Jane Austen For Dummies (32 page)
Read Jane Austen For Dummies Online
Authors: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray
Austen's characters demonstrate varied tactics of flirting. Each tactic has a different result â not because of the nature of the tactic, but because of either the female doing the flirting or the man she is trying to catch and sometimes, for better or worse, catches.
Flirting by
throwing yourself at the guy:
A thoughtless man-chaser, Lydia Bennet, age 16, flirts with Wickham even as he flirts with her, though their motivations differ: She wants a man; he wants money. Her living with him out of wedlock is as much her decision as his. She thinks it's “a good joke' (PP 3:5). And when Darcy buys Wickham's agreement to marry her, Lydia has no sense of shame and just gushes over her “âdear Wickham.'” The flirting of Lydia brings her into conflict with her father and sister, Elizabeth, as well as with the morals of the day. And the Lydia-Wickham marriage soon sinks into mutual “indifference” (PP 3:19).
Flirting for a husband with shrewd, fake sincerity:
Sense and Sensibility
's Lucy Steele has so mastered the art of flirting and manipulating that this crafty young female captures two young men â brothers who couldn't be more different in terms of personality.
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Edward Ferrars:
Her first conquest was the shy and awkward Edward Ferrars, heir to the Ferrars's family wealth. He was a student at her uncle's school before heading to Oxford, so she could start working on him while he was young and inexperienced. She managed to win Edward by feigning sincere interest and affection toward him. Given that both his mother and sister are shrews, Lucy was probably the first female who was even nice to him!
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Robert Ferrars:
When Edward's mother disinherits him and instead names his younger brother Robert as her heir, Lucy forgets Edward and manipulates the new heir. Seeing that Robert is ego-centered, Lucy manipulates him by turning their discussions to Robert, which was Robert's favorite subject anyway. Feigning a sincere interest in Robert, the new heir, Lucy manipulates him into marrying her.
Flirting with a moron; flirting with a cad; becoming a moron:
Mansfield Park
's beautiful Maria Bertram first allows herself to flirt with and become engaged to the stupid and dull James Rushworth for two reasons:
1. He's worth £12,000 a year.
2. She hates being at home.
But when the dashing, clever, and charming Henry Crawford comes on the scene, she reciprocates his advances. Maria encourages Henry in various ways.
⢠When she, Henry, and Rushworth walk through the wilderness (a symbolic location of Maria's moral wilderness) together at Sotherton, she urges her fiancé to return to the house to secure the key that will allow them to open the gate and proceed.
⢠Using the moment, Maria complains that she feels restrained. Ready to free her, Henry lures Maria to slip past the gate with his help. Off they go, deeper into the wilderness together. This is a mutual seduction.
⢠Maria plays the role opposite Henry's in
Lovers' Vows,
enabling their characters to exchange physically affectionate gestures, which they find they need to rehearse a lot.
Maria is both so flirtatious and so vulnerable to Henry's flirtatiousness that even after she has married the moronic Rushworth, she commits adultery with the suave Henry, expecting him to rescue her from that shame (sort of) by marrying her. (A wife's adultery was a big no-no.) The moron turns out to be not-so-moronic: Rushworth divorces Maria, and she becomes a disgraced fallen woman. Henry disappears. Now who's the moron?
Flirting with beauty, money, charm, and a harp:
The “remarkably pretty” and witty Mary Crawford of
Mansfield Park
is Austen's most provocative flirt (MP 1:4). With £20,000 to her name and a cynical view of marriage as a “take-in,” the wily Mary is determined to marry well (MP 1:5). So of course, upon arriving at Mansfield Park, she tries to flirt with Tom, the heir to the estate. But Tom is more interested in gambling than girls and doesn't bite. When Tom leaves, Mary, surprisingly, finds herself attracted to Edmund Bertram, Tom's younger brother. She plays the harp, an instrument that emanates sensuality, to attract his attention, and it works. Edmund regularly visits the parsonage where Mary is staying. She's almost like one of Homer's Sirens in
The Odyssey
whose singing lures unsuspecting men to their death.
But Mary's “song” has a different goal: to lure Edmund away from his planned clerical vocation. Failing that, she doesn't give up on him. After Edmund becomes ordained, she still tries to lure him. When her brother (Henry) and his sister (Maria Bertram Rushworth) commit adultery, Mary and Edmund disagree on the seriousness of their siblings' actions. But Mary makes a last-ditch effort to catch Edmund. As he's leaving her, disgusted with her seeing the adultery as a social indiscretion rather than as a moral failure, she calls him back with, in Edmund's words, “âa saucy, playful smile, seeming to invite, in order to subdue me'” (MP 3:16). What a close call for Edmund!
Emma Woodhouse â “handsome, clever, and rich” â doesn't need to flirt for a husband. In fact, she's determined not to marry. But she does flirt with Frank Churchill because it's expected of her. Frank flirts back with Emma just to deflect any suspicions from his secret engagement to Jane Fairfax. While Emma doesn't love Frank, she enjoys the attention she gets from him. But eventually it's too much attention when he deems her queen of the Box Hill picnic outing and prompts her to insult Miss Bates. The resulting correction she receives from Mr. Knightley for her poor behavior leads to much-needed self-reflection on Emma's part. Furthermore, the flirtation between Frank and Emma prompts Mr. Knightley to realize his true feelings for Emma. The Emma/Frank flirtation, then, leads to no harm for either and actually brings Emma and Mr. Knightley together. Emma's and Frank's flirting with each other is actually the most harmless and ultimately the most beneficial flirtation in all of Austen's novels.
Two of Austen's young women try really hard to win their men. But they fail for one of two reasons: one flirts too much with one too many men, while the other goes into overkill, failing to recognize that her attempts at flirting are consistently backfiring.
Isabella Thorpe:
If any Austen female character is an outrageously affected flirt, it's
Northanger Abbey
's Isabella Thorpe, age 21. Her “great personal beauty” is defeated by her “decided pretension” and selfishness (NA, 1:4, 1:8, 1:13). Coming from a “not very rich family,” Isabella lucked out in having a brother at the university with a nice, naïve Oxford friend, James Morland, whose father, a clergyman, while not wealthy, is far more comfortable financially than the Thorpes. Isabella and James become engaged after James falls for her beauty and exaggerated sentimental talk. But while he's away from her, she sees what looks like a better financial catch. When James learns of her behavior, all the sentimental talk that Isabella can muster isn't enough to win him back.
Miss Bingley:
The “I think just like you do” flirtation method is the method of choice for Miss Bingley in
Pride and Prejudice.
When Darcy is reading volume one of a book, she chooses to read volume two: Who reads the second volume before the first? But she makes an even greater mistake in insulting Elizabeth Bennet to Darcy's face â assuming that because he rejected Elizabeth at the Meryton Assembly, he isn't really interested in her. When that tactic fails, Miss Bingley starts insulting Elizabeth's family, an even bigger mistake because Darcy, while highly aware of her family's deficiencies, is bent on marrying Elizabeth. Miss Bingley's many moments of “open mouth, insert foot” flirtations might cause you pain if she wasn't so horrible and if Elizabeth Bennet wasn't so appealing!