| This blog explores social attitudes in Jane Austen's time, discusses her novels, reviews forgotten 18th century novels, and throws some occasional shade at the modern academy. The introductory post is here. My "six simple questions for academics" post is here. |
CMP#195 Subversive Feminism in Early Novels
Very often, when reading old novels, I come across some striking passage when the author or authoress, or one of their characters, delivers their strong views about something, such as slavery or empire or women's rights. I've long since realized that Jane Austen was not outspoken about any of these issues, compared to her peers. I conclude that people who think she was outspoken or radical have not read enough of the popular literature of the time to have a basis for comparison.
But if I bang on that drum every time I review an old novel, I'll sound like a broken record. (ooh, mixed metaphors). So I've excerpted these three examples about feminism from novels I've recently read, to present them together. The first two are examples of feminists--okay, tragic, doomed, feminists, but they are given the chance to have their say. The third is a speech from a "mixed character," someone presented as flawed, but essentially good.
The feminist message is delivered not by the heroine, but by a side character. Then it is made clear to us that this side character may be sympathetic, but is not entirely admirable.
The word "subversive" is widely used in academia these days, often when arguing that the author has a message which she barely hints at, but i think introducing feminism in this way is truly subversive...
But if I bang on that drum every time I review an old novel, I'll sound like a broken record. (ooh, mixed metaphors). So I've excerpted these three examples about feminism from novels I've recently read, to present them together. The first two are examples of feminists--okay, tragic, doomed, feminists, but they are given the chance to have their say. The third is a speech from a "mixed character," someone presented as flawed, but essentially good.
The feminist message is delivered not by the heroine, but by a side character. Then it is made clear to us that this side character may be sympathetic, but is not entirely admirable.
The word "subversive" is widely used in academia these days, often when arguing that the author has a message which she barely hints at, but i think introducing feminism in this way is truly subversive...
Bing AI Image "[A]n impassioned advocate of female rights"
Cecily Fitz-Owen, or, a Sketch of Modern Manners (1805), discussed here. Scholars of feminism in novels will be most interested in an acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Delamere who are the mentors of the heroine. Mrs. Maria Arnold is an intelligent, attractive and outspoken woman. Too outspoken perhaps? Mrs. Delamere murmurs: “Her talents are brilliant, her knowledge extensive; but does she possess the genuine graces of the feminine character. It may be, that I shrink before superior merit; but boldness of assertion, a commanding and decisive tone, repel my feelings.”
We learn Mrs. Arnold’s backstory through the device of a lengthy letter. Brought up by a stern father and a cruel step-mother, married off against her will to a rich man who repulses her, she turned to education to give meaning and purpose to her life: “I gradually drew a little band of learned men around me, and the career of my mental improvement was rapid and brilliant... [W]hat philosophy could be more congenial than that which pointed out to me the rights and injuries of my sex; first, slaves to those with whom they are connected by the ties of nature, to harsh fathers and unfeeling brothers, and then in turn, to connections, which the habits of society have forced on them, without power of dissolution! Myself the victim of successive slaveries—freedom became the object of my idolatry. I wished the blessing confined neither to country, age, nor sex; and commenced an impassioned advocate of female rights. Three years ago, my little Anna, my only child, was born… I rejoiced that I had not given birth to a son, who, I knew would have been brought up to all the follies and prejudices of rank. Whilst a daughter would be committed, exclusively to her mother’s care…. My child… shall never know what it is to be the slave, either of a parent or a husband… to my father, my husband, who have successively destroyed the happiness of my life, I owe nothing; and the opinions of a malignant ill-judging world sink into insignificance, when put in competition with the satisfaction to be derived from the society of a tender and beloved friend…”
She escapes to the continent with her lover. Her husband will not grant her a divorce.
The Delameres conclude that although Mrs. Arnold is much to be pitied, and that women ought to have the means of divorcing their husbands in outstanding circumstances, she will end up unhappy and remorseful.
Considering that this book was published six years after William Godwin ruined Mary Wollstonecraft's reputation with his memoir of her, (a period during which no respectable woman had a good word for her) this is a pretty strong and sympathetic portrait of a Wollstonecraft-like figure. The author still supports the strict prevailing moral code, but does not deny the cruelties and injustice faced by women.
Cecily Fitz-Owen, or, a Sketch of Modern Manners (1805), discussed here. Scholars of feminism in novels will be most interested in an acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Delamere who are the mentors of the heroine. Mrs. Maria Arnold is an intelligent, attractive and outspoken woman. Too outspoken perhaps? Mrs. Delamere murmurs: “Her talents are brilliant, her knowledge extensive; but does she possess the genuine graces of the feminine character. It may be, that I shrink before superior merit; but boldness of assertion, a commanding and decisive tone, repel my feelings.”
We learn Mrs. Arnold’s backstory through the device of a lengthy letter. Brought up by a stern father and a cruel step-mother, married off against her will to a rich man who repulses her, she turned to education to give meaning and purpose to her life: “I gradually drew a little band of learned men around me, and the career of my mental improvement was rapid and brilliant... [W]hat philosophy could be more congenial than that which pointed out to me the rights and injuries of my sex; first, slaves to those with whom they are connected by the ties of nature, to harsh fathers and unfeeling brothers, and then in turn, to connections, which the habits of society have forced on them, without power of dissolution! Myself the victim of successive slaveries—freedom became the object of my idolatry. I wished the blessing confined neither to country, age, nor sex; and commenced an impassioned advocate of female rights. Three years ago, my little Anna, my only child, was born… I rejoiced that I had not given birth to a son, who, I knew would have been brought up to all the follies and prejudices of rank. Whilst a daughter would be committed, exclusively to her mother’s care…. My child… shall never know what it is to be the slave, either of a parent or a husband… to my father, my husband, who have successively destroyed the happiness of my life, I owe nothing; and the opinions of a malignant ill-judging world sink into insignificance, when put in competition with the satisfaction to be derived from the society of a tender and beloved friend…”
She escapes to the continent with her lover. Her husband will not grant her a divorce.
The Delameres conclude that although Mrs. Arnold is much to be pitied, and that women ought to have the means of divorcing their husbands in outstanding circumstances, she will end up unhappy and remorseful.
Considering that this book was published six years after William Godwin ruined Mary Wollstonecraft's reputation with his memoir of her, (a period during which no respectable woman had a good word for her) this is a pretty strong and sympathetic portrait of a Wollstonecraft-like figure. The author still supports the strict prevailing moral code, but does not deny the cruelties and injustice faced by women.
Madwoman on the cliff --"as if the soul were sexual"
What Has Been (1801), discussed here, is a typical sentimental novel with a beleaguered heroine, but Eliza Kirkham Mathews works in a little feminism and an explicit anti-slavery message not directly connected to the plot. In Volume I, we meet an eccentric woman, dressed in black, haunting the Teignmouth Cliffs. She is Agatha, the half-crazed abandoned mistress.
Emily the poverty-stricken orphaned heroine cherishes a hopeless love for Frederick who also has no money. Emily is soliloquizing on the beach and is joined by Frederick, when they are interrupted “by the sudden appearance of a woman who issued from a small cavern in the cliffs."
"Her figure was tall and thin, her complexion sallow, her eyes black and penetrating. She approached with a solemn and steady step, and in a voice full, awful, and commanding, she thus addressed Emily: 'But where, in all created Nature, is there a being so weak, defenceless, unprotected, and oppressed as woman? Even in the earliest days of childhood, her mind is enervated by the imbecile education which the folly of custom bestows on her. Her understanding is narrowed by the prejudices which the unthinking preceptress instills into her plastic mind; she is early taught to respect the dignity of man (as if the soul were sexual) to look up to him as a being of a superior order, whose decisions are just, whose judgment is infallible, but she is a woman, and therefore a slave!'”
Agatha then relates her own backstory of how she was seduced and abandoned. “Thus saying, she clasped her hands, in frantic agony, and ran swiftly up the cliff.”
More about the author, Eliza Kirkham Mathews, here.
What Has Been (1801), discussed here, is a typical sentimental novel with a beleaguered heroine, but Eliza Kirkham Mathews works in a little feminism and an explicit anti-slavery message not directly connected to the plot. In Volume I, we meet an eccentric woman, dressed in black, haunting the Teignmouth Cliffs. She is Agatha, the half-crazed abandoned mistress.
Emily the poverty-stricken orphaned heroine cherishes a hopeless love for Frederick who also has no money. Emily is soliloquizing on the beach and is joined by Frederick, when they are interrupted “by the sudden appearance of a woman who issued from a small cavern in the cliffs."
"Her figure was tall and thin, her complexion sallow, her eyes black and penetrating. She approached with a solemn and steady step, and in a voice full, awful, and commanding, she thus addressed Emily: 'But where, in all created Nature, is there a being so weak, defenceless, unprotected, and oppressed as woman? Even in the earliest days of childhood, her mind is enervated by the imbecile education which the folly of custom bestows on her. Her understanding is narrowed by the prejudices which the unthinking preceptress instills into her plastic mind; she is early taught to respect the dignity of man (as if the soul were sexual) to look up to him as a being of a superior order, whose decisions are just, whose judgment is infallible, but she is a woman, and therefore a slave!'”
Agatha then relates her own backstory of how she was seduced and abandoned. “Thus saying, she clasped her hands, in frantic agony, and ran swiftly up the cliff.”
More about the author, Eliza Kirkham Mathews, here.
Courtesy British Museum Ellinor (1798) -- a "champion for the rights of women"
Lady John Dareall is an Amazon, a stock character of the sentimental novel. Amazons loved horses and hunting, could jump a five barred gate, liked to wear riding habits all the time, spoke loudly and took no guff from anybody. Usually they are figures of ridicule but Lady John, who becomes Duchess Dreadnaught later in the book, acts as a second mother to the heroine. After a masked ball, she regales the titular heroine of Ellinor (discussed here) with a long speech:
“I have, from the time I threw off my frock [at age 16], stood up a champion for the rights of women; have boldly thrown down my gauntlet to support their equality, immunities, and privileges, mental and corporeal, against the encroachments of their masculine tyrants.
“I commiserate the infirmities of my sex, who, with susceptible hearts, and minds enervated by an education calculated to debilitate both the corporeal and mental system, they look not into themselves for support, but lean on men, whose vaunted strength arises from their weakness. Did we make greater exertions, and call into action those powers entrusted to us by the Creator of the universe, we should find that he has distributed his gifts nearly equal between the sexes.
Lady John Dareall is an Amazon, a stock character of the sentimental novel. Amazons loved horses and hunting, could jump a five barred gate, liked to wear riding habits all the time, spoke loudly and took no guff from anybody. Usually they are figures of ridicule but Lady John, who becomes Duchess Dreadnaught later in the book, acts as a second mother to the heroine. After a masked ball, she regales the titular heroine of Ellinor (discussed here) with a long speech:
“I have, from the time I threw off my frock [at age 16], stood up a champion for the rights of women; have boldly thrown down my gauntlet to support their equality, immunities, and privileges, mental and corporeal, against the encroachments of their masculine tyrants.
“I commiserate the infirmities of my sex, who, with susceptible hearts, and minds enervated by an education calculated to debilitate both the corporeal and mental system, they look not into themselves for support, but lean on men, whose vaunted strength arises from their weakness. Did we make greater exertions, and call into action those powers entrusted to us by the Creator of the universe, we should find that he has distributed his gifts nearly equal between the sexes.
“It is so evidently the interest of these self-created lords of the universe, to maintain their usurped authority, which is only to be done by pretending to admire in women those qualities for which they ought to feel contempt; ignorant imbecility, which they soften down under the denomination of a feminine delicacy; that is, to tremble at a breeze, weep over a novel, and faint with ecstasy at the unnatural note of an opera singer; whose mind is too debilitated to enter into an argument with her husband, by which she acquires the character of the milder virtues, because she prefers the joys of lassitude to any triumph that might be gained by exertion.”
But wait! She's not done! Now she's going to complain about female education: "“Let us examine what are their real acquirements; they are to totter a minuet, rattle the keys of a piano forte, twang the strings of a harp, scream an Italian song, daub a work-basket, or make a fillagree tea-caddie; they are just able to decipher a letter of intrigue, and scrawl an answer; have French enough to enable them to read by the help of a dictionary, La Nouvelle Heloise, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Les Malheurs de l'inconstance,, and the Chevalier Faublas. [That is, naughty French novels they shouldn't be reading]. Of the authors of their own country, of its history, ancient and modern, of its laws or policy, they know as little as a native of Kamschatka…"
An inspiring speech, but perhaps the timing left something to be desired. Ellinor just fended off a nobleman who attempted to sexually assault her in the summerhouse, and then she was publicly blamed and shamed for the whole thing.
This novel provides several examples of men who are called to account socially for exploiting powerless women, at a time when in many novels, perhaps most, the predatory nobleman gets away scot-free.
A parting shot: Lady Dareall declares that: "There are very few arts and sciences that women are not capable of acquiring, were they educated with the same advantages as men."
But wait! She's not done! Now she's going to complain about female education: "“Let us examine what are their real acquirements; they are to totter a minuet, rattle the keys of a piano forte, twang the strings of a harp, scream an Italian song, daub a work-basket, or make a fillagree tea-caddie; they are just able to decipher a letter of intrigue, and scrawl an answer; have French enough to enable them to read by the help of a dictionary, La Nouvelle Heloise, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Les Malheurs de l'inconstance,, and the Chevalier Faublas. [That is, naughty French novels they shouldn't be reading]. Of the authors of their own country, of its history, ancient and modern, of its laws or policy, they know as little as a native of Kamschatka…"
An inspiring speech, but perhaps the timing left something to be desired. Ellinor just fended off a nobleman who attempted to sexually assault her in the summerhouse, and then she was publicly blamed and shamed for the whole thing.
This novel provides several examples of men who are called to account socially for exploiting powerless women, at a time when in many novels, perhaps most, the predatory nobleman gets away scot-free.
A parting shot: Lady Dareall declares that: "There are very few arts and sciences that women are not capable of acquiring, were they educated with the same advantages as men."
"I always stand up for women"
So what is Austen's most explicit feminist statement? I don't think it's Anne Elliot's factual remark that "the pen has been in their hands," (i.e. the hands of men) because she precedes that with heartfelt sympathy for the hardships faced by men. "You are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health, nor life, to be called your own." Then she postulates that men and women are essentially different in their natures. "It would be hard, indeed” (with a faltering voice), “if woman’s feelings were to be added to all this.”
No, Austen's most outspoken feminist is Mrs. Elton. She takes Mr. Weston to task for opening his wife's letter: "I must protest against that.—A most dangerous precedent indeed!—Upon my word, if this is what I am to expect, we married women must begin to exert ourselves!" After Mr. Weston, speaking of the redoubtable (and powerful) Mrs. Churchill, says: "Certainly, delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You must grant me that.” She responds: “No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my own sex. I do indeed. I give you notice—You will find me a formidable antagonist on that point. I always stand up for women."
Feminist runner-up is Lady Catherine De Bourgh, who observed: "I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line."
So what is Austen's most explicit feminist statement? I don't think it's Anne Elliot's factual remark that "the pen has been in their hands," (i.e. the hands of men) because she precedes that with heartfelt sympathy for the hardships faced by men. "You are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health, nor life, to be called your own." Then she postulates that men and women are essentially different in their natures. "It would be hard, indeed” (with a faltering voice), “if woman’s feelings were to be added to all this.”
No, Austen's most outspoken feminist is Mrs. Elton. She takes Mr. Weston to task for opening his wife's letter: "I must protest against that.—A most dangerous precedent indeed!—Upon my word, if this is what I am to expect, we married women must begin to exert ourselves!" After Mr. Weston, speaking of the redoubtable (and powerful) Mrs. Churchill, says: "Certainly, delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You must grant me that.” She responds: “No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my own sex. I do indeed. I give you notice—You will find me a formidable antagonist on that point. I always stand up for women."
Feminist runner-up is Lady Catherine De Bourgh, who observed: "I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line."
Previous post: Ellinor, whose beauty is her curse Next post: Blessed be her shade
 Are you participating in "Jane August July?" Looking for a book for "Read a retelling of a Jane Austen book OR a work of historical fiction set in Jane Austen’s time"? Do you like Mansfield Park? May I humbly suggest my award-winning variation on Mansfield Park: A Contrary Wind, for your perusal. With language that's authentic to Austen's time, but some more explicit takes on adultery and the abolition movement, my variation sees Fanny Price escaping from the heartbreak of Mansfield Park and the bullying of Mrs. Norris to find herself. More about my books here. |
RSS Feed