| It's always a pleasure to encourage young scholars, so I'm pleased to welcome Lura Amandan to "Clutching My Pearls" this week. Ms. Amandan is a postgraduate student at the University of Reinlegen in Germany. Her doctoral thesis is focused on early critiques of capitalism in European literature, and with the kind permission of her faculty advisors, I am sharing an excerpt from her truly groundbreaking work-in-progress concerning Jane Austen and capitalism. My six questions for Austen scholars post is here. |
Jane Austen, "A Marxist Before Marx"
Karl Marx and his daughter Eleanor: was her name inspired by Austen? (Source: British Library) As many scholars of Austen have long pointed out, Jane Austen intended to use Sanditon to explore the social and moral consequences of capitalism. Sadly, Austen laid the manuscript aside during her final illness. Interrogating Austen through a critical lens reveals that she was a committed anti-capitalist who was determined to fight back in the only way she could--through her pen.
I am not referring to Austen's well-known portrayals of the landed gentry and the lesser nobility, but rather, her subtle attacks on the pernicious influence of consumerism. To a startling extent, the buying and selling of things and the rise of the urban bourgeoisie forms a backdrop to her so-called marriage plot novels. Scholar David Daiches called Austen "a Marxist before Marx."
It is no exaggeration to say that Austen shows us whether a character is good or bad by their reaction to consumerism. Two of Austen’s heroines never step inside a store--Elizabeth Bennet and Fanny Price. And, significantly, the heroines who do go shopping always live to regret the experience. It is only the fops and fools who like to shop, as we will see. Austen’s message could not be clearer: Capitalism is the root of all evil. Let’s critically take the novels one by one...
I am not referring to Austen's well-known portrayals of the landed gentry and the lesser nobility, but rather, her subtle attacks on the pernicious influence of consumerism. To a startling extent, the buying and selling of things and the rise of the urban bourgeoisie forms a backdrop to her so-called marriage plot novels. Scholar David Daiches called Austen "a Marxist before Marx."
It is no exaggeration to say that Austen shows us whether a character is good or bad by their reaction to consumerism. Two of Austen’s heroines never step inside a store--Elizabeth Bennet and Fanny Price. And, significantly, the heroines who do go shopping always live to regret the experience. It is only the fops and fools who like to shop, as we will see. Austen’s message could not be clearer: Capitalism is the root of all evil. Let’s critically take the novels one by one...
CE Brock illustration, Lydia and her bonnet In Sense and Sensibility, Mrs. Jennings invites Elinor and Marianne Dashwood to go shopping with her after they reach London. Marianne, perhaps the most highly principled character in all of Austen, refuses to go at first. Whenever she is in a store, she is “restless and dissatisfied” and refuses to give her opinion on any of the “articles of purchase,” that is, the products made by the exploitation of the workers. Later, Austen lets us know what a worthless human being Robert Ferrars is by telling us he wastes his time inspecting and selecting a toothpick case... Elinor and Marianne can't wait to get out of Gray's jewelry store. In Pride and Prejudice, long before Lydia runs away with Wickham, she stands condemned in Austen’s eyes (and ours) for wasting her money on an ugly bonnet. Her remark: “I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not” is a perfect encapsulation of the emptiness of consumerism.
Fanny Price of Mansfield Park is the most misunderstood and maligned of Austen's heroines today. But it is long past time for a critical reappraisal, starting with the fact that Fanny never goes near a store. This should put an end to the endless debates in Austen circles about Fanny Price—she is in fact a courageous anti-capitalist. Even when she visits her family in Portsmouth and is hungry after dinner, she sends her brothers out to buy biscuits and buns for her, rather than go into a shop herself.
Edmund Bertram commissions his older brother Tom to buy a piece of jewelry for Fanny while Tom is in London, but Mary Crawford is the truly admirable character who recycles a superfluous necklace that she doesn't wear very much, and gifts it to Fanny.
In Emma, it is the foolish air-headed Harriet Smith who admires every shiny item at Ford’s store. Just as Mrs. Palmer aggravates Elinor in Sense and Sensibility because her “eye was caught by every thing pretty, expensive, or new; who was wild to buy all, [and] could determine on none,” Harriet cannot make up her mind about anything and wants to buy everything when she shops at Ford's. When Mrs. Weston and Frank Churchill happen to walk by, Emma is embarrassed to be seen in the store and she is quick to let them know “I am here on no business of my own." She is still at Ford's trying to hurry Harriet along with her purchases, when she discovers she is trapped--Miss Bates comes in and begs her to come and listen to Jane Fairfax's new pianoforte. There is no escaping the disagreeable duty, and it wouldn't have happened unless Harriet had been lingering over figured muslin and yellow ribbons. But even though she has to pay an unwanted social call, Emma feels relief when "they did at last move out of the shop." Even listening to Miss Bates prattle on about nothing is preferable to being at Ford's.
Fanny Price of Mansfield Park is the most misunderstood and maligned of Austen's heroines today. But it is long past time for a critical reappraisal, starting with the fact that Fanny never goes near a store. This should put an end to the endless debates in Austen circles about Fanny Price—she is in fact a courageous anti-capitalist. Even when she visits her family in Portsmouth and is hungry after dinner, she sends her brothers out to buy biscuits and buns for her, rather than go into a shop herself.
Edmund Bertram commissions his older brother Tom to buy a piece of jewelry for Fanny while Tom is in London, but Mary Crawford is the truly admirable character who recycles a superfluous necklace that she doesn't wear very much, and gifts it to Fanny.
In Emma, it is the foolish air-headed Harriet Smith who admires every shiny item at Ford’s store. Just as Mrs. Palmer aggravates Elinor in Sense and Sensibility because her “eye was caught by every thing pretty, expensive, or new; who was wild to buy all, [and] could determine on none,” Harriet cannot make up her mind about anything and wants to buy everything when she shops at Ford's. When Mrs. Weston and Frank Churchill happen to walk by, Emma is embarrassed to be seen in the store and she is quick to let them know “I am here on no business of my own." She is still at Ford's trying to hurry Harriet along with her purchases, when she discovers she is trapped--Miss Bates comes in and begs her to come and listen to Jane Fairfax's new pianoforte. There is no escaping the disagreeable duty, and it wouldn't have happened unless Harriet had been lingering over figured muslin and yellow ribbons. But even though she has to pay an unwanted social call, Emma feels relief when "they did at last move out of the shop." Even listening to Miss Bates prattle on about nothing is preferable to being at Ford's.
At Molland's on Milsom Street Ford's is a uniquely sinister representation of capitalism in Austen. A critical examination of the plot reveals that Mr. and Mrs. Ford exercise a monopoly over all the citizens of Highbury. As Frank Churchill puts it, Ford's is "the very shop that every body attends every day of their lives, as my father informs me." Unhappy about the social pressure to engage in mindless consumerism, Frank complains: "to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must buy something at Ford’s." In this clever way Austen softens our perception of Frank Churchill, and we realize, as even Mr. Knightley acknowledges later, that he is "a very good sort of fellow."
In Persuasion, Molland’s is the setting for an encounter between Anne, Captain Wentworth and Mr. Elliot which leaves Captain Wentworth with the notion that Mr. Elliot and Anne will be married. Austen could have placed this unhappy turn of events in a park, or at the Pump Room, but—significantly—she chose a shop. While Anne is stuck at Molland's, waiting for Mr. Eliot's return, there is not a single mention of her looking around at whatever is on sale in the store. She looks outside and up and down the sidewalk, never around her. She can't wait to get out of there: "She now felt a great inclination to go to the outer door." Who does have some kind of shopping errand in this scene? The two villains of the piece, Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Clay.
In another subtle and deft touch in Persuasion, Anne encounters Admiral Croft as he stands outside a shop, contemptuously rejecting the paintings for sale within. This stamps him as one of Austen's upright and good characters.
In Persuasion, Molland’s is the setting for an encounter between Anne, Captain Wentworth and Mr. Elliot which leaves Captain Wentworth with the notion that Mr. Elliot and Anne will be married. Austen could have placed this unhappy turn of events in a park, or at the Pump Room, but—significantly—she chose a shop. While Anne is stuck at Molland's, waiting for Mr. Eliot's return, there is not a single mention of her looking around at whatever is on sale in the store. She looks outside and up and down the sidewalk, never around her. She can't wait to get out of there: "She now felt a great inclination to go to the outer door." Who does have some kind of shopping errand in this scene? The two villains of the piece, Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Clay.
In another subtle and deft touch in Persuasion, Anne encounters Admiral Croft as he stands outside a shop, contemptuously rejecting the paintings for sale within. This stamps him as one of Austen's upright and good characters.
Admiral Croft and Anne Wentworth Catherine Morland has no choice but to go to shop after shop with Mrs. Allen after they arrive in Bath in Northanger Abbey. Some analysts of this novel point to the difference in tone between the scenes set in Bath and the scenes set at the Tilney’s home, Northanger Abbey. But the real reason for the difference has been right beneath our noses all along—Bath is filled with shops, it is a capitalist hell-hole and Catherine has one disagreeable experience after another so long as she is there. Isabella Thorpe is a selfish, shallow, character who--no surprise--wants to buy even more gaudy fashions than she can possibly afford: "Do you know," she tells Catherine, "I saw the prettiest hat you can imagine, in a shop window in Milsom Street just now—very like yours, only with coquelicot ribbons instead of green; I quite longed for it."
By now it should be no surprise to realize that Austen marks out General Tilney as a villain by showing him as a man who is always boasting about his possessions, such as his breakfast set of Staffordshire china. He tells Catherine that he “thought it right to encourage the manufacture of his country.” Catherine, young and naïve, is absolved by Austen from complicity in all of this. While Henry and his sister Eleanor understand that their father is all for the exploitation of the proletariat, “Catherine was probably the only one of the party who did not understand him.”
Was this bold and radical critique included in the original version of the novel, titled Susan, or was it a later interpolation after Austen’s brother retrieved the unpublished manuscript? Did Austen, in fact, add this more daring scene shortly before her death? We can only speculate, but Austen appears to have grown more radical and outspoken as she matured as a writer.
By now it should be no surprise to realize that Austen marks out General Tilney as a villain by showing him as a man who is always boasting about his possessions, such as his breakfast set of Staffordshire china. He tells Catherine that he “thought it right to encourage the manufacture of his country.” Catherine, young and naïve, is absolved by Austen from complicity in all of this. While Henry and his sister Eleanor understand that their father is all for the exploitation of the proletariat, “Catherine was probably the only one of the party who did not understand him.”
Was this bold and radical critique included in the original version of the novel, titled Susan, or was it a later interpolation after Austen’s brother retrieved the unpublished manuscript? Did Austen, in fact, add this more daring scene shortly before her death? We can only speculate, but Austen appears to have grown more radical and outspoken as she matured as a writer.
In Sanditon we critically encounter the most open, the most radical and rebellious outcry against capitalism when Charlotte Heywood visits the new sea-side resort as the guest of the Parkers. Her father, a wise farmer, is against these new watering places: "Every five years, one hears of some new place or other starting up by the sea and growing the fashion. How they can half of them be filled is the wonder! Where people can be found with money and time to go to them! Bad things for a country--sure to raise the price of provisions and make the poor good for nothing." As Charlotte discovers when she visits Sanditon, the circulating library is filled with “all the useless things in the world that could not be done without.”
Critically tracing the development of Austen's anti-capitalist thought through all six of her novels shows that Sanditon was intended to be the culmination of her efforts. Capitalism rears its ugly head, although subtly, in all her works.
To say that Austen is deeply mistrustful of the future of places like Sanditon is an understatement. The looming catastrophe of the new capitalist order hangs over the book like an ominous shadow. There is no doubt about it--Austen was on the right side of history, she wanted to smash capitalism, and her opinions accord completely with my own views.
Critically tracing the development of Austen's anti-capitalist thought through all six of her novels shows that Sanditon was intended to be the culmination of her efforts. Capitalism rears its ugly head, although subtly, in all her works.
To say that Austen is deeply mistrustful of the future of places like Sanditon is an understatement. The looming catastrophe of the new capitalist order hangs over the book like an ominous shadow. There is no doubt about it--Austen was on the right side of history, she wanted to smash capitalism, and her opinions accord completely with my own views.
Acknowledgements: My thanks to the Scherzbetrug Corporation, LLC, for their generous grant which enabled me to study at the British Library (in the footsteps of Karl Marx!) in the preparation of my thesis. Thanks to my parents for supporting me throughout my time at university.
Previous post: Book Review: The History of Melinda Harley
Next post: Book review: The Vicar of Wrexhill by Frances Trollope
Next post: Book review: The Vicar of Wrexhill by Frances Trollope
RSS Feed