Bad Love and Jane Austen, the romance-smasher
Have a Happy Valentine's Day
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Hello friends,
It’s the Month of Love.
What can we do? We already watched Pride & Prejudice at least 10 times, and that was just over Christmas break, so what now, for actual love month?
If you’re like me you might become cynical by the cyclone of Valentine’s Day propaganda, merch, and mayhem, and feel the need for inserting some critical thinking, some media literacy, into this situation.
So, we are here for you, friends: To take all the stuffed fluffy toys, the heart candies, the mushy strawberries rotting away in their chocolates, and smash it all to bits by invoking Jane Austen.
Jane Austen, the romance smasher?! Yep!
When it comes to Jane Austen and romance, many of you are going to disagree with this, hitting from both sides: Some of you want to say Austen is the queen of romance; some of you want to say she’s nothing to do with romance. Some of you might walk with us in the middle ground and say: Both!
Sure, Austen can be seen as the Mother of Romance Tropes, and it’s also true that she is bigger, more, and deeper than all that; while her stories have, also, very much inspired all that. From hate-to-love (Lizzy, Darcy; Emma, Knightley), and friends-to-lovers (Elinor, Edward; Catherine, Henry; Emma, Knightley), to forbidden love (thank you, Lady Catherine, and Mrs. Ferrars) and finding love amidst danger in gothic, dark mansions (Northanger Abbey, yep) - our favorite LOVE stories are, if not invented by, certainly deployed in the most effective, iconic ways, by Jane Austen.
And we’re here for all of it. And: I feel Austen herself would heartily approve of every bit of it.
The thing is, there’s a lot of possibility in Austen love, but not a lot of actual good love going on. Not a lot of actual consummation of that deep, egalitarian, companionate love that she herself seemed to aim for in her stories.
That possibility is enchanting, tantalizing, and grand: It encompasses all our hopes. But the Actual Love On the Page of Austen? It’s not good, friends.
It’s in fact bad. So this post is dedicated to the Bad Love of Austen.
Let’s just embrace it, celebrate it, woo hoo, and today explore the best bad lovers in Austen, and what she is saying with all this badness.
And to do that: Let’s look at Austen’s worst couples, and then - never fear, there’s always an and-then here at the Austen Connection - let’s look at what Austen seems to want, and want us to want, in love.
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet
This might be Austen’s most famous bad couple, just because it is from her most well-known novel, Pride and Prejudice.
But there are a few things going on with this bad couple that might be undervalued, so let’s appraise them and look not at their individual characters but also how they influence each other:
First, let’s illuminate what often gets ignored on the screen: Mrs. Bennet is a hottie. Her husband, at the very first of the novel, makes it clear that if she goes with her daughters to see the Bingleys (he, the man in possession of the fortune who must be in want of a wife) that the gentleman is likely to fall for her instead.
What kind of father says this out loud?! A sardonic, sarcastic, buried-in-his-book Mr. Bennet.
Let’s look at Austen’s worst couples, and then - never fear, there’s always an and-then here at the Austen Connection - let’s look at what Austen seems to want, and want us to want, in love.
It’s clear that both Bennets are younger than we tend to make them out to be, probably in their mid-40s, and that they likely were a match made based on strong attraction, possibly you could say even desire.
Disappointment and frustration is rampant in this marriage - on both sides.
And this little nod to Mrs. Bennet’s hotness is establishing one important bookend that brackets a chasm between the Bennets’ expectations and the reality of their wedded bliss.
We can see that Mrs. Bennet is far from perfect - we’re not going to take sides! - but we can also see that her pleas for her husband to come out of the library and do something to help the life and financial prospects of their daughters are funny, and desperate; and for the discerning reader it’s also obvious that the insistence is necessary.
Mr. Bennet in all his cleverness has declined to participate and is not able to improve anyone's prospects. He undermines the pleas not only of his wife but also of his beloved Lizzy, who begs him not to allow Lydia to go to Brighton, a thing that seriously damages her own and Jane’s prospects. Now we see Mrs. Bennet’s hilarious obsession with her daughters’ prospects, and her insistent pleas for help from her husband, in a different light.
He’s able only to observe, comment, criticize, and then go back in the library. It’s one of the best instances of bad love.
‘My love, … Do you know that you are quite rude?’ Charlotte and Mr. Palmer
Mr. Palmer, from Sense and Sensibility, might be the grumpiest guy in all of Austen. (His contender in this might be Emma’s brother-in-law John Knightley, but John Knightley is grumpy and caring, and Mr. Palmer is grumpy and brutal.)
And once you have seen the Ang Lee adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, it’s impossible to imagine this character without the face of Hugh Laurie, who is a perfect embodiment of the weary, sarcastic, resignation that seeps through Mr. Palmer.
But looking at this text, as always when one looks at the text!, I’m struck by the depth of what is happening between these two.
You might remember the good-natured cluelessness of Charlotte Palmer juxtaposed hilariously with the curmudgeonliness of her husband, but as always, when one looks closely it’s both bolder and harsher than one might have remembered!
It looks a lot, again, like Austen upending everything and getting away with it.
Just check out this scene and passage from the book, where we have Charlotte’s mother, the good-natured, generous Mrs. Jennings, openly joking with Mr. Palmer that “you have taken Charlotte off my hands, and cannot give her back again.”
Both Mrs. Jennings and Charlotte, mother and daughter, handle this husband’s open rudeness by layering it immediately with good-natured jokes like that one.
Charlotte: “My love, you contradict every body,” —said his wife with her usual laugh. ‘Do you know that you are quite rude?’”
The reader, however, is not obliged to actually believe Charlotte’s and her mother’s good-natured cover-ups.
For the reader, it’s impossible not to get in touch with just a hint of the sadness, possibly even some desperation, that Charlotte must feel from her husband’s rudeness, even if Charlotte herself isn’t in touch with those feelings herself.
Austen puts us, the reader, where we really don’t want to be - in the middle of this marriage - and in a strange position of seeming to notice more, and feel more, than Charlotte herself.
Austen puts us, the reader, where we really don’t want to be - in the middle of this marriage - and in a strange position of seeming to notice more, and feel more, than Charlotte herself.
The passage continues:
“Charlotte laughed heartily to think that her husband could not get rid of her; and exultingly said, she did not care how cross he was to her, as they must live together. It was impossible for any one to be more thoroughly good-natured, or more determined to be happy than Mrs. Palmer. The studied indifference, insolence, and discontent of her husband gave her no pain: and when he scolded or abused her, she was highly diverted.”
Well, maybe. Maybe she’s highly diverted. But we need not be.
We can clearly see here what we’re being shown - which is a young, pretty woman who is naturally good-natured, and possesses that combination of qualities that makes her the Ideal Wife of the Regency era; and she shows us that even reaching the ultimate goal, and achieving a marriage with “good prospects” can condemn her to unfulfillment and unhappiness - even if she herself is determined to be happy.
Austen seems to be asking: Is this elegant-female routine really a good idea? Even when it supposedly works?
Might it not be better to give Charlotte Palmer a healthy dose of realism, good judgment, and the inner resources to analyze a character and a situation, and choose better? Or actually choose - shocking - no one?
Austen is at the very least raising a question in our minds: Is this fair?
Might it not be better to give Charlotte Palmer a healthy dose of realism, good judgment, and the inner resources to analyze a character and a situation, and choose better? Or actually choose - shocking - no one? Austen is at the very least raising a question in our minds: Is this fair?
Charlotte Palmer, like Charlotte Lucas, is playing the game by the rules, and losing anyway.
But what is even more subtle, deep, and impactful is the other thing Austen is doing which is sure to get readers - including male-identifying readers, which I feel she is always talking to - in on the joke and in on the questions:
What she does next is she looks at this same set of questions as regards Mr. Palmer.
The point of view switches, memorably, to Elinor, who observes this joking and “abuse,” sizes it up, and makes some deductions.
And we can trust Elinor.
Mr. Palmer on the couch
Here’s what Elinor makes of Mr. Palmer:
“Elinor was not inclined, after a little observation, to give him credit for being so genuinely and unaffectedly ill-natured or ill-bred as he wished to appear. His temper might perhaps be a little soured by finding, like many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable bias in favour of beauty, he was the husband of a very silly woman,—but she knew that this kind of blunder was too common for any sensible man to be lastingly hurt by it. —It was rather a wish of distinction she believed, which produced his contemptuous treatment of every body, and his general abuse of every thing before him. It was the desire of appearing superior to other people. The motive was too common to be wondered at: but the means, however they might succeed by establishing his superiority in ill-breeding, were not likely to attach any one to him except his wife.
WOW. When you unpack this little paragraph of analysis unfolding inside our dear Elinor’s head, there is so much going on, friends. She is The Decider; she is the psychoanalyst here even before Freud had told us there was such a thing; she has Mr. Palmer on the couch and she is reading this man like a book - and a simple children’s book at that.
And so much of it is downright cynical. If I can attempt to translate this into blunt, for-real language here (and please add your interpretation to this, friends), what I’m hearing from Elinor, and from the narrator giving Elinor these thoughts, is this:
You have here an unpropertied, untitled, basically disempowered, unattached young woman sitting, observing and judging a well-connected, wealthy, landed member of the gentry and patriarchy, and what she’s deducing from all his nonsense and grumpiness is that he wants to be superior. Poor baby!
And not only that, but she analyzes Mr. Palmer’s deepest desire to be superior and finds that he is going about it the wrong way. The already-ill-bred might be impressed, she decides, but no one else is buying it.
Except, that is, his wife. Who has to, because she has no other choice.
So here in this one paragraph - which is, by the way, first and foremost funny! - we are being shown the sham of marriage, the sham of male superiority, and the sham of a class system and power structure that might put absolutely anyone “well-bred” at the top. And that even those at the top of such a flimsy, baseless hierarchy are going to cause anxiety not just for those in proximity to them, but even to the propped-up powerful themselves!
So, take that, Valentine’s Day!
God, guns, and family - Regency-style
And in this first of Austen’s published novels this is not even the only bad couple, or even the worst.
John and Fanny Dashwood are Destroyers. As previously discussed in our post Death by Drawing Room, they embody all of the great Mary Wollstonecraft’s cautions.
Meanwhile the Middletons embody Austen’s warning to - whatever you do in life - don’t leave home without your own inner resources.
The titled Middletons have everything that should bring happiness - status, property, multiple children, each other - and none of it does any good, because they can’t stand to be alone with themselves or with each other.
So here in this one paragraph - which is, by the way, first and foremost funny! - we are being shown the sham of marriage, the sham of male superiority, and the sham of a class system and power structure that might put absolutely anyone “well-bred” at the top …
Contrast this to the John Knightley family (Knightley's brother and Emma’s sister, who are married to each other) and you have the other extreme. John Knightley doesn’t understand why anyone would go socializing when they have an option to stay home by their own fire.
The John Knightleys might be portrayed outright as less than ideal, but are also far better than the middling Middletons. One imagines that John Knightley actually likes his wife. They might actually dig each other. They appear to respect each other, and acquiesce to each other’s wishes as much as they can - and yet this couple is not quite in the Good category.
The John Knightleys with their friction, though, are far superior to the mosey-on-up Middletons: Sir Middleton is either out hunting - all his conversation is guns and dogs - or out issuing desperate, insistent invitations to people to come up to the House and join them at dinner. He cannot be alone.
Lady Middleton is the most hilarious mother perhaps in all of fiction (we’ll save that one for Mother’s day, stay tuned!) and her insouciant, clueless adoration of her annoying young children mirrors her husband’s commitment to dogs and guns.
They not only avoid being alone, they are terrified of what to Lady Middleton’s mind would be “frightful solitude.”
This is not an ideal marriage - two people who are terrified of being left alone together - but this couple is showing us a lot more than marriage; it’s showing us how marriage such as it is - its motivations, its values, its protocols - are perhaps simply not working. Not working for women, not working for men, not working for society, and not working for Jane Austen.
In Austen, marriage is about way more than just marriage
The frustrating couples in Austen definitely have a purpose. They are the inverse portrait of what Austen is always aiming for, which is what the philosopher and novelist Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was upholding: a companionate marriage of two educated individuals who have chosen each other based on affection.
You can see the striving for this in every one of Austen's six novels that explore questions and problems about the education, and therefore the empowerment, of women.
But marriage in Austen is about way more than marriage.
As I’ve explored and reread these six novels, writing to you as I go, it always has seemed to me that Austen was hinting at something bigger. Yes, the education of women, the stability of a family, and the general happiness that can be found - and the treachery that can be avoided - by being astute and choosing well, all is certainly worthwhile and a lot in itself to pack into a marriage plot.
This is not an ideal marriage - two people who are terrified of being left alone together - but this couple is showing us a lot more than marriage; it’s showing us how marriage such as it is - its motivations, its values, its protocols - are perhaps simply not working. Not working for women, not working for men, not working for society, and not working for Jane Austen.
But, when you follow the breadcrumbs Austen is dropping, they are leading you to not only some theories about love and the lives of women; they are also leading you to theories about how society is structured.
Austen is continuously showing us with her most powerful, aristocratic characters - to a one, yes?! - the hypocrisy, incompetence, and abuse of power by the aristocracy (Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Sir Walter, Sir Thomas, General Tilney). And by giving us the follies of Lydia and Mr. Bennet, and the flimsy, baseless power of a Sir Walter, a Sir Thomas, and a General Tilney, she is putting a microscope on the very foundations of British patriarchy, aristocracy, society, and likely imperialism as well.
What does all this have to do with love?
What’s love got to do with it, do with it!
Friends, have we gone off topic?
Does Tina Turner need to come in here and get us on track with a reminder that this is a post about Love, bad love and all?
What I’ve discovered that I did not know before is that not only Austen but a slate of women novelists writing in the Romantic period - including all the goths! - are all pointing to the possible evils of power, primogeniture, patriarchy, and aristocracy as a way of arranging society. And they were many times holding up a portrait of love based on affection, commitment, and constancy - and the domestic family - as a better, more stable basis for organizing society and power.
And these Romantic women writers include Mary Shelley, daughter of philosopher/novelist Mary Wollstonecraft and author of Frankenstein. She’s writing at the same time as Austen and is surrounded by the same revolutions (French, American), and the same debates - debates about primogeniture, family, the education of women, the slave trade (Burke, Paine, Clarkson), and the same debates about power, who has it, and how it’s used and abused, in houses, families, society.
And both Mary Shelley - putting up with her philosopher-genius father and poetic-genius husband - and Austen were deploying fiction and drawing on the philosophies of Mary’s mum, to examine love and family and how love and family might be the basis of a more just, more humane, freer, more loving society.
So: Love has everything to do with it!
And we can rest assured that all the Bad Love in Austen is giving us a lot of laughs, but also to this day giving us something to think about!
So, we’ll keep laughing, and thinking, and hopefully finding love as we go.
—
Thank you for being here, friends, and thank you for sharing with us your favorite examples of Bad Love in Austen - we got some amazing responses to our Twitter queries (find us at @AustenConnect), and it’s not too late to share your favorite bad couple from Austen. It’s a parade of infamy! Send us your favorites by replying here, or commenting:
Coming up:
We are continuing this month of Bad Love, and next week we’ll hear from you! It’ll be your Bad Love picks - so beware the Eltons, the Dashwoods, the Willoughbys (ick), the Hursts, they are coming for us next week.
Also coming up, we’ll explore the question of Austen’s HEAs - are they really that happy? What did Austen really think of marriage? Feel free to share your thoughts ahead of time, and join in that conversation.
And again, in March it’s Jane Austen TV - here comes Bridgerton, Sanditon, and that weird NBC courtship reality TV thing. We’re here for all of it.
Meanwhile, friends, stay well, and do have a lovely Valentine’s Day - full of all kinds of love. Really. The good kinds.
Affectionately yours,
Plain Jane
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I read the Norton Critical edition of Sense and Sensibility, edited by Claudia Johnson
I have also been reading Anne Mellor’s biography of Mary Shelley and her study of Romanticism and Gender
Fascinating, once again. I do enjoy her portrayals of bad marriages. I'm particularly fond of the Middletons and Bennets. Although I love the old BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, it really doesn't do them justice, it's far too kind to Mr Bennet.