A Feminist Examination of Pride and Prejudice - Research Paper Example

A Cultural Critic creating a Cast of Critics: Using a Feminist Literary Lens to Investigate the Role of Satire in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice “One is not born, one rather becomes a woman.” - Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex One of the most pervasive myths in society is that gender differences are universal, fixed, and unchanging. This myth has been created, legitimized, and crystallized through the power of the pen. The writing of history, as well as the writing of stories, has served to transform the female stereotype into the female archetype, in which “contemporary industrial society’s version of her is docile, soft, passive, nurturant, vulnerable, weak, narcissistic, childlike, incompetent, masochistic, and domestic, made for child care, home care, and husband care” (MacKinnon 530). Defining women in these terms has served to benefit men in all arenas, in the political, public, and private realms, while making this divide between the genders appear as a natural given that has always existed, throughout time. The ideology of gender has successfully placed women into a box, in which their voices are silenced, and their actions are rendered trivial, and thus invisible, or are highly scrutinized, and thus punished. However, the realization that the category of ‘woman’ is a social construction and not a biological imperative gave rise to a myriad of feminist theories that endeavored to locate and deconstruct “predominantly male cultural paradigms,” while salvaging women’s experiences from the wreckage of traditional historical and literary criticism that ignored, silenced and marginalized them (Green and Kahn 1). At the center of the male cultural paradigm is the power to create and recreate meaning from a male perspective, however unilateral or skewed it may be; de Beauvoir argues that the “representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth” (qtd. in MacKinnon 537). Men have used this power to name, and thus own, everything from the beginning of time; in the Genesis story of creation, not only was Eve created from Adam’s rib, she was also named by Adam, and accordingly, she became perceived as his property. This ability to create and recreate meaning is deeply entrenched in telling stories, most conventionally known as the writing of history, which has been dominated by men, who have written about men for men. Feminists have argued that, as a result of being able to write things into existence, men wield an uncontrollable amount of power to write the female body into a multitude of oppressed roles, and through systemic racism, sexist, heterosexism, and classicist domination, women have been unable to elevate themselves from their subordinate position. However, unlike feminist theories of decades past, that have been criticized for “focusing too narrowly on domination, [today’s] critics maintain, feminists have obscured the power that women can exercise and have unwittingly portrayed women as victims” (Allen 2). In this regard, current feminist theory argues that the feminist urge to focus on male domination serves to double-victimize women; therefore, in order to remove women from the category of passive victim, the new feminist critical movement must couple their discussion on domination with an attempt to find ways in which women did actively subvert male power, however subtle theses acts may be. Feminist literary criticism challenges the conventional ideal of woman-as-victim, while grounding their investigations into gender on two assumptions: first, the subordination of women to men is culturally constructed and not universally fixed; and second, male perspectives and interests, seen as absolute truths, have dominated all forms of knowledge. In response to these assumptions, Green and Kahn define the purpose of current feminist theory as also having two central objectives; “it revises concepts previously thought universal but now seen as originating in particular cultures and servicing particular purposes, and it restores a female perspective by extending knowledge about women’s experience and contributions to culture (2). Feminist literary criticism seeks to change the world by rewriting women back into the grand narratives of our lives, which demands redefining the ideologies of gender. The ideology of gender revolves around four central principles. First, it argues that the current divide between men and women, in which men hold power and women are subordinated to that power, is a universal truth that requires no analysis. Second, it illuminates how the creation and solidification of binaries have served to define women as inferior to men. Third, it deconstructs the fallacious belief that history is objective, arguing that writing history is one of the most powerful methods used to center power among men. Forth, similar to the writing of history, feminist criticism seeks to give women a voice by critically assessing literate as yet another site of creating and reinforcing male domination (Greene and Kahn 1 – 36). Because they have power to create meaning, men have divided the world into rigid binaries – white/black, civilized/natural, rational/emotional, man/woman, and their purpose in doing so goes beyond creating neat categories to compartmentalize the world. As men are equated with all the positive categories and women with all the negative, women have been constructed not only as the ‘other’ but the inferior ‘other’ who needs to be constantly monitored by the superior male. The result of these binaries is the creation of one universal category for men, but fractured categories for women, in which they are constantly having to negotiate between male conceptions of good and bad. This duplicity in women’s nature, which defines her as either the virtuous woman and good mother or the lewd prostitute and withered shrew, is most clearly articulated in the written word. “History has been a record of male experience, written by men, from a male perspective;” therefore, it is the task of feminist critics of history to reconstruct women’s history by “[filling] in the black pages and [making] the silences speak” (Greene and Kahn 13). As a result of the consolidation of the separate spheres, history has revolved around documenting the actions in the public sphere while denoting the private sphere as the trivial, unimportant woman’s world.1 However, as feminists recognize that the personal is political, historians of women argue that making the ‘silences speak’ requires an in depth analysis of the domestic realm because “women’s distinctive experience as women occurs within that sphere that has been socially lived as the personal – private, emotional, interiorized, particular, individuated, intimate – so that what it is to know the politics of woman’s situation is to know women’s personal lives” (MacKinnon 535). Writing the silence into existence removes the disempowering label of ‘victim’ to women’s experiences because it suggests that women were active participants in history and have influenced it in significant ways that have yet to be discovered. One way in which women’s participation in history is being examined is through women’s literature. Literature has served to reinforce cultural assumptions of the ideology of gender, while acting as cautionary tales that encourage women to conform to the oppressive dictates of womanhood. However, in rereading literature, especially literature by women, feminist literary criticism has unearthed ideological acts of subversion and resistance to convention. On the one hand, the 18th and 19th century novel “demonstrated how the ideals of masculinity and femininity were translated into social roles;” however, on the other hand, “they expressed resistance to the wrenching system of differentiation and revealed the psychic costs that it incurred” (Moglen 4). This split between supporting and subverting convention is most notably seen in the two types of 19th century novels, the realist and the gothic novels. Moglen defines the realist and the gothic novels as the following: “as realist fictions used sexual, social, and racial ‘others’ thematically in order to reinforce hierarchical orders of difference, fantastic fictions (which had acquired an explicitly psychological focus) dissolved the distinction between self and ‘other’ and revealed how the ‘other’ serves instrumentally in the self’s construction” (10). Therefore, defining literature as a site for maintaining and subverting power allows feminists to restore the female perspective from literary obscurity. As the growing focus on 19th century literature has taken center stage in the agenda of feminist literary critics, the words of Jane Austen has received much attention. However, in 18th century literary criticisms on Austen’s novels, two common interpretations prevailed. Fans of Austen, including her nephew and biographer, James Edward Austen-Leigh, depicted her as “dear Aunt Jane”, the intuitive genius who upheld Victorian sensibilities. In contrast, Austen’s critics, such as Mark Twain, categorized her work as 19th century superficial and safe “chick-lit”. Twain is even recorded as saying the following: “Jane Austen’s books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it” (Ray, “Victorians versus Victorians”). Such scathing critiques of Austin were met by 18th century readers who responded to these criticisms with vehement adoration for “dear Aunt Jane”, arguing that Austen filled each of her pages with “the subtle charm of her wit, her wonderful delineation of character, her irresistible humor” (Ray, “Victorians versus Victorians”). Over a century later, feminist literary critics would return to her novels, only to walk away exclaiming that Austen was a satirist, a feminist, a genius in employing irony, and a subtle, yet cynical critic of 18th century society. Indeed, this interpretation is a far cry from the image of the sweet Jane who produced silly stories about love and marriage. Austen’s novels adhere to the defining feature of the realist novel, in that the novelist must create a character that projects a consistency in her identity, with all of her beliefs and motivations, while morally evolving throughout story in response to changes in their environment. In regards to this definition, Morris argues that “few novels construct a more convincing impression of fully known and realized characters interacting with an authentic social world than those of Austen, [and] this effect of naturalness is achieved by means of superb artistic organization, which exploits to the full the potential of a novelist prose and form (Morris 32). In Pride and Prejudice, Austen takes full advantage of highlighting the absurdities, inconsistencies, and ironies of Victorian society and, on the very first line, she attacks the institution of marriage by subtly suggesting that it is nothing more than a business arrangement. By stating that “it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good further, must be in want of a wife,” Austen is playing with the literal reality (of the time) that taught men of means to marry well and women to ‘marry up’ to mask her true intention of mocking a system that encourages turning marriage into a kind of sport (Austen, 1933 edn. 5). In the game of marriage, defined at length in Pride and Prejudice, family status, reputation, and social climbing are all at stake. By opening the novel with clever doublespeak,2 feminist literary critics argue that Austen masterfully opened the debate on the Victorian ideology of gender and the politics of marriage while appearing to simply state the obvious. A central theme in Pride and Prejudice is the ambition to secure a favorable marriage in order to elevate a woman’s, and thus her family’s, position in society (Stasio and Duncan 133).3 As marriage was of the utmost importance to Victorian women, Morris emphatically argues that Austen’s focus on marriage cannot be considered trivial (52). In addition, her portrayal of the rituals of proper Victorian womanhood, as seen through the contrasting characters of Elizabeth and Mrs. Bennet, created a space in which the current issue of the time, changing ideals of marriage, could be discussed. The 18th century witnessed a huge shift in the definition of virtue. Prior to the 18th century, women were seen as the fallen daughters of Eve; however, Victorian middle-class moralists made “female chastity the archetype for human morality,” and “modesty and demureness took center stage” (Cott 224-225). In order to truly understand the strengths and weaknesses of Elizabeth Bennet, the ideology of passionlessness, espoused as the ideal in Victorian society, must be understood. Initially, feminists argued that Victorian sexual mores oppressed women’s sexuality more than any other preceding decade; however, as these critics started listening to the ‘silences’ and the doublespeak of the women of that day, they started to reconceptualize the ideology of passionlessness as an opportunity for women to control their sexuality, in the bedroom and in family planning, which is why 18th century (middle-class) women rallied quickly behind the movement. Using this insight, feminist literary critics argue that Elizabeth is simultaneously adhering to conventional ideologies of gender while using convention to subvert it (Cott 228). In returning the first line of Pride and Prejudice, the single man of means in “want of a wife” was being courted, actively, by a Victorian woman in want of a husband; yet, these strategies appeared subtly and in line with the ideology of passionlessness, so as to give the man the impression that it was he who was in control of the courtship, proposal, and marriage. In this regard, Austen’s Mr. Darcy took Elizabeth’s bait, hook, line, and sinker. Austen delivers her criticisms through swift satirical attacks that are often missed by the novice literary critic. Judith Wylie argues that “satire has long been considered the province of the male writer, and women, especially the older, outspoken ones, have been the target of the male satirist’s venom” (218). However, Austen scoffed at convention, and produced rich literary texts bursting with quick wit and irony. Pride and Prejudice is an excellent example of Austen criticizing convention by creating a cast of characters that act throughout the “play” as both critic and criticized. Priscilla Gilman draws our attention to the titles of Austen’s most famous works, including Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion, arguing that the titles alone inform the audience of Austen’s intention to act as social and cultural judge; however, because she is a woman in a time when moral austerity for women was paramount, Austen relies heavily on satire to transmit her central critiques to the reader (“Disarming Reproof”). The boundary between critic and criticized is no where as apparent as between the comparison of the two suitors, Mr. Collins and Mr. Darcy. First, Mr. Collin presents himself as employing only the highest forms of etiquette, which is seen as his blind adherence to markers of class and status; however, in being rejected by Elizabeth, Mr. Collins endures criticism from Elizabeth for the “prefatory conventions of self-effacement and self-aggrandizement”, while enduring the criticism of the audience who now view him as emasculated (Gilman, “Disarming Reproof”). In addition, Mr. Darcy, a man with a reputation for being one who “never looks at any woman but to see a blemish”, also begins as a critic who scrutinizes Elizabeth at the ball (Austen, 363). However, this quickly changes as Darcy falls for Elizabeth’s intellectual charms, only to realize that he is, in fact, not good enough for her. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticize. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness (Austen 23). It is in this union between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth that Austen delivers her strongest criticism against the ideal, status-securing, marriage-as-business-contract that had characterized most marriages throughout her time. Mr. Darcy’s affections for Elizabeth, and vice versa, are based on a mutual intrigue into, and respect for, the other’s intellect, with status being a second thought. In this regard, feminist literary critics have argued that Austen was among the first women to champion compassionate and companionate love and, as the 20th century witnessed a shift from business marriages to love marriages, one must wonder how much of an impact Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had on the transition. In conclusion, Jane Austen uses satire as a literary means to critically assess the follies of Victorian society, and she performs her critique through subtle interjections of humor and wit that have, for a long time, remained undetectable to traditional literary critics. Initially, critics slotted Austen into one of two categories; she was either perceived as sweet Aunt Jane who masterfully wrote novels for a woman of her time, or she was seen as a woman providing superficial ‘chick-lit’ to a distinguished literary corpus that included the likes of such serious writers as Mark Twain. However, as the field of feminist literary criticism evolved, analysis of Austen’s works started carefully investigating the silences, in which interpretations of Victorian ideologies of gender started shifting from being oppressive to providing a space in which women could resist and subvert convention. As “critical reading [has] become professionalized and institutionalized in major review journals as the system of determining the value of literary works,” it is only a matter of time before Austen’s works are brought to the critical table once again, in which there is no doubt that a new form of literary genius will be discovered in “dear Aunt Jane’s” complex characters and astute criticisms. Works Cited Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed, R.W. Chapman. 3rd ed. Oxford: OUP, 1933. Print. Allen, Amy. Introduction. The Power of Feminist Theory: Domination, Resistance, Solidarity. By Allen. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. 1-6. Questia. Web. 3 Dec. 2010. Cott, Nancy F. “Passionlessness: An Interpretation of Victorian Sexual Ideology, 1790 – 1850.” Signs 4.2 (1978): 219-236. Print. “Doublespeak.” Wikipedia.com. Wikipedia, n.d. Web. 4 December 2010. Gilman, Priscilla. “ ‘Disarming Reproof’: Pride and Prejudice and the Power of Criticism.” Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal (2000): 218+. Questia. Web. 5 Dec. 2010. Glaspell, Susan. “Trifles”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 6th ed. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003. 1893-1903. Print. Green, Gayle and Coppelia Kahn. “Feminist Scholarship and the Social Construction of Woman.” Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism. Eds. Gayle Green and Coppelia Kahn. London: Routledge, 1991. 1-36. Questia. Web. 3 Dec. 2010. MacKinnon, Catharine A. “Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory.” Signs 7.3 (1982): 515-543. Print. Moglen, Helene. The Trauma of Gender: A Feminist Theory of the English Novel. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001. Questia. 1-16; 57-86; 139–148. Web. 3 Dec. 2010. Morris, Pam. “Chapter 2: Reading Pride and Prejudice.” The Realist Novel. Ed. Dennis Walder. New York: Routledge, 1995. 31-60. Questia. Web. 5 Dec. 2010. Ray, Joan Klingel. “Victorians versus Victorians: Understanding ‘Dear Aunt Jane’.” Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal (2008): 38+. Questia. Web. 5 Dec. 2010. Stasio, Michael J., and Kathryn Duncan. “An Evolutionary Approach to Jane Austen: Prehistoric Preferences in Pride and Prejudice.” Studies in the Novel 39.2 (2007): 133+. Questia. Web. 5 Dec. 2010. Wylie, Judith. "Dancing in Chains: Feminist Satire in Pride and Prejudice." Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal (2000): 62+. Questia. Web. 5 Dec. 2010. . Read More