me;
Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.
It makes me most uncomfortable to see
An English spinster of the middle-class
Describe the amorous effects of ‘brass’,
Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety
The economic basis of society.
​
​         -- from "letter to Lord Byron", by W.H. Auden
Picture
PictureMany-tongued Rumour
​   “What is exceptional about Austen as a novelist is that she tells us exactly how much money each of her characters has.”
   So says an October 2020 ​New Yorker article, and who would dispute it? Mr. Darcy's entrance into the ballroom was followed by a "
report which was in general circulation within five minutes... of his having ten thousand a year." Everyone seems to know how much money everybody else has: Mr. Collins knows Elizabeth is only entitled to one thousand pounds in the four percents after her mother’s death. 
     A poem by W.H. Auden, quoted above, surmises that Austen might be shocked to meet Lord Byron in heaven, but she is herself shocking because she's so frank and unsentimental about "the economic basis of society." However, as I’ve come to realize, the statement: “Jane Austen’s novels are preoccupied with money” is incomplete and somewhat misleading. The statement should be, “Jane Austen’s novels, like most novels of her time, were preoccupied with money.”  There was nothing exceptional about it.
    Many, many, novels of this period include exact descriptions of incomes, expectations, disappointments, and inheritances, especially as they relate to someone’s ability to get married. You can literally pick any18th-century novel at random and find passages referring to these things. And, just as in Sense & Sensibility, the financial circumstances of the main characters are often laid out in the introductory passages. 
 Here is a sampling:  


Read More
0 Comments
<<Previous

    RSS Feed

    About the author:

    More about me here. My earlier posts (prior to June 2017) are about my time as a teacher of ESL in China,(just click on "China" in the menu below.) more recent posts focus on my writing, as well as Jane Austen and the long 18th century. Welcome!


    Categories

    All
    18th Century Novel Tropes
    Authoresses
    Book Reviews
    China
    China: Sightseeing
    Clutching My Pearls
    East & West Indies & Slavery
    Emma
    Humour
    Jane Austen
    Laowai At Large
    Mansfield Park
    Northanger Abbey
    Parody
    Persuasion
    Postmodern Pushback
    Pride Prejudice
    Religion In Austen
    Sanditon
    Sense And Sensibility
    Shelley
    Teaching

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    December 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    January 2017
    April 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014


    RSS Feed

    © Lona Manning 2022
Proudly powered by Weebly