Issue 87: They are my old friends...
MAKING SPORT FOR OUR NEIGHBORS WITH AUSTEN’S MINOR CHARACTERS
Everyone has their origin story when it comes to their affection for Jane Austen’s work. For me, it was Mr. Bennet’s comment in the very first chapter of Pride and Prejudice, “I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.”
I still recall my (naïve) astonishment that a line written over two centuries ago could draw a chuckle from a 21st-century reader.
Mr. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice (1995)
Browsing Austen’s letters also reveals a sharp wit that even today might be considered edgy at times, though my favourite quote of hers is more droll than dark. “I will not say that your Mulberry trees are dead, but I am afraid they are not alive.”*
In the novels, Austen’s humour often comes to the fore in her minor and secondary characters, allowing us to quickly grasp their personality, flaws, and foibles.
Consider Lady Catherine’s statement that there are “few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.” The comment leaves us smiling even as it alerts us to her arrogance.
Staying with that lady of bounty and beneficence, one great comic creation remains the gift that keeps on giving. Whole memes are dedicated to Mr. Collins’s shelving, worship of his patroness, and culinary preferences (even if the latter is only featured in a screen adaptation).
Mr. Collins, Pride and Prejudice (2005)
The humour continues to resonate today, since it targets human characteristics and behaviour. People are, after all, still people. In Emma, Mrs. Elton demonstrates a ridiculous lack of self-awareness as she complains about those who give themselves immense airs and expect, “to be on a footing with the old established families.” We likely know someone equally ignorant of their double standards. We may even know a modern-day Lady Catherine (though I hope you are spared any acquaintance with a Mr. Collins).
Mr. and Mrs. Elton, Emma (2020)
Not that these characters are caricatures. Both Lady Catherine and Mr. Collins, for example, play key roles in Pride & Prejudice’s plot, and both have their darker side. I still shudder at Mr. Collins’s brutal missive to Mr. Bennet on the topic of Lydia’s situation with Mr. Wickham. “The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this.”
Austen's deft pen leaves us with a clear impression of those individuals who may occupy only a few pages of the actual novel. By definition, however, we cannot immerse ourselves in the story of those minor and secondary characters. We may know what they are, but not the entirety of why.
This presents an opportunity for those of us writing in the Austenesque world, where we can turn such characters into protagonists. And the timeless nature of Austen’s amusing prose means we can apply similar observational humour in our works if we choose.
For the reader, this allows further expansion of Austen’s fictional universe and a chance to answer some open questions.
In Pride and Prejudice, for example, Mr. Bennet receives a letter from Mr. Collins hinting at a possible match between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Our father of five exclaims, “Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins’s correspondence for any consideration.”
Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth, Pride and Prejudice (1995)
We might yearn to see how that correspondence would evolve over the years, given the absurdity of Mr. Collins and the wit of Mr. Bennet. And we can, thanks to Rose Servitova’s The Longbourn Letters.
What of Mary Bennet’s future? Austen leaves her with a two-line epilogue. I’m listening to Katherine Cowley’s The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet to discover more.
We might ask how Charlotte Collins deals with her marriage, even if Austen indicates a degree of contentment with her lot. Molly Greeley explores Charlotte’s perspective in her moving The Clergyman’s Wife (and her latest book, The Heiress, focusses on Anne de Bourgh).
As a writer of fiction, the advantage of working outside Austen’s core characters is, perhaps, a cleaner slate on which to project a story. And we have more flexibility to populate that story with new locations and people.
In my mystery novellas, I imagine Charlotte Collins solving the troubles of Hunsford. Mr. Collins remains the perfect vehicle for exposing hypocrisy and bias through humour, and the location allows me to give a voice to a fresh cast of villagers and servants. Charlotte moves between the gentry and those with considerably less power and income; a fertile ground for any writer.
Let us come back, though, to the side character who unwittingly triggered my interest in Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice describes Mr. Bennet as “so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character.”
An indifferent father and husband (to say the least) yet unwilling to allow Elizabeth Bennet to marry unhappily. A man of wisdom with a penchant for gentle teasing, yet one who also regards Jane Bennet’s disappointment at the initial loss of Mr. Bingley with what feels like a callous lack of empathy.
Mr. Bennet’s humour and intelligence, but also his contradictions and flaws make him a promising candidate for a character study. I first imagined simply recording his wry observations on the events in Pride and Prejudice. But these have since morphed into two novels, complete with a group of friends, explorations of regret, and a presentation of love and yearning as something not limited to the younger members of society.
A challenge, of course, with a protagonist like Mr. Bennet is to honour the original creation by combining humour, a fresh story, and his pithy comments on the human condition…always knowing you can never match the original. That we can at least make the attempt is testament to Jane Austen’s ability to invent such memorable characters that even the minor ones still hold our attention and interest in 2022.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Penguin, 1813
--- Emma. Penguin, 1815
*Letter to Cassandra from Chawton, May 31st, 1811