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A Christian Jane Austen Biography

25 Sunday Nov 2018

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“Teach us to understand the sinfulness of our own Hearts, and bring to our knowledge every fault of Temper and every evil Habit in which we have indulged to the discomfort of our fellow-creatures, and the danger of our own Souls.” – excerpt from a prayer by Jane Austen

Christians and non-Christians alike sometimes have difficulty believing Jane Austen really was a Christian because matters of faith are so understated in her works. Evangelical Christians today are accustomed to Christian novels in which character, plot and basically everything else of aesthetic value function merely as a platform for bold gospel declarations, and assume Austen must be a nominal Christian only because her faith is not similarly brazen in her fiction. Secular academics and biographers, on the other hand, are eager to place Austen within a feminist tradition because of her success and influence. They easily disregard subtle elements of faith in her novels, downplaying her beliefs as the inevitable product of growing up with a 19th century Anglican clergyman father.

Peter Leithart’s biography Jane Austen, an installment in the biographical series “Christian Encounters,” vindicates Austen’s Christian faith by bringing to light excerpts from Austen’s letters and other personal writings that testify to its authenticity. Leithart also explains that while Christianity may appear, to modern day readers especially, subdued in Austen’s works, it nonetheless serves as the foundational premise of her convictions on social behaviour. For Austen, manners and Christian morals are intertwined, as exemplified in the above quote, and causing “the discomfort of our fellow-creatures” is an “evil” and a “sin,” in her own words. Humans are not solitary creatures for whom the pursuit of personal freedom and choice are the ultimate right or moral good; rather, good and evil manifest themselves in our treatment of others, and our moral duty is to make others as “comfortable” as possible (see Luke 6:31, Mark 12:31, Romans 12:18).

For Austen, “loving thy neighbour” means good manners – friendliness, politeness, cheerfulness, helpfulness, putting others before one’s self (this is the defining trait of a gentleman in Austen’s books), and “good sense” (Austen’s favourite). In Austen’s world, those characters who exhibit embarrassing or deplorable manners are vain, conceited, selfish, stupid and irrational. How could such traits describe a Christian? The Bible clearly states how people ought to behave, from proverbs about the importance of cheerfulness to New Testament descriptions of how disciples of Christ must live peaceably with one another. This is no trifling matter; we mistreat others to “the danger of our own souls,” Austen believed, echoing the warning of James 2:17: “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” Our salvation is indeed bound up in our manners. When viewed in such a light, it is hard to perceive Austen’s novels as anything but Christian.

Read about Lady Susan, one of only two of Austen’s works to be published during the Victorian Era.

 

 

Introducing “Lady Susan” by Jane Austen

15 Friday Apr 2016

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“The spell is removed. I see you as you are.” – Lady Susan

“‘People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.'” Samuel 16:7

Lady Susan (1871), one of Jane Austen’s lesser known writings, was one of only two works by Austen (along with The Watsons) to reach publication during Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901). These two novellas were published posthumously (Austen died in 1817), but were actually among her early writings. Lady Susan, excitingly, is being released as a major motion picture on May 13, 2016 in the United States under the title Love and Friendship (curiously this was actually the title of another early writing). Christianity Today has already bestowed a rave review upon the film. And yes, Jane Austen was a Christian (more on that below, along with an upcoming book giveaway).

Some readers might raise an eyebrow at finding the first page of this Austen book already rocking with scandal and impropriety in the person of Lady Susan, a flirtatious scheming widow (with a grown daughter, no less) who gets “thrills” out of seducing the attentions of even married men for her own amusement. But merely recall wicked Wickham of Pride and Prejudice; one might consider Lady Susan his female double. This time, though, we get to hear the story from the reprobate’s point of view.

Austen seems to delight in crafting deceptive characters and watching unsuspecting people fall for them (even her own heroes and heroines). But the greatest satisfactory pleasure Austen’s novels deliver, Lady Susan not excepting, is the unveiling of true character at the final curtain call, when all the masks come off and the pretenses disappear. In Austen’s literary worlds, dishonest, scheming and immoral behaviour is always brought to light, and the duped become enlightened (usually to their indignant horror). In Austen’s time, when following rigid codes of manners and behaviour could enable success in relationships and society, one could conceivably “play the game” – that is, affect good manners – and thereby “win” a spouse, or friend, or popularity. Austen detests players of this game, and her heroes and heroines are those who remain honest, trustworthy and ethical, even at the expense of reputation or popularity.

Lady Susan’s pretenses fail and her daughter Frederica’s innocent humility succeeds because of the higher moral order that Austen believes in, where bad is punished and good rewarded. Even though we know in real life that that is not always the case (and Austen wouldn’t make any such claim about reality), we know that is the way things ought to be, and the way we ought to think about things, for that is ultimately the divine order of things. God, the author of life, will see the just rewarded and the wicked punished in the end. It is God’s will that all secret deeds and thoughts be brought to light, and judgment.

Likewise, Austen lays out her characters’ actions for her readers’ judgment. But such an endeavour is only effective because she presumes that readers presuppose a timeless, objective standard of morality that transcends all societies. Her eternal popularity, despite superficial changes to societal behavioural “codes,” testifies to this. We still believe that deceiving and manipulating people for one’s own personal gain is wrong, and that people ought to be held accountable for such behaviour. We’ve heard this before; this is “mere Christianity,” and this is Jane Austen, an Anglican and intellectual kin to C. S. Lewis.

The scriptures say that “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy” (Proverbs 12:22). Austen seeks to evoke the same desires in her readers, to approve the honest and condemn the charade. It seems that Austen’s literary works are moralizing sermons after all, and it also seems to me, interestingly, that millions of readers have no problem with that, however consciously or unconsciously.

But what about her comic humour? Indeed, Austen’s works are primarily comedies. Fittingly, C. S. Lewis explains it best:

“Have I been treating the novels as though I had forgotten that they are, after all, comedies? I trust not. The hard core of morality and even of religion seems to me to be just what makes good comedy possible. ‘Principles’ or ‘seriousness’ are essential to Jane Austen’s art. Where there is no norm, nothing can be ridiculous…. Unless there is something about which the author is never ironical, there can be no true irony in the work. ‘Total irony’ – irony about everything – frustrates itself and becomes insipid.”

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Details on a Jane Austen Christian biography giveaway coming up soon!

“The Way We Live Now” by Anthony Trollope

14 Wednesday Dec 2022

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“If one wants to keep one’s self straight, one has to work hard at it, one way or the other. I suppose it all comes from the fall of Adam.” – The Way We Live Now

Whoever originated the writerly advice, “Show, don’t tell,” a commonly touted golden rule of fiction writing, apparently never read a Victorian novel. The Victorians are master story tellers, and the intense, psychological study of character is one of the defining features of Victorian novels (particularly the hefty ones). Rarely does a character act (“show”) first before an in-depth description of his personality, and all the vices and virtues such a personality induces, as well as the influence of his history or upbringing, are set before the reader. Before the character acts, we already understand him, and his words and deeds become plausible. The Way We Live Now, a long, critical commentary on the moral ills of Victorian society by Anthony Trollope, exemplifies this feature as the narrator spreads out an array of Londoners for the reader’s consideration, but mostly for her disapproval. Trollope’s narrator delineates his characters like an omniscient, god-like authority who sees into the very heart of a person. But the narrator does more than just reveal characters; he also judges him or her – also like God. Frequently, Trollope tells us what opinion we should have about a character’s behaviour.

Victorian literature fans may often be tempted to look back wistfully at Victorian society’s high standards of modesty, virtue and propriety; however, reading a little bit of Trollope is like a bucket of cold water on the head reminding us that sin pervades every society and culture and has since the dawn of time, since sin germinates in the heart of every person, quickly curing us of “good old days” syndrome. Whether it is marriage, the family, religion, the treatment of women, racism, the government, the economy, or vocation, there is hardly an area of society that escapes Trollope’s scathing reproof. What’s worse is that Trollope fixes his critical eye mainly upon the genteel class, where we would expect to find the best representation of Victorian values, but the vice hiding therein reduces our beloved propriety to a charade, and we are forced to swallow the uncomfortable truth that that which we admire so much in the Victorians was sometimes simply a veneer for vice. The lowest criminals are honest, at least, about their dealings. Of course, as Christians we should know that virtue has nothing to do with class or appearance. This is one of the plainest teachings in the Bible about human character.

Trollope’s epic novel follows a wide cast of characters whose lives and fortunes are greatly affected by an illustriously wealthy newcomer to the London scene. From the beginning the narrator strongly hints that Augustus Melmotte is duplicitous; he attracts other unscrupulous characters to him, while repulsing those who are honest and principled. The novel chronicles the sad story of his daughter Marie as she tries to gain some agency in her life both in love and in money, the parallel love story of Hetta and Paul and all of the obstacles in the way of their marriage, and the pathetic exploits of Hetta’s brother, Sir Felix Carbury, an utter profligate with no hope of reform.  

Although Trollope is not forthright with his religious beliefs in The Way We Live Now, he was an Anglican and the opinions that he sets forth in the novel can be understood through a Christian worldview, particularly his view on marriage and the sexes, which I would like to take up in another post. Clearly, if Trollope’s depiction of marriage in the novel was representative of nineteenth century society, the treatment of marriage as a kind of prostitution of women is a corruption of the model of marriage proscribed in the New Testament. In the little bit of research I did on Trollope’s personal life I learned that he, among many other Anglicans, did not appreciate the boldness of the evangelical movement, which burgeoned in the nineteenth century, seeing it as almost brash and annoying. This surely explains the understated Christian beliefs in his novels, as well as in Jane Austen’s (Jane Eyre is quite an exception to this, however, as well as Elizabeth Gaskell‘s works), and the explicit gospel and devotional themes in today’s typical Christian evangelical novel, which many of us have grown up with and thus have come to expect as the norm for Christian fiction. It’s why some people are surprised to find or feel skeptical that Austen was actually a Christian, and why she is so easily co-opted by feminist scholars.

I feel it is incumbent upon one when reviewing an eight-hundred-page novel to comment on its readability to help one decide whether to attempt such a herculean endeavour. For those who have given up halfway when slogging through some of Dicken’s massive tomes, take heart. I don’t think Trollope has the genius or wordsmithery of Charles Dickens, but I also think that makes him a little more accessible and less bewildering, at least in The Way We Live Now. I also don’t think that Trollope’s work delves as deeply into the good and evil of humankind or presents such a hellish or angelic view of people as Dickens does. Rather, The Way We Live Now is more a commentary on the lamentableness of Victorian society in terms of all of its hypocrisy, two-facedness and double-standards; there are no murderers or starving children in the gutter in Trollope. I personally found that The Way We Live Now is quite readable and it was one of the easiest large tomes I have read in a long time. There is just enough scandal and drama balanced with a light intellectual commentary to make picking up the novel something to look forward to each time.

Introducing “Barchester Towers” by Anthony Trollope

Shorter Christian Victorian Novels

23 Thursday Mar 2017

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Although the Victorian era is famous (or notorious, depending on how heavy you like your books) for its thousand-page tomes such as Charles Dickens’ Dombey and Son, William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair or George Eliot’s Middlemarch, 19th century literature does include some lighter fare, still worth the sampling.

 

1. Agnes Grey (1847) by Anne Bronte
Image result for agnes grey

 In Agnes’ lonely and friendless life appears a conscientious and principled young rector, stirring the governess’s heart to flame with hope for a future of Godly companionship.  (102 pages) Read more here and here.

 

 

 

2. Cricket: A Tale of Humble Life (1886) by Silas K. Hocking 

Image result for cricket book hocking

Cricket tells a simple but heart-warming tale of two impoverished youths living in Liverpool whose trials draw them into a friendship with one another. Billy, who has been homeless from a young age and never entered a church in his life, learns first of Jesus Christ from Caroline (Cricket), and her life becomes a living testimony of the truth of the gospel in a way that the mystifying Sunday sermons in the local chapel cannot. (248 pages) Read more here.

 

3. Lady Susan (1871) by Jane Austen 

Image result for lady susan

Lady Susan, a flirtatious scheming widow (with a grown daughter, no less) gets “thrills” out of seducing the attentions of even married men for her own amusement. One might consider Lady Susan to be George Wickham’s female double. This time, though, we get to hear the story from the reprobate’s point of view. (94 pages) Read more here.

 

 

4. Cranford (1853) by Elizabeth Gaskell

While typical Victorian novels uphold romantic, marital love as the penultimate relationship, Cranford appreciates sisterly and neighbourly love. Christians, too, often idolize the love between husband and wife as the sublime picture of Christ and his bride (the church), forgetting the other picture of humble submission and kindness – love between brothers and sisters within the body of Christ. (192 pages) Read more here. 

5 Classic Christian Novels You Won’t Find At Your Bible Bookstore

15 Tuesday Apr 2014

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For the Jane Austen fan bored of the bland selection on the fiction shelves at your local Christian bookstore or church library, consider the classics below, all written by Christians during the Victorian Era. These novels (and more), which I analyze in depth on my blog, pack intellectual and theological punch – and enough time-period drama for even the Downton Abbey addict.

1. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore – This tale of forbidden romance on the wild, rugged moors is sure to please any Jane Eyre fan. But with guns, outlaws, highway robberies and horse-riding men of brawn you might want to pass this English western onto a male in your life once you’re finished with it (or vice versa). (And somebody ought to tell John Eldredge and co. about this one.)

2. Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell – Can a congregation overcome scandal? Or are sinful secrets better kept quiet? Read this little-known Victorian Mary Magdalene story to find out. This book, however, is definitely a secret better not kept.

3. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell – Why read historical fiction when you can read novels written by eyewitnesses from that very period? The smoke, grime and grinding cogs of industrial Manchester come to life in this story of murder, mystery and romance.

4. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte – A disastrous marriage, a harrowing escape and a mysterious woman with a past. Thought the Victorians were prudes? This novel fearlessly tackles alcoholism, marital abuse and adultery – waters today’s Amish and other G-rated Christian Harlequins fear to tread.

5. Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope – This novel unfolds a romantic comedy with many hilarious mishaps and misunderstandings, all amid the setting of the stuffy and magisterial Anglican church in mid-19th century England. Trollope tackles absurdity, immorality and superficiality in the church without fear, always with a dose of humour, and even sometimes with outright buffoonery.

Have you ever heard of any of these novels, and if so, where from?
Do any appeal to you?
Do you prefer contemporary Christian novels or the classics?
Leave a reply below.

For the Student of Literature

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.” Colossians 2:8

It probably comes as no surprise that a student of any humanities program will have to confront centuries of atheistic and agnostic philosophy in their studies. Long before sitting in my first lecture hall, I was aware that universities were bastions of secular, liberal thought. I had read some Francis Schaeffer and a few other Christian apologists, so I felt generally prepared to face challenges to my religious faith.

However, an encounter with an entirely new school of thought still took me utterly unawares: twentieth century French literary theory. I had never come across Derrida, Althusser, Foucault, Cixious and at least a dozen others – who pretty much reworked and reinterpreted not only literature but all philosophy up until that point in history – in any apologist or Christian writings before, and certainly not from any pastor or small group study. So, I assumed the church had either never heard of them, or had, but simply faltered under the weight of explaining them, or, denounced them as worldly and left it at that. In any case, it seemed the church had no answer to postmodernism and post-structuralism and the myriad theories under their umbrella.

Not until after I finished my undergrad degree did I discover, after much searching, that there does indeed exist “Christian literary criticism,” and it’s very, very good.  Since discovering my first book on the subject (which I will review first), the field has grown immensely and new authors have cropped up (including some very prolific ones, such as James K. A. Smith). And yes, these writers (mostly professors and scholars, some pastors) cover almost the whole gamut from Jane Austen to Differance – literature and literary theory.

But, like the literature I introduce and analyze in other parts of my blog, you won’t find any of these titles on your Bible bookstore shelves. Hence the purpose of this section of the blog, to share Christian books and authors I’ve found (see list below) that aren’t afraid to grab secular academic thinking by the horns. These writers offer both criticism and efforts at reconciliation. They won’t hesitate to point out where postmodernism got it right – not just wrong – for example.

When I discovered all these texts, I said to myself (and still do), “If only I had read these before going to university!” I hope my blog will allow others that opportunity I never had. In any case, whether university is ahead of you or behind you, take advantage of reading works by Christian scholars who respond to the influential philosophies of our time, so that

“we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching.” Ephesians 4:14

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“….as scholars…devoted their intellectual energy to their various guilds, Christians…found themselves looking for wisdom and guidance where they could get it. The result is that they picked up what was available – in Christian bookstores, magazines, and perhaps most significantly, on Christian radio. And since Christian intellectuals had pretty much vacated these spaces, the result is that the Christian public began to nourish themselves with what I have to say is largely an unhealthy diet…. Celebrity pastors, radio evangelists, and Christian talk radio hosts filled the vacuum that was left by the evacuation of Christian intellectuals from the popular spaces of the Christian community.” The Devil Reads Derrida: and other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics, and the Arts by James K. A. Smith p. xiv

Introducing…

“The Discerning Christian Reader: Christian Perspectives on Literature and Theory” Ed. by Barratt, Pooley and Ryken

“Orthodoxy” by G.K. Chesterton

Reblogged from Involuted Speculations: “Why Literature Matters: Some Presuppositional Considerations”

“Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to Church” by James. K. A. Smith 

“Validity in Interpretation” – E. D. Hirsch

“Echoes of Eden: Reflections on Christianity, Literature and the Arts” – Jerram Barrs

“Miniatures and Morals: the Christian Novels of Jane Austen” – Peter J. Leithart

“Word Pictures: Knowing God Through Story and Imagination” – Brian Godawa

“Windows to the World: Literature in Christian Perspective” – Leland Ryken

“Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From its Cultural Captivity” – Nancy Pearcey

“Finding Truth: Five Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism and Other God Substitutes” – Nancy Pearcey

 

 

Fruits of the Spirit in “Agnes Grey” by Anne Brontë

09 Tuesday Jul 2013

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“All true histories contain instruction.” – Agnes Grey

 

Is It Art?

 Agnes Grey offers a simple tale. It does not boast the sweeping drama of gothic novels. It does not tease with otherworldly characters and landscapes, such as in the other Brontë sisters’ novels. Its scenes do not sparkle with the nuances of witty conversation in an English drawing room, as in a Jane Austen novel. One might say Agnes Grey does not carry that kind of depth of vision.

 And if the novel were judged according to my university professors’ trifecta of “good” literature (and you thought the universities taught that art is subjective!) – degree of complexity, capacity to challenge the status quo, and lack of didacticism – Agnes Grey probably would not measure up (although I wouldn’t put it past critics to drag a feminist interpretation kicking and screaming out of the text somewhere, if they haven’t already). As I said before, the scope of the novel is narrow. Its subversion of the status quo appears to consist merely of defying wickedness with virtue (this is not a sufficient challenge to societal norms for academia, since it doesn’t involve any minority groups).  And Agnes Grey, a “history of instruction” by its own declaration, could be considered a morality story for grown-ups. By academia’s standards, this book offers little aesthetic value. Indeed, I never even heard of it until after university. I first discovered it at a book depot containing rare books.

 But another standard of judging art exists. It’s an old one, and it’s a delightfully Christian one. In 1595, when the plays of Shakespeare enthralled audiences, “A Defence of Poetry” by Sir Philip Sidney was posthumously published, roughly fifteen years after he composed it. Sidney built his case for the purpose and value of art firmly upon a Christian foundation.

 As an aside – Students of literature typically study Sidney’s “Defence” in classes on Renaissance literature, or even whole courses on Sidney himself, sometimes in companion with Edmund Spenser (I did), as he wrote his fair share of now-canonized poetry. Usually, though, professors teach “Defence” as a key to understanding the rest of Sidney’s works, and not as a way of understanding other literature. So the essay is really more of a literary relic, and understandably so; for secular professors and students, a handbook of Christian literary interpretation can be of little other use. 

 In “A Defence of Poetry,” Sidney argues that art’s purpose is to morally enlighten and instruct through beauty. He writes, “I affirm[] that no learning is so good as that which teacheth and moveth to virtue; and that none can teach and move thereto so much as poetry.” To paraphrase, the best instruction is that which not only inspires people to be good, but shows them how to do it, and poetry (or literature, as novels did not exist at this time. Sidney calls poetry “speaking pictures.”) does this the best. The source of all goodness and virtue for Sidney is God, but this goodness has been overshadowed by the consequences of the Fall. The poet’s duty is to imagine and represent the world as God intended it to be, as the present kingdom of Christ has restored it to and which is partly revealed in us.  Furthermore, when poets write, they glorify God, for the nature their imaginations conceive of far surpasses the nature we see around us, and as creatures formed in the image of God and set above nature, their creative acts point to and honour Him.

 It’s not hard to see how secular academia would find such an approach to literature irrelevant and relegate an essay advancing it to an artefact of literature itself. That is also how academia approaches the Bible.

 

Art That Enlightens

 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Gal. 5: 22

 Sir Philip Sidney’s “A Defence of Poetry” may not prove useful for understanding all Christian literature, but it can help illumine the meaning of Agnes Grey. Sidney’s interpretative strategy also establishes the novel as art, which secular standards of “good literature” might deny it. Additionally, such an interpretation explains the value of this kind of text to Christians.

 In the character of Agnes the author gives readers a “speaking picture” of the effects of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a follower of Christ. Though of course Agnes does not pretend to be perfect (“If you would but consider your own unattractive exterior, your unamiable reserve, your foolish diffidence – which must make your appear cold, dull, awkward, and perhaps ill-tempered too,” she remonstrates herself), her interactions with those around her demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit exemplified by Christ in the gospels and detailed by Paul in Galations.

 The pupils under Agnes’ charge test her every limit; nevertheless, mustering all the self-control she can, she strives to act with kindness and gentleness toward them (and their parents, who see their offspring through rose-coloured lenses), forbearing from lashing out in exasperation. “Patience, Firmness and Perseverance were my weapons; and these I resolved to use to the utmost,” the narrator writes, and that is quite a task, considering her first set of pupils’ behaviour is like something out of Dennis the Menace. At her second placement as a governess, the pupils, teenagers this time, challenge her with a whole other set of appalling characteristics which I will just sum up as “shallow” and “egotistical.” Through it all Agnes forbears, firstly, when her employers unjustly criticize her methods and falsely accuse her of negligence and she offers no retort, and secondly, when one of her own pupils, Rosalie, attempts to win the heart of the man Agnes admires, even though Rosalie is secretly engaged to another.  

 Agnes’ efforts to reform her pupils are, unfortunately, unsuccessful. However, in the end, Rosalie acknowledges her former governess’ virtue and sense, as she laments her poor marriage choice and begs Agnes to “be [her daughter’s] governess as soon as it can speak; and you shall bring it up in the way it should go, and make a better woman out of it than its mamma.” But Agnes’ greatest reward for her patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control is the attention they attract of the curate Mr. Weston, an equally virtuous person, and who ultimately asks for her hand in marriage.

 Through Agnes, Bronte demonstrates the qualities of a Christian filled with the Holy Spirit, who perseveres and endures, though enemies face her on every side, and who treats others with the virtues Christ lived out and taught his disciples to imitate. Agnes Grey is art because it shows us what living in the kingdom is like. The character of Agnes, though not perfect, displays the attributes of a kingdom dweller, and it is these characteristics that cause her to appear foolish to those who live in the kingdom’s shadow (her employers and their children), yet attractive to those who live in the kingdom’s light (the curate).

 Indeed, for those living outside of the kingdom, beauty (and by extension, art) can only appear to exist in the eye of the beholder because they possess no standard by which to measure it. Kingdom-dwellers, on the other hand, are immediately attracted to reflections of the kingdom. It is no surprise in the end that Agnes and Mr. Weston should be attracted to each other, as they each bear marks of the kingdom. It should also come as no surprise that Christians should be attracted to and find value in Agnes Grey the novel, a novel wholly concerned with kingdom matters. 

The Fall of Women in Victorian Novels: “Clarissa,” The Scarlet Letter,” “Ruth” and “Tess of the D’urbervilles”

27 Wednesday Feb 2013

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The ruin of women through seduction was a common theme in literature of the 1800’s. I am not aware of many books that grant a happy ending to unchaste women – certainly not a marriage, anyway (perhaps Lydia Bennett of Pride and Prejudice?). In fact, most 19th century narratives about fallen women are heartbreakingly tragic. A comparison of a handful of Victorian novels illustrates this (and reinforces why Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell can be considered so radical).

Clarissa by John Richardson (1748)

Clarissa is Richardson’s follow-up to his best-seller Pamela (1740), which is counted among one of the first English novels ever written. Technically not written in the Victorian era (neither are Jane Austen’s novels), these epistolary novels (like Austen’s), pioneer the way for the themes, topics and culture presented in novels written during the reign of Queen Victoria (1819-1901).

The contrast between the fate of a chaste woman and a fallen woman couldn’t be starker than in Pamela and Clarissa. In Pamela, the heroine successfully evades the advances of her seducer and the narrator rewards her with marriage to him; in Clarissa, the heroine is “unsuccessful” at rebuffing (read: raped) and dies of some fever or other debilitating and emotionally brought-on illness.

Of the ending to Clarissa Richardson wrote:

“…if the temporary sufferings of the Virtuous and the Good can be accounted for and justified on Pagan principles, many more and infinitely stronger reasons will occur to a Christian Reader in behalf of what are called unhappy Catastrophes, from a consideration of the doctrine of future rewards; which is every where strongly enforced in the History of Clarissa.”

The Scarlet Letter (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne

In Hawthorne’s tale, a fallen woman is trialed, jailed and humiliated by her Puritan village while the father, whose identity the village does not know, struggles with his guilty conscience in secret, until one day his body succumbs to the torment of his mind and he dies upon his final confession.

I could not find a good discussion of Hawthorne’s religious beliefs either on the internet or in my anthologies. Apparently he lived fairly reclusively with his wife. Many of his texts clearly critique the Puritan religion he was raised in; that proves little, however. Note that Hawthorne is an American writer, but he would definitely be familiar with Richardson’s novels and the fallen woman narrative in British literature, as The Scarlet Letter shows.

Ruth (1853) by Elizabeth Gaskell

Ruth lives a life surprisingly industrious and exemplary for a fallen woman; as a single mother, she works and provides for her fatherless son. The narrator presents her as a model of Christian piety and devotion who exposes the hypocrisy of legalistic believers in her congregation. She performs the acts of Jesus (healing and comforting) and parallels his suffering and sacrifice on the cross by giving her life to save her former persecutor. Ruth is the message of the gospel in Ruth.

Like all other heroines discussed, Ruth must die according to narrative norms of the time (which have social origins, as all narratives do). However, a long spell of industry and Christian living interrupts the period between her fall and her death, unlike in Clarissa, and her death is not meaninglessly tragic, as in Tess.

Elizabeth Gaskell was married to a minister of the Unitarian church (they deny the trinity, and therefore the complete divinity of Christ).

Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) by Thomas Hardy

Tess chronicles perhaps the most brutal and tragic tale of a fallen woman. The novel culminates with the trying, convicting and hanging of Tess for murdering the man who caused her ruin.

Thomas Hardy made no secret of his atheism and the novel certainly operates as a critique of societal norms and expectations. Hardy’s last novel, “Jude the Obscure,” makes even clearer his views on what he perceives as the suffocating confines of 19th century marriage laws and norms through its narration of the life of a cohabiting couple.

Note: See also Charles Dickens and George Elliott for more treatments of the fallen woman in Victorian Literature.

The Great Victorian Sin in “Ruth” by Elizabeth Gaskell

05 Tuesday Feb 2013

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A First Look

 Not unusually for a Victorian novel, the heroine of this story, Ruth, must die for her sin of falling into seduction. Ruth’s story cannot meet a happy end, which, typically for a Victorian heroine, involves marriage to an exemplary gentleman. The plot does not even permit her noble spinsterhood; that compensation is awarded to chaste (and sometimes annoying – see Miss Bates in Jane Austen’s Emma) ladies only. Conversely, Ruth must not only die but also toil in atonement (as a sickbed nurse) for her error, however innocently or ignorantly she committed it.

Such notions are hardly Scriptural, and if you hadn’t noticed the above chain of circumstances in the story until now you may be tempted to throw this book out the window now and every other Victorian author with it. Romans 6:23 assures that God offers eternal life to believers in Christ, regardless of their past. Ruth’s life and death seem contrary to a basic understanding of Christian salvation. Stories of believers physically and mortally punished for their sins are not spiritually truthful, never mind inspiring narratives to read.

Gaskell’s portrayal of Christianity appears to become more muddled by considering the antagonist of the novel, who commits the same sin as Ruth and yet does not meet the same end as her. The narrator clearly paints Bellingham as evil, yet he survives the same sickness that kills Ruth, and certainly does not spend his life toiling; he lives a life of privilege and exudes a degree of laziness. He is even allowed an engagement and there is no indication he will be barred from a happy, married ending because of his past.

Again, the disparate treatment of Ruth and Bellingham oppose scripture about salvation, in this case that it is offered equally to men and women. Why does the woman pay for her sins but not the man in this story?

A More Redeeming Look

 “I take my stand with Christ against the world.” – Ruth

A closer look at the novel shows that Ruth’s “great Victorian sin” is not all it may seem to outsiders. The narrator states several times that Ruth is only fifteen years of age at the time of her seduction. Ruth is described as innocent and ignorant of what she is doing; she gets a “feeling” sometimes that all is not quite right about her relationship with Bellingham, but mostly she does not seem to understand the significance of what she is doing. Mr. and Miss Benson defend her past because of her youth as well.

Ruth’s age raises a theological question. Did Ruth really sin, if she didn’t know what she was doing? Legally, today, courts would determine Ruth the victim of rape and Mr. Bellingham (that dashing gentleman) would be locked away. Christians today would hardly hold her at fault either. Consider, though, that in Victorian times a girl could legally marry as young as 12 (more commonly, though, women married around the age of 20).

Marriage then was not always the romantic product of choice it is now, however. It was often an exchange of properties and sometimes arranged for the participants. Gaskell’s downplaying of Ruth’s responsibility in the affair is noteworthy, not only because of its  radicalness for the Victorian era, but because it helps establish Ruth as blameless, and therefore, perhaps, sinless. [Much could also be said here about the tradition of woman as seductress in literary love affairs that Gaskells upends. In this narrative, woman is victim and man is seducer.]

The Bensons’ decision to take in and care for Ruth and her illegitimate child are also unconventional, as evinced by the community’s reaction, who whisper about them, and particularly Mr. Bradshaw, who shuns them altogether, when Ruth’s true history is revealed. But Mr. Benson stands firm in his Christian beliefs:

“I declare before God, that if I believe in any one human truth, it is this – that to every woman, who, like Ruth, has sinned, should be given a chance of self-redemption – and that such a chance should be given in no supercilious or contemptuous manner, but in the spirit of the holy Christ….

I state my firm belief, that it is God’s will that we should not dare to trample any of His creatures down to the hopeless dust; that it is God’s will that the women who have fallen should be numbered among those who have broken hearts to be bound up, not cast aside as lost beyond recall.”

I’m sure Gaskell did not choose a minister for such a role lightly. Mr. Benson, with his internal struggle about the moral rightness of hiding Ruth’s history, as well as his physical deformity, is a developed character, with a conscience and a past. Conversely, we might view Mr Benson’s deformity as representative of his capacity for falsehood, similar to the literary character Pinocchio. Either way/nonetheless, a minister is the mouthpiece of God, and through him Gaskell proclaims her Christian beliefs. Ruth is vindicated and loved by a minister of the church.

Gaskell also vindicates Ruth’s character by imbuing her with the attributes of the Biblical Mary Magdalen. Mr. Benson wonders, hopes even, that “the tenderness which led the Magdalen aright” will lead Ruth in the right path in the end and cover over her past, as Jesus says of Mary Magdalen in Luke 7:47: “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.”  Indeed, Ruth spends much of her life caring for and loving others, especially in her sick-nurse days. Her tender and blameless actions and the way she cares for and heals those around her exemplify her as a Christ-like figure – or, as Christians would say, show Christ shines through her.

But the novel’s most radical move sees Ruth epitomize Christ himself when she sacrifices her life for the one who persecuted her. Ruth attends Mr. Bellingham on his sickbed at the price of her own life, re-enacting the final sacrifice of Christ on the cross at the hands of his persecutors. This dramatic ending proclaims the message of the gospel through Ruth, a disreputable woman, not a minister, a gentleman or even a man.

In the universities, such a reading of the text would be considered a point for feminism. For academia, any promotion or affirmation of the marginalized is always a victory in and of itself. For Christians, however, the affirmation of the marginalized is glory for God:

     “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made        perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Ruth’s dramatization of the gospel message through a fallen woman upends Victorian middle class values about sexuality and gender, but not merely for progress’ sake. Gaskell’s novel illustrates the gospel message, how Christ demonstrated his love even for his persecutors, by sacrificing his life for them. This is the only true idea of love, and Ruth’s authentic exemplification of this love cuts through the social norms and legalistic religious beliefs of the people around her to show a true picture of Christ to a society that has become disconnected from him.