Jane Austen For Dummies (8 page)
Read Jane Austen For Dummies Online
Authors: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray
While Austen didn't intend her novels to be read as political or social reform texts, she was writing for her contemporary readers who, she naturally assumed, would know the news and culture of their times, which provide the settings of her work. She includes contemporary events as background to her novels without commenting on them overtly. This section clues you in on what Austen was assuming her readers understood about their own day, just as we, today, as readers would understand allusions to current events in contemporary novels.
By the time that Jane Austen was in her late teens, England was at war with France under Prime Minister William Pitt, the Younger (1759â1806), who led the new Tory Party (the party which her family supported), representing land-owning country gentlemen and the establishment (the monarchy and the Church of England). With the war lasting until 1815, the social conservative or Tory view upheld patriotism and honor. And unlike the Tories of the early eighteenth century, these Tories were now strongly antiâRoman Catholic. The new, revived Whig Party, led by Charles James Fox (1749â1806), represented the reformers, supporting religious dissent (the nonconformists), and those wanting electoral and parliamentary change. Keep in mind that in Austen's day, only rich landowners could vote.
The combined forces of England, Holland, Belgium, and Prussia were at war with Napoleon for over 20 years. Because England was just a short boat trip across the English Channel from France, the British feared invasion on its southern shore. In addition to physical invasion, the English landowners and government cast a watchful eye and ear at the revolutionary ideas that were percolating during the French Revolution, which began in 1798. While Austen's novels never show soldiers at war or people protesting for political rights, they do show that she was well aware of these concerns.
New fears arose in England with the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon threw out France's republican government and declared himself First Consul in 1799. Insisting that he wanted peace, France and England signed the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. Consequently, troops in the British army, marines, and navy disbanded. Even Jane Austen's naval brother Frank went on half-pay, meaning he was removed from his ship and given only half his salary. But Napoleon, though supposedly at peace, used this period to rebuild his forces, especially the French navy, and then declared war again in 1803. With Napoleon seeking to take over the world, in general, and England in particular, the British feared French invasion. Hence, the presence of the militia in
Pride and Prejudice,
which brings the ne'er-do-well character, George Wickham, on the scene. Wickham and the militia in which he serves move to Brighton, from where he and Lydia Bennet run off together. Austen uses the Brighton location for three reasons:
1.
Brighton, a town on the southern coast, making it vulnerable to French invasion, is a logical place to send the novel's militia.
2.
Brighton was a risqué place, full of sailors and militiamen who were looking for a “good time” while off duty.
3.
Brighton was the prince regent's seaside home, The Prince's Royal Pavilion, which looks with its cream-puff façade like the Indian Taj Mahal, and the prince regent was known for his sexual escapades.
So what better place for Austen to send the morally careless Lydia when she flees with Wickham to live with him out of wedlock? Austen's contemporary readers knew all this â just as our radar today would perk up about a wild and over-sexed (Lydia's “high animal spirits,” meaning both energy and physicality, PP 1:9) young female character in a novel who heads to Las Vegas.
Jane Austen had a personal knowledge of the French Revolution from its beginnings: Her beautiful and glamorous older cousin Elizabeth (called “Eliza”) married a French count in 1781 who was guillotined in 1794. Eliza fled Paris for England and spent time at Steventon with her uncle, George Austen, and his family. In 1797, she married Jane's brother Henry, who was ten years her junior. (For more on cousin Eliza, see Chapter 3.)
Even before the threat of Napoleon, England was troubled by fears of revolution and riot at home during Austen's teenage years and early twenties:
The Gordon Riots:
On June 2, 1780, about 50,000 people, carrying signs saying “No Popery,” marched on Parliament in opposition to the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1778. This act removed some of the more extreme discriminatory measures officially taken against Catholics, especially requiring military recruits to swear an oath to the Church of England. The number of rioters grew as the original crowd headed to Parliament. The rioters tried to force their way into the House of Commons, virtually destroyed Newgate Prison, attacked the Bank of England, and destroyed many Roman Catholic churches. The army was dispatched on June 7, and nearly 300 rioters were killed. Austen may be referring to the Gordon Riots in
Northanger Abbey
(1:14), when Henry Tilney mentions a mob in St. George's Fields, which was, in fact, an assembly point for the Gordon Rioters. She might also have been thinking of the anti-government riots that were also held in St. George's Fields in January, 1795, discussed in the next bullet.
London Riots in 1795, organized by the London Corresponding Society (LCS):
Comprised mainly of small craftsmen (shoemakers, tailors, clockmakers, and so on) in 1792, this Society was founded to oppose the war with France, fight hunger, and compel parliamentary reform. In 1795, LCS members, joined by other workers, stoned the coach of George III as he went to open Parliament. At other times, the Society's meetings drew thousands of members of the working class. This frightened the government and led to the passage of Acts forbidding Seditious Meetings. Knowledge of meetings like the Gordon Riots and the LCS activities frightens Eleanor Tilney, who has a brother in the army. So Eleanor misunderstands Catherine Morland's allusion to news from London about events “âuncommonly dreadful'” (NA 1:14). Eleanor thinks Catherine is speaking of political riots, but Catherine actually is referring to the publication of a new horror novel!
The Spithead and Nore Naval Mutinies of 1797:
First at Spithead (AprilâMay), a port near Portsmouth, England, and then at Nore (May), in the Thames Estuary, sailors mutinied over their terrible living conditions on board ship and low pay, which was not keeping pace with the high inflation rates of the late 18th century. These mutinies frightened the government and ruling class because England's main fighting force was the Royal Navy, and England was at war with France. Unfortunately, we have no letters by Austen for the year 1797. But with two brothers serving as navy officers at this time, she was undoubtedly concerned that the seamen's anger would spread from the ports to the ships â which actually occurred in the West Indies, off the Cape of Good Hope, and off the Irish coast. The Spithead Mutiny was resolved with the Admiralty's pardoning the crews and agreeing to pay raises and better living conditions on ship. But after the Spithead resolution, the government was in no mood to make further conciliations to the Nore mutineers, who had blocked the London port. Ultimately, the mutiny failed, because of deserters and lack of food. But this was a nervous time for Austen and her countrymen regarding the Royal Navy and the war with France.
In 1794, Parliament suspended Habeas Corpus, which meant that people could be jailed without being officially charged. Government suppression was so successful that the radicals were silenced.
Napoleon was winning on land because of the vast superiority of the French Army. But when it came to the seas, England ruled. The superiority of the British navy was shown as they ruined Napoleon's plans by chasing and attacking his ships. The Battle of Trafalgar clinched the British victory on October 21, 1805.
Jane Austen's brother Frank was terribly disappointed to miss the action at Trafalgar. Having chased the French ships in the West Indies, Frank Austen's ship, the
Canopus,
was ordered to Gibraltar and then Malta. His ship was unable to reach Trafalgar in time for the battle.
With two of her brothers, Frank and Charles, serving in the Royal Navy, Austen pays homage to naval officers in her final novel,
Persuasion
. She praises both the professional skills and the personal loyalty of navy men in the characters of Admiral Croft and Captains Wentworth and Harville.
Between 1797 and 1805, England faced serious danger that France would invade British soil. This fear created a need to expand England's homeland defense force, the militia, and at least 300,000 men stepped up to serve. Henry Austen, another of Jane's brothers, was one of them: He joined the Oxfordshire Militia as a lieutenant in 1793 and remained in it until 1800.
Austen's most famous militia is the âshire that arrived in Meryton and then headed to Brighton in
Pride and Prejudice
(1:15). This militia's fighting skills are questionable because instead of performing military exercises, the troops spend their time off walking around Meryton and talking to young women, attending parties, or dancing, all while showing off attractive red coats. Obviously, they have no fear of a French invasion. Or maybe they'll challenge the French to a dance contest!
By the way, if you're wondering about the âshire militia in
Pride and Prejudice,
Austen's using a dash before the term “shire,” which means county or borough (also “country,” which meant the same thing), such as Hertfordshire, was an early convention of the novel to give the illusion that the novelist was writing about a real militia; this added to what critics call the “verisimilitude” of the novel. In plain English, the novel appears to be a true story.