Bringing Persons of Obscure Birth Into Undue Distinction

Here's my post! See the post below for assignment details :)

People like to feel superior—that’s nothing new. In 1814, when critics think the events of Persuasion begin, feeling superior was very often tied to one’s birth. Of course, wealth and beauty—two blessings which are still cause for feeling superior to others today—were also valued at that time. But birth trumped almost everything. At the time Austen lived, many marriages were forged in which one party brought all the wealth (or youth and beauty—or youth and beauty AND wealth) to the table, the other brought simply his or her name. Dissolute young men who’d gambled away their fortunes were able to trade on their family name to marry into a whole new fortune.

Class is important in all of Austen’s books. In early works such as Pride and Prejudice, class is an issue. Part of Mr. Darcy’s issue with the Bennets is Mrs. Bennet’s obscure birth. The character of Miss Caroline Bingley has one memorable line in the 1995 miniseries. When her sister claims that Sir William Lucas is a “very good sort of man,” Caroline responds with the snarky, “And I am sure he kept a very good sort of shop before his elevation to the knighthood" (Pride and Prejudice). This line perfectly illustrates the prevailing attitude of the time. Money was great and all, but it still mattered how you earned it. Revenue from land was the only truly acceptable means. The nobility and the landed gentry were holding on tightly to the last vestiges of Medieval England.

In Pride and Prejudice, we get the sense that Darcy was more concerned about the Bennets' lack of propriety than their status. Persuasion tackles these issues in an even more direct way. Austen uses the naval men, all of whom are portrayed in a positive light, to contrast the preening, shallow Sir Walter, who is practically a cartoon.

Sir Walter’s perusal of his favorite (only) book, the Baronetage, opens the novel, so we know class is on Austen’s mind. She very quickly tells us, through direct characterization, exactly what to think of Sir Walter, “Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character; vanity of person and of situation” (Austen chapter 1). The man was also handsome in his youth, and still a better-than-average looking older man, and indeed he is preoccupied with pointing out average or ugly people throughout the story. One of his objections to the naval man, Admiral Croft, who will lease Kellynch Hall, seems to be that serving in the navy causes men to look older faster. As opposed to his life of sitting around being waited on and reading one book.

Sir Walter tells his lawyer that he objects to the navy: “Yes; it is in two points offensive to me; I have two strong grounds of objection to it. First, as being the means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honours which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of” (Austen chapter 3). He goes on here to discuss the aging affects of the wind, as mentioned above, but the central issue in the novel overall is this clash between old and new ways of attaining distinction. The old way—birth—was out of one’s control—and a boon bestowed as often on the unworthy as the worthy. The new way is to earn one’s place in society—a role which Captain Wentworth embodies perfectly in the novel. He rises through the ranks through his own bravery and effort.

I do think it’s worth noting that in this novel, Sir Walter and Mr. Elliot are both pretty terrible, but all the navy men are aces. The worst flaw betrayed by any of them is probably Bennick falling for the formerly flighty Miss Musgrove.

Perhaps Austen had grown even more annoyed with the Vicountess Dalyrimples of the world in her older age (Persuasion is one of her three mature works, versus Pride, which she wrote at a much younger age). Perhaps staying with her naval brother Frank, as she did after the death of her father, brought her into contact with some Wentworth-type fellows.

Whatever the cause, Anne Elliot comes to regret her youthful decision (strongly influenced by Lady Russell) to say no to someone of a lower rank, and finds happiness with a man who made his own way in the world. Jane Austen seems moldy and old-fashioned now, but this was still a revolutionary idea for her era.

Austen, Jane. Persuasion. e-text. The Replubic of Pemberley. 2015. 

Pride and Prejudice. Dir. Simon Langton. BBC, 1995. Miniseries.