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Persuasions #12, 1990 Pages 50-53
Jane Austen and Her Outdoors LISA ALTOMARI Department of English, New York University, New
York, NY While walking through the streets of Chawton on one of those rare
English afternoons in January when the sun-makes an appearance, I began to
think about what it was that this peaceful countryside afforded Jane
Austen. Her fiction, I thought,
continuing my walk and finding myself only a few yards from the demure plaque
that reads “Jane Austen’s House,” must have been influenced by these streets,
her garden and the surrounding fields that she so passionately took in while
riding about in her donkey cart. For we
all know the marvelous tale of the writing desk and the squeaking door, but, I
suspected, looking into her window, that what she saw outside this window had
an enormous influence on that manuscript hidden beneath the blotter. As I entered the cottage and sat at the
renowned writing desk and peered out the window, I couldn’t help wondering just
what it was that fused Austen and her writing with nature and the
outdoors. I began to think about the
novels and the novels’ heroines and the proposals between the heroes and the
heroines and of Elizabeth Bennet skipping and leaping along the way to
Netherfield – and I realized that in Pride And Prejudice especially,
Austen had done much more than confront the confines of the patriarchal
mansion. Pride And Prejudice,
with its drawing rooms and parlors draped with decorum, is a novel that is
enveloped or enclosed with propriety, yet it is something much more as
well. For in this sparkling
masterpiece, Austen creates a heroine who has a desire for and a bond with the
outdoors and all that nature represents: freedom, space, autonomy. Ultimately, Elizabeth’s fairy tale is about
being identified and determined by space and identifying and determining a
space of her own. Austen sets up a polemic between nature and “social” space
and thus establishes a pattern that the reader cannot help but notice in the
novel: when an event in Elizabeth’s life appears as if it is going to imprison
or confine her spirit or her wit, her “self” – Austen sets this event
indoors. Yet when something occurs to
offer Elizabeth happiness, independence, love – something we know is good for
her, Austen sets it out of doors. While
questioning the relationship of social conventions in contrast to the outdoors
and all it represents, in what follows I shall look at Darcy’s marriage
proposals in terms of this idea. This pattern in Pride And Prejudice
suggests a delicate balance between what occurs indoors and outdoors in
relation to the novel’s heroine. Unlike
her sister Jane, Elizabeth Bennet is continually moving about; she needs to
stimulate her body as well as her mind.
While Jane is sick at Netherfield, quite to the horror of her family and
acquaintance, Elizabeth ventures to Netherfield on foot: … Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last within view of the house, with weary ancles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise …. [Darcy] was divided between admiration of the brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as to the occasion’s justifying her coming so far alone. (32-3) Austen immediately alerts her reader to the special relationship that
Elizabeth shares with the outdoors. The
traditional, young English lady does not go “springing” about the countryside
alone; Elizabeth does and it elates her.
She is comfortable in this setting; she derives pleasure from her time
alone with nature. She’s also a woman
with a mission – Austen illustrates her determination and independence here. Like Darcy, we too recognize the erotic side
of Elizabeth with her “glowing face” and “impatient activity.” For the outdoors, in Austen’s fiction, represents an escape from the claustrophobic rage and suffocation of domesticity. The heroine needs to be liberated from the house, which is a domestic prison of sorts with walls of propriety and bars of decorum. She must find an outlet away from the confinement of the indoors – she turns to the outdoors. Proposals of marriage, it seems, coincide perfectly with this shifting of the in/out doors motif. When Mr. Collins requests Elizabeth’s hand in marriage, for example, he offers her a loveless marriage to a man she neither respects nor desires. He proposes in the breakfast room, indoors, thus not offering her an outlet, but a confinement of sorts. Elizabeth, of course, must refuse. Similarly, when Darcy first condescends to ask Elizabeth to marry him, he does so within the confines of the Collins’s home: … the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her, immediately followed. He spoke well, but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority – of its being a degradation … was very unlikely to recommend his suit …. [She said] ‘From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others … and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.’ ‘You have said quite enough, madam ….’ And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard him the next moment open the front door and quit the house. (189-93) At this point in the novel, Elizabeth and Darcy are far too influenced by their “first impressions” of one another to be ready for marriage. What Darcy is offering her is not the “happily ever after” lifestyle of the traditional novelistic heroine. If Elizabeth had agreed to his proposal, she would have found Pemberley and life with Darcy a prison; they would not have come together as equals, as true partners. Elizabeth would have lived with the sense that her husband thought he had married beneath himself, that she was his possession. Thus she would lack the means of attaining the serenity that she so much desires. Austen, therefore, set this proposal in the Collins’s drawing room (a double irony of sorts since that very parsonage might have been Elizabeth’s ultimate prison), within the confines of a house, so as to reiterate to the reader that this is not the bit of truth that Elizabeth is ultimately searching for. Austen furthers this pattern in the next
chapter when Darcy gives Elizabeth the letter that serves as the turning point
in the novel. The letter, a
plot-resolving device, is delivered to the addressee out of doors, within the
gardens of Rosings where Elizabeth is walking and thinking – alone. Ultimately, this letter will enable Elizabeth
not only to understand Darcy, but to more deeply know herself as well. Austen, therefore, appropriately has this
exchange take place out doors. In between the time of Darcy’s first proposal
and their future meeting, it is significant that Elizabeth spends that time
traveling with the Gardiners. She is
not only out of doors, but she is traveling the countryside, exploring nature
and, at the same time, getting to know herself.
While on this journey, with a bit of novelistic fate, Darcy and Elizabeth meet once again. Significantly, they do not meet within the walls of Pemberley but, rather, outside, amongst the trees, ponds and fields. Here, they begin to see one another as equals. The reader begins to feel that Pemberley will not be the domestic prison that Longbourn or any of the other patriarchal mansions are, for Pemberley abounds with beautiful, spacious grounds of which Elizabeth will become mistress, where she can challenge and indulge her desire to transcend the boundaries that were traditionally ascribed to her, where she can ramble about – alone or with Darcy – at her leisure. The final scene of reconciliation, the true avowal of love, and Darcy’s real proposal, all not surprisingly, occur out of doors: They walked … and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern, when Kitty left them, she went boldly on with him alone …. Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, ‘You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were … tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged …. The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before …. They walked on, without knowing in what direction …. ‘dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled …. You shewed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.’ … After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know any thing about it, they found at last … that it was time to be at home …. he continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they parted. (365-71) With all of their former prejudices resolved, Elizabeth and Darcy are able to come together as equals and nature serves as the lonely witness to their avowal. The scene leads the reader to believe that Elizabeth and Darcy will spend the remainder of their years together walking about the English countryside, immersed in one another’s conversation. Ironically, it was Lady Catherine’s tirade which led Darcy to believe that Elizabeth’s feelings changed towards him; Elizabeth triumphs over Lady Catherine as they walk the grounds of Longbourn. By examining the marriage proposals in Pride
And Prejudice, I hope to have illustrated that Austen has coupled the
desirable, pleasant occurrences of the heroine’s life with the outdoors and
nature, just as she has placed the less than desirable events within the
confines of walls. The reader begins to
sense a pattern, so that we instinctively know Elizabeth must decline Mr.
Collins’s proposal and Darcy’s first proposal because they offer her nothing
but confinement. Austen seems to have
developed, constituted and underscored the trope of in-versus-outdoors with
remarkable conviction. Pride And
Prejudice conforms to this hypothesis with astonishing consistency. And I am astounded, as I sit at the very
desk where Austen imagined, envisioned, created and produced, and look out the
window into the peaceful roads of Chawton, that I never discovered this theme
before. |
