| 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. Today I am pleased to share a thought-provoking guest post by Prof. Lily A. Soda, on the hidden political message behind Austen's harsh comments about Dick Musgrove in Persuasion. | |
CMP#213 Guest Editorial: The reason for Dick Musgrove in Persuasion
Fat Shaming: Mrs. Musgrove's "large fat sighings" over Dick Many of Jane Austen’s devoted readers feel surprise and consternation over the passages in Persuasion about "troublesome, hopeless" Dick, the deceased son of the Musgrove family, along with the mocking depiction of his sorrowful mother. Austen doesn’t pull her punches in describing Dick as “stupid and unmanageable" and as someone who "had been very little cared for at any time by his family, though quite as much as he deserved.” His death far from home was “scarcely at all regretted.”
Some scholars have surmised that, had Austen not been in the throes of her final illness, she would have revised her callous descriptions or excised them altogether. Others have speculated about why Austen inserted these harsh passages in a novel famous for its gentle heroine and its wistful tone.
Could it be that these strongly-worded passages hint at something Austen felt strongly about? Her seemingly out-of-place attack on the Musgroves is intended to catch the reader’s attention, to provoke them to pause and probe beyond the liminal space of the Musgrove's drawing room and to confront the costs of empire which supports their way of life. Indeed, we were mistaken in taking these passages at face value.
Dick Musgrove may well have been a satiric, inverted portrait of a real-life Richard who served in the Navy—Richard Parker, infamous in Austen’s time but forgotten today.
Some scholars have surmised that, had Austen not been in the throes of her final illness, she would have revised her callous descriptions or excised them altogether. Others have speculated about why Austen inserted these harsh passages in a novel famous for its gentle heroine and its wistful tone.
Could it be that these strongly-worded passages hint at something Austen felt strongly about? Her seemingly out-of-place attack on the Musgroves is intended to catch the reader’s attention, to provoke them to pause and probe beyond the liminal space of the Musgrove's drawing room and to confront the costs of empire which supports their way of life. Indeed, we were mistaken in taking these passages at face value.
Dick Musgrove may well have been a satiric, inverted portrait of a real-life Richard who served in the Navy—Richard Parker, infamous in Austen’s time but forgotten today.
In 1797, the British were weary of the ongoing conflict with France, the resources of the Navy were stretched to the limit and the respectful petitions of sailors for a raise in pay were ignored. In April, hundreds of British sailors mutinied at Portsmouth (known of course to Austen readers as Fanny Price’s birthplace). This mutiny, known as the Spithead mutiny, was peacefully settled with some concessions. In May, the crews of ships anchored in the Thames also staged a mutiny, known as the Nore or Sheerness mutiny. They blockaded the Thames and prevented ship traffic from reaching or leaving London.
The Sheerness sailors conducted their mutiny along democratic lines, electing delegates from each of their ships to form a council. They chose seaman Richard Parker to be their mediator with the Admiralty.
The Austen family would have read, but not necessarily trusted, the pro-government accounts of the mutinies published in the Hampshire Gazette and the Chronicle. An anonymous letter to the editor from “a naval officer” urged the senior officers to show parental kindness to the sailors who had previously demonstrated their “gallant conduct and obedience.” “[R]emember the only difference between you and them is education—They neither want for good sense, or Affection for their King and Country.” It is not impossible that Jane Austen’s lieutenant brother, Francis Austen, was the author of that letter. At the time of the mutiny, he was serving on the Seahorse, capturing French vessels for prize money, just as Captain Wentworth did in Persuasion. The anonymous letter mirrors the advice given to Francis by his own father when he embarked on his naval career, urging him to show "kindness" to his "inferiors," because "they have a claim" on his regard and consideration.
Just like her brother, Austen could not openly criticize the Admiralty for the privations, hardships and injustices suffered by the common sailors. She had to respond obliquely. Hence, her disguised portrait of Richard Parker. It can be no coincidence that the leader of the mutineers and Austen’s errant midshipman were both named “Richard,” and both were subject to "removals," as Austen puts it, to many different ships. While Austen only mentions the Laconia for Dick Musgrove, Parker served on the Mediator, Ganges, Bulldog, Blenheim, Assurance, Hebe, Royal William, and finally the Sandwich--a rotting, verminous, seriously overcrowded craft.
The Sheerness sailors conducted their mutiny along democratic lines, electing delegates from each of their ships to form a council. They chose seaman Richard Parker to be their mediator with the Admiralty.
The Austen family would have read, but not necessarily trusted, the pro-government accounts of the mutinies published in the Hampshire Gazette and the Chronicle. An anonymous letter to the editor from “a naval officer” urged the senior officers to show parental kindness to the sailors who had previously demonstrated their “gallant conduct and obedience.” “[R]emember the only difference between you and them is education—They neither want for good sense, or Affection for their King and Country.” It is not impossible that Jane Austen’s lieutenant brother, Francis Austen, was the author of that letter. At the time of the mutiny, he was serving on the Seahorse, capturing French vessels for prize money, just as Captain Wentworth did in Persuasion. The anonymous letter mirrors the advice given to Francis by his own father when he embarked on his naval career, urging him to show "kindness" to his "inferiors," because "they have a claim" on his regard and consideration.
Just like her brother, Austen could not openly criticize the Admiralty for the privations, hardships and injustices suffered by the common sailors. She had to respond obliquely. Hence, her disguised portrait of Richard Parker. It can be no coincidence that the leader of the mutineers and Austen’s errant midshipman were both named “Richard,” and both were subject to "removals," as Austen puts it, to many different ships. While Austen only mentions the Laconia for Dick Musgrove, Parker served on the Mediator, Ganges, Bulldog, Blenheim, Assurance, Hebe, Royal William, and finally the Sandwich--a rotting, verminous, seriously overcrowded craft.
Parker's execution Why does Austen mention letters in particular?
In other respects, however, Austen inverts her portrait of Richard Parker, the better to cloak her attack on the Admiralty. The narrator makes a pointed reference to Dick Musgrove’s letters home to his family, describing all but two as “mere applications for money,” a satiric allusion to the fact that Richard Parker authored the written demands of the mutineers. However, the real Richard was not a semi-literate buffoon, but a man better educated than most of his shipmates. He would not have written a phrase like “two perticular about the school-master,” as Dick Musgrove did. In fact, Parker was probably chosen to be the spokesman because of his superior literacy and experience. Austen is satirically referencing the disdain and contempt in which Parker and his fellow mutineers were held by the Admiralty.
Further, Austen surely took the name of William Elliot’s friend “Colonel Wallis,” from Captain James Wallis, a well-liked captain whose departure (by promotion) from the Tisiphone, led its crew to join the mutiny at Sheerness.
The Sheerness mutineers were suspected by the authorities of having revolutionary (Jacobin) sympathies. The authorities threatened everyone with capital punishment and the mutiny collapsed.
Unknown to the public when Persuasion was first published, but revealed with the later publication of Austen’s letters, is yet another connection between her fictional sailor and the real Richard Parker. Parker’s court-martial was presided over by Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley, whose nephew, General Sir Charles William Pasley, authored a book on the British empire which Austen read and described to her sister Cassandra. At this court-martial, Parker protested that he managed to “prevent a number of evil consequences” and restrained the most reckless impulses of the mutineers. Nevertheless, he was found guilty. of High Treason. Even Parker’s enemies acknowledged that he conducted himself in a "firm and manly" fashion during the trial and met his sentence of death “with a degree of fortitude and undismayed composure, which excited the astonishment and admiration of every one present.”
In other respects, however, Austen inverts her portrait of Richard Parker, the better to cloak her attack on the Admiralty. The narrator makes a pointed reference to Dick Musgrove’s letters home to his family, describing all but two as “mere applications for money,” a satiric allusion to the fact that Richard Parker authored the written demands of the mutineers. However, the real Richard was not a semi-literate buffoon, but a man better educated than most of his shipmates. He would not have written a phrase like “two perticular about the school-master,” as Dick Musgrove did. In fact, Parker was probably chosen to be the spokesman because of his superior literacy and experience. Austen is satirically referencing the disdain and contempt in which Parker and his fellow mutineers were held by the Admiralty.
Further, Austen surely took the name of William Elliot’s friend “Colonel Wallis,” from Captain James Wallis, a well-liked captain whose departure (by promotion) from the Tisiphone, led its crew to join the mutiny at Sheerness.
The Sheerness mutineers were suspected by the authorities of having revolutionary (Jacobin) sympathies. The authorities threatened everyone with capital punishment and the mutiny collapsed.
Unknown to the public when Persuasion was first published, but revealed with the later publication of Austen’s letters, is yet another connection between her fictional sailor and the real Richard Parker. Parker’s court-martial was presided over by Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley, whose nephew, General Sir Charles William Pasley, authored a book on the British empire which Austen read and described to her sister Cassandra. At this court-martial, Parker protested that he managed to “prevent a number of evil consequences” and restrained the most reckless impulses of the mutineers. Nevertheless, he was found guilty. of High Treason. Even Parker’s enemies acknowledged that he conducted himself in a "firm and manly" fashion during the trial and met his sentence of death “with a degree of fortitude and undismayed composure, which excited the astonishment and admiration of every one present.”
"the fine wind which had been blowing on her complexion" A lion-hearted Richard
Persuasion's narrator remarks that Dick Musgrove was never called “Richard” because he was no “better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living or dead.” The flip side of Austen’s quip is that the name must be earned. In his courageous defiance of the class-ridden and corrupt government, Richard Parker earned the admiration of working-class Englishmen. Unlike Dick Musgrove, who was "scarcely at all regretted" in death, throngs came to pay respect to Parker's corpse after his wife had managed to wrest it from the authorities and briefly display it at a tavern near Tower Hill. His legend lived on in an 1830 play and an 1851 novel, and, of course, in Persuasion.
The narrator’s savage deprecation of Dick Musgrove in Persuasion makes sense when understood as a lacerating indictment of the way that the Admiralty blackened Richard Parker’s character during his court-martial and after his execution. Likewise, Mrs. Musgrove is revealed as a sort of female John Bull figure. Austen is not fat-shaming Mrs. Musgrove, she is using the idea of corpulence to symbolically represent the complacent members of the public who neither know nor care how the British Navy is regulated. Mrs. Musgrove and her husband were “little… in the habit of attending to such matters… unobservant and incurious… as to the names of men or ships” until the death of their son Dick forcibly draws their attention to the issue. Their tears for their "worthless" son ironically both reveal and conceal the injustices that outraged Austen.
With her subversive critique, Austen paid homage to the brave mutineers of 1797 who risked their lives to demand their rights. Readers of Persuasion know that the "fresh-feeling" sea breezes of Lyme are responsible for restoring Anne Elliot's faded beauty. The slang term amongst the mutineers for their uprising was "the Breeze," no doubt a reference to the winds of radical change. Thus Austen pays tribute to the hope of radical reform in the reviving breeze that brings Anne Elliot back to life.
Persuasion's narrator remarks that Dick Musgrove was never called “Richard” because he was no “better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living or dead.” The flip side of Austen’s quip is that the name must be earned. In his courageous defiance of the class-ridden and corrupt government, Richard Parker earned the admiration of working-class Englishmen. Unlike Dick Musgrove, who was "scarcely at all regretted" in death, throngs came to pay respect to Parker's corpse after his wife had managed to wrest it from the authorities and briefly display it at a tavern near Tower Hill. His legend lived on in an 1830 play and an 1851 novel, and, of course, in Persuasion.
The narrator’s savage deprecation of Dick Musgrove in Persuasion makes sense when understood as a lacerating indictment of the way that the Admiralty blackened Richard Parker’s character during his court-martial and after his execution. Likewise, Mrs. Musgrove is revealed as a sort of female John Bull figure. Austen is not fat-shaming Mrs. Musgrove, she is using the idea of corpulence to symbolically represent the complacent members of the public who neither know nor care how the British Navy is regulated. Mrs. Musgrove and her husband were “little… in the habit of attending to such matters… unobservant and incurious… as to the names of men or ships” until the death of their son Dick forcibly draws their attention to the issue. Their tears for their "worthless" son ironically both reveal and conceal the injustices that outraged Austen.
With her subversive critique, Austen paid homage to the brave mutineers of 1797 who risked their lives to demand their rights. Readers of Persuasion know that the "fresh-feeling" sea breezes of Lyme are responsible for restoring Anne Elliot's faded beauty. The slang term amongst the mutineers for their uprising was "the Breeze," no doubt a reference to the winds of radical change. Thus Austen pays tribute to the hope of radical reform in the reviving breeze that brings Anne Elliot back to life.
More on the Nore Mutiny:
Doorne, Christopher, et al. “A Floating Republic? Conspiracy Theory and the Nore Mutiny of 1797.” The Naval Mutinies Of 1797, Boydell and Brewer Limited, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781782040057-018.
Manwaring, G.E., and Dobree, Bonamy. The Floating Republic: An Account of the Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797. Pen & Sword Books, 2004. "“The fact that the mutiny at the Nore was not settled, as that at Spithead had been, but crushed and savagely punished, was almost certainly the reason why mutinies continued to break out sporadically for two or three years over the whole Fleet.”
Fun Facts: One of the ships that mutinied at Sheerness was commanded by the infamous Captain Bligh of Bounty fame. So two different crews mutinied against him.
Since the Sheerness mutiny, the British Navy no longer rings five bells for the fifth dogwatch (6:30 pm), as that was the signal for the mutiny to start.
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Doorne, Christopher, et al. “A Floating Republic? Conspiracy Theory and the Nore Mutiny of 1797.” The Naval Mutinies Of 1797, Boydell and Brewer Limited, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781782040057-018.
Manwaring, G.E., and Dobree, Bonamy. The Floating Republic: An Account of the Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797. Pen & Sword Books, 2004. "“The fact that the mutiny at the Nore was not settled, as that at Spithead had been, but crushed and savagely punished, was almost certainly the reason why mutinies continued to break out sporadically for two or three years over the whole Fleet.”
Fun Facts: One of the ships that mutinied at Sheerness was commanded by the infamous Captain Bligh of Bounty fame. So two different crews mutinied against him.
Since the Sheerness mutiny, the British Navy no longer rings five bells for the fifth dogwatch (6:30 pm), as that was the signal for the mutiny to start.
Previous post: The Barbadoes Girl
More guest editorials here.... and here.... and here... and here
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