SOURCE: Seeber, Barbara K. “We Must Forget It: The Unhappy Truth in Pride and Prejudice.” In General Consent in Jane Austen: A Study of Dialogism, pp. 85-92. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000.

[In the following essay, which applies Mikhail Bakhtin's linguistic theory of dialogism to Austen's works, Seeber concludes that Pride and Prejudice remains “haunted” by the narrative of Wickham and Georgiana despite the main narrative's repression of this material.]

Pride and Prejudice, Austen's “own darling Child” (Austen 1995, 201), is often considered the quintessential Austen novel, certainly the most widely read and most widely taught in schools and at the undergraduate level. As Marilyn Butler points out, “the general public has liked Pride and Prejudice the best of all Jane Austen's novels, and it is easy to see why” (1987, 217). Susan Morgan agrees that the novel “has a charmed place as the most popular of Austen's novels” (1980, 78). In criticism, too, the novel has held a privileged position: A. Walton Litz, for example, calls it “a summing up of her artistic career, a valedictory to the world of Sense and Sensibility and a token of things to come” (1965, 99).

In this discussion Pride and Prejudice has been far less central, giving way to the novel often considered its diametric opposite: Mansfield Park. Elizabeth triumphantly claims that Jane “only smiles, I laugh” (Austen 1988, 2:383), but Fanny Price does neither. For Lionel Trilling, “no small part” of Mansfield Park's “interest derives from the fact that it seems to controvert everything” that Pride and Prejudice “tells us about life”: the latter “celebrates … spiritedness, vivacity, celerity, and lightness,” while “almost the opposite can be said” of Mansfield Park (1955, 211). Time has proven Austen right: “I am very strongly haunted by the idea that to those Readers who have preferred P&P. it will appear inferior in Wit, & to those who have preferred MP. very inferior in good Sense” (Austen 1995, 306). Austen's famous remark to her sister Cassandra that Pride and Prejudice is “rather too light & bright & sparkling;—it wants shade” has often been read without its irony:

It wants to be stretched out here & there with a long Chapter—of sense if it could be had, if not of solemn specious nonsense—about something unconnected with the story; an Essay on Writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparte—or anything that would form a contrast & bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness & Epigrammatism of the general stile.—I doubt your quite agreeing with me here—I know your starched Notions.

(Ibid., 203)

That Pride and Prejudice is considered Austen's best or most perfect novel has a lot more to do with preconceived assumptions about Austen than with the novel itself. As Claudia Johnson points out, “We will certainly misrepresent her accomplishment if we posit this singular novel as the typical one against which the others are to be judged” (1988, 93).

In the case of Elizabeth and Darcy, love conquers all. Their union, critics argue, is achieved by displacing class and economic realities onto secondary characters and plots. For Mary Poovey, “the realistic elements” are “carefully contained” (1984, 202). The love between Darcy and Elizabeth “not only overcomes all obstacles; it brings about a perfect society” by the end of the story (201): “With Darcy at its head and Elizabeth at its heart, society will apparently be able to contain the anarchic impulses of individualism and humanize the rigidities of prejudice, and everyone—even Miss Bingley—will live more or less happily in the environs of Pemberley, the vast estate whose permanence, prominence, and unique and uniquely satisfying fusion of individual taste and utility, of nature and art, symbolize Jane Austen's ideal” (202). According to Judith Lowder Newton, “For all its reference to money and money matters, for all its consciousness of economic fact and economic influence, Pride and Prejudice is devoted not to establishing but to denying the force of economics in human life. In the reading of the novel the real force of economics simply melts away” (1981, 61). Common to these interpretations is the idea that Austen displaces her social realism and social criticism in order to present a utopian ending “with an air of credibility which lends force to the spell of the fantasy upon us” (85).¹

Indeed, Pride and Prejudice presents a particular challenge. Of all the novels, it comes closest to reconciling the individual with society, the very project with which Austen is usually associated. Even a critic like Johnson, whose readings seek to redeem Austen from charges of conservatism, is somewhat baffled by Pride and Prejudice. Agreeing with Poovey that the “markedly fairy-tale-like quality” (1988, 74) of the novel is “almost shamelessly wish fulfilling” (73), she struggles to argue that the novel is not, therefore, “politically suspect” (74): “Austen consents to conservative myths, but only in order to possess them and to ameliorate them from within, so that the institutions they vindicate can bring about, rather than inhibit, the expansion and the fulfilment of happiness” (93). Yet in her conclusion Johnson admits that the novel is “a conservative enterprise, after all” (92): it is “profoundly conciliatory … and of all Austen's novels it most affirms established social arrangements without damaging their prestige or fundamentally challenging their wisdom or equity” (73-4). We can, however, uncover some disturbances to a novel often considered “categorically happy” (73) by bringing the cameo narrative to the fore.

The challenges of the past are displaced or resolved only if we read Pride and Prejudice monologically and ignore the dialogism facilitated by the cameo. The main narrative requires characters and readers to forgive and forget, but the cameo vengefully offers a reminder of the past. In his introduction to Bakhtin's Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, Wayne Booth admits that he has “often scoffed about modes of criticism that care so little about formal construction that they would be unaffected if the works discussed had been written backward”; yet much of Bakhtin's criticism “would not be affected if we discovered new manuscripts that scrambled the order of events, or the handling of flashbacks and foreshadowings, or the manipulations of point of view. It is not linear sequence but the touch of the author at each moment that matters. What we seek is what might be called the best vertical structure, rather than a given temporal structure and its technical transformations” (1984, xxv). If we refuse to follow the main narrative's linearity and temporal progression towards reconciliation and instead place the “handling of flashbacks” in the foreground, then we arrive at a very different text, a dialogic text, in which the narrative cameo holds equal weight with the main narrative. Such an interpretation, which could be construed as reading Pride and Prejudice as if it “had been written backward,” registers the novel's dialogism. The main narrative is based on a reconciliation of the past and the present, but if the reader refuses to become co-opted into this monologic narrative, then Pride and Prejudice's happy ending emerges as fragile and conditional indeed.

In his letter of vindication to Elizabeth, Darcy tries to explain his interference in Jane and Bingley's relationship, and he gives a history of Wickham: “My character required it to be written and read” (Austen 1988, 2:196). Darcy's narrative is, of course, in direct contrast to the one circulated by Wickham earlier in the novel. Darcy reveals the profligate behaviour of Mr Wickham, culminating in his attempt to seduce Georgiana, then only fifteen years old: “Mr Wickham's chief object was unquestionably my sister's fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds; but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me, was a strong inducement.” Georgiana confided in her brother, who fortunately averted the crisis: Mr Wickham “left the place immediately” (202).

This past, rather than being contained in the cameo, repeats itself. Wickham reincurs massive debts and seduces and elopes with Lydia. Again Mr Darcy rescues the situation and bribes Wickham to marry Lydia. The cameo narrative points out the vulnerability of the heroine. Like Marianne Dashwood and Anne Elliot, who closely escape the villains of their respective novels, Elizabeth narrowly avoids the dangerous consequences of her flirtation with Wickham.

Moreover, the cameo brings out the anxieties surrounding the marriage of Elizabeth and Darcy. The plot of Wickham, the fortune-hunter in pursuit of Georgiana and Pemberley, presents an unflattering parallel to Elizabeth's aspirations towards Pemberley: “She felt, that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!” (245). As Susan Fraiman points out, there is an “element … of crass practicality”: “Elizabeth is appalled by Charlotte's pragmatism, and yet, choosing Darcy over Wickham, she is herself beguiled by the entrepreneurial marriage plot” (1989, 182). Lady Catherine de Bourgh would agree. The narrative cameo aligns Elizabeth and Wickham and almost sets them in competition with one another. Wickham's failed attempt to win Georgiana's fortune and his consolation prize (Lydia) shed an interrogative light on Elizabeth's success. The main narrative insists that Elizabeth's motives are noble, but the cameo contaminates this purity, since ultimately Elizabeth gets the very thing to which Wickham has aspired. Darcy states that Wickham was motivated by greed and “the hope of revenging himself on me” (Austen 1988, 2:202). In a sense, Elizabeth achieves the ultimate revenge. Once considering Elizabeth “not handsome enough to tempt me” (12), Darcy finds himself “tortured” (367) into humility and love. The relationship and confidence between Wickham and Elizabeth in the first half of the novel should not be dismissed or underestimated. In the end Wickham, too, profits by Elizabeth's infiltration of Pemberley. The cameo raises Lady Catherine's question (357): “Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?”

Mr Darcy is remarkably possessive of the information the narrative cameo contains. Indeed, he has a lot at stake—the sanctity and mystique of Pemberley and its inhabitants: “To no creature had it been revealed, where secrecy was possible, except to Elizabeth.” Darcy is “particularly anxious to conceal it” from Bingley due to his “wish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him” (270) of joining Georgiana's and Bingley's fortunes. Darcy needs to erase any memories of Georgiana's misconduct and any memories that suggest the gullibility of the Pemberley residents (Darcy's father, sister, and, finally, himself). In the light of Darcy's succumbing to Elizabeth—“In vain have I struggled” (189)—this is particularly important. Thus Wickham's behaviour in the cameo has to be forgotten, because it brings up the very questions that the main narrative has to elide in order to achieve its “fairy-tale-like quality.” This applies equally to Darcy and to Elizabeth; he needs to maintain his image as a responsible and discriminating estate owner, and Elizabeth needs to present herself as marrying “only” for love. The cameo narrative's presence, however, continually disrupts these constructions and the main narrative's closure. Fraiman interprets Darcy as an author whose letter “monopoliz[es] the narrative” (1989, 176) and “in a play for literary hegemony (to be author and critic both), tells us how to read him” (176-7), leaving Elizabeth vanquished and humiliated: “Against the broad chest of Darcy's logic, Elizabeth beats the ineffectual fists of her own” (177). Elizabeth, however, has an equal stake in regulating the letter.

There are constant reminders of the past throughout the novel. Georgiana's presence is a case in point. At a gathering at Pemberley, Miss Bingley “took the first opportunity of saying with sneering civility” to Elizabeth, “Pray, Miss Eliza, are not the———shire militia removed from Meryton? They must be a great loss to your family.” Elizabeth sees the unintended effect on Darcy and Georgiana: “An involuntary glance showed Darcy with an heightened complexion, earnestly looking at her, and his sister overcome with confusion, and unable to lift up her eyes.” “Had Miss Bingley known what pain she was then giving her beloved friend, she undoubtedly would have refrained from the hint” (Austen 1988, 2:269), but “not a syllable had ever reached her of Miss Darcy's meditated elopement” (269-70). This episode registers the inherently disruptive power of the past, which cannot be contained in “secrecy.”

Like Mr Elliot in Persuasion, Wickham is a family member who is permanently married to the main narrative. Despite Mr Bennet's initial opposition, the prodigal son-in-law is received at Longbourn. Lydia visits Pemberley, and both Lydia and Wickham stay at Netherfield, “frequently … so long, that even Bingley's good humour was overcome, and he proceeded so far as to talk of giving them a hint to be gone.” Darcy “for Elizabeth's sake … assisted … [Wickham] farther in his profession,” and both Elizabeth and Jane are regularly “applied to, for some little assistance towards discharging their bills” (387). Although they are “banished to the North” (314), they are an integral part of the family circle. This is very different from Mansfield Park, in which no attempt is made to “rescue” Maria Bertram, whose banishment is permanent: Sir Thomas does not grant her visitation rights.

To accomplish Pride and Prejudice's family reunion, Wickham's past has to be erased. Jane is “thankful … that we never let them know what has been said against him; we must forget it ourselves” (274). Although Elizabeth argues that “‘Their conduct has been such … as neither you, nor I, nor any body, can ever forget'” (305), she firmly avoids the topic: “Come, Mr Wickham, we are brother and sister, you know. Do not let us quarrel about the past” (329). Johnson argues that the novel's “conclusion preserves the heroines' friendships and promises the mutual regard of husbands and relations”: “The band of good friends is all related by marriage in the end, but they are not good friends because they are related—as conservative apologists would have it—rather they are good relations because they were good friends first” (1988, 92). Johnson clearly overlooks the presence of Wickham, but Austen goes out of her way to include him.

At the end of the novel, Elizabeth and Darcy discuss Darcy's letter. Elizabeth reassures him that all is forgiven: “The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so. The adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings of the person who wrote, and the person who received it, are now so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant circumstance attending it, ought to be forgotten. You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure” (368-9). Pride and Prejudice itself functions like this letter; the novel's memory is highly selective. Wickham, however morally bankrupt, is no longer a threat and is recuperated into a highly comic ending, becoming Mr Bennet's “favourite” (379) son-in-law. Similarly, when Jane, expressing concern for Elizabeth's acceptance of Darcy, says, “I know how much you dislike him” (372), Elizabeth replies: “That is all to be forgot. Perhaps I did not always love him so well as I do now. But in such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall ever remember it myself” (373). The novel follows the structure of comedic reversal: “The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune” (350). Like Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice is a novel about second chances, but neither Elizabeth nor Jane nor Lydia suffer in the way Anne Elliot does.

Austen points out the selective memory that is required to believe that at the end of the novel we have a “perfect society” (Poovey 1984, 201). “Though Darcy could never receive him at Pemberley” (Austen 1988, 2:387), Wickham and the remembrance of the past cast a shadow over Pemberley. Like the narrative cameos in Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion, the tale of Wickham and Georgiana is a vehicle for dialogism, for it reminds us of material that the main narrative represses. Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey are similarly haunted by tales of violence.

Note

1. Two notable exceptions to the readings of Pride and Prejudice as a “happy” novel of reconciliation are Susan Fraiman's “The Humiliation of Elizabeth Bennet” and Paula Bennett's “Family Plots.” Fraiman discusses the homosocial trading of Elizabeth between Mr Bennet and Darcy. Bennett draws on family systems theory to explore the dysfunctional nature of Elizabeth's family.

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