I Blame Jane Austen

Jane Austen is a giant figure in literature. Her six novels were written before her death at age 41, two having been published after her death by her brother, Henry Austen.

There are really three Janes I would like to talk about this morning. There is Historical Jane, or the question of Where is Jane’s place in actual history.  There is Jane the Writer, or What did she write about? And then there is Jane Austen, literary figure, or What have people made of her writings?

The title of this morning’s sermon, I Blame Jane Austen, is as good a place as any to begin.

I first encountered Jane Austen, as many do, when some of my friends started reading her in middle school, and then high school.  I will freely admit, perhaps to my peril, the books were of little interest to me. I thought, by looking at the covers, that they would be silly and full of the kind of romance that I was just not interested in.

Clearly, I am not the only one to have made this mistake.

It seems that Jane Austen’s novels have been mistaken for silly love stories by many, including many people who make costume movies. And looking at these movies in previews, still I was uninspired to look into the world of Jane Austen.

Miss Jane Austen was born in the Rectory at Steventon, in Hampshire England, where her father served as Rector, a clergy position in the Anglican Church. Jane was born a mere 5 months before the Colonies in America told the King of England they wanted to separate.  Steventon Rectory is about 65 miles south and west of London. In those days, Steventon was very far from London indeed. Her family did have some social standing, meaning that there had been lower titles and land in her family; she was not a peasant, or a member of the underclass, but also she was not wealthy growing up, and her prospects at marriage would’ve been limited. In fact neither she nor her one sister, Cassandra, married. She had six brothers, one who was adopted by a distant relative, and the brother she was closest to became a banker, and when that failed a clergyman like their father. He also became her literary agent, and this brother, Henry, is largely responsible for us knowing about her at all.

Jane and her sister were well-educated, which in itself was somewhat rare for the time. They had tutors and learned alongside their brothers. This hints at her Father’s liberal views on women. A book that was of great influence on Jane was written by Mary Wollstonecraft, On the Vindication of the Rights of Women.

Mary Wollstonecraft’s seminal work, a book which is credited as if not THE FIRST certainly A very early and influential book on feminism was published with great help some male members of her church, the Unitarian Chapel at Newington Green. Through her membership at the Chapel at Newington Green, she met two men whose names may be familiar to you. Thomas Paine and Joseph Priestly.  Thomas Paine of course is better known for his role in the American Revolution, but Joseph Priestly was the physician who “discovered,” and by that I mean was able to prove the existence of, Oxygen, and he is frequently credited as being the father of American Unitarianism.

Wollstonecraft’s book was the inspiration for much of the 18^th and 19^th century feminist movements, and as a side note, her daughter was also an author—Mary Godwin Shelley. Mary Shelley wrote, of course among other things, Frankenstein and was married to Percy Shelley. Practioners of Free Love, it seems that Mr. Shelley never divorced his first wife before marrying Mary Godwin, and there is some indication that he and Lord Byron of the poetry fame, were lovers as well.

Their tale seems like a more salacious version of a tale worthy of Jane Austen!

Generally, when one thinks of Jane Austen, one thinks of bucolic country estates, and long afternoon teas, not the kind of social radicalism of the likes of Mary Wollstonecraft, but this was the reality of Historical Jane, not the Jane, the Literary Figure.

It is Jane the Literary Figure that I have a beef with, and really, that’s not her fault at all. It is really the fault of those who have re-interpreted her work to be shallow costume dramas.

Here’s what my impression of the work of Jane Austen was: In every story, there is some young woman, and some young man. There are some complications, often having to do with arcane social restrictions and expectations, but in the end, all works out and there is a wedding.

Perhaps you have had a similar expectation.

And in every novel by Jane Austen, this does happen.

The problem comes, though, if one dismisses this as the only thing that happens.

Jane Austen is not just some spinster who writes fantastical stories about how romance comes to young women who are saved by marriage.

She is a woman aware of her own social place in the world, and she uses her literature to comment on the social structures of the world she lives in.

Jane’s father, George Austen was a somewhat radical clergyman in that he allowed his daughters to be educated well beyond what was generally considered to be normal in their day and age. I have to tell you that even saying that last sentence makes me feel very awkward. This education in conjunction with her own natural-born intellect, is what gave Jane Austen the tools she needed to write these novels, which are both so studied and so misunderstood by us, these 200 years later.

With a few brief quotes, because truthfully one could spend a lifetime in analysis of Ms. Austen’s works, I want to lift up a few themes.

From her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, she comments on the duties of woman and motherhood “Mrs. Jennings was a widow, with an ample jointure. She had only two daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably married, and she had now therefore nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world.” 

Here Austen reflects on the limited scope of work for women in her own landed class. Their job was to produce sons so that property could be passed along, and daughters to help secure the future for her and her husband’s care in their old age.

From Pride and Prejudice, “I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding— certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.” 

In this passage Jane Austen demonstrates the awkward social position that she and others like herself are trapped. No matter what Jane’s internal gifts, she is a cog in a system.

It’s hard for us to understand, as twenty-first century people to understand the depth of the importance of reputation in Jane’s time. Any wrong step for a young woman of position could mean immediate ruin not only for herself but for her family’s reputation, and thereby any sisters as yet unmarried.

If you think about it, this system was incredibly restrictive. Even if you didn’t care about your own reputation, any decision you made in public might condemn your family. Conversely, if any member of your family did something scandalous, you might be ruined forever.

Of course there were rules for the young gentlemen as well, but they seem largely and unfairly less restrictive.

And a very touching quote from Mansfield Park, a quote that many this room might easily identify with “…but then I am unlike other people I dare say.”

Even though I wanted to be able to blame all of the silly ideas that we have about romance winning the day, place that responsibility squarely on the shoulders of Jane Austen, it is clear that she was far more clever, as the British say, and far more an intellect to be reckoned with than I had imagined.

I wanted to blame her for expectations that have become monstrous and lead to things like ten thousand dollar wedding dresses, and setting up this idea that every marriage and love should be a rescue and without complication.

But these are not things that she can be blamed for, really. Those who are to blame are really those who have used Jane’s writings without truly understanding all that she was saying.

One can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Jane had written stories that continued after the wedding.

David Sedaris wrote recently about being in a relationship for ten years.

Last night, Hugh and I went around the corner to see The End of theAffair, a Neil Jordan adaptation of the Graham Greene novel. He sobbed from beginning to end. And by the time we left the theater, the poor thing was completely dehydrated.

I asked if he always cried during comedies, and he accused me of being grossly insensitive, a charge I'm trying to plea bargain down to a simple obnoxious. Looking back, I should've known better than to accompany Hugh to a love story. Such movies are always a danger as, unlike battling aliens or going undercover to track a serial killer, falling in love is something most adults have actually experienced at some point in their lives.

The theme is universal and encourages the viewer to make a number of unhealthy comparisons, leading to the question, "Why can't our lives be like that?" It's a box best left unopened. 

I'm not as unfeeling as Hugh accuses me of being, but things change once you've been together for 10 years. They rarely make movies about long-term couples and for good reason. Our lives are boring.

The courtship had its moments, but now we've become the predictable part two no one in his right mind would ever pay to see. 

The picture ended at around 10:00. And afterwards, we went for coffees at a little place across the street from the Luxembourg Gardens. I was ready to wipe the movie out of my mind, but Hugh was still under its spell. He looked as though his life had not only passed him by, but paused along the way to spit in his face.

Movie characters might chase one another through the fog, or race down the stairs of burning buildings, but that's just for beginners. Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt somebody's feelings. I wanted to say something to this effect, but my hand puppets were back home in their drawer. Instead, I pulled my chair a few inches closer, and we sat silently at our little table on the square, looking for all the world like two people in love.[1]

 If Jane Austen had written that Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, three years after winning Elizabeth’s hand in marriage, if Fitz developed simple, chronic halitosis, or breath bad enough to stun a horse. Then he image of marriage might be less romanticized and maybe there wouldn’t be so many Jane Austen movies.

Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility respectively….What would happen is Edward became a minister of a dissenting opinion, which would’ve been illegal in that time period, would Elinor have lived such a happily ever after?  What if Marianne’s Colonel had decided to join the rebel forces in the colonies? How complicated might that have gotten!

The reality is that Jane Austen was a vanguard, a renegade. When SO few women lived by their pen she managed to do so. And she is to be commended for it.

She left us with six novels, which are very much of their time. In them she carefully and thoroughly recorded a way of life that is now lost to us.

The novel itself was a brand new art form, being experimented with during the time while our Miss Austen was working.  It’s true that in all six of her novels love wins over in the end, but they are not simple boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl get reunited and married affairs. Within the pages of her books, Austen critiques her own society with a sharp eye and a keen wit.

So in the end, Jane Austen is not really to blame for my frustration with Jane Austen. It is really the ham-fisted re-interpreters of Ms. Austen’s work that have earned my rebuke.

In film after film, we are shown doe eyed young ladies, handsome young men, horses and wide shots of supposed British Countryside shot through hazy lenses trying to teach us what romance is really about.

Those who would produce a moving like Becoming Jane, who would twist a one time meeting with Mr. Tom Lefroy into a torrid, tragic unrequited love. They deserve my ire, not Jane Austen.

In fact, I would give Jane Austen the last word this morning.

“Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody. ” – Jane Austen.

© The Rev. Joe Cherry

Written for and Delivered to

The Unitarian Universalist Society of Cleveland

February 1, 2015

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[1] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/221/transcript