What Would Jane Satirise?

An article in this week's Wall Street Journal, What Would Jane Do, discusses the moral virtues of Jane Austen's writing and asserts that Austen's foremost goal "was to provide moral instruction."

My first response was to dismiss the article altogether. Austen wrote satire, everyone knows that. Then I thought about it more carefully. I still do not agree with the article. I don't believe Austen's 'formost goal' was to advise young women to act with sense, propriety and humility. (It is certainly clear that Austen admired these traits, but whether she preached them is a different question.) I have, however, come to the conclusion that Austen's satire and moral values are quite closely tied.

In Austen's time, she was criticised for the 'morals' of her books. Persuasion, for example, was criticised for “its moral, which appears to be that young people should always marry according to their own inclinations and upon their own judgement” (The British Critic, March 1818- in Kirkham, Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction p.149). Of course, whether or not Persuasion advocates this principle is up for debate.

Regardless, the point is that if Austen attempted to provide any moral instruction to her readers, this instruction was certainly subversive. Crudely speaking, Austen's characters fall into three categories: the socially correct, the socially incorrect and morally misguided, and the socially incorrect who defer to their own judgement.

Austen's writing glitters with satirical humour. It is the humorous grotesqueness of Austen's socially correct characters (Mr. Collins, who is perfectly entitled to choose a wife from amongst the Bennet girls; Mrs. John Dashwood, who is perfectly entitled to protect her husband's inheritance) which is ridiculed. It should be noted, however, that these characters act in accordance with social convention and are often admired by their peers.

Two of Austen's most immoral characters, those rogues who do the unspeakable, are treated with surprising sympathy: we love Willoughby in spite of ourselves; we sympathise with Henry Crawford even though we despise his actions. Even Wickham gets off pretty lightly.

Austen's heroines, those with the morals Collins suggests we should admire, characteristically flout social conventions and defy contemporary moral codes in favour of their own considerations. They disobey their superiors, assert their opinions in the presence of men, refuse to marry for social advancement. But they do all of this because they know their own minds. Austen doesn't preach a moral code, she preaches that woman is capable of using her own mind to consider right and wrong. She preaches using one's mind over following social codes.

That is no old-fashioned moral. As new social codes evolve to regulate our behaviour, the reminder to use our own judgement will always be relevant.