I think the only outright dreadful dad, as opposed to flawed, is Sir Walter. He pretty much has no redeeming features, other than his affection for his eldest daughter - and even that shows his poor taste and favouritism.
Mr Bennett definitely has redeeming features, and is also ready to admit his own flaws, which include financial imprudence and disastrous indulgence of Lydia. Like many other Austen men, he married the wrong woman, and in general is trying to make the best of things. I think Mr Palmer (Sense and Sensibility) is an important model here: Austen says he's made the all too common mistake of marrying a silly woman with looks, and is still coming to terms with it.
Yes, so interesting - with Mr. Palmer and Mr. Bennet you have something about their own choices, and also the way society infantilizes and declines to educate women, going on in their predicaments. Thanks for the insight!
Loved this look back at 'bad dads' but also the introduction about Austen's own dad was really interesting. I didn't know anything about him really. Thank you for providing some context :)
I do not quite agree about Mr Woodhouse. He obviously suffers from senility. Emma remembers him young and healthy, therefore she loves him. Mr Knightley takes care of all poor and weak in the neighbourhood, it is his christian debt. He takes care of Hartfield, of its half-witted owner and of its teenager mistress.
So I would rather exclude Mr Woodhouse from the list of bad dads. We haven't seen him healthy.
As for late Mr Darcy and his adult son, I fancy how Mr Knightley would comment his monologue. A grown-up man of eight-and-twenty would not complain of his late parents whatever they had been. A 28 years old man is responsible of his behavior himself.
It is not fair to include late Mr Darcy into the list because he died long ago and does not influence on his son.
Points taken here, and I very much appreciate your graciousness toward these two dads of Austen. We have a very gracious community here as you're not the only one defending Mr. Woodhouse - I love that, and tend to agree. We need to revise the list perhaps for a new post, perhaps next year. Thanks so much for engaging with this! 💮
I'm not convinced the parade of bad dads is a political statement against the Patriarchy as such - after all the mums aren't that great either... Our heroine needs negligent absent or oppressive parents for the story to work at all. Imagine if Lizzie's sound sensible uncle and aunt Gardiner were swapped with her actual parents! No novel.
Agree somewhat. Austen is not so much politicizing as examining, like a philosopher or political scientist, and as an artist, the patriarchy, practices of patrilineage, and the power structures of her time. And she's challenging assumptions. The practice of patrilineage might have hurt her own father and younger brothers as much as anyone. I think Austen's way too philosophical and broad a thinker about the human experience to bring it all down to one class or gender or subset of individuals. (In my original post from two years ago I went into it a bit more to say this.) But there are some things we can name confidently that are coming out in her stories - it's greed and negligence and their place in society that Austen clearly is against, and greed and negligence are sometimes allowed and even rewarded through the practice of patrinlineage, and I think that's what she's illustrating very much in her stories.
The only father I forgive completely is Emma's. It's my own head-cannon that Mr. Woodhouse was, perhaps, an anxious young man, but losing his wife left him bereft and incapable of self-soothing. The most recent movie (but not, I believe, the book) has him remember, at the first announcement of snow during the dinner party, that it was snowing the night his wife died. She did not die because of snow, but his fears and panic (in an era without SSRIs) prevent him from not seeing the danger in everything. Loss, whether to death or moving a mile down the road, it's all unbearable to him.
But Mr. Woodhouse loves completely, and searches to protect everyone in his circle. He is the only selfish Austen father whose "selfishness" in his anxieties is in service to his lovingkindness; he feeds the hungry (if not cake), he warms them by fires and screens (even if they feel no cold or drafts), and wants to keep them all safe.
Mr. Woodhouse has quite the anxiety disorder, but he displays it out of love, and I won't fault him for that, even if I may chuckle or be chagrined. Emma doesn't love him in spite of his behavior; she understands and loves him because of it.
Tilney and Sir Walter are selfish jerks; even Lizzie's well-read papa is too lazy to be a proper father and protect his children from dangers he never bothers to consider, mostly because he never bothers to consider anything unless it entertains him. (We get far too little of Elinor's father to know what he might have done had he not been so trusting of his son.) And yes, Emma's curmudgeonly brother-in-law (soon to be twice-over) seems to be a good father, and unmentioned in the piece, but Catherine Moreland's father, we are led to believe, is a good guy.
Mr. Henry Woodhouse may prattle and dither and panic, but he is never once unkind. If I were inclined to celebrate Father's Day (which I am not), I'd bring him a soothing gift, like a nice warm lap blanket.
OK, I think you about have me convinced here on Mr. Woodhouse and I love your grace in this treatment of him. And how interesting to imagine Mr. Woodhouse with SSRIs!
Thank you for this very thoughtful post, Julie - perhaps between now and next year we can rehabilitate our views on Emma's and Isabella's father, and expand the conversation. 💮
Catherine Moreland's father is simply not there. Until the final scene where he joins with his wife in welcoming Mr Tilney) he isn't mentioned and I was assuming he died before the start of the story.
Yes, it makes me wonder what Austen would do with an actual good father - I'm not sure she even knew herself what that might look like, but your mention of Mr. Woodhouse makes me think of Mr. Haywood, clever Charlotte Haywood's practical father (who knows how to read a map) in Sanditon.
By the way, happy Father's day to you - I was all set to publish the next piece on Adam Smith yesterday, and then I remembered that you were waiting for a father's day post, so you are partly to blame for this! 😊
What a great list! I loved the passage about Austen's father himself and how he affected her later work. At first, I did not want to realize that Mr. Bennet is a bad father, but he is! He ridicules his wife before his children, with no regard for his words' effect on them. He is both a bad husband, and a bad father- we are simply led to ignore that in favor of his charm and wit. Something I thought of while reading the passage on John Dashwood- his manner of speaking is remarkably like Mr. Collins'!
Oh, interesting connection between John Dashwood and Mr. Collins! Sanctimoniousness! lol.
And yes also on Mr. Bennet. We can't let charming Donald Sutherland fool us - Mr. Bennet, unfortunately, belongs with the baddies. Thanks for engaging with this post - so glad you enjoyed it!
I have been saving the most recent posts to read when I have enough time to thoroughly enjoy them. And I certainly had fun reading this one.
So glad - thank you, Louisa! 🌷
I think the only outright dreadful dad, as opposed to flawed, is Sir Walter. He pretty much has no redeeming features, other than his affection for his eldest daughter - and even that shows his poor taste and favouritism.
Mr Bennett definitely has redeeming features, and is also ready to admit his own flaws, which include financial imprudence and disastrous indulgence of Lydia. Like many other Austen men, he married the wrong woman, and in general is trying to make the best of things. I think Mr Palmer (Sense and Sensibility) is an important model here: Austen says he's made the all too common mistake of marrying a silly woman with looks, and is still coming to terms with it.
Yes, so interesting - with Mr. Palmer and Mr. Bennet you have something about their own choices, and also the way society infantilizes and declines to educate women, going on in their predicaments. Thanks for the insight!
Loved this look back at 'bad dads' but also the introduction about Austen's own dad was really interesting. I didn't know anything about him really. Thank you for providing some context :)
So glad you enjoyed it - thank you, Kate!
I do not quite agree about Mr Woodhouse. He obviously suffers from senility. Emma remembers him young and healthy, therefore she loves him. Mr Knightley takes care of all poor and weak in the neighbourhood, it is his christian debt. He takes care of Hartfield, of its half-witted owner and of its teenager mistress.
So I would rather exclude Mr Woodhouse from the list of bad dads. We haven't seen him healthy.
As for late Mr Darcy and his adult son, I fancy how Mr Knightley would comment his monologue. A grown-up man of eight-and-twenty would not complain of his late parents whatever they had been. A 28 years old man is responsible of his behavior himself.
It is not fair to include late Mr Darcy into the list because he died long ago and does not influence on his son.
Points taken here, and I very much appreciate your graciousness toward these two dads of Austen. We have a very gracious community here as you're not the only one defending Mr. Woodhouse - I love that, and tend to agree. We need to revise the list perhaps for a new post, perhaps next year. Thanks so much for engaging with this! 💮
I'm not convinced the parade of bad dads is a political statement against the Patriarchy as such - after all the mums aren't that great either... Our heroine needs negligent absent or oppressive parents for the story to work at all. Imagine if Lizzie's sound sensible uncle and aunt Gardiner were swapped with her actual parents! No novel.
Agree somewhat. Austen is not so much politicizing as examining, like a philosopher or political scientist, and as an artist, the patriarchy, practices of patrilineage, and the power structures of her time. And she's challenging assumptions. The practice of patrilineage might have hurt her own father and younger brothers as much as anyone. I think Austen's way too philosophical and broad a thinker about the human experience to bring it all down to one class or gender or subset of individuals. (In my original post from two years ago I went into it a bit more to say this.) But there are some things we can name confidently that are coming out in her stories - it's greed and negligence and their place in society that Austen clearly is against, and greed and negligence are sometimes allowed and even rewarded through the practice of patrinlineage, and I think that's what she's illustrating very much in her stories.
My two cents:
The only father I forgive completely is Emma's. It's my own head-cannon that Mr. Woodhouse was, perhaps, an anxious young man, but losing his wife left him bereft and incapable of self-soothing. The most recent movie (but not, I believe, the book) has him remember, at the first announcement of snow during the dinner party, that it was snowing the night his wife died. She did not die because of snow, but his fears and panic (in an era without SSRIs) prevent him from not seeing the danger in everything. Loss, whether to death or moving a mile down the road, it's all unbearable to him.
But Mr. Woodhouse loves completely, and searches to protect everyone in his circle. He is the only selfish Austen father whose "selfishness" in his anxieties is in service to his lovingkindness; he feeds the hungry (if not cake), he warms them by fires and screens (even if they feel no cold or drafts), and wants to keep them all safe.
Mr. Woodhouse has quite the anxiety disorder, but he displays it out of love, and I won't fault him for that, even if I may chuckle or be chagrined. Emma doesn't love him in spite of his behavior; she understands and loves him because of it.
Tilney and Sir Walter are selfish jerks; even Lizzie's well-read papa is too lazy to be a proper father and protect his children from dangers he never bothers to consider, mostly because he never bothers to consider anything unless it entertains him. (We get far too little of Elinor's father to know what he might have done had he not been so trusting of his son.) And yes, Emma's curmudgeonly brother-in-law (soon to be twice-over) seems to be a good father, and unmentioned in the piece, but Catherine Moreland's father, we are led to believe, is a good guy.
Mr. Henry Woodhouse may prattle and dither and panic, but he is never once unkind. If I were inclined to celebrate Father's Day (which I am not), I'd bring him a soothing gift, like a nice warm lap blanket.
OK, I think you about have me convinced here on Mr. Woodhouse and I love your grace in this treatment of him. And how interesting to imagine Mr. Woodhouse with SSRIs!
Thank you for this very thoughtful post, Julie - perhaps between now and next year we can rehabilitate our views on Emma's and Isabella's father, and expand the conversation. 💮
Catherine Moreland's father is simply not there. Until the final scene where he joins with his wife in welcoming Mr Tilney) he isn't mentioned and I was assuming he died before the start of the story.
Yes, it makes me wonder what Austen would do with an actual good father - I'm not sure she even knew herself what that might look like, but your mention of Mr. Woodhouse makes me think of Mr. Haywood, clever Charlotte Haywood's practical father (who knows how to read a map) in Sanditon.
By the way, happy Father's day to you - I was all set to publish the next piece on Adam Smith yesterday, and then I remembered that you were waiting for a father's day post, so you are partly to blame for this! 😊
What a great list! I loved the passage about Austen's father himself and how he affected her later work. At first, I did not want to realize that Mr. Bennet is a bad father, but he is! He ridicules his wife before his children, with no regard for his words' effect on them. He is both a bad husband, and a bad father- we are simply led to ignore that in favor of his charm and wit. Something I thought of while reading the passage on John Dashwood- his manner of speaking is remarkably like Mr. Collins'!
Thanks for putting this up!
Oh, interesting connection between John Dashwood and Mr. Collins! Sanctimoniousness! lol.
And yes also on Mr. Bennet. We can't let charming Donald Sutherland fool us - Mr. Bennet, unfortunately, belongs with the baddies. Thanks for engaging with this post - so glad you enjoyed it!