Jane Austen: Parents and Parenting
Austen’s Representations of Parenthood in Pride and
Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion
Sarah de Vink 0220833
MA Thesis Western Literature and Culture
Supervisor: Paul Franssen
July 2008
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Table of Contents
Introduction
3.
Chapter 1: Raising Children in Austen’s England
8.
1.1 Family
8.
1.2 Raising Children
11.
Chapter 2: Parents and Parenting in Pride and Prejudice,
Emma, and Persuasion
13.
2.1 Pride and Prejudice’s Parents
13.
2.1.1 Mrs. Bennet: Character and Influence
14.
2.1.2 Mr Bennet: Fatherhood and Negligence
19.
2.1.3 Elizabeth: Parental Influence on Sisterhood
24.
2.2 Absent Parents in Emma
27.
2.2.1 Mr Woodhouse: inadequate but loving father
27.
2.2.2 Ms Taylor-Weston, Governess and Substitute mother
33.
2.2.3 Emma and Isabella: Mother’s child and father’s child
34.
2.3 Persuasion: Fatherhood and Vanity
37.
2.3.1 Sir Walter: Combining Narcissism and Fatherhood
37.
2.3.2 Lady Russell: Substituting Lady Elliot
41.
2.3.3 Elizabeth and Mary Elliot: Inadequate Father Makes Inadequate Sisters
46.
Conclusion: Austen’s Views on Parenting Revealed
49.
Works Cited
54.
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Introduction
Jane Austen’s novels are famous all over the world and have inspired years and years
of debate. Critics have discussed amongst other things her authentic style of writing, the
heroines that Austen constructed and Austen’s view on marriage and social class because all
of these subjects are very prominent in her work. Another thing that critics have picked up on
is the fact that Austen is very concerned with social education in her novels as well. For
example, in Domestic Realities and Imperial Fictions: Jane Austen’s Novels in EighteenthCentury Contexts Maaja A. Stewart notices that the social and economic well-being of the
heroines of Austen’s novels is very much dependent on the “ability of [having] relationships
with the father and mother” (54). Furthermore, in “The Business of Marrying and Mothering”
Lloyd W. Brown argues that “maternal failure [is] an extension of the inadequacies of the
woman’s education and individual development” (39) and that this is of influence on the
social education and development of the children. Claudia L. Johnson claims that “Austen, as
critics have long recognized, typically removes her heroines from the parental abode
altogether precisely in order to free them from [filial obedience] and to oblige them to think
and act for themselves ” (84). Finally D. W. Harding in Regulated Hatred is convinced that
“the family as a psychological matrix and as a social institution” (30) in Austen’s novels is
limited. Austen shows this in her novels by having children lack a perception of what is
socially acceptable, like for example Maria and Julia Bertram in Mansfield Park, and by
having parents lack the ability to form a genuine and responsible relationship with their
children, like for example Sir Thomas Bertram. The general consensus amongst these critics
seems to be that the social behaviour of the heroines is negatively influenced by the
relationship or the lack of a relationship with the parents.
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Many times social education, or a lack of social education, turns out to be the cause of
many problematic character flaws of the novels’ protagonists. For example, Lydia Bennet
from Pride and Prejudice is a perfect example of a girl who has never learnt the basics of
proper behaviour in nineteenth-century society. The reader only has to look at how her
behaviour embarrasses her family, the best example being of course her elopement with a man
of doubtful reputation, Mr. Wickham.
Having a lack of education does not always mean that the girl does something to
embarrass her family: sometimes it causes her to make the wrong decisions at the wrong time
which will not only influence her personally but also affect those who are closely involved.
For example, the reader should think of Anne Eliot, who in her youth declined an offer of
marriage from Captain Wentworth because of the interference of Lady Russell. Usually the
reason for the heroines’ odd and sometimes improper behaviour can be found close to home.
In almost every case of the heroines not behaving as they should the reader only has to take a
closer look at the parents to find out where the real trouble lies. After a closer look, it turns
out that in almost every novel Austen wrote there is something wrong with the parents; either
they are absent and have somebody else step in as a surrogate or the biological parents do not
parent very well.
This master thesis will attempt to find out the exact role the parent-child relationships
play in three of Austen’s novels and how those relationships influence the decisions of the
heroines, whether they are right or wrong, for several reasons. First of all, it is common
knowledge that children take after their parents and it is interesting to see to what extent
Austen’s heroines do too. For example, the reader might wonder if it is possible to assign
certain character traits of the heroines to a particular parent. Secondly, there is also the
question why Jane Austen seems to include this particular element, the parent-child
relationship, in most of her novels and whether or not she does that for a particular reason.
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Perhaps Austen is warning her readers against bad parenting by showing them the negative
influence parents can have on their children and how their treatment can affect their children’s
future. It is also possible that Austen is reflecting on her own situation and how her own
parents influenced her life. Thirdly, sometimes the biological parents are absent altogether
and in that case Austen usually provides other characters who take on the role of surrogate
parent, like for example Miss Taylor in Emma, but the question that needs to be answered is
whether or not they fulfil the exact same function as the real parents would or if the fact that
they are surrogate parents inhibits their ability to educate the child properly.
In order to figure out the parent-child element of Austen novels, three books will be
thoroughly analysed. First of all, Pride and Prejudice will be discussed because it is a novel
where the influence of the parents is very obvious. Mrs Bennet is always urging her daughters
to marry and goes to considerable lengths to ensure that her schemes will work. Furthermore,
the whole family suffers from her nervous breakdowns. Mr. Bennet’s influence is mainly
detectable in Elizabeth and in the way she copes with certain events and situations. Emma is
also very interesting to look at because of Emma’s father, who also plays a prominent role in
the novel. As with Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Woodhouse very much claims everyone’s attention and
everything has to be arranged around him because of his frail and feeble constitution. Finally
Persuasion will be looked at as well. Whereas in Emma and Pride and Prejudice the parents
seem at least to have some love for their children, Anne Eliot’s father does not seem to care
for his two younger daughters at all.
Furthermore, in order to see how these parent-child relationships function, a close
analysis will be made of each novel, looking in particular at how the parents deal with their
children, what kind of effect their treatment has on their children and to what extent the
children’s own decisions are influenced by their parents. The main focus will be on the
heroines of the novels, namely Anne Eliot, Emma Woodhouse and Elizabeth Bennet. For all
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three heroines it is interesting and necessary to look at their siblings as well in order to come
to a better understanding of the exact influence of their parents. For example, in Anne’s case
it might very well be that she is more inclined, or perhaps less inclined, to try and be accepted
by her father because he seems to be getting along with her elder sister just fine, which will
ultimately influence Anne Eliot’s behaviour one way or the other. The children of the Bennet
family have very different personalities and it is interesting to see for example to what extent
these different personalities, exaggerated or not, reflect back upon the characters of the
parents and what sort of an effect this has on Elizabeth’s behaviour. In Emma’s case it is
interesting to see how her father’s character has influenced her sister’s and if that influence
has lessened since Emma’s sister married and left home in order to find out if this has any
consequences for Emma’s behaviour and personality.
To be able to answer the question why Jane Austen focuses mostly on what she
believes to be flawed parent-child relationships the analyses made from the situations in
Emma, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion have to be placed in context. Parenting in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries should be looked at in order to be able to understand what
family life was like in that period and in order to be able to say something substantial about
the parent-child relationships in Austen’s novels. For example, Roger Sales suggests in his
book Jane Austen and Representations of Regency England that the political situation of the
time of writing of Austen novels may have played a part in her representation of parents and
children. Sales argues that the crisis brought on by the Prince regent’s incapability of reigning
the country is partly to blame on his personality and that Austen reflects upon this using the
flawed parent-child relationships in her novels. However, this paper will focus on Jane
Austen’s representation of the parent-child relationships. This paper will also focus on
Austen’s use of substitute parents to see if Austen values surrogate parents the same as
biological parents. For example, in Persuasion the role of Lady Russell and Mr. Eliot will be
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compared to see for example if they make the same mistakes when it comes to Anne’s
upbringing and education and in Emma the role of Miss Taylor will be compared to that of
Mr. Woodhouse. Furthermore, it could very well be that Jane Austen used her own experience
in describing the parent child relationship, which might indicate that her own childhood was
not very happy and this paper attempts to shed some light on that as well by looking at
different biographies written of her life.
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Chapter 1: Raising Children in Austen’s England
Nowadays parents are very much concerned with the upbringing of their children and
there are numerous books available offering a multitude of ways to successfully raise children
and create a lasting bond between parent and child. Moreover, the focus on proper upbringing
in modern society has evolved to such an extent that it is possible to punish parents in cases of
child neglect or abuse. However, in Jane Austen’s era the parents’ point of view of what was
appropriate in childrearing was very different and the way the parents treated their children
created much more emotional distance between parent and child. These eighteenth and
nineteenth-century views on raising children need to be explained in order to help understand
Jane Austen’s approach to parent-child relationships in Emma, Pride and Prejudice and
Persuasion. Therefore, Lawrence Stone’s book The Family, Sex and Marriage in England
1500-1800 will be used to explain how eighteenth and nineteenth-century families raised their
children and what other values they thought important in family life.
1.1 Family
The first thing that needs clarification is the term family because the meaning of this
term has changed considerably over the decades. The modern term family mostly refers to a
unit that consists of parents and children who have developed strong emotional ties and bonds
with each other. However, according to Lawrence Stone in The Family, Sex and Marriage in
England 1500-1800 this type of family only came into existence in the late-seventeen-earlyeighteenth-century. In his book Stone distinguishes between three types of families, namely
the nuclear family, the household and kin. Stone refers to nuclear family as consisting of
“those members of the same kin who live together under one roof” (28) which means parents
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and children and in some cases live in grandparents as well. With household, Stone refers to
all persons that live under one roof, which includes boarders, servants and apprentices (28)
and continues by saying that “this composite group was confusingly known as a ‘family’ in
the sixteenth and seventeenth century” (28). Finally, Stone refers to kin as being “persons
related by blood or marriage” (28), who are nowadays mostly referred to as extended family.
Earlier types of family in the late medieval and the early sixteenth centuries were
predominantly preoccupied “with the preservation, increase and transmission through
inheritance and marriage of the property and status of the lineage, of the generations of
ancestors stretching back into the remote past” (Stone, 69) and consequently emotional
relationships and attachments were of minor or no importance as long as the survival of
property and social status were safeguarded. For example, Stone argues that the principal
considerations for marriage were “past lineage associations, political patronage, extension of
lineage connections, and property preservation and accumulation” (70) and furthermore he
argues that marriage was a “collective decision of family and kin” (70). Another issue that
heavily influenced relationships within the family was the fact that the eldest son was always
the sole heir to the estate of the parents. According to Stone this “principle of primogeniture
[…] was something which went far to determine the behaviour and character of both parents
and children, and to govern the relationship between siblings” (71). The fact that the eldest
son inherited everything meant that the other children were either left to their own devices to
secure a future or were dependant on the generosity of the eldest brother. In essence, latemedieval and early-sixteenth-century families were highly hierarchical because only the
eldest male possessed the power to rule over the entire household and “the family group was
held together by shared economic status and political interest, and by the norms and values of
authority and deference” (Stone, 88).
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From the sixteenth century onward the English family structure started to change and
the family was no longer predominantly seen as an economic unit heavily influenced by
neighbours and kin but as a unit that belonged together and was able to survive and evolve
even as “the influence of kin and clientage correspondingly declined [and] the importance of
the affective bonds to tie the conjugal unit together began to increase” (Stone, 93). Gradually
the relationship between husband and wife became more affectionate and children were
identified “as a special status group, distinct from adults” (Stone, 149). Furthermore, the
status of the eldest male as the patriarch of the family was questioned because “it was argued
that the power of the father over the children is merely a by-product of his duty to nourish
them until they can look after themselves” (Stone, 164), which implies that seventeenthcentury society considered fatherly influence over children to be of a temporary nature which
lost its importance when the children grew up. Moreover, the resistance against the notions of
patriarchy showed itself in the introduction of new property laws which made sure that
children could no longer lose their inheritance because they displeased their parents by
marrying someone that the family thought unsuitable for example. In effect these new
property laws made sure that “the rights of each member of the family were thus clearly
defined and carefully preserved against encroachment by any other member” (Stone 166).
Nevertheless, these new laws did not really change the distribution of the inheritance amongst
the children because usually the eldest son still inherited everything but it did diminish “the
arbitrary control of the father over that distribution and therefore his power to enforce his own
will upon [his children] over such critical issues as marriage” (Stone, 166).
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1.2 Raising children
The average eighteenth-century families were usually very large; sometimes mothers
gave birth to up to twenty children mainly because of the high mortality rates amongst
children. Furthermore, it was of the utmost importance to produce an heir to the estate and
make sure that in case of an early death there were other sons who could inherit to make sure
that the property stayed in the family. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries within the
emotional relationships between parents and children “there was a general psychological
atmosphere of distance, manipulation and deference” (Stone, 88). Most children died in their
early stages of childhood and therefore many parents deemed it useless to enter into close
relationships with their children. Furthermore, many mothers especially from middle and
upper-class families fostered out their children to wet-nurses who breastfed the children and
raised them usually for the first two years of their lives. According to Valerie Fildes in her
book Wet Nursing: A History from Antiquity to the Present the “overriding reason [for women
to foster out their children] was that many husbands did not approve of, or allow, their wives
to breastfeed” (83) because most husbands thought it more important to produce heirs and by
fostering children out the mothers were almost immediately fertile again after birth. This
business of fostering out children did inhibit bonding between mother and child. The fostered
out children were often more attached to the nurse than to members of their own family.
Within the sixteenth century family, severe physical punishment ensured “domestic discipline
and the utter subordination of the child” (Stone, 122), which showed itself in acts of extreme
deference of children toward parents.
However, just as the structure of the family changed from the sixteenth century
onwards views on raising children changed as well. Slowly “parents were beginning to
recognise that each child, even if it lived for only a few hours or days, had its own unique
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individuality” (Stone, 257) and society became more and more child-minded. The acts of
deference which symbolised a child’s subordination to its parents in the sixteenth century
disappeared from the parent child relationships. Furthermore, instead of sending children out
to a wet-nurse mothers were encouraged to breastfeed their children themselves and the
practise of swaddling babies was largely abandoned. Before the eighteenth century children
were “tightly bound in bandages so that they were unable to move either head or limbs, for
the first months or so after birth” (Stone, 115). Moreover, besides affecting the health of the
children swaddling also prevented the mothers from showing affection to the child. During
the eighteenth century society came to view swaddling as “an assault on human liberty”
(Stone, 269) and proceeded to condemn it. Nevertheless, most parents were not actively
involved in the day-to-day caring for their children. In many families that task was given to
the servants, nurses or governesses but most parents did make efforts to show empathy
towards their children.
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Chapter 2: Parents and Parenting in Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion
Maggie Lane argues in Jane Austen’s Regency World of March 2005 in “Dead,
Distanced or Deficient?” an article on Motherhood in Jane Austen novels that “Jane Austen
cannot afford to create satisfactory, sensible mothers giving their daughters good advice, or
there would be no story” (16). She does not mention the fathers but often enough both parents
do not seem equipped to raise their children the way they should, if they are not absent
altogether. The three novels that are of particular interest when it comes to parents and
parenting are Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion because the influence, or lack of
influence of the parents and most certainly the silliness of the parents is the most obvious in
these novels. Furthermore, these novels offer the most background information on the
characters of the parents, which makes it possible to compare the parents to the children in
order to see to what extent the children take after their parents. Moreover, by comparing the
characters and actions of the parents to those of the children an astute analysis can be made of
the extent to which the actions of the children are the result of the upbringing they have had.
2.1 Pride and Prejudice’s Parents
Many people seem to agree that Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet are far from ideal parents
if not bad parents. For example, In Domestic Realities and Imperial Fictions Maaja A.
Stewart argues that Mrs. Bennet is “one of the most amusing portraits in literature of the
‘awful mother’” (54). Moreover, Claudia L. Johnson accuses Mrs. Bennet of folly and Mr.
Bennet of negligence (84) and the general consensus seems to be that Elizabeth and Jane have
successfully managed to extract themselves from the devastating influence of their parents
and turned into decent adults, unlike Lydia for example who is known as “always unguarded
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and often uncivil” (Austen, 86). However, the question is to what extent this assumption is
correct; perhaps Elizabeth and Jane are more influenced by their parents than is clear at first
glance.
2.1.1 Mrs. Bennet: Character and influence
From Austen’s opening statement on the Bennet parents it becomes clear that Mrs.
Bennet is a peculiar type of woman and “the business of her life was to get her daughters
married [and] its solace was visiting and news” (Austen, 4). Furthermore, it is also very clear
that the narrator of Pride and Prejudice does not think much of her intelligence either because
Mrs. Bennet is deemed “a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain
temper” (Austen, 4). Mrs. Bennet focuses so much on getting her daughters married that she
completely loses sight of her daughters’ wellbeing. For example, she does everything in her
power to make sure that her daughters are noticed when Mr. Bingley moves into the
neighbourhood. Moreover, Mrs. Bennet's efforts seem to be successful when it turns out that
Mr. Bingley indeed seems interested in Jane Bennet, her eldest daughter. However, she is
determined not to be satisfied until she knows that her daughter has secured a promise of
marriage from Mr. Bingley and goes to great lengths to ensure that Jane succeeds. For
instance, in response to an invitation of Mr. Bingley Mrs Bennet forces Jane to go to Mr.
Bingley’s house on horseback even though it looks like rain, to enforce a longer stay:
Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her mother attended her to the
door with many cheerful prognostics of a bad day. Her hopes were answered; Jane had
not been gone long before it rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but their
mother was delighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission;
Jane could certainly not come back. (Austen, 22)
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The fact that Jane might get very ill from travelling in the rain does not concern Mrs. Bennet
because in her mind it will only aid in extending Jane’s stay at Netherfield. Nowadays having
a cold is not a life-threatening disease but in the nineteenth century it was not unheard of that
people died of the effects of a cold. It appears a bit heartless that Mrs. Bennet seems perfectly
willing to risk Jane’s life in exchange for a few more days of Mr. Bingley’s company.
What makes matters even worse is that she seems most unwilling to receive her
daughter home again, almost as if she expects that her interference will immediately result in
a proposal of marriage from Mr. Bingley:
But Mrs. Bennet, who had calculated on her daughters remaining at Netherfield till the
following Tuesday, which would exactly finish Jane’s week, could not bring herself to
receive them with pleasure before. [...] They were not welcomed home very cordially
by their mother. Mrs. Bennet wondered at their coming and thought them very wrong
to give so much trouble. (Austen, 40-41)
Mrs. Bennet seems convinced that a marriage proposal from Mr. Bingley is extracted the
fastest if Jane is kept as close to him as possible. It is also very plausible that Mrs. Bennet is
trying to make sure that there is no room for competition from other women by having Jane
stay in the direct vicinity of Mr. Bingley’s.
Part of Mrs. Bennet’s behaviour is understandable though, especially when looked at
in context. Considering that in eighteenth and nineteenth century families having a male heir
was the most important and that daughters were usually considered an economic
inconvenience, the Bennet family is not exactly well off. First of all, the Bennet family
consists of five daughters, whose future needs to be secured because the estate is entailed to
Mr. Collins. The entailment of the estate means that the Bennet women are not provided for
when Mr. Bennet dies and Mrs. Bennet finds this almost impossible to bear:
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‘Oh, my dear!’ cried [Mrs. Bennet] ‘I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that
your estate should be entailed away from your own children; and I’m sure if I had
been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it. (Austen, 42)
Another reason for Mrs. Bennet’s exaggerated match-making behaviour has probably to do
with the fact that Mr. Bennet is unable to provide a proper dowry for his daughters because of
his limited means. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a lack of a dowry meant that
daughters had a severely diminished chance to marry well or marry at all because “the custom
of the dowry, according to which brides from all ranks of the propertied classes were expected
to contribute a cash sum, together with the great sensitivity to status and rank, meant that
there was a very high degree of social and economic endogamy” (Stone, 50). Taking this into
consideration, it is also possible that Mrs. Bennet’s erratic behaviour when it comes to
arranging her daughters’ marriage is Austen’s way of showing what she thought about the
eighteenth and nineteenth-century marriage brokerage and not so much about portraying Mrs.
Bennet as being a bad parent but merely using her case as an example to show that the way
she attempts to get her daughters married is wrong and perhaps even counterproductive.
However, it is obvious from the text that Mrs. Bennet prefers one daughter over the
other when it comes to marrying them off. Mrs. Bennet’s view on the marriage she intends for
Elizabeth is very clear; “Elizabeth was the least dear to her of all her children; and though the
man and the match were quite good enough for her, the worth of each was eclipsed by Mr.
Bingley and Netherfield” (Austen, 71 Austen’s emphasis). With this remark Austen is turning
away from the impersonal marriage brokering Mrs. Bennet has been busy with. Instead, she
turns the focus on the personal relationship between Mrs. Bennet and Elizabeth by first
mentioning that Elizabeth is not the favourite daughter and also that Mrs. Bennet does not
think much of the marriage that she has in mind for her. In essence, the marriage plans Mrs
Bennet makes for Elizabeth are businesslike, just like the plans she makes for Jane, but
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Austen deliberately creates a difference between the two as to what extent Mrs. Bennet’s
personal feelings towards her daughters play a role in defining the plans. By focusing first and
foremost on the fact that Mrs. Bennet does not seem to like Elizabeth very much, Austen
makes Mrs. Bennet’s plans to give her away in marriage to Mr. Collins seem spiteful, or as
punishment because Elizabeth is not as compliant as Jane is.
Austen seems to have intended Mrs Bennet as a person who does not think about the
consequences of her behaviour and who is generally more concerned about her own wellbeing
than that of others. Furthermore, her eccentricity is often of such a nature that she is a cause of
embarrassment to her children. For example, Mrs. Bennet has the tendency to speak her mind
at all times, whether this is appropriate or not, and this causes all kinds of awkward situations:
‘Yes, indeed’ cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by [Mr. Darcy’s] manner of mentioning a
country neighbourhood. ‘I assure you there is quite as much of that going on in the
country as in town’. Every body was surprised […] Mrs. Bennet who fancied she had
a complete victory over [Mr. Darcy] continued in her triumph […] ‘that gentleman’
looking at Darcy ‘seemed to think that the country was nothing at all’[…] ‘Indeed,
Mama, you are mistaken’ said Elizabeth blushing for her mother. (Austen, 30)
Elizabeth often tries to moderate her mother’s exclamations but without much success and is
often very much embarrassed because Mrs. Bennet often speaks of things she knows nothing,
or very little about. Even Jane, whose character usually prevents her from overtly criticising
her mother, sometimes feels that Mrs Bennet oversteps the boundaries of polite, motherly
conversation; “Oh! That my dear mother had more command over herself; she can have no
idea of the pain that she gives me by her continual reflections on [Mr. Bingley]” (Austen, 90).
However, it is interesting to notice that even though it seems that Elizabeth and Mrs.
Bennet are as different as night and day certain character traits reflect in both of them.
Therefore, Mrs. Bennet's influence on the behaviour of her daughter is probably larger than
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the reader would expect. When Mrs. Bennet and Elizabeth are compared to each other both
display quite similar reactions to, for example, provocations or in situations where pride is
involved. Austen created Elizabeth Bennet with a mind of her own and Austen made her,
besides her mother, the only person who openly criticises and sometimes even ridicules Mr.
Darcy. Furthermore, by their actions Austen makes it clear that both women do not want to be
told what to do or what to say. However, Elizabeth anticipates better on her surroundings and
Austen makes her speak her mind without causing much offence while Austen does not check
Mrs. Bennet’s exclamations.
The one character trait that Austen invented and has primarily caused Mrs. Bennet to
be perceived as a fatuous woman and mother is her nervous disposition and her tendency to
refuse responsibility for her children’s behaviour. Usually, Mrs. Bennet tends to have
exaggerated nervous attacks whenever things are not going according to her plans. For
example, when Lydia elopes with Captain Wickham Mrs. Bennet breaks down completely:
Mrs. Bennet, to whose apartment they all repaired […] received them exactly as might
be expected; with tears and lamentations of regret […] and complaints of her own
sufferings and ill usage, blaming everybody but the person to whose ill judging
indulgence the errors of her daughter must be principally owing. (Austen, 186)
The narrator obviously thinks that Mrs Bennet is at least partly to blame for Lydia’s
indiscretions and that she should have acknowledged the role that she played in it. Austen
suggests that if Mrs. Bennet had been more receptive to her youngest daughter’s behaviour
and had corrected her in time Lydia would not have eloped with Wickham but that Mrs.
Bennet’s foolish ignorance made it impossible to check her daughter’s behaviour.
Austen herself did not get much attention from her own mother because of the busy
household she lived in at Steventon. Mrs. Austen did not have much time to spend with Jane
or any of her other seven children because she was also in charge of the pupils that attended
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the boys’ school that Mr. Austen had set up as an extra source of income. Furthermore,
according to Carol Shields it is quite possible that some of the character traits of Mrs. Bennet,
like for example her lack of involvement in her daughters’ upbringing and her nervous
breakdowns, are exaggerated character traits Austen based on what she knew her own mother
to be like. Shield argues in her biography that Mrs. Austen “might have had a spirit similar to
Mrs. Bennet” (17). However, the notion that “Mrs. Bennet of Pride and Prejudice is perhaps
literature’s most embarrassing and unpleasant mother” (Lane, 18) needs to be revised. The
fact that she is embarrassing her daughters is obvious from the evidence in the novel but she is
not really unpleasant. Mrs. Bennet’s intentions are good but her way of carrying her plan into
effect is deficient and that is what Austen seems to be criticizing.
2.1.2 Mr Bennet: Fatherhood and Negligence
Initially, Mr. Bennet is received much better by Austen’s readers because next to Mrs.
Bennet's antics Mr. Bennet’s flaws as a parent are less obvious. Another thing that might have
softened the readers’ opinion of him is the fact that he takes responsibility for things that he
neglected to do. For example, Mr. Bennet blames himself for more or less forcing Lydia into
the arms of Wickham because he neglected to provide a proper dowry:
Mr. Bennet had very often wished, before this period in life, that, instead of spending
his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum, for the better provision of his
children, and of his wife, if she survived him. He now wished it more than ever. Had
he done his duty in that respect, Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle, for
whatever of honour or credit could now be purchased for her. The satisfaction of
prevailing on one of the most worthless young men in Great Britain to be her husband
might then have rested in its proper place. (Austen, 200)
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Therefore, it seems clear that Austen considers Mr. Bennet also to be an inadequate parent but
for different reasons than Mrs. Bennet.
Austen’s opening statement about Mr. Bennet seems less negative than that of Mrs.
Bennet. Mr. Bennet is portrayed as being “so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour,
reserve, and caprice” (Austen, 4) and in general a man who is difficult to fathom. Austen
especially focuses on the sarcastic side of his character throughout the novel. For example,
Austen makes it very clear that Mr. Bennet prefers Elizabeth over all his other children and
that Mr. Bennet is not really impressed with his wife:
‘They have none of them much to recommend them’, replied [Mr. Bennet]; ‘they are
all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than
her sisters’. ‘Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way?’ [Mrs.
Bennet speaks] ‘You delight in vexing me. You have no compassion in my poor
nerves’.
‘You mistake me my dear. 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’.
(Austen, 4)
Austen points out Mr. Bennet’s biggest shortcomings by mainly focusing on his sarcasm and
his tendency to make fun of people.
Mr. Bennet’s most obvious flaw as a parent is his sarcastic nature by being sarcastic
he does not take things as seriously as he should and consequently the upbringing of his
children is affected. Mr. Bennet neglects to correct his wife’s behaviour and his daughters’
behaviour because he enjoys their silliness. For example, the entailment of his estate is serious
business because it leaves Mrs. Bennet and their children without any provisions for the
future. Moreover, Mrs. Bennet is quite aware of the precarious situation she is in, which
results in her ridiculous attempts at match making. Elizabeth in her turn is also concerned
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about Mr. Collins’s intentions but Mr. Bennet is only interested to see how silly Mr. Collins
really is:
Mr. Bennet’s expectations were fully answered. His cousin [Mr. Collins] was as
absurd as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment,
maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance, and except
in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner in his pleasure. (Austen, 47)
From the quote becomes all the more clear that Mr. Bennet thinks that Elizabeth’s opinion is
the only one that is worth his time.
Furthermore, Mr. Bennet never corrects his daughters because he thinks it is
appropriate but because somebody else points their behaviour out to him and he has no other
option than to intervene. Indeed, near the end of the novel Elizabeth realizes that “her father
[is] contented with laughing at [his daughters and] would never exert himself with restraining
the wild giddiness of his youngest daughters” (Austen, 140). For instance, Mary Bennet has
much potential to embarrass the family because she is quite convinced of her own merits as an
accomplished singer and piano player while she is not that good at all. Mr Bennet puts a stop
to her playing but not on his own accord:
[Elizabeth] looked at her father to entreat his interference, lest Mary should be singing
all night. He took the hint, and when Mary had finished her second song, said aloud,
‘That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other
ladies have time to exhibit’. (Austen, 69)
Moreover, the way he attempts to keep his daughter’s behaviour in check is not very friendly
and makes it very obvious that he does not think much of his daughter’s performance to start
with. Furthermore, Mr. Bennet is very much aware of his wife’s antics and but still does not
bother to make her stop doing what she is doing. For example, the only reaction of Mr.
Bennet to Mrs. Bennet’s sending Jane to Netherfield on horseback is that he points out the
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potential danger to Jane but he does not put a stop to it: “Well, my dear,” said Mr. Bennet,
when Elizabeth had read the note aloud, “if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of
illness, if she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr.
Bingley, and under your orders” (Austen, 22).
Mr. Bennet tends to withdraw from his family altogether if the amount of silliness he
has to encounter exceeds his comfort zone because “in his library, he had been always sure of
leisure and tranquillity; and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and
conceit in every other room in the house, he was used to be free from them there” (Austen,
49). Therefore, he attempts throughout the book to keep his wife and his daughters out of
there; “My dear, replied her husband [Mr. Bennet], I have two small favours to request. First
that you allow me the free use of my understanding on the present occasion; and, secondly, of
my room. I shall be glad to have the library to myself as soon as may be” (Austen, 76).
The only person that Mr. Bennet respects is Elizabeth, probably because he feels that
she takes more after him than after Mrs. Bennet. For example, Elizabeth tends to laugh off
serious situations as well, as she does for example in the case of Mr. Collins’ ludicrous offer
of marriage:
‘Almost as soon as I entered the house I singled you out as the companion of my
future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it
will be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying’ [Mr. Collins said]
The idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being run away with by his
feelings, made Elizabeth so near laughing that she could not use the short pause he
allowed in any attempt to stop him farther. (Austen, 72)
However, the major difference between Elizabeth and her father, as with her mother as well,
is that Elizabeth has learned to read the people around her and knows when to restrain herself.
Nevertheless, the relationship between Elizabeth and father is warm and well developed.
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Furthermore, even though she might think that it is his duty to intervene in certain matters she
does hold his esteem in high regard; “My father’s opinion of me does me the greatest honour;
and I should be miserable to forfeit it” (Austen, 97). Moreover, when it comes to matters that
directly affect her, her father is more than willing to intervene and make sure that she does not
do anything that is against her own wishes. For example, Mr. Bennet makes sure that Mrs.
Bennet does not force Elizabeth to marry Mr. Collins and he makes sure that Elizabeth’s
marriage to Mr. Darcy is because she wants to marry him and not because she somehow feels
obligated to:
[Mr. Bennet] was walking about the room, looking grave and anxious. ‘Lizzy,’ said
he, ‘what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be accepting this man? Have
not you always hated him?’
How earnestly did [Elizabeth] wish that her former opinions had been more
reasonable, her expression more moderate! [However] she assured him with some
confusion, of her attachment to Mr. Darcy.
‘Or in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be sure, and you
may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than Jane. But will they make you
happy?’ […] Elizabeth, still more affected, was earnest and solemn in her reply; and at
length, by repeated assurances that Mr. Darcy was really the object of her choice[…]
she did conquer her father’s incredulity, and reconcile him to the match.
‘Well my dear,’ said [Mr. Bennet] ‘I have no more to say. If this be the case, he
deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy.
(Austen, 246)
As with Mrs. Bennet Austen does not focus on wilful neglect but more on character traits that
make Mr. Bennet an inadequate parent but by having Mr. Bennet acknowledge the error of his
ways Austen shows that it is possible make amends for being ignorant about things.
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2.1.3 Elizabeth: Parental Influence on Sisterhood
It is also interesting to see how the behaviour of the Bennet parents influences the
Bennet children. The five Bennet sisters have very different characters from each other. For
example, Lydia and Kitty are very unruly and wild girls; Mr and Mrs. Bennet have never
checked their behaviour and therefore turned a blind eye to their poor social skills and
basically have neglected to teach them how to behave themselves properly. Mary, on the other
hand is extremely serious and very convinced of her own abilities as is shown on various
occasions throughout the novel. Mary clearly feels that studying is more important than
having fun or at least that is what she says so herself in a reaction to Lydia’s behaviour: “Far
be it from me, my dear sister, to deprecate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial
with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me. I
should indefinitely prefer a book” (Austen, 146, Austen’s emphasis). Her exaggerated
seriousness also causes her to lack social skills and manners. The eldest sister, Jane is very
sweet tempered and desires to do good by everybody, which shows itself in her determination
to think well of everybody even up to a point that she tries to smooth over Mr. Bingley’s
behaviour towards herself in spurning her affections:
‘I cannot misunderstand you, but I intreat you dear Lizzy, not to pain me by thinking
that person to blame, and saying your opinion of him is sunk. We must not be so
ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man
to be always so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but our own vanity
that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does’. (Austen, 91,
Austen’s emphasis)
Finally, Elizabeth herself is a strong-minded person who is perhaps a bit quick in judging
other people without really knowing what is going on as she does for example in Mr.
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Wickham’s case. Furthermore, as mentioned before she tends to have a sarcastic streak which
reminds the reader of her father’s tendency to make fun of people.
However, compared to her sisters Elizabeth realizes that her behaviour has
consequences that are not always pleasant:
‘How despicably have I acted!’ [Elizabeth] cried.—‘I, who have prided myself on my
discernment!’—I, who have valued myself on my abilities! Who have often disdained
the general candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity, in useless or blameable
distrust [...] Pleased with the preference of one [Mr. Wickham], and offended by the
neglect of the other [Mr. Darcy] on the very beginning of our acquaintance. I have
courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away where either were
concerned. (Austen, 137)
Jane is the only sister whose behaviour does not really change; therefore Austen seems to be
implying that Jane’s behaviour is the most appropriate behaviour for a young lady. However,
Austen also shows that sometimes Jane is too pliable by having Elizabeth questioning her
behaviour as she does for example with Jane’s reaction to Mr. Collins marrying Charlotte
Lucas:
My dear Jane, Mr. Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man; you
know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who
marries him, cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not defend her, though it
is Charlotte Lucas. You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning
of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is
prudence, and insensibility of danger, security for happiness. (Austen, 91)
Furthermore, the Bennet sisters do not have a close relationship with each other because of
the great difference between their characters and interests. From all sisters Elizabeth and Jane
are particularly close and it is quite possible that their relationship is based on Austen’s own
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relationship with her older sister Cassandra. In Jane Austen, The Parson’s Daughter Irene
Collins notices that the bond between Jane Austen and Cassandra was exceptionally strong:
Jane soon learnt to look at Cassandra as her guide and model, in all matters of
behaviour. Cassandra was everything that she admired: serene, friendly, practical,
intelligent, good. Yet Jane was never afraid to approach her with her own fears and
failings. Cassandra was always ready to listen, to understand, and enter into her
younger sister’s hope and disappointments. (71)
The relationship Collins describes between Jane and Cassandra is very similar to the
relationship between Elizabeth and Jane. Even though Elizabeth thinks that Jane is sometimes
too friendly and forgiving she does turn to her for guidance and advice throughout the novel
and is not afraid to admit her mistakes and flaws to Jane. Indeed, it seems that Jane is in fact
everything that Elizabeth wishes to be: “My dear Jane! exclaimed Elizabeth. You are too
good. Your sweetness and disinterestedness are really angelic; I do not know what to say to
you. I feel as if I had never done you justice, or loved you as you deserve” (Austen, 90).
All in all the relationship of the Bennet sisters with each other and with their parents is
not strongly developed. Furthermore, it is obvious from the text that the fact that their parents
do not seem to take much interest in teaching them proper manners severely affects their
relationship with other people outside their own family as well.
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2.2 Absent Parents in Emma
Margaret Drabble asks herself in the introduction to the Signet Classic edition of
Emma whether or not Mr. Woodhouse is too much indulged (xx) and she feels that “Mr.
Woodhouse’s old-world manners and courtesies are upheld, while those of noisier invaders—
Frank Churchill, Mrs. Elton—are condemned (xx). Furthermore, D.W. Harding in Regulated
Hatred argues that Jane Austen seems to “have no reserve in offering the funniness and
virtues of Mr. Woodhouse” (9) to the reader. These statements show that apparently the father
figure in Emma is not without flaws either. Furthermore, Emma is raised by a governess
because her mother died when she was very young and Stewart thinks that “the governess as
the mother-substitute introduces into the novel a yearning for the lost mother that determines
Emma’s relationship with other women” (160). Once again, Jane Austen seems to present a
heroine with inadequate parents in Emma but in a different setting than Pride and Prejudice.
2.2.1 Mr Woodhouse: inadequate, manipulative but loving father
Compared to Pride and Prejudice, the description of Mr. Woodhouse seems more
positive than that of Mr. Bennet. Whereas Mr. Bennet is deemed odd, sarcastic and difficult to
understand, Mr. Woodhouse is described as being “a most affectionate, indulgent father”
(Austen, 1) in the opening statement of Emma. At first glance it seems that Austen is positive
about the parenting skills of Mr. Woodhouse but it soon turns out that Emma indeed suffered
from the indulgence of her father because Austen describes the “real evils of Emma’s
situation [as] the power of having rather too much of her own way, and a disposition to think
a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many
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enjoyments” (Austen, 1). In other words Austen is implying that Mr. Woodhouse has been to
free with Emma turning her into a bit of a snobbish adolescent.
Furthermore it is soon clear that Mr. Woodhouse is also in possession of a somewhat
odd character. The narrator tells the reader that Mr. Woodhouse is a “much older man in ways
than in years” (Austen, 2) because he has been a hypochondriac for most of his life and most
of the time fancies himself to be unwell. Moreover, Mr. Woodhouse is portrayed as "a
nervous man [who is] easily depressed” (Austen, 3). Probably his biggest character flaw of all
is that he is unable to place himself in other peoples’ positions and cannot imagine that others
feel differently about things than he does. For example, it is unimaginable to Mr. Woodhouse
that Emma might be happy for Ms Taylor to have found a husband in Mr. Weston, which he
makes clear to Mr. Knightley: “dear Emma bears every thing so well, said [Mr. Woodhouse].
But, Mr. Knightley, she is really very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am sure she will
miss her more than she thinks for” (Austen, 5, Austen’s emphasis). Nevertheless, despite all
his flaws Austen makes sure that it is clear that Mr. Woodhouse is a man who is “beloved for
the friendliness of his heart and his amiable temper” (Austen, 2). Mr. Woodhouse is incapable
of raising Emma properly because of two important issues. First of all, the narrator points out
that Emma’s father “[is] no companion for her [because] he could not meet her in
conversations, rational or playful” (Austen, 2). Furthermore, Emma’s father is dependent on
her instead of the other way round because of his valetudinarianism. Thirdly, Mr. Woodhouse
thinks his daughter is perfect in all aspects of her personality and character and therefore
neglects to correct her behaviour when necessary.
Mr. Woodhouse is not a very clever man. In fact, compared to Emma he is rather slow
of understanding. For example, Mr. Woodhouse’s diminished capacity to understand things
becomes very clear when Emma needs to explain a riddle to him because “She read it to him,
just as he liked to have any thing read, slowly and distinctly, and two or three times over, with
29
explanation of every part as she proceeded” (Austen, 51). Furthermore, Mr. Woodhouse is
incapable of making a contribution to the collection of riddles because he simply cannot
remember more than the first stanza. However, Mr. Woodhouse is aware of the fact that his
daughter is smarter than he is and he seems to have resigned himself to that fact and does not
make any attempt to keep up with his daughter. He does not need to because he knows that
everybody, including Emma, makes sure that he is content and satisfied:
Ah! It is no difficulty to see who you take after! Your dear mother was so clever at all
those things! If I had but her memory! But I can remember nothing;--not even that
particular riddle which you have heard me mention; I can only recollect the first
stanza; and there are several […] And that is all that I can recollect of it—but it is very
clever all the way through. But I think, my dear, you said you had got it .(Austen, 51)
It is also very interesting to see Mr. Woodhouse compare Emma to her dead mother because
this only widens the gap between himself and Emma because basically it shows that they have
very little in common.
Actually Mr. Woodhouse does not parent much at all; in fact most of the time Emma
is in charge of her father instead of the other way round. For example, all that is arranged
revolves around Mr. Woodhouse because of his weak constitution and nervous disposition
and it is Emma’s job to keep both her father and the other people happy. Whenever an
evening party is organized at Hartfield, it is Emma who is in charge and not her father
although she makes him think that he is:
Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs [said Mr.
Woodhouse]. An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle [a servant]
understands boiling an egg better than anybody. I would not recommend an egg boiled
by any body else—but you need not be afraid—they are very small, you see—one of
our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a little bit of tart—
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a very little bit. Ours are all apple tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome
preserves here. […] Emma allowed her father to talk—but supplied her visitors in a
much more satisfactory style; and on the present evening had particular pleasure in
sending them away happy. (Austen, 14)
Furthermore, whenever Emma and her father dine out, which is a rare occasion it itself,
everything has to be arranged according to Mr. Woodhouse’s wishes. As is the case with the
get together at Randalls, from the text it shows that “Harriet, Mr. Elton, and Mr. Knightley,
their own special set, were the only persons invited to meet them;--the hours were to be early,
as well as the numbers few; Mr. Woodhouse’s habits and inclination being consulted in
everything” (Austen, 70). Emma has to make sure that everything is arranged accordingly, so
as not to distress her father.
Moreover, Mr. Woodhouse is completely unaware of what his daughter does besides
taking care of him and he never corrects her behaviour in any way. That task is actually taken
over by Mr. Knightley, who as the narrator tells the reader “was one of the few people who
could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them” (Austen,
5). For example, Emma’s behaviour towards Miss Bates on Box hill is very rude and logically
speaking Mr. Woodhouse should have been the one to point out her mistakes to her as one of
his duties as a father. However, this is impossible because he never accompanies his daughter
anywhere and therefore Mr. Knightley steps in:
‘Oh!’ Cried Emma, ‘I know there is not a better creature in the world: but you must
allow, that what is good and what is ridiculous are most unfortunately blended in
[Miss Bates]’
‘They are blended,’ said [Mr. Knightley] I acknowledge; and, were she prosperous, I
could allow much for the occasional prevalence of the ridiculous over the good. Were
she a woman of fortune, I would leave every harmless absurdity to take its chance, I
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would not quarrel with you for any liberties of manner. Were she your equal in
situation—but, Emma, consider how far this is from being the case. She is poor; she
has sunk from the comforts she was born to; and, if she live to old age, must probably
sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was badly done indeed!
[…] This is not pleasant to me; but I must, I will,--I will tell you truths while I can,
satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that
you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now. (Austen, 246)
Mr. Knightley also speaks out about Emma’s attempts at match-making for Harriet Smith and
Mr. Elton because he feels that Emma is actually putting Harriet at a disadvantage because of
the uncertainty about Harriet’s biological parents. On this rare occasion Mr. Woodhouse
actually has something to say on the subject as well he implores his daughter to stop her
match-making not because he thinks it is inappropriate behaviour of Emma but because he
dislikes marriage because it causes things and relationships between people to change. Mr.
Woodhouse is a man who is “fond of every body he was used to, and hating to part with them;
hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the origin of change, was always disagreeable”
(Austen, 3). Furthermore, Austen makes it clear that Mr. Knightley is the only one whose
criticism is of consequence to Emma because “she had a sort of habitual respect for his
judgement in general, which made her dislike having it so loudly against her” (Austen, 42).
As it turns out nothing much can be said about Mr. Woodhouse’s parenting skills
because he does not really parent at all. Mr. Woodhouse lives in a very secluded little world
where everything is arranged according to his wishes and he does not really know what Emma
is doing or thinking. Furthermore the fact that he is not a very smart man makes that Emma is
completely out of his control. Mr. Woodhouse might be a harmless, friendly and ignorant man
but he is definitely a very inadequate father, perhaps even more so than Mr. Bennet. Mr.
Woodhouse is in no way involved in the upbringing of his youngest daughter Emma.
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Moreover, it becomes clear from the text that Mr. Woodhouse never really was a parent to his
daughter because “Emma has been mistress of the house” (Austen, 23) and everybody in it
ever since she was a twelve- year-old girl. According to Mr. Knightley Mr. Woodhouse
cannot help being unable to raise Emma properly because after the death of her mother
“[Emma] lost the only person able to cope with her. She [inherited] her mother’s talent, and
[should] have been under the subjection to her” (Austen, 23). Austen seems to imply here that
a mother’s influence is indispensable in a child’s life. Furthermore, Austen seems
uncommonly mild towards Mr. Woodhouse’s neglect of parental duties compared to her
attitude towards Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet. Throughout the novel she emphasises that Mr.
Woodhouse is a very gentle and friendly person. Austen makes it seem as if these character
traits of Mr. Woodhouse somehow make up for the fact that in essence he is just as ignorant
and feeble as Mrs. Bennet because she does not nearly pay as much explicit attention to Mr.
Woodhouse’s behaviour as she does to Mrs. Bennet’s. Furthermore, another thing that might
account for the different treatment is the fact that in Emma Mr. Knightley partly functions as
surrogate father and makes sure that Emma sees the error of her ways while the Bennet sisters
can only depend on their biological but inadequate parents for proper upbringing. Still, the
reader cannot escape the notion that some of Mr. Woodhouse’s behaviour is perhaps worse
than Mrs. Bennet. She is at least trying, in her own incapable way, to ensure a future for her
daughters while Mr. Woodhouse is manipulating his daughter into staying at home to care for
him. The fact that he is a friendly man does not make up for the fact that his daughter is more
or less destined to become a spinster because he makes her feel obligated to take care of him.
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2.2.2 Ms Taylor-Weston, Governess and Substitute mother
Emma’s “mother had died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct
remembrance of her caresses, and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as
governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection” (Austen, 1). The excellent
woman that Austen describes is Ms. Taylor, the governess who raised Emma ever since she
was five years old. However, Austen makes it immediately clear that Ms. Taylor can never
completely substitute for Emma’s biological mother by pointing out that “even before Miss
Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the mildness of her temper had
hardly allowed her to impose any restraint” (Austen, 1) and even more importantly that Emma
grew up doing what she liked “highly esteeming Miss Taylor’s judgement, but chiefly
directed by her own” (Austen, 1). Furthermore, the fact that Emma chooses to rely on her own
judgement even though Ms. Taylor is a responsible adult shows that Austen does not consider
Ms. Taylor and Emma of equal standing.
Furthermore, even though Ms Taylor is presented to the reader as surrogate mother
Emma does not seem to feel filial piety towards Ms Taylor but regards her more like a sister
or a close friend. Emma describes Ms. Taylor as “a friend and companion such as few
possessed, intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing all the ways of the family,
interested in all its concerns, and peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, in every
scheme of her’s;--one to who [Emma] could speak every thought as it arose, and who had
such an affection for her as could never find fault” (Austen, 2). This also shows that Ms
Taylor actually contributed to Emma’s development into the snobbish person that the reader
becomes acquainted with at the beginning of Emma. Moreover, Ms. Taylor realizes this too
when Mr. Knightley speaks about the unfortunate loss of Emma’s mother while Emma is
obviously in dire need of proper guidance: “I should have been sorry, Mr. Knightley, to be
34
dependent on your recommendation, had I quitted Mr. Woodhouse’s family and wanted
another situation; I do not think you would have spoken a good word for me to any body. I am
sure you always thought me unfit for the office I held” (Austen, 23).
Moreover, the fact that Ms Taylor remains blind to the flaws in Emma’s character
even though they are fairly obvious shows that Ms Taylor also failed to carry out her duties as
surrogate mother. Despite Mr. Knightley’s astute observations about Emma’s behaviour Ms
Taylor remains convinced that Emma is a faultless, excellent creature who “has qualities
which may be trusted [because] she will never lead any one really wrong; she will make no
lasting blunder” (Austen, 24). However, it turns out that Emma is indeed capable of leading
other people wrong. For example, the reader only has to think about the pain she causes
Harriet Smith because she makes her believe that Mr. Elton is in love with her. Furthermore
Emma blundered considerably when she forced Harriet to decline Mr. Martin’s offer of
marriage. Luckily Mr. Martin is persuaded to renew his offer of marriage to Harriet because
this blunder might very well have been a lasting one; especially considering how people went
about marriage in the nineteenth century. It is characteristic of Austen’s approach to parenting
that the only person who picks up on Emma’s character flaws is neither her father nor her
substitute mother but the man she end up marrying, Mr. Knightley
2.2.3 Emma and Isabella: Mother’s child and father’s child
It is striking that Mr. Woodhouse’s character and personality actually influence
Isabella, the eldest daughter, very much. Emma is nothing like her father but Isabella all the
more. Isabella is married to the younger brother of Mr. Knightley and from the following
description it becomes clear how much she resembles her father:
35
Mrs. John Knightley was a pretty, elegant little woman, of gentle, quiet manner, and a
disposition remarkably amiable and affectionate; wrapt up in her family; a devoted
wife, a doating mother, and so tenderly attached to her father and sister that, but for
these higher ties, a warmer love might seemed impossible. She could never see a fault
in any of them. She was not a woman of strong understanding or any quickness; and
with this resemblance of her father, she inherited also much of his constitution; was
delicate in her own health, overcareful of that of her children, had many fears and
many nerves and was as fond of her own Mr. Wingfield [the doctor] in town as her
father could be of Mr. Perry. They were alike too, in a general benevolence of temper
and a strong habit of regard for every old acquaintance. (Austen, 60)
Furthermore, even though Austen indicates that Isabella’s love for Emma is exceptionally
strong there is little indication that the relationship between these sisters is as strong as
Elizabeth and Jane Bennet’s for example. In fact, Austen seems to imply that Emma’s
relationship with Ms Taylor is better than the relationship with her biological sister because
the reader learns that Ms Taylor had been in Mr. Woodhouse’s family for sixteen years and
about her relationship with Emma the narrator remarks that “between them it was more the
intimacy of sisters” (Austen, 1, Austen’s emphasis). It is implicated in the text that the reason
why Emma’s relationship with her sister is not that close is because Isabella takes so
obviously after her father in mind and constitution. Austen has made her readers aware of the
fact that Emma has almost nothing in common with her father; therefore it is not that difficult
to see why the relationship with her sister remains somewhat superficial.
Basically, just as Emma takes care of her father she takes care of her sister. For
example, she tries to protect her sister from remarks that might hurt her: “[Mr. John
Knightley] was not a great favourite with his fair sister-in-law. Nothing wrong in him escaped
her. [Emma] was quick in feeling the little injuries to Isabella, which Isabella never felt
36
herself” (Austen, 61). Finally, it is clear that Austen explicitly modelled one child, Emma,
after the characteristics of the mother and one child, Isabella, after the characteristics of the
father. In Pride and Prejudice for example it is less clear which child takes after which parent
because Austen only hints at links in characteristics between the Bennet sisters and their
parents and leaves it to the reader to decide how the Bennet parents have influenced the
development of their children.
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2.3 Persuasion: Fatherhood and Vanity
Sir Walter Elliot seems to be the worst of all the parents discussed from Pride and
Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion. For example, Austen tempers Mr. Bennet’s inadequacy as
a parent by making him able to recognise and acknowledge his mistakes. Moreover, even
though Mrs. Bennet’s attempts at mothering are mostly disastrous Austen added a funny
quality to her character. Furthermore, Austen tones down Mr. Woodhouse’s inadequacy
because of his loving and friendly nature and because other people are able to take over the
responsibility of raising Emma into a responsible adult. In any case with all these parents it is
more than obvious that they lack the necessary parenting skills to properly raise their children
but they do have their children’s best interest at heart. However, according to Tony Tanner in
his book Jane Austen Sir Walter is “a wretched example of both a man and a father” (216).
Furthermore, he calls Sir Walter a “sterile and life-denying figure” (212), who is to blame for
the fact that “Anne [is] born into repression and non-recognition” (212).
2.3.1 Sir Walter: Combining Narcissism and Fatherhood
Austen defines Sir Walter as a man whose “vanity [is] the beginning and end of [his]
character; vanity of person and of situation” (4). The reader learns that Sir Walter only takes
pride in his looks and in his title and status as a baronet; in fact, “few women could think
more of their personal appearance then he did; nor could the valet of any new made lord be
more delighted with the place he held in society” (Austen, 4). These character traits dominate
his behaviour to other persons including his three daughters. Furthermore, he is their single
biological parent since Lady Elliot died when Anne Elliot, the heroine of the novel, was only
13 years old. He values his daughters for what they contribute to his sense of vanity and that
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means that he only appreciates his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, because she takes after him,
both in looks and ambitions, and his other two daughters are considered to be of no real
importance:
For one daughter, [Sir Walter’s] eldest, he would really have given up any thing,
which he had not been very much tempted to do. Elizabeth had succeeded, at sixteen,
to all that was possible, of her mother’s rights and consequence; and being very
handsome, and very like himself, her influence had always been great, and they had
gone on together most happily. His two other daughters were of very inferior value.
Mary had acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming Mrs. Musgrove; but
Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed
her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or
sister: her word had no weight; her convenience was always to give way—she was
only Anne. (Austen, 5)
Tanner calls Sir Walter’s liking of Elizabeth because she resembles him in appearance and
disposition an example of “parenthood as narcissism” (209) because it shows that Sir Walter
“is only interested in himself and what reflects him” (209). This attitude becomes even clearer
when looking at Sir Walter’s attitude towards Anne. He tends to ignore her because she is
nothing like him at all and his only hope for her was to marry well and to provide him with
another entry in the Baronetage he is so fond of reading: “[Sir Walter] had found little to
admire in [Anne] (so totally different where her delicate features and mild dark eyes from his
own); there could be nothing in them now that she was faded and thin, to excite his esteem.
He had never indulged much hope, he had now none, of ever reading her name in any other
page of his favourite work” (Austen, 5).
Sir Walter is in no way interested in Anne’s wellbeing, nor that of Mary his youngest
daughter and continuously shows her his contempt. For example, at nineteen years old Anne
39
was engaged to Frederick Wentworth, who was not a man of fortune, and Sir Walter
discouraged it: “Sir Walter, on being applied to, without actually withholding his consent, or
saying it should never be, gave it all the negative of great astonishment, great coldness, great
silence, and a professed resolution of doing nothing for his daughter” (Austen, 18). The fact
that Sir Walter might disapprove of such a marriage is not the problem, because it only fits the
contemporary views on marriage partly being an economic safeguard for the parties involved.
His manner of turning down the marriage proposal is the problem. Austen specifically
mentions that Sir Walter does not literally reject the engagement, but he does openly declare
that he does not intend to provide his daughter with a dowry, which makes the situation all the
more painful for Anne. It is difficult to believe that Sir Walter means to do what is right by
Anne and that he is acting for the best in this matter when it is clear from the careless and
uninterested manner Sir Walter exhibits to deal with this problem that he does not really care
what happens to Anne in the future at all.
Furthermore, Sir Walter does not take any thing that Anne might want or need into
consideration. Due to Sir Walter´s pattern of spending the Elliot family is obliged to move
away from Kellynch Hall because they can no longer afford to live there, much to Anne´s
dismay. However, Sir Walter does not think once of the pain this removal might cause Anne
and certainly does not take her wishes into consideration:
Sir Walter would quit Kellynch Hall; and after a very few days more of doubt and
indecision, the great question of wither he should go, was settled, and the first outline
of this important change made out. There had been three alternatives, London, Bath, or
another house in the country. All Anne’s wishes had been for the latter […] But the
usual fate of Anne attended her, in having something very opposite from her
inclination fixed on. She disliked Bath, and did not think it agreed with her—and Bath
was to be her home. (Austen, 10)
40
The only time Sir Walter is interested in Anne’s interests and acquaintances is when she does
something that interferes with his own ambitions. For example, when Anne arrives in Bath
she meets a woman she knows from school and she starts to visit her regularly. At some point
one of these appointments coincides with an invitation from the Ladies Dalrymple, who are
very wealthy and distantly related to Sir Walter Elliot, and all of a sudden Sir Walter shows
an interest in Anne’s comings and goings:
Sir Walter, Elizabeth and Mrs. Clay returned one morning from Laura-place, with a
sudden invitation from Lady Dalrymple for the same evening, and Anne was already
engaged, to spend that evening in Westgate-buildings. She was not sorry for the
excuse. [...] –and she declined on her own account with great alacrity.—“She was
engaged to spend the evening with an old schoolfellow”. [Sir Walter and Elizabeth]
were not much interested in any thing relative to Anne, but still there were questions
enough asked, to make it understood what this old schoolfellow was; and Elizabeth
was disdainful, and Sir Walter severe. (Austen, 104)
Still, Sir Walter is not at all interested because he concerns himself about whom his daughter
is acquainted with but because he wants to make a good impression on his cousin Lady
Dalrymple. Sir Walter is incapable of understanding that Anne might think other things more
important than coming into good grace with an influential and wealthy relative because of his
vanity and his preoccupation with status:
Upon my word, Miss Anne Elliot, you have the most extraordinary taste! Every thing
that revolts other people, low company, paltry rooms, foul air, disgusting associations
are inviting to you [...] –A widow Mrs. Smith, lodging in Westgate-buildings! –A poor
widow, barely able to live, between thirty and forty—a mere Mrs. Smith, of all people
and all names in the world, to be the chosen friend of Miss Anne Elliot, and to be
41
preferred by her, to her own family connections among the nobility of England and
Ireland! Mrs. Smith, such a name! (Austen, 104)
It is rather sad that Sir Walter speaks reproachfully of Anne’s acquaintances since he is
actually the one that keeps Anne mostly excluded from most of the activities of the family
where she could meet “any people of real understanding” (Austen, 5). For example, the
narrator speaks of the yearly trips to London that Sir Walter and Elizabeth go on, but Anne is
never to accompany them.
Whereas Mr and Mrs Bennet and Mr. Woodhouse are inadequate parents, Sir Walter
Elliot fully qualifies as a bad parent because of his overt neglect of Anne in favour of his
eldest daughter Elizabeth. In the preface to the Norton Critical Edition of Persuasion Patricia
Meyer Stacks astutely notices that Austen makes it very clear that “Sir Walter, for whom his
own appearance and rank constitute the primary standard of value against which he judges
others (usually to their disadvantage), cares not at all for the welfare of his daughter Anne,
whom he considers to be plain and unlikely to marry well” (xi). Furthermore, it is clear that
Sir Elliot never attempts to mend his ways and become more responsible as a father and as a
human being. In Persuasion Austen presents a father who is first and foremost a narcissist,
who is only capable of loving his eldest daughter because he managed to create almost an
exact copy of himself in her.
2.3.2 Lady Russell: Substituting Lady Elliot
It is clear that Anne Elliot has nothing in common with her father and that her own
manners are not in any way affected by her father’s. In fact, Austen suggests that Anne takes
after her mother in looks as well as behaviour. Furthermore, whenever Anne is in need of
advice or help she turns to Lady Russell, whose behaviour functions as a model for Anne’s.
42
For example, she ultimately rejected Captain Wentworth’s first offer of marriage because of
Lady Russell’s advice and not because her father was opposed to it: “Young and gentle as
[Anne] was, it might yet have been possible to withstand her father’s ill-will, though
unsoftened by one kind word or look on the part of her sister—but Lady Russell, whom she
had always loved and relied on, could not, with such steadiness of opinion, and such
tenderness of manner, be continually advising her in vain” (Austen, 19).
Lady Russell stepped in as surrogate mother when Lady Elliot died. Compared to
Emma’s dead mother Austen provides much more information about Lady Elliot’s character
and about the way she thought fit to raise her children and this makes her position as absent
mother one of the hardest to fill:
Lady Elliot had been an excellent woman, sensible and amiable, whose judgement and
conduct, if they might be pardoned the youthful infatuation which made her Lady
Elliot, had never required indulgence afterwards.—She had humoured, or softened, or
concealed [Sir Walter’s] failings, and promoted his real respectability for seventeen
years; and though not the very happiest being in the world herself, had found enough
in her duties, her friends and her children, to attach her to life, and make it no matter
of indifference to her when she was called on to quit them.—Three girls, the two
eldest sixteen and fourteen, was an awful legacy for a mother to bequeath; an awful
charge rather, to confide to the authority and guidance of a conceited, silly father.
(Austen, 4)
Austen is determined to show that Sir Walter is absolutely unfit as a father by presenting a
picture of Lady Elliot as everything a mother should be. Furthermore, Lady Russell is the
obvious choice to act as a surrogate parent because of her close ties in friendship with Lady
Elliot. Lady Elliot seemed to have relied “on [Lady Russell’s] kindness and advice [...] for the
43
best help and maintenance of the good principles and instruction which she had been
anxiously giving her daughters” (Austen, 4.)
Compared to Ms. Taylor’s influence on Emma, that of Lady Russell on Anne is of
much more consequence and from the description in the text it becomes clear that she is
genuinely concerned for Anne’s wellbeing and wants the best for her:
She was a benevolent, charitable, good woman, and capable of strong attachments;
most correct in her conduct, strict in her notions of decorum, and with manners that
were held a standard of good-breeding. She had a cultivated mind, and was, generally
speaking, rational and consistent. (Austen, 9)
Lady Russell tries to make sure that Anne has somebody to turn to for advice and comfort
because she does not expect Anne’s own family to provide it for her. Furthermore, she is
genuinely concerned and pained about the way Sir Walter and Elizabeth treat Anne. For
example, when the Elliots are moving to Bath it turns out that they prefer the company of
Mrs. Clay, an unrelated friend of Elizabeth’s, over that of Anne, which upsets Lady Russell
very much:
Lady Russell was almost startled by the wrong of one part of the Kellynch-hall plan,
when it burst on her, which was, Mrs. Clay being engaged to go to Bath with Sir
Walter and Elizabeth, as a most important and valuable assistant to the latter in all the
business before her. Lady Russell was extremely sorry that such a measure should
have been resorted to at all—wondered, grieved, and feared—and the affront it
contained to Anne, in Mrs. Clay being of so much use, while Anne could be of none,
was very sore aggravation. (Austen, 23)
Furthermore, Persuasion is the only novel of the three where the heroine actually admits to
having acknowledged the substitute parent as a parent. In Emma, Ms. Taylor never really
takes over the place of Mrs. Woodhouse and never really surpasses her status as special friend
44
but Anne actually acknowledges she considers Lady Russell as a parent; she literally says that
“to [her Lady Russell] was in the place of a parent” (Austen,164).
Still, Lady Russell has one character flaw that Austen sees fit to criticize because it
clouds her judgement in deciding what is best for Anne. Austen points out to the reader that
Lady Russell “[has] prejudices on the side of ancestry; she [has] a value for rank and
consequence which [blinds] her a little to the faults of those who [possess] them” (Austen, 9).
Precisely this character flaw drives Lady Russell to persuade Anne to decline Captain
Wentworth’s first offer of marriage and makes her try to get Anne interested in marrying Mr.
Elliot, the heir to Kellynch-hall:
I am no match-maker, as you well know said Lady Russell, [...] I only mean that if Mr.
Elliot should some time hence pay his addresses to you, and you should be disposed to
accept him. [...] A most suitable connection every body must consider it—but I think it
might be a very happy one [...] I own that to be able to regard you as the future
mistress of Kellynch, the future Lady Elliot—to look forward and see you occupying
your death mother’s place, succeeding to all her rights, and all her popularity, as well
as to all her virtues, would be the highest possible gratification to me. (Austen, 105106)
On the one hand Lady Russell is genuinely interested in Anne’s well-being and recognises
that the one place where she would be happy is at Kellynch hall where she grew up, but on the
other hand Lady Russell also uses the memory of Anne’s dead mother to make the match she
has in mind more appealing to Anne. Furthermore, Lady Russell is so intent on arranging a
match between Anne and Mr. Elliot that she does not notice that Mr. Elliot is not all that he
professes to be, and that is a perfect example of the blindness to other people’s faults that
Austen is talking about. Anne, on the other hand, is aware of the fact that something about
Mr. Elliot is not right and is therefore not surprised when her friend Mrs. Smith tells her about
45
Mr. Elliot’s true intentions behind his attentions to her: “I have heard nothing which really
surprises me. I know those who would be shocked by such a representation of Mr. Elliot, who
would have difficulty in believing it; but I have never been satisfied. I have always wanted
some other motive for his conduct than appeared” (Austen, 138).
However, Austen is right in pointing out that Lady Russell’s preoccupation with status
is a character flaw that makes her less fit to be a substitute parent but the reader must not
forget that Anne is a woman of twenty-seven years old and that she is nearing an age when
the opportunities to marry lessened considerably in the nineteenth century and it most likely
Lady Russell is just trying to make sure that Anne is well provided for because she fears that
Sir Walter might not do his duty towards her. Perhaps Lady Russell is making a somewhat
desperate but well meant attempt to remove Anne from “the partialities and injustice of her
father’s house” (Austen, 20). Moreover, Lady Russell generously acknowledges at the end of
her novel that her initial judgement of Captain Wentworth was false “and if her second object
was to be sensible and well-judging, her first was to see Anne happy. She loved Anne better
than she loved her own abilities; and when the awkwardness of the beginning was over, found
little hardship in attaching herself as a mother to the man who was securing the happiness of
her other child” (Austen, 166).
All in all Austen shows Lady Russell to be a very satisfactory substitute mother, who
really acknowledges and changes the one character flaw that might have rendered her
incapable of doing justice to her position before. Furthermore, even though she functions as a
surrogate for Lady Elliot, Lady Russell seems to have a better grasp of what it means to be a
mother than both Mrs. Bennet and Ms. Taylor and she has earned the right to call Anne her
daughter.
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2.3.3 Elizabeth and Mary Elliot: Inadequate Father Makes Inadequate Sisters
Anne is not only treated badly by her father but by both of her sisters as well. The
treatment she receives from Elizabeth, her elder sister by three years is the worst. Elizabeth is
almost an exact copy of her father in character and behaviour. Basically, Elizabeth’s treatment
of Anne is the same as Sir Walter’s, she does not love her sister and treats her with cold
contempt. However, while Sir Walter mostly ignores Anne altogether, Elizabeth makes it
verbally known to Anne that she is unwanted. For example, when the family is about to move
to Bath it is unclear where Anne should go but Elizabeth soon clarifies the situation: “I cannot
possibly do without Anne, was Mary’s reasoning; and Elizabeth’s reply was, Then I am sure
that Anne had better stay, for nobody will want her in Bath” (Austen, 23). Furthermore, to
create even more distance between herself and Anne she refers to Sir Walter Elliot as “my
father” (Austen, 24). Finally Elizabeth’s reaction, the fact that she “looked cold and
unconcerned” (Austen, 165), to Anne’s eventual marriage to Captain Wentworth is typical of
her behaviour in general towards Anne.
Sir Walter’s influence on Mary, the youngest Elliot sister, is only a little less than his
influence on Elizabeth. His influence is mostly recognisable in her conceited manner and her
tendency to always draw all attention to herself. Nevertheless, Mary is portrayed as the nicer
sister of the two. Mary is described as being “not so repulsive and unsisterly as Elizabeth, nor
so inaccessible to all influence of [Anne]” (Austen, 29), instead she is infinitely silly and
foolish which accounts for much of her actions and exclamations. Unfortunately, her
behaviour is far from what good sisterly behaviour is supposed to be. Mary simply expects
Anne to be at her side whenever she needs her and she certainly does not take Anne’s feelings
and opinion into account. For example, Mary wonders why Anne did not immediately come
to see her in response to a letter that she wrote about being “so ill [she] can hardly speak”
47
(Austen, 25). However, when Anne replies that she has been busy at Kellynch because of the
pending move Mary can only reply with “Dear me!, what can you possibly have to
do?”(Austen, 26, Austen’s emphasis). With this sentence Austen shows that Mary does not
think much of Anne’s usefulness as well as the rest of the family. Still, Austen implies that it
is Mary’s stupidity rather than ill-will that is the cause of the discomfort she might cause
Anne because “Mary had no feelings to make her respect her sister’s in a common way; but
she was perfectly unsuspicious of being inflicting any peculiar wound” (Austen, 41) while
Elizabeth and Sir Walter seem to be intentionally hurtful towards Anne.
Furthermore, Mary is just as preoccupied with rank and status as Sir Walter and
Elizabeth are and has no scruple about looking down on people and demanding to be treated
in a way she thinks is fitting for someone of her status. For instance, Mary goes to great
lengths to convince herself that Captain Wentworth is interested in courting Henrietta
Musgrove, a younger sister of her husband, because she fears that Henrietta will get involved
with another man from the Hayter family of decidedly less fortune and status. It is very clear
from the text that “she looked down very decidedly upon the Hayters, and thought it would be
quite a misfortune to have existing connections between the families renewed—very sad for
herself and her children” (Austen, 51) because she is convinced that it will affect her own
status in society. Her attitude is ridiculous because Charles Hayter is an utterly respectable
man who “was in orders, and having a curacy in the neighbourhood, only two miles from
Uppercross, lived at his father’s house” (Austen, 49) and therefore is perfectly capable of
providing a respectable living for his future wife.
However, even though Mary’s behaviour is infected by Sir Walter’s vanity and
ambition she does seem to appreciate Anne more than both Sir Walter and Elizabeth. It is
quite possible that Austen intended Mary’s character to have more or less the same function
48
as Mrs. Bennet’s, namely providing a comic context in which Austen could question the sense
and non-sense of certain kinds of human behaviour.
49
Conclusion: Austen’s Views on Parenting Revealed
One of the striking things about Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion is that
there is something off in the relationship between the heroines and their parents or surrogate
parents. Therefore the main goal of this paper is to find out what roles the parent child
relationships play in these three novels and to what extent these relationships influence the
heroines’ behaviour and decisions. The first chapter of the paper is used to provide a context
to acquaint the modern reader with family life and family relationships in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Furthermore, in order to come to an answer to the main question several
aspects of the parent-child relationships have been made using the selected novels. First of all,
the character and abilities of the parents, the biological as well as the surrogate parents, have
been looked at to determine what kind of parent they are. Furthermore, the characters of the
heroines have been analysed to see if certain character traits they possess can be assigned to
one of the parents. Another aspect that has been taken into consideration is if and to what
extent Austen reflects on her own parents in including the flawed parent-child relationships in
her novels. Finally, the relationship between the heroines and their siblings has been analysed
to see whether or not the parents have the same influence on all their children.
Providing a contemporary context is necessary because modern notions of child
raising, for example, have changed drastically over the decades and it is important that the
modern readers realize that certain things about the parent-child relationship in the three
novels discussed might seems strange or cruel, but were actually quite normal procedures for
the time. For example, parent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were much less
involved with raising their children than modern parents. Lawrence Stone, whose book The
Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 provided the main source of information,
argues that the high mortality rate of children, and adults for that matter, caused the internal
50
relationship between family members to remain fairly superficial. Furthermore, the fact that
most eighteenth and nineteenth-century mothers fostered out their children to a wet-nurse is
also an important reason why the children did not really bond with their mothers. Moreover,
even when children were growing up they were mostly dependant on the care of their
governesses and nurses instead of their parents. Another important thing that the modern
reader must realize is that families in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries mostly operated
as an economic unit, and that marriage provided ways of securing property and fortune. It was
especially important for parents to secure a husband for their daughters otherwise they were
not provided after their deaths because of the current property laws, which decreed that only
the first male in line inherited. A concomitant advantage was that the parents could improve
their own importance and wealth if they married their daughter to somebody of importance.
Therefore, the concerned women did not have much choice in the matter. All in all, family life
and the way family members treated each other was much more distant than relationships in
modern families.
From the analyses of the characters of the parents it becomes clear that Austen finds
some faults with each and every one of them. For example, Austen predominantly criticises
Mrs. Bennet because of her ignorance and the foolishness of her ways. Her behaviour is
embarrassing for her own family and also for other people from their society because she does
not really know what she is talking about most of the time. Furthermore, Mrs. Bennet’s
parenting skills are far from adequate because of her obsessive, controlling behaviour. She is
so completely engrossed in getting her daughters married that she does not notice that her
efforts are often counterproductive and have the potential to make her daughters miserable.
Moreover, the additional fact that she is mostly concerned with her own wellbeing and fancies
herself ill with nerves most of the time contributes to the bad image Mrs. Bennet has with
Austen’s readers. Austen’s biggest issue with Mr. Bennet is the fact that he neglects important
51
parental duties. Austen presents Mr. Bennet as a sarcastic man who rather makes fun of his
daughters and his wife than seriously attempt to improve their behaviour. Furthermore, as a
father he should have been in charge of providing his daughters with dowries to ease their
way into marriage but he was unable to do that because instead of saving some of his money
he spent it all. Consequently, Mr. Bennet is partly responsible for Mrs. Bennet’s absurd
match-making behaviour because she fully understands, despite all her other flaws, the
importance of securing a future for her daughters. Nevertheless, no matter how inadequate the
Bennet parents are Austen created them in such a way that it is clear that they mean well for
their children. However, Austen shows that there is a problem with their approach to
parenting. This is especially clear because she makes Mr. Bennet acknowledge the error of his
ways at the end of the novel.
In Emma Austen presents a completely different situation. Emma’s biological mother
is dead and she grows up with her father and Ms. Taylor, her governess, who more or less
functions as a surrogate mother. At first glance Mr. Woodhouse makes a better impression
that Mr. Bennet but the reader realizes soon enough that Mr. Woodhouse knows even less of
parenting. Austen blames this on that fact that Mr. Woodhouse is rather weak-minded and has
a nervous disposition and is prone to having feigned illnesses, which has turned him into a
hypochondriac and a man much older than his years. Consequently, he is completely
incapable of providing Emma, with proper parental guidance. However, Austen seems less
concerned with this lack of parental guidance from Emma’s biological father than in Mr.
Bennet’s case because another character is quite capable of taking over, namely Mr.
Knightley. In Emma’s case Ms. Taylor, the surrogate mother is of not much use either and
that is partly due to the fact that she and Emma are not of equal status. Furthermore, Emma’s
stubbornness of will and self-importance are also factors that influenced her relationship with
Ms. Taylor. Even though Ms. Taylor is very dear to Emma she has never been capable of
52
really correcting Emma’s behaviour. Not much is known about Emma’s biological mother but
by having Ms. Taylor fail as surrogate mother Austen implies that in this case Emma’s
biological was the only suitable person to raise Emma.
The Elliot family situation in Persuasion is the worst of the three novels discussed.
Austen presents Sir Walter Elliot as a man whose parental abilities are severely affected by
his vain and conceited character. He completely ignores his younger two daughters in favour
of his eldest daughter, and he is only interested in her because she resembles him in
appearance and behaviour. In Persuasion Austen portrays a father who is completely
inadequate and on top of that not even remotely interested in doing what is right by his
daughters, which sets him apart from Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Woodhouse. Anne Elliot’s
mother has died while she was a little girl but in this case the surrogate mother, Lady Russell,
is worthy enough to raise Anne. This does not mean that Lady Russell is a perfect parent to
begin with, for like all the other parents she has a character flaw which causes her to make
mistakes while raising Anne. However, Lady Russell’s character is the only one that not only
acknowledges her faults but also successfully changes her behaviour which shows that she
truly loves and cares about the wellbeing of her surrogate daughter, Anne.
The behaviour of all parents influences their children to some extent and certain
character traits of the parents are distinct in some of the children as well. For example
Elizabeth Bennet takes mostly after her father and she too tends to laugh about people and
take things less seriously that she should. The other Bennet children, and especially Lydia, all
possess some of the character traits of their parents, which also cause them to have troubles in
their relationships with each other and other people in their direct vicinity. The fact that
Emma’s father is completely incapable of correcting his daughter’s behaviour causes her to
grow up doing as she pleases and always depending on her own judgment which turns her
into a little bit of a snob. Emma’s sister has a character that is fairly similar to that of Mr.
53
Woodhouse’s because of this the relationship between Emma and her sister is fairly
superficial because they have little in common. Sir Walter Elliot is the only parent whose
behaviour does not rub off on Anne but he does succeed in making her life miserable.
However, the influence on Anne’s sisters is more than clear. Elizabeth is the spitting image of
her father and Mary only a little less conceited and unfriendly towards Anne.
Instead Austen included the flawed parent-child relationships in Pride and Prejudice,
Emma, and Persuasion to show her readers that people should be aware of ignorance and
folly because it can cause all kinds of awkward situations which are potentially damaging the
reputation and future of the people involved. Austen does not really mean to label the parents
as bad parents, apart from Sir Walter Elliot perhaps, but shows how their inadequate parenting
skills affect their children. Furthermore, the magnified ridiculousness of most parents adds a
comic element to the novels. Moreover, Austen is using the behaviour of the parents to
criticize contemporary views on marriage and status because this is a leading theme in all
three novels. However, Austen is not passing judgement of the ruling conventions of marriage
in the nineteenth century but is merely using the different characters to show the
disadvantages and advantages of marrying for money or for love or both. For example, On the
one hand, Mr. Bennet and Lady Russell, as parent and surrogate parent, both recognise the
importance of money in a marriage but have also understood through trial and error that
marrying for status alone is not right either. On the other hand, Sir Walter Elliot’s and Mrs.
Bennet are mostly criticised because they are only interested in marriage for their daughters to
secure status. Furthermore, Mr. Woodhouse is of course opposed to marriage altogether,
which Austen does not approve of either. In essence Austen uses the characters of the parents
in Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion to make her readers think about important
contemporary issues like marriage and parenting by showing them different parental
behaviour that influences the heroines and their siblings in different ways.
54
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Illustration on the cover page: Palazzo <http://www.pemberly.com/janeinfo/palazzo.jpg.>