Throughout the novel, Austen uses comedy to shed light on
more serious issues. One of my
favorite moments in the novel is in Chapter 6 when Mary complains to Edward
about her difficulties getting a harp delivered. She pines, “You would find it difficult, I dare say, just
now in the middle of the very late hay harvest, to hire a horse and cart” (85).
She is astonished that a farm hand cannot be hired and that her request had
offended the farmers. She tells
Edmund, “I found out that I had been asking the most unreasonable, most
impossible thing in the world” (86).
I believe that Austen uses this moment to emphasize a disconnection
between the upper and lower classes.
Mary cannot comprehend why a farmer cannot leave his labors to bring her
the harp. Although it is the
harvest season, Mary finds the farmer’s work menial. She does not understand that she is asking the farmer to
abandon his livelihood for her simple pleasures. Fanny is disgusted in Mary’s lack of reason, yet Edmund
finds her charming. Through Fanny,
Austen encourages readers to be critical of Mary’s viewpoint, and in turn,
aware of the upper class's sense of entitlement.
I found that Mary made a rather large number of questionable comments criticizing people she found "beneath" her. She was overtly critical of the clergy to Edmund (which was particularly insensitive). She also made rather interesting comments (at the beginning of Volume II) about how she wished to be rich. Her views are rather unlike many other wealthy young women portrayed in these books, who often seem to have sympathy for those not so fortunate. I am at a loss as to why Edmund finds her remarks charming rather than obnoxious and ignorant.
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ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Kate that Austen uses humor to point out her upper class characters' blatant disregard for the lower classes. I feel that the character Fanny exists in order to emphasize these moments through her critical awareness, as Kate mentioned. In addition, Fanny exists as the representative lower class citizen within the upper class household. This creates almost a Cinderella set up where Fanny's wishes are ignored and she is ordered and belittled by her relatives. When Fanny refuses to be in the play, Mrs. Norris exemplifies this Cinderella evil stepmother role as she tells Fanny she is being entirely too difficult, urges her to agree to act, and calls her "a very obstinate, ungrateful girl, if she does not do what her aunt and cousins wish her..considering who and what she is" (167). Comments such as these reinforce Fanny's lower class status in her family and bring her out as representative of the lower social class.
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