I’ve
often used the passages from Pride and
Prejudice containing Mr. Collins’s proposals to Elizabeth Bennet and
Charlotte Lucas to teach writing students about choosing the appropriate kinds of
arguments for their audiences. Mr. Collins’ complete self-absorption and
ignorance of Elizabeth’s own needs and desires are clear in his carefully
“reasoned” and laboriously articulated argument for her acceptance of his
proposal. When compared with his successful proposal to the sensible but “not
romantic” Charlotte Lucas, the scenes illustrate the necessity of matching
one’s appeal to the values of the audience. “‘Do you think it incredible
that Mr. Collins should be able to procure any woman's good opinion, because he
was not so happy as to succeed with you?’” Charlotte asks (125). She then
explains how the proposals Elizabeth rejected could have been persuasive to her:
“‘I am not romantic you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home;
and considering Mr. Collins’ character, connections, and situation in life, I
am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair, as most people can
boast on entering the marriage state’” (125). The
only hitch in using these scenes to teach about audience adaptation is that the
dialogue of Mr. Collins’ proposal to Charlotte is not reported. For my part, I
suspect Mr. Collins would have seen no benefit in alteration and would have
applied a nearly identical address to Charlotte, making the report of the
details unnecessary. However, scanty treatment of dialogue during marriage
proposals is rather the rule than the exception throughout Austen’s novels.
When marriage is always the reward of the virtuous heroine, Austen’s choice to
shy away from the particulars of her novels’ climatic moments is a source of
disappointment, criticism, and debate for many readers. It also presents a
problem for someone trying to use the text to teach about persuasive use of
language. Or does it? Is there perhaps something more complex and revealing
about the nature of persuasion in Austen’s almost consistent down-playing of
dialogue in her proposal scenes? Mildred
Wherrit discusses Austen’s pattern of proposal “scene”[1]
treatment: “Although Austen presents some scenes of proposals which are comic
and others which are painful or abortive, she consistently withholds scenes when
proposals are joyful and successful” (244). Mr. Collins’ proposal to
Charlotte is perhaps not joyful for any one but himself, but it is successful
and even believable. A few pages prior to the proposal, Austen warns that
Charlotte desires to “secure [Elizabeth] from any return of Mr. Collins’
addresses, by engaging them towards her self” (121). In other words, while
Elizabeth could not be persuaded by his words, Charlotte did not need to be
persuaded by them; this had already been achieved. What he had to say had very
little effect on her decision to marry him. Aristotle’s best known description of the art of rhetoric calls it “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion” (3). Whether instances of persuasion Austen agrees with (reconciling her heroines and heroes) or ones she criticizes (Charlotte’s acceptance of Mr. Collins), Austen represents processes of persuasion that involve much more than words. So it should not be surprising that Austen’s treatment of persuasion as a complex process is very much in line with the scholarly wisdom of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century rhetoricians such as Francis Bacon, George Campbell, and Hugh Blair.
Critiques and
Defenses of Austen's Marriage Proposal Scenes Austen’s
retreat into paraphrase or indirect report at the moment the hero proposes
marriage to the heroine, or even worse, her choice to report the agreement to
marry as an accomplished fact (which she does in Northanger
Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield
Park) has been cited as evidence of her artistic deficiency or even a
personal inability or unwillingness to render intense emotion. Reasons offered
for such shortcomings range from artistic to biographical/psychological.
Wherrit’s article summarizes many of these criticisms and even includes some
defenses of Austen’s choices for particular scenes, but these moves, she
argues, do not produce any evidence that Austen can, in
fact, depict a tender love scene in detail. In the absence of such evidence, any
assertion that she could have done so if she had chosen seems unfounded.
Therefore, it seems more reasonable to conclude that she did not, and therefore
probably could not, handle the intense emotion implied by a climactic proposal
scene. (244) While
I have reservations about these conclusions, I also doubt that I could provide
the kind of evidence of ability Wherrit wants. However, I do find several of the
arguments defending Austen's choices convincing. I’ll mention these briefly
and then, with the aid of Arthur Walzer’s reading of Persuasion
in light of eighteenth-century rhetoric, suggest some additional defenses of
Austen’s decisions to render proposal scenes with little or no reported
dialogue. One
argument claims Austen is following eighteenth-century rules of decorum that
would prevent her from invading and divulging her favorite characters’ moments
of unguarded sensibility (Stout 317). That Austen, a challenger and critic of
conventions would feel so bound by decorum, is only credible to me in light of
the fact that Austen was known to be so invested in some of her characters that
they felt like real people to her.[2]
For this reason she might have respected their privacy, particularly, as
Kathleen Lundeen suggests, to prevent some of her more reserved (and heretofore
misguided) heroes such as Edmund Bertram and Edward Ferrars, as well as the
readers, from embarrassment (67). Arguments
I find more convincing are those that ask the reader to consider the treatment
of marriage and proposals in terms of the larger projects of Austen's novels.
Lundeen argues for the “thematic fittingness of the main betrothal scenes”
to each novel’s own broader purpose (65). To want Austen's explicit rendering
of the proposal scene in Northanger Abbey
(see Wherrit), for example, is to entirely ignore the aims of the novel. How
could Austen undermine her own parody by providing the exact scene of
declarations of passion a lover of Gothic novels would expect? As Lundeen
argues, Catherine Morland’s experiences in the novel amount to an initiation
into the real world. In his book Resisting
the Novel Lennard J. Davis argues that talk between two people is not like
the dialogue between characters such as Austen’s Elizabeth and Darcy during
the ball at Netherfield[3]. Real proposals are rarely
as eloquent as they sound in books. Austen might have rendered the scene blandly
just to make this point, but I believe she is too generous an author to do so.
She wants to chasten Catherine, not discredit her or her “artless” affection
for Henry Tilney. Janis
Stout sides with what she terms the “minority view of Austen's work,” which
finds Austen's treatment of passion and expressiveness “not emotionally
limited but emotionally subtle” (317). She argues convincingly that Austen is
following a theory of novels and a theory of language in her conscious choice to
treat the marriage proposal scenes somewhat “distantly.” Particularly in the
novels with animated, witty heroines—such as Pride
and Prejudice, Emma, and even to
some extent Persuasion, the silence of
the proposal scenes provides a necessary contrast to the function of dialogue
and conversation in the other parts of the novel. What reveals the foolishness
or immorality of an Austen character more than his or her language? And what is
also the tool of Wickhams, Willoughbys, Lady Susans, and Mr. Elliots? Language
disguises as much as it reveals. Stout argues that “it is largely because of
this contrast between the relative speechlessness of her lovers at the moment of
their revelations and their talkativeness on other occasions that we believe the
scenes involved are very special and worth our imaginative filling in” (322). Considering
the pattern of treatment across the novels, Mary Alice Burgen suggests that
declining to delineate an orderly proposal scene with dialogue, as well as
placement of proposals in the less-restricted setting of the outdoors, is
Austen’s way of deliberately emphasizing the possibility of the disorderly
“for creating living value in a time and space confused by distractions and
beset by the temptation to bad choices” (51). The
concern over Austen’s lack of dialogue and distancing at proposal scenes comes
in part, I believe, because readers fail to consider the couples’
relationships rhetorically. The scenes are not only consistent with the general
theme of each novel (see Lundeen’s discussion); taken together, they also
become a commentary on the process of persuasion—a study of how people come to
understand their own passions and influence the passions, understanding,
imagination, and, most importantly, the will of others to act. While each novel
comes at it in a different way, the latter ones particularly can be read as
studies of choice-making, or more exactly, of influence—of how one chooses to
use one’s own influence and how one might make a moral response to the
influences. —
II — Persuasion and
Eighteenth Century Rhetorical Theory Rackin
writes that “true persuasion, like a true moral religious belief or true
prudence, results from the interaction of faculties in a single mind. . . .
Moreover, such a true persuasion will finally have concrete results in the
material world” (57). Although he does not consider it in these terms, his
description for the “interaction of faculties in a single mind” resembles
the descriptions of successful rhetoric in the eighteenth century, specifically,
that the successful orator will “engage in his service all [the] different
powers of the mind, the imagination, the memory, and the passions” (Campbell
77). In
the October 1995 issue of College English,
Arthur Walzer argues for the appropriateness of studying Austen’s work in
terms of theories of rhetoric present in the intellectual climate of her time.[4]
Walzer summarizes the theories about faculty psychology and persuasive rhetoric
in the work of Francis Bacon, George Campbell, and Hugh Blair. Bacon, with
significant clarification and promulgation from Campbell and Blair, defined a
“new rhetoric” that shifted the focus from the art of composing arguments to
the art of persuading an audience, of moving them to action (Walzer 690).
Working early in the eighteenth century, Bacon proposed theories of faculty
psychology which become widely accepted and used into the nineteenth century (Bizzell
and Herzberg 639). He “divides the human intellect into the ‘faculties’ of
memory, imagination, and reason . . . [and] adds two others[,]. . . the will and
the appetite” (639). Bacon explained the function of language (rhetoric) as an
operation of the faculties. Essentially, “rhetoric applies reason to the
imagination to move the will” (639). While this formula was later revised by
Campbell to include roles for the imagination and desire, the faculty of action,
the belief that “reasoning was not enough to produce persuasion,” was a
constant from Bacon’s time. Blair
and Campbell, both clergymen and academics, were prominent and prolific
influences in public and educational forums. The “most definitive treatment in
the eighteenth century of rhetoric as a study of the way the mind responds to
symbols” (Walzer 690) is Campbell’s Philosophy
of Rhetoric (1776), which synthesizes the key concerns of eighteenth-century
rhetorical theorists and educators: they include “the relationship of rhetoric
to contemporary philosophy, the practical concern for improving pulpit
eloquence, popular interest in elocution . . . , the connection of rhetoric with
literature and criticism, and the long-standing claims of classical rhetoric”
(Bizzell and Herzberg 654). Campbell broadens the reach of rhetoric to include
four principal types of discourse: “discourses that convinces, discourse that
pleases, discourse that moves, and discourse that persuades” (Walzer 690). But
these types of discourse are not equal; they seem to have a hierarchy of ends.
The aim of discourse that convinces is only understanding, but discourse that
persuades ends in action. The only
way to achieve persuasion is by appealing to (pleasing
or moving) imagination and desire to move the will: Aristotle believed that
“we must want something to act” (691). With the incorporation of these
faculties of psychology, rhetoric is no longer engaging in agonistic debate;
instead, it becomes “mechanistic” or ‘operational,’” and at times, it
even appears manipulative. Walzer mentions that Campbell describes persuasion as
an involuntary process, a “clockwork,” that, given a sufficient wind,
functions as desired. The chain reaction begins with language which pleases the
imagination, which, in turn acts on the desires, which power the will to action.
Processes of
Persuasion in the Novels In
order to illustrate the dynamics and moments of the process of
persuasion—language working on the imagination to trigger a desire that powers
the will, the faculty of action—I'll separate the novels into two groups. The
first group includes Northanger Abbey, Sense and
Sensibility, and Mansfield Park,
which report the proposals of the hero and heroine as accomplished, with no
detail of the moment. The second is the novels that have partial dialogue or
indirect reporting of the actual proposals: Pride
and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion. The
second group of three could also be characterized by their having heroines and
other characters who must gain self-awareness and control over their own
influence. The journey to this awareness makes up most of the dramatic action of
the plot; the reconciliations between the heroes and heroines become
confirmations that they have been persuaded to grow and change. By contrast, in
the first group, where the proposals are passed over, the reader is well
acquainted with the sentiments of the heroine from very early in the novel.
There is little self-discovery for her; she has only to remain constant and wait
for something to influence the hero’s will to act on his (usually) long
established regard and propose. Because the virtuous heroine deserves to be
rewarded (married happily, in Austen novels), we must know that she has been;
however, in these three novels the climax and action are invested in other
themes. Catherine Morland struggles to work out the lines between fantasy and
fiction; Elinor struggles to maintain equilibrium in a melodramatic world (Lundeen,
67); and Fanny struggles to remain true to her moral judgment in the face of
well-meant conspiracies of circumstances, family, and friends. There
are several other moments during the courtships of Austen’s characters which
seem to illustrate Campbell’s persuasive formula at work from the initial
charge of language to the resulting actions. The rhetorical process of
persuasion is most visible in the novels where the heroes and heroines must
overcome some kind of prejudice or weakness before they develop or acknowledge
their love, even to themselves. Emma,
the slowest learner of Austen’s heroines, doesn’t realize that she is in
love with Mr. Knightly until page 407 of a 484 page novel. Then, Harriet’s
account of Mr. Knightley’s preference for herself affects Emma’s imagination
which excites an awareness of her own desires. On hearing Harriet’s words, Emma's
eyes were instantly withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating, in a fixed
attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient for making her
acquainted with her own heart [desires]. A mind like hers, once opening to
suspicion [imagination], made rapid progress. She touched - she admitted - she
acknowledged the whole truth. (407-08) At
this point, as readers, if not as uncertain as Emma is of Mr. Knightley’s
returning her affection, we are at least without any certain knowledge of his
feelings for her. In order to learn Emma’s lessons with her, we must be kept
tightly within her point of view for a good portion of the novel. It is not
until the post-proposal discussions that we are told that Mr. Knightley’s
experience reveals the interaction of imagination and desire as well. His
awareness of his love for Emma has preceded by only a few months Emma’s
acknowledgment of hers for him: “He had been in love with Emma, and jealous of
Frank Churchill, from about the same period, one sentiment having probably
enlightened him as to the other” (432). In
Northanger Abbey, most of Henry Tilney’s behavior toward Catherine
is kind and friendly, but hardly indicative of his being in love with her. By
the end of the novel, however, something has persuaded him to propose to
Catherine. Austen accounts for the change by explaining that Henry was
eventually won by nothing more dramatic or glamorous than the fact that
Catherine liked him (243). The process begins in earnest when Henry’s sister,
Eleanor, perceives Catherine’s interest in him and tells him of it. Her
treatment by his family, including his father’s constant promotion of
Catherine as a suitable choice for a wife (before her poverty is revealed), must
have suggested the idea to his imagination. Her devotions influence his desires
for marriage, and his father's actions and words against Catherine influence
Henry’s understanding and will to act, to make the journey to apologize and
propose. Even
in cases where they have previously come to know their own hearts, Austen’s
characters are often moved to act on those feelings by persuasion originating
with a speech or letter. In Pride and
Prejudice, Darcy and Elizabeth have each acknowledged to himself or herself
that they love the other well before the novel’s end. However, they have
limited opportunity to ascertain the desires of the other. For both, the
motivation to speak of their own feelings arises in response to what someone
says or writes. Elizabeth,
who has come to realize that she does love Mr. Darcy, knows rationally that
Lydia’s scandalous behavior and her own harsh rejection of his first proposal
make a second proposal unlikely. Her resolution to open up as much of a
conversation about their relationship as she properly can comes as a result of
her Aunt’s letter. Darcy is moved to consider a second proposal by the
particular care his Aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, takes in relating back to
him her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the
substance of her conversation with Elizabeth; dwelling emphatically on every
expression of the latter, which, in her ladyship's apprehension, peculiarly
denoted her perverseness and assurance, in the belief that such a relation must
assist her endeavors. . . .But unluckily for her ladyship, its effect had been
exactly contrariwise. Although
Darcy claims he would have come to the point without Elizabeth’s help (381),
it is her expression of gratitude to him for his part in saving Lydia which
moves him to offer his second proposal (366). Campbell
writes at length on the virtues of good speech: speech with vivacity and energy
stimulates the imagination (the first step in persuasive process) and attracts
the attention (7). In Pride and Prejudice,
Elizabeth, recalling that Darcy had easily withstood the charm of her beauty and
manner, invites Darcy to account for beginning to love her. “‘[W]hat could
set you off in the first place?’” she asks (380). They account for it in a
manner that is very much in harmony with Campbell’s claim for the power of
energetic delivery. Although Darcy says he “‘cannot fix upon the hour, or
the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation,’” he admits
he admired her for her “‘liveliness of
. . . mind’” (380). Elizabeth says her liveliness might as well be
called impertinence but that it must have provided a contrast to the deference
and officious civility Darcy was used to. And even though Darcy “‘knew no
actual good’” of her, she begins to think of his being persuaded by such a
thing to love her as “perfectly reasonable” (380). Perhaps
the example which most reflects persuasion as an involuntary process is in Emma when Mr. Knightly ends up proposing to Emma when he had only
come to see how well she was taking Frank Churchill’s engagement. Assured that
Emma was not committed to Frank, he imagines only that he may soon be allowed to
persuade Emma to care for him instead. He sought her out at that time, however, with no selfish view, no view at all, but of
endeavoring, if she allowed him an opening, to soothe or to counsel her. The
rest had been the work of the moment, the immediate effect of what he heard, on
his feelings. The delightful assurance of her total indifference towards Frank
Churchill, of her having a heart completely disengaged from him, had given birth
to the hope, that, in time, he might gain her affection himself; –but then it
had been not present hope–he had only, in the momentary conquest of eagerness
over judgment, aspired to be told that she did not forbid his attempt to attach
her. –The superior hopes which gradually opened were so much the more
enchanting. –The affection, which he had been asking to be allowed to create if
he could, was already his! (432). This
example, however, provides one of Austen's reactions to eighteenth-century
rhetoric: to represent processes of persuasion that are not as clearly linear as
Campbell’s formula represents. For Campbell, persuasion occurs when language
works on the imagination to trigger a desire that powers the will, the faculty
of action. In Austen’s scenarios, desire is often already present and known,
and word only sometimes functions to motivate the will to action. In Emma,
Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion,
the proposal becomes an official acknowledging of what is already known by most
parties. The more detailed the proposal, the less knowledge the characters have
of what might move their audience’s will to the desired action. —
III — Austen’s
Responses to Eighteenth Century Rhetoric Walzer
argues that Austen’s last novel, Persuasion,
“has a justifiable claim to at least a minor place in the rhetorical canon”
because it “enacts the psychology of persuasion set forth in Bacon, Campbell,
and Blair” and also because it “offers a counter to a rhetorical theory
grounded in a rationalist ethic” (705). I agree with Walzer, but I also find
that each of Austen’s six novels “enacts” and revises contemporary
theories of rhetoric, and, taken together, deserve more than a minor place in
the canon of the history of rhetoric. I
should perhaps clarify here, that I am not necessarily arguing for a conscious
and deliberate use or revision of eighteenth-century rhetorical theory on
Austen’s part. On the one hand, I am trying to demonstrate that her novels
reveal the widely held assumptions about persuasion she would have been familiar
with as a well-read person. On the other hand, I am arguing that Austen’s
concern with influence and persuasion provides a complex and intricate
exploration of the human mind and heart that informs and reacts against such
assumptions. Austen’s
novels tend to represent persuasion with all its phases—moving the desires,
often the understanding, to affect the imagination which can then move the will
to action—as a process over a much longer period of time than Campbell or
Blair usually represent. The actual moments of proposal are only the last phase.
We must be assured that the characters did act, but compared to what it takes to
influence the desires and understanding, acting on those desires often requires
only minor persuasion (although this differs slightly from novel to novel,
depending on the confidence of the hero in the heroine's affection for him). For
those concerned with Austen’s lack of dialogue in the proposal scenes, Pride
and Prejudice’s Elizabeth
Bennet actually provides reasons why they need not always be reported. During
her explanation to Darcy for her refusal of his first proposal, he suggests that
the character flaws Elizabeth gives as her reasons for refusing him “‘might
have been overlooked’” had he not injured her pride by confessing his
scruples about her family. Only made angrier by the assumption that she should
overcome her family pride in order to “overlook” what she perceives to be
very amoral behavior, Elizabeth corrects Darcy’s misplaced trust in the power
of his language: “‘You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode
of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the
concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more
gentleman-like manner’” (192). The words he chose did not significantly
contribute to the success or failure of his proposal. By far, the most important
actions of the novel are the processes which first persuade them of their
opinions of one another and those that then lead them to change their minds. So
much of this change has been accomplished prior to the moment of proposal at the
end of the novel that the actual words of Elizabeth’s acceptance are simply
not that important. Characters
Accounting for the Persuasive Process Persuasion
in Austen’s novels is a more complex and less linear than Campbell’s and
Blair’s representations of it. This claim is supported by one of the signature
elements of her novels, the post-proposal discussion. At the end of Pride
and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Darcy, shown before in their own witty
exchanges to be skilled rhetoricians, are acutely interested in accounting for
the persuasive processes undergone by each of them to reach the point of mutual
regard and love, which they have just acknowledged. The lengthy discussion is
appropriate to a book with the project of exploring how prejudices are formed
and lost. But this is also a feature of every Austen novel except Mansfield
Park. Austen
is interested in identifying the kinds of relationships likely to make good
marriages. In terms of this project is it simply not important to know what
words the hero and heroine exchange when they agree to marry. It is much more
important that the two can reflect long and in detail about the means and
rightness of their judgment. The moment of proposal merely puts them in a new
relationship where they can then, quite properly and respectably, have these
important dialogues. Some of these are important for us to hear, some are not.
The characters, like Darcy and Elizabeth, who undergo the most growth in the
process tend to have much longer and detailed post-proposal discussions. In Persuasion,
we are told that many of the particulars of Anne and Wentworth’s conversation
are interesting only to themselves. What we do hear of the conversation,
however, is Wentworth’s accounting for his behavior and change of heart. These
details are important to Austen since the lessons he has learned are central to
the larger project of the novel as a revision of contemporary gendered notions
of persuasion which valued principled, autonomous (male) conviction and action
over a persuadable (female) nature which allows itself to be influenced by
others. Good Judgment and
18th Century Persuasion Walzer
says that a mark of the new rhetorics is a concern with hearer, rather than the
composition, of an argument. He also states that “the new model of the
persuasive process has ethical implications for judging both hearers and
persuaders” (692). But Campbell’s and Blair’s texts are still primarily
addressed to rhetors, to those attempting to persuade. One of the most important
additions of Austen’s novels to rhetorical theory is that they take up these
implications of the new rhetoric for hearers. These seem to be implications that
Campbell ignores; in fact, he eliminates them when he conceives of rhetoric as
device that “will not permit the hearers even a moment’s leisure . . . but
as it were by some magic spell, hurries them ere they are aware, into love,
pity, grief, terror, desire, aversion, fury or hatred” (4). For the most part,
Austen’s novels reject this mechanistic representation of persuasion and set
forth the missing guidelines for judging as a subject of persuasion, for
reacting to the individual and cultural arguments which surround us.
Austen
novels can be read as studies of how to make good choices. Walzer quotes from
Campbell’s introduction, which “maintains that the study of rhetoric
‘leads directly to an acquaintance with ourselves; it not only traces the
operations of the intellect and the imagination, but discloses the lurking
springs of action in the heart. In this view, it is perhaps the surest and
shortest, as well as the pleasantest way of arriving at the science of the human
mind’” (690). The explicit commentary by Austen’s heroines on the
importance of self-knowledge in Pride and Prejudice, Emma,
and Mansfield Park point to a
similarity of project in Austen’s and Campbell’s work.
Mary
Alice Burgen characterizes Mansfield Park
as “a stage in Jane Austen’s exploration of ways to make plain virtue
artistically convincing” (33). The process of persuasion is central in this
book, but, again, it is not central to the relationship between the hero and
heroine. In fact, their relationship is mostly intact from the beginning of the
novel. Edmund must go through his devastating relationship with Mary Crawford
before he is capable of building his and Fanny’s friendship into more. Thus,
the proposal scene is not a point of emphasis in this novel. However,
other significant sights for investigating the processes of persuasion emerge
throughout the story. Fanny is a study of self-persuasion; she constantly argues
with herself, questioning her passions and feelings in order to keep them in
line with her morality. She is constant, but she is not stagnant. She is
continually re-convincing herself that she has in fact acted correctly. Edmund
is a bit slower. He is used to success as a rhetor, both as a clergyman and as
Fanny’s tutor; however, he is much less accustomed to waging persuasive
battles on the internal front. Much of Edmund’s action in the novel is an
endeavor to find support to help his understanding (morality) be reconciled to
his passion’s persuasion for Mary Crawford. Recall his several discussions
with Fanny which rationalize and excuse the improprieties of Mary Crawford. Edmund,
along with characters such as Emma, and perhaps Elizabeth Bennet, shows that the
most skilled rhetoricians are often victims of their own eloquence as they
succeed in persuading their good judgment and reason to accept what their
passions want. (Edmund’s study for the clergy, his position on the importance
of elocution, and his understanding of what is required to win Fanny’s heart
are indications of his skill as a rhetor.) Fortunately, Mary Crawford’s
cunning has persuasive limits, and by the end of the book, we are assured that
Edmund will undergo the remaining process of persuasion that Fanny is really the
kind of wife he wants. The process of this persuasion is well underway, and
since the more significant battles of influence have been fought and won, it is
not necessary for Austen to recount this final one in detail. An
emphasis on self as the source of right judgment (when not blinded by
rationalizations) comes up as well in Emma.
In response to the birth of Mrs. Weston’s daughter, Mr. Knightley and Emma
discuss indulged children, comparing the nature of the child’s probable
upbringing to Emma’s. Remarking on Mr. Knightley's “‘endeavors to
counteract the indulgence of other people,’” Emma says, “‘I doubt
whether my own sense would have corrected me with out it.’” He answers:
“‘Do you? –I have no doubt. Nature gave you understanding; Miss Taylor gave
you principles. You must have done well’” (462). Likewise, Knightley
predicts that young Miss Weston “‘will be disagreeable in infancy, and
correct herself as she grows older’” (461). While possibly a little colored
by his love for Emma, Mr. Knightley’s judgment has, by this time in the novel,
long been established as sound. It is this vision of a more mature Emma which
Knightley admires that allows readers to like Emma and wish her well, in spite
of herself. Further, the process by which Mr. Knightly believes she would have
righted (or perhaps did right) herself reflects the complexities and
interactions of the faculties involved in the process of persuasion. Marriage,
Influence, and Morality In
a world where women had little power over their material lives, where what
income they did have became the property of husbands should they marry, the
morality by which people chose to use their power, and the means of moral
influence available to those without material power, were certainly real and
pertinent concerns. In Pride and Prejudice,
Elizabeth disguises a serious critique of Darcy’s character in this quip to
Colonel Fitzwilliam: “‘I imagine your cousin brought you down with him
chiefly for the sake of having somebody at his disposal. I wonder he does not
marry, to secure a lasting convenience of that kind’” (184). While they are
delivered lightly, Elizabeth’s words become serious when followed, only a few
pages later, by Darcy’s first marriage proposal. From what she understands of
his character, Darcy would be not only an unpleasant but also a tyrannical
husband, particularly because he appears to be willfully beyond any other
person’s influence. It is at Pemberbley, when she apprehends the uses he makes
of his power and position, that Elizabeth’s admiration for Darcy begins. While
there, she contemplates Darcy’s portrait and his housekeeper’s sincere
praise of him: There was certainly at this moment, in
Elizabeth’s mind, a more gentle sensation towards the original, than she had
ever felt in the height of their acquaintance. . . . As a brother, a landlord, a
master, she considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship! –How much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow!
–How much of good
or evil must be done by him! (250-51). Having
believed him proud and selfish in wielding his power, Elizabeth would not later
be able to reconsider Darcy’s proposal without this kind of evidence to the
contrary. Choosing well, in Austen’s novels, is about choosing not to be
persuaded by the importance of rank, title, or fortune, as so many of her
characters are in the marriages they enter.
However,
even under circumstances of political and social inequality, Austen’s novels
argue for the possibility of a marriage of equals. She does this, I believe,
through portraying women as agents of influence. Even those characters who would
seem to have little power often find themselves in situations where they must
judge how to use their influence over others. Austen’s novels give us an
insight into the female response to commonly held assumptions about the nature
and spheres of persuasion. Campbell’s work assumes the occasion of public
speaking—desiring to affect the passions, understanding, and will of one’s
listeners. Austen refuses to limit the importance and occasions of persuasion to
public, and therefore male, speech. Her work validates women’s speech by
arguing for the application of rhetorical skill and sensibility in the polite,
and, in a sense, public speech and conversation of social relationships. In
her worlds, women are as accountable as men for the use they make of their
influence, for Austen’s female characters reveal as wide a range of morality
in their influences as her male characters do. Elinor Dashwood must judge and
hold her family together in Sense and
Sensibility. In Northanger Abbey,
Isabella and then Eleanor Tilney influence Catherine’s interpretation of the
world around her. Mrs. Norris, Mary Crawford, the Bertram girls, and then Fanny
herself are all clearly wielders of influence in their own circles in Mansfield Park. Lady Catherine De Bourgh’s real and presumed
influence is crucial to the plot of Pride
and Prejudiced and is clearly judged in contrast to someone like the
sensible Aunt Gardiner. In Emma, the
title character is without rival, except perhaps for Mrs. Elton, as a study in
the use of influence and power. And finally, in Persuasion, Lady Russell, Mrs. Croft, Lousia Musgrove, and, of
course, Anne Elliot all have opportunities to influence and persuade characters
of both genders. In
addition to representing women as initiators and not just victims of persuasion,
Austen argues for the possibility of a marriage of equals by interrogating the
grounds on which characters allow themselves to be persuaded to marry. In his
reading of Persuasion, James Kastely
argues that Austen is concerned with the “difficulties and recalcitrance of a
world of accidental attachment” (87). He points out that Anne’s and
Wentworth’s original relationship was “founded on the good luck of two
people who were right for each other and who accidentally came together at the
right place and time (‘he had nothing to do, and she had hardly any body to
love’)” (86). The novel shows most marriages, such as that of Mary and
Charles, to be a product of accident involving what Kastely terms an “ethical
loss,” a loss of self from connecting one’s identity with another who is not
an equal. Mary and Charles Musgrove’s marriage, says Kastely, “inverts the
novel’s ideal of marriage as a continuing conversation between equals” (75).
By contrast, Anne and Wentworth’s marriage, a product of mature choosing, is a
“rhetorical relationship that is grounded firmly in passion eloquently
communicated” (86). So
how are people to avoid accidental attachments, since, as Elizabeth Bennet
observes to her Aunt Gardiner, “‘we see every day that where there is
affection, young people are seldom withheld by immediate want of fortune [in
other words, by prudence, reason, or judgment], from entering into engagements
with each other’”? “‘[H]ow,’” she asks, “‘can I promise to be
wiser than so many of my fellow creatures if I am tempted, or how am I even to
know that it would be wisdom to resist?’” (145). Elizabeth promises her aunt
“‘not to be in a hurry’” and to “‘do what I think to be wisest’”
(145). Fortunately, like Anne Elliot, Elizabeth usually does have fairly good
judgment, if not always good information. —
IV — A Feminine
Rhetoric? Walzer
claims Austen offers a “counter to a rhetorical theory grounded in a
rationalist ethic” in a “distinctly feminine voice” by illustrating the
superiority of feeling, sympathy, and persuadability in the process of
persuasion. I disagree. Austen’s characters make moral judgments based on more
than the faculties appealed to by passion. If there is a feminine counter to
contemporary rhetorical theory to be found in Austen, I believe it is an
argument for the possibility of a comfortable balance and inclusiveness of all
the available resources of judgment and persuasion in the quest to achieve
reliable and moral results. Because
of their good judgment, Anne and Elizabeth are able to instruct us and the men
they love in the finer points of persuasion, and in doing so, suggest some
needed revisions to dominant or masculine applications of rhetoric. One of the
first of these comes up in the contrast between the way Darcy and Elizabeth
account for falling in love with one another. Darcy’s cannot offer much of an
explanation, since he was “‘in the middle before [he] knew [he] had
begun,’” but he admits he admired Elizabeth for her “‘liveliness of
. . . mind’” (380). Elizabeth is not content with this, for she knows
that her “liveliness” was no better than impertinence, that her behavior to
him had bordered on uncivil, and that he had earlier withstood her beauty. Her
best explanation is that he came to love her because she provided a contrast to
the deference and officious civility Darcy was used to. She allows the
explanation to stand, but gently points out that this is a questionable basis
for love in her remark that Darcy “‘knew no actual good’” of her (380).
Elizabeth’s judgments and feelings about Darcy are almost entirely based on
the great deal of good she knows of him and the esteem this knowledge has built.
But perhaps he knows more good of her than they acknowledge, since he knows her
to have a better grasp of the process of persuasion than he does. Darcy
acknowledges that he learned better conduct on the evening Elizabeth rejected
his first proposal: “‘Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget:
“had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.” Those were your words.
You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me; –though it
was sometime, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their
justice.’” (367-68). Elizabeth, who “‘had not the smallest idea of their
being ever felt in such a way,’” comes to understand that she had taught
Darcy a great lesson in the art and process of persuasion–that it must attend
to a fuller range of faculties than the orderliness of his words. When
they launch their unsuccessful proposals, Mr. Elton (in Emma),
Mr. Collins, and Mr. Darcy, under the mechanistic model of persuasion, are all
certain their proposals will be accepted, merely because they are offered.
However, each discovers his presumption and somewhat willful inattention to
the range of faculties involved in persuasion.[5]
The nature of this error is best illustrated by Darcy’s unsuccessful proposal
to Elizabeth, because he is the only one of these characters able to take
correction. The lesson comes when Elizabeth defends her curt refusal of Darcy as
follows: “‘I might as well enquire,’ replied she, ‘why with so evident a
design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you like me
against you will, against your reason, and even against your character?’”
(190). Elizabeth, whose own
persuasion to love is firmly rooted in morality, recognizes persuasion that goes
against the will, the reason, and the character to be false. Darcy, presumably
educated in rhetoric and persuasion, has thought Elizabeth would find the story
of his desire subduing his other faculties flattering, but Elizabeth knows that
good judgment will satisfy all the faculties of the mind. Good
judgment is a characteristic that several Austen heroines learn or exhibit. As
the most mature heroine, Anne Elliot perhaps is the best example of the way to
judge. Persuasion,
in Kastely’s view, gives the passions an important epistemological role (82).
Anne’s “passion” is generosity. Her openness may make her vulnerable, but
it is also “what allows her to grow and to know what she needs” (82).
Kastely explains how generosity and judgment function to guide Anne rightly. Anne’s continual efforts of acknowledging and
doing justice to other characters, even to Wentworth after he has cruelly
wounded her, are motivated by generous feelings. If certain passions may abet a
willed ignorance and create hermeneutical difficulties by allowing characters to
see only the world that they want to see, a generous passion will serve as a
reliable guide by attaching a character to his or her Other. This is the lesson
of Romance. The generosity of her feelings allows Anne to escape most of the
dangers and misunderstandings that threaten the other characters. And if she is
in danger of isolating herself by seeking to repress her feelings for Wentworth,
she is never in danger of attaching herself inadvertently to the wrong person,
however attractive that character may appear to others. Because Anne's feelings
are generous, her judgment is secure. (82)
My
reading of the virtue of judgment in Austen’s novels is that it is a process
of careful reading, reasoning, and right feeling. Integral to the process of
persuasion, judgment seems to combine the reason and the passions. Donald
Rackin suggests that Anne Elliot’s moral superiority comes from the virtue
comprising the title of the novel, persuasion and persuadability. Persuasion,
he agues, can be read as a novel that works out the subtleties of this virtue.
Unlike Lady Russell, who is guided only by rigid principles, or the other
Elliots, who are guided only by the passions of their own pride and vanity, Anne
is able to comprehend the “proportions and limits” of persuasion (136).
Rackin illustrates how Anne is shown, not as Wentworth has judged
her–weak-willed and persuadable like Henrietta Musgrove–but as a mature
moral agent acting from her own internal persuasions, revealing the ability,
unlike the other Elliots, to self-correct (58-59). He says: “if life blossoms
for Anne in the autumn of her life, it does so . . . because her persuadability
has aged into self-controlled persuasion” (Rackin 64). She is also able to
teach these virtues to Wentworth by the end of the novel. He comes to understand
that persuasion is part of mature moral action; “that mere unpersuadability is
not sufficient equipment to cope with a universe in which surprises and
misfortunes–moral as well as physical–are the only certainties, and an alert
mind and loving heart are required of all” (55). Walzer’s reading of Persuasion
also asserts that Austen’s representations reject and critique the association
of resolution with masculinity and yielding, and of weak-minded tempers with
femininity. I
believe Jane Austen’s treatment of persuasion simply and powerfully represents
her reaction to the male rhetoricians of her time, who struggle in many volumes
to explain how to affect an audience in ways that account for the operation of
both reason and passion in human persuasion. As is shown in Pride
and Prejudice during the early debate between Elizabeth and Darcy on the
merits of Bingley’s hypothetical resolution or persuadability (48-51), Austen
values those who judge and defer to others because of their relationship with
them, rather than acting only on the basis of logic or commitment to an abstract
principles and decisive action. As Walzer points out, Campbell’s formula of
the interaction of the faculties stresses the belief that “reasoning was not
enough to produce persuasion” (639). Lessons in
Balancing Reason and Passion To
be sure, Austen has the advantage of working out credible scenarios rather than
writing a rhetoric, but in my opinion she is able to work out some of the
tensions that Blair and Campbell struggled to reconcile. Coming out of the
tradition of classical rhetoric’s emphasis on reason as the way to truth,
Blair and Campbell both show some uneasiness with the “new rhetoric’s”
downplay of its role in the persuasive process (Walzer 693). In their writings
they try to give it a place in persuading the listener to accept the images that
are to influence the passion, or a place in providing reassuring evidence once
the emotions have been convinced, or conversely, as a weapon which “although
incapable of moving the will to act, can slow or halt the movement toward
persuasion and action” (693). As
I read it, Sense and Sensibility begins an important aspect of Austen’s take
on the necessity of this balance in persuasion. Good stable relations are based
on a combination of passion and reason, which Elinor’s character embodies. Her
love for Edward is not merely an “accidental affection”; it is reasoned,
felt, then tested—in a way that reveals the process of persuasion. As is not
untypical of Austen’s novels, much of the dramatic action in Sense
and Sensibility is built up around the actions of others
[6] which
the central characters endure. Such actions provide a contrast which persuades
the reader, if not the characters themselves, that the heroine really does have
the right set of values and judgments. Rackin’s
discussion of the difference between Lady Russell’s limitation in reasoning
only according to her principles and Anne’s ability to perceive morality
outside of fixed belief systems such as class (70) indicates that reason is not
a separate and universal process of logic, but a moral process of weighing and
measuring circumstances and values. Such a perception of reason seems to
describe a process Austen’s virtuous characters use in avoiding “the
temptation to bad choices” (Burgen 51). Moreover, it explains the
reasonableness of the rapture most of her couples feel once they become engaged,
and are shortly to enjoy the “fulfillment embodied in the practical and
emblematic reward of a satisfactory marriage” (52), the “moral crucible of
Jane Austen’s world” (57). Power in the
Language of Emotion The
moment when Austen’s response to the gendering of persuasion by equating it
with decisiveness or unyielding adherence to principles is most clear in the
character of Anne Elliot in Persuasion.
By the end of the novel Anne Elliot is fairly confident that Captain Wentworth
still loves her and is faced with the challenge of persuading him of her
unchanged affection within a system of gender codes which does not allow her to
bring up such a subject.[7] The
process of Wentworth’s persuasion is rather drawn out. His desires are in
place, but it takes a few fortuitous rhetorical moments to work on his own
understanding of them. The incident at Lyme, including Anne’s competent
direction of the crisis, and his friend Captain Harville’s acknowledgment that
Wentworth and Louisa Musgrove were considered engaged by others, persuades his
understanding of his own pride and folly. However, he falls back into misreading
and misjudgment when he sees Mr. Elliot’s attentions to Anne at Bath. Anne’s
generous treatment of him moves him to doubt his readings. And finally, he is
persuaded to act by Anne’s speech to Harville about the constancy of woman’s
feelings. Wentworth writes: “I can listen no longer in silence, I must speak
to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. . . . Can you
fail to have understood my wishes? –I had not waited even these ten days, could
I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can
hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink
your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be
lost on others. –Too good, too excellent creature!” (237) This
instance of persuasion would support the arguments of Irish actor Sheridan,
Campbell’s predecessor and influence, that the “language of emotions,”
composed of “tones, looks, and gestures,” is the most persuasive language
available (Campbell 4). These tones, looks, and gestures are to be the “same
which we use in common conversation” (4). Recall that Wentworth can only hear
some of Anne’s words to Harville. Instead, it is the common tones of Anne’s
conversation that affect Wentworth. And he is confident in this kind of
communication, for in his post-script he writes, "A word, a look will be
enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or
never" (237-38). That
this was not just accidental romantic description is evident from Austen’s
first version of this scene in the discarded chapter of Persuasion.
Here Anne and Wentworth’s reconciliation is accomplished through an
inadvertent meeting and a dialogue of emotion: “He now sat down, drew [the
chair] a little nearer to her, and looked with an expression which had something
more than penetration in it–something softer. Her countenance did not
discourage. It was a silent but a very powerful dialogue; on his side
supplication, on hers acceptance” (258). I wonder if Austen’s
dissatisfaction with this version might have been due to its being too much
carried out through the language of emotion. It does not match that blend of
reason and rapture, which she went on in this version to claim for Anne and
Wentworth once their engagement is accomplished (262).
—
V — Happy Persuasion:
Reason and Rapture As
I argued earlier, Austen’s treatment of the persuasive process represents a
more comfortable relationship for the interaction of reason and passions than
found in the rhetorics of her day. The strongest statement of this revision is
the state of her main characters following the acceptance of marriage proposals,
again supporting my argument that the actual proposal is not as significant to
Austen’s purposes as what follows them. That
Austen’s novels were a deliberate project to revise eighteenth-century
rhetoric is difficult to assert, but I find some evidence once again, in the
discarded chapter of Persuasion.
Describing how Anne and Wentworth spend the afternoon after their
reconciliation, Austen writes: There was time for all this to pass, with such
interruptions only as enhanced the charm of the communication, and Bath could
hardly contain any other two beings at once so rationally and so rapturously
happy as during that evening occupied the sofa of Mrs Croft’s drawing-room in
Gay Street. (262) That
the chapter is discarded may perhaps render my claim problematic, but I believe
Austen’s revised chapters emphasize rather than contradict the sense of the
relationship communicated by this passage. The revision points to the couple’s
“maturity of mind” and “consciousness of right” (248) in their union as
well as their happiness. The treatment of Austen’s other couples is less direct, but the knowledge that they have judged well, using the combination of reading, reasoning, and feeling Anne Elliot illustrates, is what justifies and entitles them to their happiness in each other. There is always a sense of the co-presence of reason and rationality in the happiness of the deserving. In Sense and Sensibility, we are told Edward Ferrars is “in the reality of reason and truth, one of the happiest of men.” (361) After
Emma realizes Mr. Knightley loves her, we are told that Emma was “now in an
exquisite flutter of happiness, and such happiness moreover as she believed must
still be greater when the flutter should have passed away” (434). Emma senses
that her feelings will not oppose clam and rational reflection, but rather be
augmented by it. For his part, Mr. Knightley is also not so carried away in his
eagerness that he loses his reason, a virtue which Austen reveals by commenting
on his language: “It was in plain, unaffected, gentleman-like English, such
as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in love with” (448). And
after all of their accounting for their remarkable changes of heart, Elizabeth
Bennet begins to think the love between Darcy and herself “perfectly
reasonable” (380). Indeed, Austen seems to be implying that there is a logic
to love, not a rational, objective logic, but a moral one. Critiques of Austen’s treatment of proposal scenes assume that the marriage proposal is in fact the climax of the novel and that, as faithful readers, we are entitled to a full rendering of the climactic events. Such assumptions seem to me to stem from a reading of Austen’s novels as romance novels or fairy tales. In that marriage is the reward of the deserving, they are romance novels; in that they are stories meant to illustrate morality and behavior, they are fairy tale-like; but I give Austen credit for more sophisticated purposes. She was participating in, and at the same time critiquing, philosophical and literary conventions. She knew how far she could rely on them for their effect, and knew when to depart from them, for her effect. If her stories were only about one virtue or value, love, or even about one kind of passion, then we could demand clearer rendering of the moments when these virtues or feelings are achieved. But Austen’s novels are not romance stories. They are complex moral tales of virtue and reward, vice and punishment which become illustrations of how one may use the logic of love to judge and respond to the dynamics of persuasion in a complex moral world. Notes [1]Wherrit argues that, according to the requirements of fiction, most of Austen’s marriage proposals would not fully qualify as “scenes.” Quoting R. V. Cassill she says: “a scene in fiction brings ‘the action and sometimes the dialogue of the characters before the reader with a fullness comparable to what a witness might observe or overhear if [s]he had been present’” (231). [2]Austen is known to have extended her characters’ life stories beyond her novels. She also writes of trying to discover her characters as she envisioned them at portrait exhibitions. (See Austen's letters or Tony Tanner's introduction to Pride and Prejudice.) [3]See his chapter on character. [4]I provide additional evidence for claiming that Austen’s novels reveal a familiarity with eighteenth century rhetorical theories in an unpublished critique of his article, Dimensions of Persuasion in the works of Jane Austen. [5]Although I don’t have space to develop this here, I also believe Mr. Crawford's unsuccessful proposal to Fanny Price in Mansfield Park may represent an exception. It is in fact only unsuccessful because circumstances require it to be withdrawn. Austen indicates that without the obstacle of Fanny's love for Edmund, Fanny would probably not have always rejected Mr. Crawford (231). Crawford's longer-term pursuit of Fanny is an interesting study in persuasion. Although he begins with an imperfect knowledge of the desires upon which he must work, he is a skilled enough rhetor to learn from experience. His behavior when he visits Fanny in Porstmouth is virtually without offense, and Fanny's resolution never to like him appears to be significantly weakened. [6]Colonel Brandon and Marianne are both passionate and feeling people whose relationship is eventually realized throught the characters learning to balance sense and sensibility. [7]See the article by Jacquilene Reid-Walsh, “‘She Learned Romance as She Grew Older’: From Conduct Book Propriety to Romance in Persuasion.” Persuasions 93:216-25, for an interesting discussion of Anne Elliot's behavior in terms of the propriety of women speaking perpetuated by conduct books such as Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women (1765). Works Cited
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