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eBook details
- Title: Darcy and Emma: Austen's Ironic Meditation on Gender (Miscellany) (Critical Essay)
- Author : Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: History,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,Language Arts & Disciplines,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 83 KB
Description
SUPPOSE JANE AUSTEN had told the story of her most famous novel from the point of view of Mr. Darcy instead of Elizabeth Bennet. In this fanciful version of Pride and Prejudice, instead of seeing Darcy through Elizabeth's eyes, readers would have full access to his self-deceptions, excuses, and follies. Darcy, of course, would still be "proud, ... above his company" (PP 10), and "'spoilt'" (PP 369); he would still fall in love with his severest critic, whose clear-eyed observations about his faults would improve his manners. However, so that Austen would not seem to be recycling her characters and plots, she would obscure this hypothetical revision by reversing the gender of all the main characters: the role of Darcy would be turned into a woman, the role of Elizabeth into a man, and so on. The newly created heiress would still be "handsome" (PP 10), "clever" (PP 16), and "'rich'" (PP 378), with a "comfort[able]" home in Pemberley (PP 384), and a disposition to be "happy" once she gets what she wants (PP 312). At this point, we must stop and note that the result bears a striking resemblance to another Austen novel, Emma. The coincidence between the novels is that of a mirror image, something reversed in the process of reflection as an object is by a mirror. Mirroring as a literary technique differs from the inclusion of stock characters, such as the incapable mothers (Mrs. Dashwood, Mrs. Bennet, Lady Bertram), or idle ne'erdo-wells (Willoughby, Mr. Wickham, Henry Crawford), who wear superimposed similarities from novel to novel. Instead, mirroring reverses a central trait--a reference such as gender--to disturb and examine paradigms. Inverting the characters in this way makes gender pivotal, positioning it as a central theme of the novel. As Austen's "concern with ... the pathetic plight of women in the society of her time and place" (Emmett 404) can place her in the tradition of feminist commentary, it is worth examining the example she offers by turning Pride and Prejudice inside out genderwise. Through gender, Austen examines preconceptions about how men and women are similar (internally or individually), how they differ (externally or socially), and what happens when someone does not quite fit the expected social pattern of gendered behavior. The use of gender in Emma and the possible sources of inspiration for this whimsical topsy-turvy--the works of Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, William Shakespeare, and the Reverend James Fordyce--reveal the truly remarkable depths in Austen's insight and writing.