The Failure of Laughter
3.2 Another Way Out: Female Smile
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立 政 治 大 學
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severely, but that he is serious about the inappropriate joke that compares Sir Thomas to the old heathens heroes. His serious smile here is a subtle warning that he can not ignore this verbal affront to his father. The warning proves effective because Mary immediately says she is “merely joking” (MP 77). Although Edmund’s response contains a smile, his intention is not merely to express friendliness but to warn that Mary does not respond to Sir Thomas’s return properly. In this passage, Mary’s laugh aims to ease the probable tension in their conversation and conceal her impropriety with playfulness. However, it does not work well. Edmund reacts immediately and clearly states that a playful attitude towards his father is unacceptable.
Female laughter again fails. Its aggressiveness is easily defeated by men, and its expression of genuine true emotion is also used by men to achieve their goals. In
Mansfield Park, laughter does not work as subversively as Bilger maintains.
3.2 Another Way Out: Female Smile
Although female laughter, like Bilger states, may have its power of undermining patriarchal dominance, such power does not apply to the female characters in Mansfield Park. Female laughter in Mansfield Park only confirms that women still live under the shadow of men and that their behavior is conditioned by male expectations. It seems that, in this novel, female laughter is too aggressive and obvious. Where a laugh fails, a smile succeeds.
When Julia is in high spirit with Henry sitting next to her on their way to Sotherton, Henry returns Julia’s laughter with a smile, an ambiguous emotional facial expression. Furthermore, when Maria jokes about Sir Thomas’s return, Edmund expresses his disagreement with a serious smile. Both Henry’s and Edmund’s smiles conveys their emotions in a subtle way. Henry is not as excited as Julia, who laughs merrily. He only responds to her laugh with a simple smile and does not reciprocate
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her high spirits. While his smile may refer to his joy, it can also refer to his
indifference to whoever sits next to him. His smile prevents his audience, Julia, and readers alike, from understanding perfectly what he has in mind.
Edmund’s smile is as suggestive as Henry’s. Edmund does not want to reproach Mary for her comparison of Sir Thomas to the old heathen heroes. Nor does he wish to spoil this conversation by appearing rude. He chooses to reply with a serious smile.
The smile is proper and considerate. It is able to discipline a woman without offending her.
If men can use their smiles to their own advantage, can women do the same? In his advice to his daughters, Gregory does not mention the importance of smile but does mention the importance of silent expression:
Blushing is so far from being necessarily an attendant on guilt, that it is the usual companion of innocence. This modesty, which I think too essential in your sex, will naturally dispose you to be rather silent in company, especially in a large one.–People of sense and discernment will never mistake such silence for dullness (12).
He recommends his daughters to use blushing as a survival strategy. A blush can imply innocence when women find themselves in a large company. Blushing is also the embodiment of modesty. Blushing is different from complete silence. It has its subtle expression but encourages people to imagine what kind of emotions lie behind this facial expression. Smiling is like blushing. Smiling is a silent and modest
expression, but it can carry different purposes and meanings. In Mansfield Park, Austen repeatedly dramatizes the subtle messages embedded in a smile and their social implications. In this novel, men use their smiles to control a situation and direct it toward whatever they want it to be.
When Tom, Mr. Yeats, Mary, Miss Bertrams are discussing Lover’s Vows, a
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play which contains vulgar scene for both sexes and is therefore highly indecent, Fanny is requested to act the Cottager’s wife. She then looks for Edmund’s help but received only a smile:
‘You [Tom] must excuse me, indeed you must excuse me,’ cried Fanny, growing more and more red from excessive agitation, and looking distressfully at Edmund, who was kindly observing her, but unwilling to exasperate his brother by interference, gave her only an encouraging smile (MP 103).
Although Fanny is agitated and distressful, Edmund, due to his unwillingness to exasperate his brother, only gives Fanny an encouraging smile. Edmund’s smile here is a sign to persuade Fanny to obey Tom’s decision. Edmund encourages Fanny to submit, to act like a proper lady, and to listen to whatever her master asks her to do.
His smile here indicates his refusal to help and even his complicity in the persecution of Fanny. Edmund does not need to instruct Fanny loudly, but he can convey his purpose to Fanny clearly. On the face of it, his smile may be a friendly gesture to alleviate Fanny’s distress. It also expresses his thoughts—Fanny must accept this request because Edmund does not want to argue with Tom.
Smiles and their subtle meanings are persuasive in Mansfield Park. Even an imaginary smile carry social significance. When Sir Thomas asks Fanny to invite her brother William to Mansfield Park, Fanny is surprised and delighted by Sir Thomas’s thoughtfulness. The narrator relies on a smile to comment on Fanny’s interaction with Sir Thomas in particular, on a proper lady’s relationship with a patriarch generally.
‘This was so thoughtful and kind!’– and would he [Sir Thomas] only have smiled upon her and called her ‘my dear Fanny,’ while he said it, every former or cold address might have been forgotten (MP 25).
In this passage, a smile is credited with the power to create interpersonal harmony.
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Had Sir Thomas smiled at Fanny, he could easily establish himself as a benign father figure who can win his adoptive daughter’s respect and affection. However, Sir
Thomas does not smile. His smile only exists in the hypothetical scenario produced by Fanny’s imagination. The very fact that Fanny imagines this suggests that she craves for Sir Thomas’s approval and affection, both of which can be represented by that happy facial expression. Sir Thomas’s smile becomes an ideal object that Fanny yearns to possess, a reward that she desires to obtain. Her yearning and desire suggest that she deeply believed in the social significance of a man’s smile.
As the examples discussed in this chapter suggest, like laughter, smiles are deeply implicated in the social fabric of Austen’s fictional world. Unlike laughter, a smile carries much more subtle meanings. In the next chapter, I will explore how women in Mansfield Park relies on smiles and their implicit message to challenge patriarchal dominance and to articulate their autonomy.