“We are the sons as you already know, of the two youngest Daughters which Lord St. Clair had by Laurina an italian opera girl. Our mothers could neither of them exactly ascertain who were our fathers; though it is generally believed that Philander, is the son of one Philip Jones, a bricklayer and that my father was Gregory Staves a Staymaker of Edinburgh. This is however of little consequence, for as our Mothers were certainly never married to either of them, it reflects no Dishonour on our Blood which is of a most ancient & unpolluted kind.”
As I said before, I am not an Austen-phile and wouldn’t have gone out of my way to read anything else by her, but this short piece was chosen to appear in “The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women.” It was written by Austen when she was 14, and was published in the “Anthology” warts and all. This story, written as a series of letters, was supposedly told to her family as evening entertainment and is a parody of the novels she had read.
Gilbert and Gubar say “Austen comically criticizes the overvaluation of love, the miseducation of women, the subterfuges of the marriage market, the rivalry among women for male approval, the female cult of weakness and dependency, the discrepancy between women’s private sphere and public (male) history.” This work and other works by Austen were satires of the novels she had read and the role that women were given in literature.
I admit to being duped by how seriously popular movie versions of “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility” took the love affairs of the Bennet and Dashwood sisters, and I placed these stories alongside the Brontes’ for comparison. Of course, I recognized the difference between the Gothic of “Wuthering Heights” and non-Gothic of “P&P,” but then so many people raved about how romantic Colin Firth had made Mr. Darcy. While I don’t get the attraction to Mr. Darcy, I hadn’t really picked up on the Austen books being a comedy of manners. “Love and Friendship” helped me see that there is more in common with “P&P” and “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde than with the tragic lives in “Wuthering Heights.”
In “L&F,” Isabel entreats Laura, a woman of 55, to share the story of her life with Isabel’s daughter, Marianne, presumably to help Marianne avoid the “Misfortunes and Adventures” of Laura’s shady past. In a series of letters, Laura tells of her romance, marriage, widowhood and rescue, which occur over a period of several months. We see how “Sensibility,” really a misguided attempt at sensitivity to the situations of others, leads Laura through a series of misadventures.
The story reminds of Voltaire’s “Candide,” which assuredly Austen had read. For example, in search of a friendly relationship to help her in her poverty, Laura travels to Scotland. On the way, she and her companion, Sophia, meet up with Lord St. Clair who is convinced that Laura is his granddaughter. When Sophia enters the room, he claims her as a granddaughter as well. Then two young men, Philander and Gustavus, enter the room, Lord St. Clair describes his relation to them through his wife Laurina’s third and fourth daughters. Satisfied that all his grandchildren are gathered in one place, although these people did not previously know they were related, he gives them each a 50-pound note, and having attended to his grandfatherly duty, enters his carriage and drives off. Laura and Sophia are surprised at their good fortune and take a little nap. When they awake, Philander, Gustavus and the 50-pound notes are nowhere to be found. I’m assuming it was all a setup.
I realize now that “P&P” is really a more sophisticated satire of the situations of women, the dependence on marriage for financial security, the petty jealousies and rivalries that cause some to jeopardize the happiness of others, and the roadblocks the manners of the day put up in front of honest communication.
The writing of the 14-year-old Austen is both encouraging and dispiriting. The primitive nature of the prose compared to the prose of her adulthood give me hope that my own writing can improve, but how well-read she was at 14 leads me to lose hope as I don’t have the leisure for the quality of reading that she did. If I ever read an Austen novel again, I will see it in a different light, looking at it as a comedy of manners rather than as a serious romantic novel.
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