Read Jane Austen For Dummies Online
Authors: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray
Jane Austen For Dummies (46 page)
Austen knew her carriages, just as she knew her characters. She places people in the vehicles that are most appropriate to their personalities, which is a nice touch that her contemporary readers would recognize.
The curricle drivers are all young gentlemen. Darcy has a curricle, as do Willoughby and Henry Tilney (PP, SS, NA). Charles Musgrove and Mr. William Elliot of
Persuasion
also drive curricles. They are rich enough to have two horses. But as noted earlier, John Thorpe drives a one-horse gig, and he drives it so fast that he nearly knocks down Isabella and Catherine as he races it into Bath (NA). In a later time, John Thorpe would be one of those drivers who love to screech his brakes. In
Persuasion,
Admiral and Mrs. Croft drive around the Kellynch area in a gig; as naval people, they are probably more comfortable on a ship! But they would have hired a larger, sturdier carriage to take them to Bath.
Emma
's Mrs. Elton, Austen's most boastful character, brags repeatedly that her sister and brother-in-law, the Sucklings of Maple Grove, drive the ostentatious barouche-landau. The Sucklings are Austen's version of the nouveaux riche, and being “riche” is what the Sucklings want to show the world.
Minding Your Manners
In This Chapter
Becoming a gentleman or a lady
Observing your place in the pecking order
Exposing the bad conduct behind the good manners
B
efore the Renaissance (14th- to 17th-century Europe), gentlemen, in the form of courteous men, were nonexistent. Whether in the royal court or on a street corner, men burped, spat, picked their teeth, grabbed food and ate it with their fingers, sulked and showed anger openly, and sneezed without using a handkerchief in a public place or at home. Who needed a handkerchief, anyway? The guy had his hand and sleeve.
And women? The Renaissance also prescribed a code of behavior for ladies as the counterpart of gentlemen. For example, skills with weaponry and horseback riding were deemed unbecoming for ladies of the court. Ladies were expected to be affable, gracious, and charming. And it's hard for a lady to be all that while out riding around and hunting with the guys.
Ãtiquette
is the French word for ticket. Think about it: good manners and polite behavior as the ticket to social acceptability.
Eighteenth-century England inherited polite practices from two sources: Renaissance Italy, for both gentlemen and ladies, and 17th-century France for ladies, who, in turn, were influenced by the ladies of Renaissance Italy. In this chapter, I explore the behavioral changes that both men and women made during the Renaissance to become more mannerly, at least more mannerly according to the theories of the day. In this chapter, I also show you just how Austen's characters behaved, which gives you a glimpse into how Austen felt about the mannerly behavior of her time.
Thank heavens for the Renaissance! It gave us not only da Vinci and Michelangelo, but also it gave men manners. And handkerchiefs.
In the 1996 film of
Sense and Sensibility
starring Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant, Grant's character, Edward, gives a monogrammed handkerchief to Thompson's weeping Elinor. She treasures it as a keepsake and takes it out when she feels all hope for Edward and herself is gone. (For more on the film adaptations of Austen's novels, see Chapter 15.) While using the handkerchief to clean the nose dates back to 300
A.D.
, this use for a small square of cloth really only became commonplace in the Renaissance. It began in places where courtesy started to matter: the courts of Italy and France, particularly in the mid-16th-century court of King Henry the II of France. Using the handkerchief for nasal purposes began to spread so much among fashionable people that the Dutch philosopher Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466â1536) is said to have commented that wiping one's nose with one's sleeve was boorish.
Gentlemen, in terms of their genes and bloodlines, were, of course,
born
into families of the gentry and aristocracy. (If you need details on who the gentry and aristocracy were, please read Chapter 2.) But gentlemen, in terms of polite men, were
made.
The gentlemen with the genes and the bloodlines who were belching in public needed to be made into polite men. They made this transition by reading courtesy books â publications that advised on the education and conduct of a courtier (a man of the royal court) or a prince. While Castiglione was writing about how a man could become the perfect courtier, his behavior prescriptions also taught men how to become perfect English gentlemen. (See the nearby sidebar for more information on the publications of the time.)
By Austen's period (1775â1817), English gentlemen had a good idea of how to behave. Politeness was so ingrained in the genteel classes that boys were bred to be well bred practically from birth. And if he needed to check something, conduct books were still around.
In Austen's day, boys from the gentry and aristocracy were taught courtesy and decorum before they could pronounce those words. Their nursery maids, tutors, governesses, and parents made sure that their children behaved properly. Good breeding was emphasized at schools. If a young gentleman failed to behave properly, he was promptly corrected by his family, teachers, and fellow students, who of course, were gentry just like he was.
Making everything look effortless and graceful was an Italian notion called
sprezzatura.
Though dating from the Renaissance, Castiglione's sprezzatura was still in the air of Austen's England. Men were expected to dance gracefully, walk gracefully, sit gracefully, and so on. Taught from childhood, gracefulness became second nature by adulthood. A male's outward behavior reflected his good breeding. A member of the gentry should behave like one:
Speak and act with modest confidence
(sprezzatura)
Maintain emotional control and don't sulk in public like the big babies of the Middle Ages (1100 until the Renaissance)
Use proper language (decorum, meaning suiting the style to the subject)
Be well educated in literature, the arts, history, and dancing
For more information on a gentleman's education, see Chapter 10.
According to Castiglione, the courtier (or courteous man) had specific characteristics:
He should be educated from youth to behave well in the company of others like him.
The courtier should be poised and pleasant.
The courtier should master weapons (this was 16th-century Italy, remember).
His attire should be clean and neat.
He should be well read in Latin and Greek and knowledgeable about music, world affairs, dancing, art, and literature.
An excellent and affable conversationalist, the courtier should also be modest and considerate of others' feelings. (And having accomplished the task of the previous asterisk, the courtier has the material for good conversation.)
He shouldn't show off his knowledge or act in an affected manner. (Boasting and acting in a way that calls attention to oneself are the opposite of
sprezzatura
.)
The courtier should be effortless and graceful in his mannerisms.
And yes, he should use a handkerchief, too!
Castiglione had clear expectations of how a
gentle
man should behave, and judging by Austen's portrayal of genteel men, she agreed with Castiglione's definition:
Mr. Knightley:
As the hero of
Emma,
Mr. Knightley most consistently portrays the genteel man. He practices conversational decorum:
⢠He converses well with everyone, including those who are below him in terms of social and economic class.
⢠He speaks with kindness and respect to old Mr. Woodhouse and to poor Miss Bates.
⢠He converses politely but firmly warding off the irritating attempts at control of Mrs. Elton when she tries to push her own ideas (and housekeeper) on him for his strawberry party.
⢠His mere walk reveals to Emma “in how gentlemanlike a manner, with what natural grace, he must have danced, would he but take the trouble” (E 3:2). When he finally dances â and this occurs when he heroically rescues the wallflower Harriet at the Crown Inn Ball â he shows himself to be an “extremely good” dancer. Now, this is an English gentleman with a healthy dose of
sprezzatura!
⢠Mr. Knightley is sensitive to the needs of others.
⢠He firmly corrects Emma for insulting and hurting Miss Bates at Box Hill.
⢠He quietly sends apples to the Bates family.
⢠He uses his carriage only so Miss Bates and her niece can use it to go to an evening party and return home in it â “âthe sort of thing that so few men would think of,'” correctly says Miss Bates (E 2:8).
Colonel Brandon:
Sense and Sensibility
's Colonel Brandon comes in second to Mr. Knightley.
⢠His speech is well mannered.
⢠He tends to be “silent and grave,” but during his silence, he's dealing emotionally with the sudden and mysterious eighth-month disappearance of his 16-year-old ward, Eliza, which worsens the “gloom” he feels over Eliza's mother's disgraceful sexual conduct (SS 2:9).
⢠He's polite enough not to raise these subjects to call attention to his own worries while exerting emotional control.
⢠When he learns that Willoughby is responsible for his ward's disappearance and unwed pregnancy, he handles the situation with a quiet private duel and makes no attempt to ruin Willoughby's reputation among his friends.
⢠While he never dances in the novel, he's the only person to listen to Marianne play the pianoforte without talking over her performance: “He paid her only the compliment of attention” (SS 1:7). (What a great line for Austen to have written, too!)
Henry Tilney:
Northanger
Abbey
's Henry Tilney is also a gentleman.
⢠He dances well.
⢠He converses with ease, humor, and wit.
⢠He shows without bragging that he's well educated and well read.
⢠He behaves politely and pleasantly to everyone.
⢠He stands by Catherine Morland when his greedy and misled father, General Tilney, demands that Henry drop her.
⢠And as Catherine notes, he drives his carriage and handles his horses well, unlike the show-off driver in the novel, John Thorpe.