Original Penguin Classics
Question: The first draft of Austen’s book was entitled First Impressions. Discuss the
importance of first impressions in Pride and Prejudice and whether Pride and Prejudice is a more apt title.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
It was here that Val Dodd stopped me in the course of a preemptive strike. She straighten her glasses, cleared her throat and in an academic fashion, began to rip me a new one.
This was the second week of my primary tutorial in Oxford, England in October 2000. I was
slightly more than 20 years old. Skinny, good-looking, snazzy SoCal-style dresser.And distinctively out of place.
I wasn’t smart enough or good enough to be in this spot and my tutor was about to inform me of this fact.
I was gonna get dressed down, Oxford Don-style.
My tutorial, Victorian literature, sprung out of a second option. Really, a last option, one that I didn’t understand, sad to say, I really didn’t know about the Victorian period. My first Oxford essay on Sir Walter Scott’s “Redgauntlet,” began with the phrase “I honestly don’t know what is going on.”
It was the most truthful thing I had ever written.
My second essay was a critique on Jane Austen’s “Persuasion.” I picked Persuasion because it was about 200 pages long. When it came to comprehension, size didn’t matter.
Thinking I would be smart, I quoted the first line of “Pride and Prejudice” to throw off the guard dog’s scent.
Don Dodd, whom I’m sure had gone through stupid American punks like yours truly, was well-prepared, armed and ready for the kill.
I don’t remember what she said to me at that moment, or for the rest of my time in going through my essay and her dissecting it bit by bit. I just remember the last moment. Again, straightening the glass and clearing the throat, she asked, “What was your major in America?”
I cleared my throat, “uhhh, Communications.”
Dodd: Ah.
In the words of Mortal Kombat, Flawless Victory. Fatality.
Seen from the first line of Jane Austen’s book, “Pride and Prejudice” came about in the time of great societal change. While continuing to illuminate the ideals of the previous Romantic period, British culture looked into the darker wells of the human soul and the contours of England under Victoria’s reign. A time of rationality and reason abounded, while those within the age sought to ask: What is there to be seen? After something is seen, can it be understood?
The time was a period of contraction. Instead of exploring the grandiosity of the universe, the era was set to enjoy the comforts of societal norms. Words used to describing otherworldly feeling pressed against the firming of limits and the embracing of boundaries. In Austen’s seminal work, she strives to find the best of those expressions.
Victorian society centered on perception and impression. How a family lives, how a suitor dances, how a lover writes. The social constructs of appearances and innuendos kept each village together.
Austen’s book centers on the fundamental societal bounding, a marriage contract that includes the set positioning of one’s standing in class and wealth. The Bennett family is in a bind as to its future and for all her faults (and the faults of the demographic she symbolizes) the family, most especially the matriarch Mrs. Bennett, understands the way out is through marriage. It is the only path given to those in their situation.
The entail of the Bennett property was meant to keep the impression of a continual flow, an orderly succession of what may rightly belong to a family. Fair or not, the portions were divided long ago and few can interfere with those decisions.
Elizabeth Bennett is one of those few, although it takes time in the story for her to maximize her power.
Because of a misunderstanding with names, I lived with four women in a flat on Tyndale Road in north Oxford. The Brits thought Micah and Enrique were male, which is understandable. But they were female and even though we came from a fairly conservative Christian school, in England, the impressions of a man living with women was a little different.
The faculty member in charge of us looked at me, winked and said, “You’re going to have a great semester.”
Austen’s heroine relies on her intuition to make sound judgments, although it is her misjudgment of Darcy during the first dance that propels the story as a sense of her pride. Lizzie shows both strength and weakness and the reader is attuned to her working to constrain both traits. She realizes the double bind she is in, of knowing the system’s follies and yet falling in line with the system’s constraints. As Lizzie realizes in her conversation with her sister, Jane,
“The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense (pg. 133).”
But of those individuals of whom she interacts, her judgment is misguided. Darcy is arrogant and pompous, as he is “not handsome to dance with! …I quite detest the man. (pg. 15).” Wickham was dashing and worldly, which ironically turned out to be the case. It was his first impressions that he used to get ahead, as that it all he owned. Yet, in both the case of Darcy and Wickham (as well as each character), first impressions was their best and perhaps their only chance, at navigating life successfully. Wealthy or not, their reputations are their true currency.
When I arrived in Oxford, I was still clean-shaven and naively smart. One day, I tried to open up the door with my keys. They have keys in England but rather the old-fashioned kind that go in and out a “certain way.” That’s code for a giant pain in the ass to use.
I struggled to open the damn door. One of the street workers came over, push the key in and opened the door.
The worker looked at me.
“Don’t they have keys in America?”
That was the first of several low points of my Oxford semester.
In his introduction of “Pride and Prejudice” in the Original Penguin Classics (of which quotes in this essay are attributed), Tony Tanner notes that this sense of reputation and order was inherently a performance of roles each person in society plays to maintain that continual flow. Without roles and rituals, Tanner says, society has no reason for being.
The ideal, Tanner says, is for an individual is to both adhere to the roles of society and be able to look beyond the role to see context and the fuller truth. As Tanner writes, “for the human being is to be fully human, then to the energy of performance must be added the wisdom of reflection (pg. 388).”
The roles are played in rituals. “Pride and Prejudice” is anchored on the rituals: Balls, letters and contracts. Each rituals allows a sense of predictability and stability, traits long sought for in a time of political upheaval. In keeping with the goal of familial continuity, marriages fed the streams of inheritance and the basic premise that the institution provides stability and comfort.
Mr. Collins adheres to this impression in his marriage proposal to Lizzie. He’s a worthy
clergyman obeying the wishes of the Lady De Bourgh. In addition, he is Mr. Bennett’s closest male heir, so he felt worthy to play his role that suited him to perfection.
Even in Mr. Darcy’s original proposal to Lizzie, Austen recognized that he was fulfilling his role: as a single man with wealth, who had the standing to interfere with Mr. Bingley’s proposal to Jane. Indeed, there were many ties to bind Darcy.
Yet, Lizzie Bennett is in a unique position. As Tanner notes, Lizzie was one who saw her role in society but didn’t get lost in her role but saw the fuller picture and kept an awareness as to what was happening (pg. 390). Even though Lizzie’s first impressions at the beginning were off, she knew enough to know when a role wasn’t suited for her.
In the turning point of the novel, Lizzie stops Collins’ proposal. Austen sets the timing,
It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.
Lizzie knew full well that while the role of Collins’ wife would keep the familial line intact and position her in good standing in Victorian society, she would be bereft of happiness. Lizzie knew that Collins “could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who would make you so (pg. 104).”
Her impression of her role, and her right to refuse it, begins the realignment of her world and those around her.”Pride and Prejudice” is both a story and an argument. Specifically, it is an argument about standing, where one falls along the pecking order but more so, where one stands in relation to the truth of others.
More so, Austen’s book is an argument for love.
Love was and still is a construct because in our fragile humanity, that’s the only we way we can make sense. It ebbs and flows and changes at its own whim, yet is unrelenting in how it binds and to whom it binds. Even in Victorian times, love is overpowering.
In one sense, the roles and rituals were meant as protection, to shield from the arrows of heartbreak. Moving away from the Romantic entanglements, the Victorian age represented what is real and what is grounded. The age embraced the boundaries, boundaries that allowed both role presence and role absence.
In Austen’s world, the ideal isn’t to fall in love but to fall into awareness. To become awake, not to become infatuated. The greatest virtue in “Pride and Prejudice” is to see what is real and adjust accordingly. Her willingness to see what is and shift toward that truth is the highest virtue endeared in her society. Her happiness is in her gratitude in being able to change her mind. In that, she takes on a role that truly fits her.
Tanner writes that the importance to change roles and to both perform and reflect is “essential to a healthy society. That is to say, a society in which the individual can experience freedom as well as commitment (pg. 395).”
Austen argues that if happiness is to be the guiding principle, it must be allowed to jump the boundaries that roles and rituals offers when necessary. At the same time, it is better to find intense gratitude than intense passion. Gratitude is a grounding. Passion is a loosening. In this day and age, it’s better to attach to what endures than to be bound what is left behind.
I walked out of that office in shame. While prone to jump into the deep end of things, this experience was far too vast for my taking. However, I had eight weeks of this crap and if I wanted to get it done correctly, there would be no more screwing around. I may not be the smartest and for sure, am not an expert. But I can work harder and study harder and find my way through it. The goal: try to bend tradition to my advantage.
The Victorian way, of course.
All my essays from my tutorial are long gone, possibly in my parent’s garage or on a disc that may be in my current belongings. I still don’t remember what “Persuasion” was about. But I was afraid to read “Pride and Prejudice” because I didn’t want to look stupid. Understanding that is now too late and I have little to lose except for time writing this blasted thing, I’ve taken on the challenge now.
Appendix: A funny thing happened while going through my notes to write this essay. I proposed to my girlfriend and we are currently planning our wedding. The notion of appearances and changing attitudes become quite acute. Since my time in Oxford, now more than 15 years ago, I’ve changed my perspective on marriage and relationships. Unlike the characters, I live in a time where insisting on marriage matters yet doesn’t. There are no entails, no reasons for male heirs. We leave that to PBS shows and unique English houses. But I find myself wondering about my role: the roles given to me in my upbringing, the roles I performed in Oxford and the roles I play today. I feel both free in looking back and committed to understanding why and what now.
The Road to Good Air 