「她那妖嬈戲謔一笑」：《曼斯菲爾德莊園》中的禮教與微笑 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士論文. 指導教授：吳易道先生 Advisor: Dr. Yih-Dau Wu. 立. 政治大中文題目. 學. ‧ 國. 「她那妖嬈戲謔一笑」：《曼斯菲爾德莊園》中的禮教與微笑英文題目. ‧. “Her Saucy, Playful Smile”: Propriety and Smiles in Mansfield Park. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 研究生：顏渝庭 Name: Cecilia Yu-Ting Yen 中華民國一○六年六月 June 2017 i.

(2) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. ii. i n U. v.

(3) “HER SAUCY, PLAYFUL SMILE”: PROPRIETY AND SMILES IN MANSFIELD PARK. A Master Thesis Presented to. 立. Department of English, 政治大 National Chengchi University. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. i n C hIn Partial Fulfillment engchi U. v. of the Requirments for the Degree of Master of Arts. by Cecilia Yu-Ting Yen June 2017. iii.

(4) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(5) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. iii. i n U. v.

(6) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(7) To Dr. Yih-Dau Wu 獻給我的指導老師吳易道先生. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. iii. i n U. v.

(8) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. iv. i n U. v.

(9) Acknowledgements. Countless thanks and deepest apologies to my advisor, Dr. Yih-Dau Wu. Without his support, I cannot finish this dissertation. Thanks for never giving me up while I was in my most difficult times and nearly abandoned my study. Congratulations on getting rid of me and I sincerely hope you can have a better and hard-working student to advise next time. Although writing a dissertation tortures me a lot, I do appreciate everything I. 政治大 Shun-Liang Chao introduces me to the beauty of horror. Prof. Yen-Bin Chiou leads 立. learn and everyone I meet while studying my MA program. Thanks for my professors:. me into the world of western philosophy. Prof. Chih-Hsin Lin teaches me how to. ‧ 國. 學. become an instructor and leads me to explore the western literature world. Thanks to. ‧. my degree committee members: Prof. Eva Yin-I Chen, Prof. Jing-Fen Su and Prof.. y. Nat. Ya-Feng Wu. They all provide me with useful advice on my dissertation and help me. er. io. sit. to improve my arguments. Moreover, I have so much love for Anne and Jennifer. Both of them support me whenever I am complaining about my work and study, and. al. n. v i n struggling with my diet plan.CYou two are my family h e n g c h i U in this department.. The warmest cheers come from other fellow graduate students in the English. department. My dearest sublime girls, Iris and Rachel are so kind and sweet. They are always with me even when I go crazy (almost all the time). Thanks to the course on the sublime, we have a chance to know each other and support each other while struggling with our dissertations. Thanks to Wen-lin and Amber, senior graduate students in this department, for not abandoning me when I complain about my work, study, dissertation and whatsoever. I know I am mad and annoying sometimes (or most of the time), but you two like me for who I really am. I am so fortunate to have such caring friends like you two. Thanks are also due to my sweeties Demi and v.

(10) Rebecca. Sorry for not being a good model for you, but I think you two can finish your dissertation beautifully. I will be a supportive friend when you two have troubles with your dissertation or when you encounter any difficulty in your life. I am blessed to have such friend like you two. Thanks for returning me so much love which is even more than I deserve. Writing a dissertation is a painful journey but studying a MA is totally a different experience. Meeting you all is the best thing that has ever happened in my life as a graduate student. Finally, I would like to thank my friend Tatiana, who supports me all the time. 政治大 of our days. I really cannot live without you. Thanks to Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch 立. while fighting with her own dissertation. Hope we can be with each other until the end. (yes, the one who played Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Strange and so on) who invites me to. ‧ 國. 學. the English world. Without him, I will not spend so much time on studying English.. ‧. At the end of this acknowledgment, I need to thank my family. I know it must be hard. io. er. making myself feel better. Thanks for your patience and love.. sit. y. Nat. for my family to see me struggling with my own demons and wasting my time on. In fact, I had written the draft of this acknowledgment in my head so many. al. n. v i n times, even before I started writing C my dissertation. I still U h e n g c h i cannot believe I finish this. If you happen to be reading read this acknowledgment, I hope you can enjoy your. reading my dissertation as well. Then, again, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Wu. Thanks for being my advisor and I am glad that you can get rid of me, finally. I wish you all the happiness in the world and thanks for being with me all the time during this painful journey of writing my dissertation. (And he even spent time on revising this acknowledgement. I do not know what I had done in my last life to deserve such advisor like you.). vi.

(11) Table of Contents. Acknowledgement ……………………………………………………………………v Chinese Abstract ……………………………………………………………………viii English Abstract ………………………………………………………………………x. 政治大 1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………...1 立. Chapter. 2. The Problem of Propriety. ‧ 國. 學. 2.1 Property and Propriety …………………………………………………...11. ‧. 2.2 Problems of Being Proper ……………………………………………….16. y. Nat. 2.3 Laughing Against Patriarchy ………………………………………….....24. er. io. sit. 3. The Failure of Laughter. 3.1 Laughing Women in Mansfield Park ……………………………………31. al. n. v i n CFemale 3.2 Another Way Out: …………………………………….......36 h e nSmile h gc i U. 4. Being Herself with A Smile. 4.1 The Social Function of Smiles …………………………………………..41 4.2 The Subversive Smiles …………………………………………………..46 5. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………...51 Work Cited …………………………………………………………………………..53. vii.

(12) 國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班碩士論文提要. 論文名稱：「她那妖嬈戲謔一笑」：《曼斯菲爾德莊園》中的禮教與微笑指導教授：吳易道先生研究生：顏渝庭論文提要內容：十八世紀的女性需要面對許多問題，特別是在經濟方面。因為無法繼承家. 政治大障。為了要讓自己成為理想的結婚對象，遵守禮教這件事是不可或缺的，而十立產，女性必須仰賴他們的父親、兄弟或者丈夫，因此婚姻成為他們生活的保. 八世紀的禮儀書則為此而生。教導對象不僅僅只有未婚的年輕女性，更包含了. ‧ 國. 學. 對女性教育具有影響力的家庭成員，當整個社會都投入在如何教導以及規範女. ‧. 性時，父權社會對女性的掌控便得以鞏固。雖然成為一位知書達禮的淑女是當. y. Nat. 時女性唯一的生存出路，我們仍無法忽視遵守禮教所帶來的問題，意即女性必. er. io. sit. 須消抹自己的聲音，才能藉以達到符合社會期待的禮教標準。. 在小說《曼斯菲爾德莊園》中，珍‧奧斯汀也提及了禮教的重要性。書中. al. n. v i n 的女主角芬妮‧普萊斯自始至中堅持禮教，也因此在結尾得到了婚姻作為獎 Ch engchi U. 勵。但在書中，為了達到禮教的要求，女性必須要遵守男性所制定的規範，她們必須犧牲自己的聲音。雖然珍‧奧斯汀讚揚禮教中的道德性，但她並沒有忽略禮教帶來的問題—自我消弭。為了減少遵守禮教帶給女性的傷害，她採取了一精巧且非口語的表達方式以利女性表達自己的聲音—微笑。此論文旨在找出女性如何在禮教的範圍中找到自我發聲的機會，論點主要分為三部分：首先，我將著重禮教對於十八世紀英國人民的重要性，以及遵守禮教所衍生出來的問題。接著我將分析禮儀書當中所提的到大笑是如何顛覆父權社會，以及其在《曼斯菲爾德莊園》中是如何運作。最後，我將解釋珍‧奧斯汀在她作品中賦予微笑何種力量，以及微笑如何幫助女性表達自己的聲音。 viii.

(13) 關鍵字：珍‧奧斯丁、《曼斯菲爾德莊園》、十八世紀女性、禮教、禮儀書、微笑、大笑、自我消弭、自我發聲. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. ix. i n U. v.

(14) Abstract Women in eighteenth-century England need to deal with many difficulties. They need to rely on their fathers, brothers and husbands for financial support. Marriage is the primary way by which women obtain financial security. Propriety helps women to become an ideal marriage partner. Eighteenth-century conduct books represent and promote the ideal of female propriety. It instructs not only young ladies but also their family members who are responsible for those ladies’ education at home. These books help the whole patriarchal society to build a solid system to. 政治大 comes with a heavy price. Women have to efface themselves to live up to the social 立 control women. Although being a proper lady is a strategy of survival, propriety. norm.. ‧ 國. 學. Jane Austen in her novel Mansfield Park also conveys the importance of. ‧. propriety. Fanny Price, the female protagonist who insists on being proper, is. y. Nat. rewarded with a marriage with her cousin, Edmund, at the end of the novel. However,. er. io. sit. in this novel, to be proper means to follow men’s rules implicitily. Propriety requires women to be silent/silenced. Jane Austen praises the morality of being propriety, but. al. n. v i n Ctheh problems of propriety— at the same time, she does not ignore the self-effacement engchi U of women. To help those silent women, she offers a creative tool of self-assertion— smile. In this dissertation, I try to find out how women assert themselves. My argument will be divided into three parts. First, I focus on the importance of propriety to people in eighteenth-century England and on the problems of being proper. Second, I focus on female laughter, which supposedly has the potential to challenge patriarchal hegemony but which fails to work in Mansfield Park. Finally, I will discuss the power of female smiles in Mansfield Park and how they enable women to assert themselves.. x.

(15) Keywords: Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, eighteenth-century women, propriety, conduct books, laughter, smile, self-effacement, self-assertion. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. xi. i n U. v.

(16) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. xii. i n U. v.

(17) Chapter One Introduction. In Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park1, the protagonist, Fanny Price, is considered “virtue embodied” (Mooneyham 69). Born into a poor family and transplanted into a new one, she becomes habitually obedient and deferential. She runs chores for her adoptive family members without complaint. She learns to be quiet and polite in public places. Yet her self-deprecation does not mean that she has a weak mind.. 政治大 Park plan to stage a scandalous family theatrical , she alone opposes it. She alone is 立 Instead, she adheres to a strong moral principle. When other members of Mansfield 2. eighteenth-century proper lady par excellence.. 學. ‧ 國. able to recognize her suitor Henry Crawford’s moral defects. In short, she is an. ‧. In the final chapter of this novel, the hero Edmund also acknowledges that. y. Nat. Fanny is a proper lady, not only because her moral judgment is solid and accurate, but. er. io. sit. also because her affection for him never changes with time. He proposes to her as a result and is accepted. Although Fanny has endured so many unfair treatments in. al. n. v i n C hwith the man she U Mansfield Park, she is rewarded loves. Her marriage with Edmund engchi at the end of this novel seems to be the reward of her propriety.. It seems that Austen supports the idea of being proper and takes propriety as a critical moral standard in her novel. Some critics have commented on this point. Marvin Mudrick, in his Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery argues that. This novel is hereafter referred to as MP. Quotations from this text will be cited parenthetically with pagination. 1. This play refers to Lover’s Vows. Adopted in 1798 by Elizabeth Inchbald from Kotzebue’s German play Child of Love, Lover’s Vows tells a story of a sexual scandal and illegitimate birth. By eighteenthcentury moral standard, such topics are inappropriate for family entertainment. But young people in Mansfield Park, except Fanny, choose to be blind to this obvious fact. 2. 1.

(18) “[t]he thesis of Mansfield Park is severely moral: that one world, representing the genteel orthodoxy of Jane Austen’s time, is categorically superior to any other” (155). He considers Mansfield Park as a novel of morality, one that aims to show people the orthodoxy of Georgian England and encourage people to follow the moral lessons and characters in the novel. In Jane Austen and the State, Mary Evans also agrees with Mudrick’s description of Mansfield Park as a novel of morality. She explains what morality means for Austen: “Her morality, therefore, is not consoling but is one of absolute principle and absolute honesty: a morality which demands that characters. 政治大 Both of them think that Austen shows her reader the virtue of morality and how to be 立 should behave in ways which they would often rather avoid or dismiss” (Evans x).. moral in this novel. Fanny Price, as a representative of the proper lady in the. ‧ 國. 學. eighteenth century, symbolizes the morality that Mudrick and Evans have drawn our. ‧. attention to. It is true that Jane Austen focuses on the issue of morality in her novel,. y. Nat. but she also leaves some hints for her reader to explore. Although being proper is a. be problematic. Propriety requires some sacrifices.. al. er. io. sit. moral behavior that the eighteenth-century women should follow, such morality can. n. v i n C h propriety meansUmuch more than individual In the eighteenth-century, women’s engchi. manners or inner worth. Unlike men, who can show their capability through their social status or occupation, women can only show their capability at home.. Furthermore, their behavior also reflects what kind of master their husband or father is. Feminine propriety reveals that women are under control in the patriarchal society. Their behavior must be compatible with men’s expectations. If they misbehave, it means that their master cannot manage his property. Their misconduct, in other words, can endanger men’s reputation in the society. A proper lady can embody the requirements of the patriarchal society, and moreover, they can teach the perspectives of a patriarchal society to their children. We can say that feminine propriety can 2.

(19) consolidate the connection between men’s property and propriety, and also stabilizes social order. No wonder Mary Poovey in her influential book The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer (1984) argues that “feminine propriety” “protect[s] the property upon which the destiny of both individuals and an entire society depended” (6). The eighteenth-century conduct books can validate Poovey’s argument. If women want to survive in the eighteenth century, they must follow the rules of patriarchal society. Thomas Gisborne, the author of An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (1797) mentions that the value of women lies in three specific areas:. 政治大 concern to the welfare of mankind, the effect of the female character is 立 In three particulars, each of which is of extreme and never-ceasing. most important. First, In [sic] contributing daily and hourly to the. ‧ 國. 學. comfort of husbands, of parents, of brothers and sisters, and of other. ‧. relations, connections, and friends, in the intercourse of domestic life,. y. Nat. under every vicissitude of sickness and health, of joy and affliction.. er. io. sit. Secondly, In [sic] forming and improving the general manners, dispositions, and conduct of the other sex, by society and example.. al. n. v i n Thirdly, In [sic]C modeling the human mind h e n g c h i U during the early stages of its. growth, and fixing, which it is yet ductile, its growing principles of action (12-3). He mainly divides the function of women in the society into three parts. First, women must take care of their family members. Women have to think about their family before they consider their own business. The ‘sickness and health,’ the ‘joy and affliction’ of their family takes precedence over women’s own well-being. Second, women are responsible for improving the manners of men generally. They have to be the representative of social and moral norms. They are the embodiment of virtues. Third, women are required to manage the private space—home. They are responsible 3.

(20) for the education of their children. They have to teach children cautiously and to ensure that their children will develop properly in the society. Significantly, Gregory’s text discusses women in relation to other individuals in their life: her husbands, parents, siblings, children and even men in general. It seems that women’s own feeling and thoughts are insignificant by comparison. Indeed, many eighteenth-century conduct books advise that a proper lady should not express their opinion vocally and should always subordinate themselves to male authority. John Gregory in A Father’s Legacy to His Daughter (1761), for instance, tells his. 政治大 especially from the men, who generally look with a jealous and malignant eye on 立 daughters that “if you happen to have any learning, keep it a profound secret,. woman of great parts, and a cultivated understanding” (13). In her Advice of A Mother. ‧ 國. 學. to Her Daughter (1790), Machioness De Lambert also argues that “Docility is a. ‧. quality very necessary for a young person, who should never have much confidence in. y. Nat. herself” (158). These conduct books contribute to creating gender prejudice and. er. io. sit. stereotype. They argue that a proper woman should be weak intellectually, in the sense that women should subordinate their opinion to that of men. As Mary. al. n. v i n C h of the Rights ofUWoman (1792): Wollstonecraft has notices in A Vindication engchi. … all the writers who have written on the subject of female education and manners from Rousseau to Dr. Gregory, have contributed to render women more artificial, weak characters, than they would otherwise have been; and, consequently, more useless members of society (Wollstonecraft 87).. Wollstonecraft has played a significant role in revealing the problem of eighteenthcentury conduct books. How does Jane Austen, Wollstonecraft’s contemporary respond to this problem? Does Jane Austen approve of such advice about female selfeffacement? 4.

(21) Austen’s creation of Fanny Price and her rewarding Fanny with a happy marriage seem to suggest that the answer is yes. However the presence of Mary Crawford, the heroine who never hesitates to express her opinion and whose behavior is governed mainly by her desire to “comfort herself” (Trilling 302), invites more thoughtful consideration of this question. Penelope Fritzer has maintained that although “[m]odesty and humility are vital for Jane Austen,” her “recommended range of modesty lacks the obsequious flavor of some of the courtesy recommendations” (82). In other words, Austen appears both interested in and defiant of eighteenth-. 政治大 Austen’s interest in propriety? Moreover, in what ways do her novels register her 立 century conduct books and their advice on female propriety. How can we explain. attempt to help women silenced by such propriety to find their own voice?. ‧ 國. 學. Although women are inferior to men in education, finance, and politics, women. ‧. are equipped with better social skills than men. Because women are either forced or. y. Nat. required to stay silent, they learn to observe more than to speak out. Commenting on. er. io. sit. eighteenth-century sociability, Gillian Russell states that “the role of women was crucial, as exemplars and facilitators of harmony and refinement, who could temper. al. n. v i n C h ability to influence the excess of men” (177). Women’s men positively is also proved engchi U in Lady Pennington’s advice to the young ladies in the eighteenth century. When [your husband] judges wrong, never flatly contradict, but lead him insensibly into another opinion, in so discreet a manner that it may seem entirely his own; and let the whole credit of every prudent determination rest on him without indulging the foolish vanity of claiming any merit to yourself (109). Lady Pennington argues that a wife should downplay all her contribution to her husband’s happiness. This argument does not only show the self-effacement of women but also women’s ability to control their husbands. In other words, silence is 5.

(22) not necessarily an indicator of weakness. It can be a form of power itself. How do women assert themselves through silence generally. through non-verbal language in particular? In Laughing Feminism, Audrey Bilger argues that laughter may be a way out for women to assert themselves. Bliger states that “female laughter threaten[s] the stability of domestic relations” (23). Laughter does have its subversive power to overthrow or disturb the patriarchal society. Conduct book authors also notice the power of laughter. In The Ladies Preceptor. Or, a Letter to a Young Lady of Distinction Upon Politeness (1743), Abbe D’ Ancourt mentions that laughter is. 政治大 To set up a Laugh in Company without everyone present being 立. forbidden in social occasion:. acquainted with the Occasion, is inexcusable…the Rules of Politeness. ‧ 國. 學. prohibit everything of this nature…All Laughing, Whispering, affected. y. Nat. the Height of Impertinence and ill-breeding (20).. ‧. Nods, Grimaces, and half Speeches, of which the Cause is unknown, are. er. io. sit. Laughing is frowned upon because it can potentially make a lady look unworthy of the respect that is her due. John Trusler argues in his Principles of Politeness and of. al. n. v i n Knowing the World (1776), that “it C is not becoming to break h e n g c h i U out into violent loud Laughter upon any Occasion whatever, and worse to laugh always, without any Occasion, like a Country Milk-Maid” (qdt. in Fritzer 64)3.. If conduct book writers disapprove of laughter, they nevertheless celebrates smiles. In Gentlefolk in the Making, John Mason not only states what a proper lady should behave but also gives us a possibility for women to assert their voice: the polite world desired to impose restraint of behavior. This restraint In this passage, Fritzer takes Lydia and Kitty from Pride and Prejudice as an example (64). Both Lydia and Kitty “laugh so loud, that anybody might have heard [them] ten miles off!” (169) Judging from these example, we can see that these two sisters laugh without control. They are considered as improper and unrespectable. 3. 6.

(23) included the control of such natural actions as laughter…While smiling was very right and proper at most times, laughter was connected with “low buffoonery or silly accident,” and not with “true wit or sense,” the property of which was to please the mind and “give cheerfulness to the countenance” (216). Smiling, unlike laughter, is “right and proper” and also shows “true wit or sense.” Mason raises the possibility that women can express themselves through smiles. In her essay “Love: Surface and Subsurface,” Juliet McMaster argues that Jane. 政治大 indirection” (51). Is smiling an indirect way for Jane Austen to plan for her female 立. Austen does not avoid presenting strong emotions and that she “present[s] them by. character in Mansfield Park to express their emotions? McMaster also states that. ‧ 國. 學. characters in Mansfield Park can “observe the social forms” (51) without sacrificing. ‧. their voices. Is smiling a way both to avoid silencing themselves and to voice. y. Nat. themselves? If propriety is the rules that women have to follow, how do they use. er. io. sit. smiling to cultivate their self-hood?. When critics talk about propriety in Mansfield Park, they often articulate the. al. n. v i n C hpropriety is presented problems of propriety and how in the novel. In The Proper engchi U. Lady and the Woman Writer, Mary Poovey establishes the social context of female propriety in eighteenth century England. When Poovey argues about how Jane Austen presents propriety, she believes that Austen’s goal is to make propriety and romantic desire absolutely congruent. By showing how self-effacement can yield self-fulfillment, she will imaginatively purge ideology of inequities and self-interest that currently make the expression of individual desire dangerous to society as a whole (214). Poovey here states that Jane Austen combines propriety and the happy ending of 7.

(24) Fanny Price together. She thinks that Jane Austen tries to persuade her readers to believe that self-interest is dangerous to society and that propriety is the way that people should follow. Poovey’s arguments make propriety look acceptable and even attractive to women. But I argue that Austen is more interested in investigating the disturbing problems of female propriety, than in making it appealing. Another book discusses the propriety in Mansfield Park is Jane Nardin’s Those Elegant Decorums is by far the most detailed account of propriety in Austen’s novels. Propriety, as Nardin states, is the main theme in Jane Austen’s novels because it. 政治大 between morally valid and socially acceptable behavior” (14). When a character 立 applies to “a wider range of social behavior” and dramatizes “the connections. chooses to be proper, his/her action shows “individual’s style in handling social. ‧ 國. 學. forms” (Nardin 14). Nardin articulates the differences between elegance, civility,. ‧. propriety, decorum, and manners in Jane Austen’s novel. Those words are related to. y. Nat. the connection between society, family and how individuals react to their social. er. io. sit. expectation, duty or principle. Furthermore, Nardin categorizes two types of propriety: one is conventional propriety; the other is true propriety. The former. al. n. v i n C hdetermines what kind focuses on the social convention which of behavior is engchi U. acceptable in a particular social setting or appropriate to particular social status; the latter is “backed up by solid moral considerations” (Nardin 15) that may defy social expectation. Nardin believes the latter is what really concerns Jane Austen in her novels. Nardin’s book suggests that Austen is interested in the problem of propriety because it corresponds to her fascination with minute social nuances. The issue of propriety, she argues, allows Austen to differentiate conventions and morality, to spell out the differences between civility, elegance, decorum and manners. However, her arguments focus on how Jane Austen subtly distinguish the difference between “polite 8.

(25) society’s corrupt standards of propriety” and the propriety which “regulat[es] both behavior in crucially important social situations and the handling of the most important social and familial relationship” (89). Nardin’s book offers us an opportunity to understand Jane Austen’s “true” morality and her standards of propriety but it does not solve the problems of being proper. In this dissertation, I wish to fill in the blank and carry Nardin’s and Poovey’s points further. The dissertation will be mainly divided into three part. Chapter two will discuss the connection between property and propriety to figure out how and why. 政治大 century. When propriety becomes a standard of a patriarchal society, what kind of 立. female propriety exerts tremendous influence on men and women in the eighteenth. behavioral, psychological and moral problems will ensue? Then, through analyzing. ‧ 國. 學. some eighteenth-century conduct books, a minor literary genre teaching women how. ‧. to behave themselves in the eighteenth century, I will explore the subversive power of. y. Nat. laughter and explain why, as a nonverbal language, it carries the potential of. er. io. sit. undermining patriarchal authority without violating its rules. In chapter three, I will focus on female laughter in Mansfield Park, to articulate how it works to challenge. al. n. v i n C hI will discuss the difficulties men’s power and control. Then, besetting female engchi U. laughter in Mansfield Park and explore why female laughter fails to unleash a woman’s genuine voice. At the end of this chapter, I will suggest that smile, the cousin of laughter, promises much more liberating power for women. In chapter four, I will tease out the function of smile and scrutinize why it can express a woman’s propriety and her true self at the same time. This chapter will analyze how female characters uses smiling as their weapon to fight against the patriarchal expectations, to resist men’s control and to uphold their autonomy. Apart from dealing with men, I will further explain how female smiles solve the problems of being proper discussed in chapter two and show how the female characters in Mansfield Park use the power 9.

(26) of smiles to assert their voice. In short, this dissertation will focus on the problem of female propriety in the eighteenth century and tease out what kind of challenges lies behind female propriety. After figuring out what problems women have to deal with in the eighteenth century, this dissertation will explain how smiles solve the problem of being proper and how smiles work in Mansfield Park. Austen suggests that when women smile, they stand great chance to win back their voice and to assert themselves.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 10. i n U. v.

(27) Chapter Two The Problem of Propriety. 2.1 Property and Propriety According to the Oxford English Dictionary, property and propriety originate from the same Latin word proprietas which means “one’s own, particular.” To elaborate these two words, Edward Neill takes Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as an example. He argues that the real reason why Elizabeth chooses Mr. Darcy at the. 政治大 convinced of his propriety” (Neill 63). In the eighteenth century, one’s estate could 立. end of the novel is that when she sees Mr. Darcy’s property, Pemberley, she “becomes. reflect the owner’s personality and moral character. If the property is taken care of. ‧ 國. 學. and presented in good order, the owner is supposed to be a proper one, because only a. y. Nat. that Mr. Darcy has no “improper pride” (Neill 63).. ‧. decent gentleman could manage his property well. The propriety of Pemberley assures. er. io. sit. In Mansfield Park, the existence of Mansfield Park is also considered as a representative of “elegance, propriety, regularity, harmony” and “peace and. al. n. v i n C h of an estate allegedly tranquility” (MP 266). The shape can reveal the mentality of the engchi U inhabitants or the virtues they are devoted to preserving. For Fanny Price, the heroine who spends part of her childhood in her squalid and overcrowded home in Portsmouth, Mansfield Park is everything she craves. Jane Austen also designs Mansfield Park as her “eighteenth-century landscape— balanced, reposed, dignified by architectural forms, yet with a hint of the picturesque— where the pattern of human figures takes its meaning from the placement of the figures in the setting” (Banfield 24). The estate is not just property anymore because it becomes the embodiment of ideals or virtues. In the novel, Fanny worships representative ideals of Mansfield Park and those ideals also have a strong influence on what she would and 11.

(28) should do in future. “Throughout the eighteenth century the general order and stability of society and the ‘rights of property’ were not only inseparably linked: they became regarded as identical” (Tanner 16). In the eighteenth century, property is a visible sign of a man’s inner worth. Moreover, a man’s property involves not only his estate but also those women living therein. Women’s propriety, therefore, becomes an important indicator of their masters’ management skills. If a woman misbehaves, the reputation of her master, usually the patriarch of her household, would suffer, because her misbehavior. 政治大 lady can strengthen a man’s social status. She can embody what a patriarchal society 立 suggests that he is unable to govern his property well. On the other hand, a proper. requires correctly, and moreover, she can teach the assumptions of a patriarchal. ‧ 國. 學. society to their children. We can say that feminine propriety can not only consolidate. ‧. the connection between men’s property and propriety but also stabilize social order.. y. Nat. Mansfield Park is a novel suffused with properties. Characters in this novel repeatedly. er. io. sit. mention and comment on the ownership and the status of others’ properties, be it a house or an object. When Mrs. Prince asks Sir Thomas to help her troubled family. al. n. v i n Cchance economy, she writes: “Was there any hereafter useful to Sir h e nofghiscbeing hi U. Thomas in the concerns of his West Indian Property?” (MP 6). This is not the only example. When Maria talks about what belongs to Mr. Rushworth in Sotherton, “‘she believed it was now all Mr. Rushworth’s property on each side of the road’” (Austen 58). When Mrs. Norris and Mrs. Rushworth discuss the relationship between Henry and Julia, they also mention property: “Miss Julia and Mr. Crawford. Yes, indeed, a very pretty match. What is his property?” (Austen 84) The word “property” also refers to object. Edmund gives Fanny his own horse to stop Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris’s objection. “As the horse continued in name as well as fact, the property of Edmund” (MP 28), Mrs. Norris has to tolerate that Fanny 12.

(29) can ride her horse regularly. Furthermore, when Fanny goes back to Portsmouth, she brings Betsey a new silver knife to solve the quarreling between Betsey and Susan. Susan is “pleased . . . to be mistress of property which she had been struggling for at least two years” (MP 270). It is a strong indication of the importance of the word “property” that, apart from inanimate houses and objects, it also refers to individuals. When Julia meets Henry, she refers to him as her own. “Miss Bertram’s engagement made him in equity the property of Julia, of which Julia was fully aware” (MP 33). After Edmund goes to. 政治大 clergymen, and feels jealous of the sisters of Edmund’s frined Owen. She fears that 立 Peterborough (MP 193), Mary is agitated. She regrets that she speaks ill of the. when she leaves Mansfield Park to London, Edmund may think the Owen sisters are. ‧ 國. 學. ideal marriage partners (MP 196). When Mary wants to know whether her absence. ‧. matters to Edmund or not, she asks Fanny whether Edmund is interested Miss Owens.. y. Nat. She mentions that the Owen family could consider Edmund as their future son-in-law.. er. io. sit. “He is their lawful property, he fairly belongs to them” (MP 198). On the other hand, the concept of propriety mostly appears when Austen wants. al. n. v i n C h When Sir Thomas to comment on social expectations. considers adopting Fanny, Mrs. engchi U. Norris says to Sir Thomas, “I entirely agree with you in the main as to the propriety of doing everything one could by way providing for a child one had in a manner taken into one’s own hands” (MP 7). It is proper to offer help due to “generosity and general conduct” (MP 7). Propriety here indicates that people are required to do what they are capable of doing. In Sir Thomas’s case, as the head of a rich family and the relative of Fanny Price, he is morally obliged to adopt Fanny to save this poor child. Propriety also involve moral standard and social expectation. When Edmund hears thatMary criticizes her uncle, he remains silent because it does not “suit his sense of propriety” (MP 42). After Mary condemns her uncle in the public space, 13.

(30) Edmund and Fanny talk about her improper behavior. Except for Mary’s ingratitude toward her uncle, the more severe problem is to “speak so freely of others” (MP 42). Speaking freely means no concealment. If one can express their opinion without thinking of other’s feeling, such latitude will disturb social order. Mary’s misdeed violates the social norm. It is improper and is not compatible with social expectation governing how people express themselves in the public space. Propriety is quite relevant to social expectation and norm, but it is stricter when it comes to women. When Maria is jealous of Julia because she gains an opportunity. 政治大. to be with Henry Crawford, Maria thinks of her propriety before expressing her annoyance.. 立. For the first seven miles Miss Bertram had very little real comfort: her. ‧ 國. 學. prospect always ended in Mr. Crawford and her sister sitting side by side,. ‧. full of conversation and merriment; and to see only his expressive profile. y. Nat. as he turned with a smile to Julia, or to catch the laugh of the other, was a. er. io. sit. perpetual source of irritation, which her own sense of propriety could but just smooth over…She had Rushworth-feelings, and Crawford-feelings,. al. n. v i n C h the former hadUconsiderable effect. Mr. and in the vicinity of Sotherton, engchi Rushworth’s consequece was hers (MP 58-9).. Maria has to consider her position as a woman, who cannot express her feeling freely in the public place, and furthermore, she is an engaged woman. Although Maria does not care about Mr. Rushworth that much, it is her duty to maintain her future husband’s prestige. In this case, propriety is related to women’s public image. They have to act like a proper lady who perfectly lives up to the expectation of patriarchal society, and their decisions are supposed to keep up the good reputations of their masters, their fathers or husbands. Their behavior symbolizes their master’s control of them because they are the 14.

(31) embodiment of men’s property. Women cannot transgress the social norm which is established by men. We can see, again, that women’s propriety is the strategy to stabilize a patriarchal society. This strategy, as the passage above suggests, is deeply rooted in women’s consciousness and persuades women to believe that propriety is a virtue they should devote themselves to upholding. The main controller of propriety in the novel is the master of Mansfield Park, Sir Thomas. He has every right to decide what is proper and what is not. He is the only standard of propriety, and Mansfield Park is not only his property but is also the. 政治大 standard and the judge disappear. Everything is out of control. His children choose a 立 embodiment of Sir Thomas’s propriety. When Sir Thomas is not at home, the only. scandalous play to perform without his permission (MP 122). When he comes back. ‧ 國. 學. home, he has to put everything in order again. He believes that the timing, the group,. ‧. and the play are highly improper so that everything about the performance must be. y. Nat. canceled (MP 129). The improper behavior is not only against the social norm but. er. io. sit. also dishonors and disrespects the master’s reputation. Sir Thomas here is the only one who can decide what is proper because the propriety of his children is also part of. al. n. v i n C hthe order of Mansfield his property. He has to maintain Park so that his property, engchi U. including his house and reputation, will not be endangered by rebellious behavior. Mary Evans, in her book Jane Austen and the State, also supports the connection of male propriety and his estate. She states that “[t]he country estate is again crucial here, for Austen makes men’s attitude to it one measure of male virtue and good judgment” (Evans 21). A master’s will is everything to the establishment of propriety. Every inhabitant is under his government. He has the right to allow Fanny to accept an invitation for Mrs. Grant dinner party (MP 149). An inhabitant, especially women, who cannot inherit the property and become their master, has to follow their master’s order. Their 15.

(32) propriety is also the embodiment of their master’s will. Fanny is required to wait for Sir Thomas’s permission so that she can go to the party. A submissive woman is the representative of propriety. However, her master alone decides whether she behaves properly or not. If Sir Thomas thinks she is compatible with his standard of propriety, then, she is a proper lady. Through these cases, we can see that feminine propriety is constructed by men, not by themselves. Women are just an embodiment of men’s ideal propriety or even a tool that can help them to keep their property and reputation in good order.. 政治大 their property. When Fanny leaves Mansfield Park to Portsmouth, all she thinks of 立. The propriety decided by men’s expectation is deeply bound to the image of. Mansfield Park is how orderly and peaceful it has always been (MP 250). She. ‧ 國. 學. significantly forgets the tears, sorrow, repression and emotional violence that she has. ‧. experienced in Mansfield Park. This forgetfulness suggests that she firmly believes. y. Nat. that Mansfield Park is a “proper” place for a woman to live in and that everything. er. io. sit. there goes on “properly.” It also indicates how effective Sir Thomas’s skill of management is. He succeeds in linking his property with propriety, making the two. al. n. v i n synonymous terms. Fanny plays an C important role in validating h e n g c h i U the interconnection of property and propriety. At the same time, she subordinates her own individuality to that of a man. This self-effacement is the price that eighteenth-century women are expected to pay for the title of “proper lady.”. 2.2 Problems of Being Proper In eighteenth-century England, feminine propriety is constructed by patriarchal society, not by themselves. Their propriety reflects men’s ideals and expectations. If women want to live up to men’s expectation about propriety, they have to efface themselves. Poovey argues that in the eighteenth century if women do not follow 16.

(33) men’s rules of being proper, their sexual desire would “undermine self-control” (5). If they do not behave properly, they will not gain a marriage. Without the assurance of the marriage, their “future is uncertain” (Poovey 5). Women will be lost in their way of life, and oscillate between being proper or being improper. Her life will be full of contradictions and deviate from morality. In short, a woman without propriety will be considered voracious, inconstant and irrational. Although being a proper lady can help a woman escape social criticism and win the protection of marriage, propriety also leads to self-effacement.. 政治大 century magazine teaching women how to be a proper lady. An anonymous female 立 The price of propriety can be inferred in The Polite Lady, an eighteenth-. author in this periodical states: “Woman’s passions are much keener and violent than. ‧ 國. 學. those of the other sex . . . we are less capable to check and restrain them”. ‧. (Anonymous 267). Women are taught to restrain their desire and passion because they. y. Nat. allegedly cannot control it by themselves. To prevent getting out of control, the better. er. io. sit. way to deal with passion is to suppress them, or even to ignore them. By doing so, women cannot express their emotions freely, and the way they express their emotion. al. n. v i n CMen is limited by men’s judgment. decide what kind of emotion is proper, and h ewill ngchi U what is not, so a proper lady will not express “wrong emotions” incompatible with men’s standard of propriety.. Being a proper lady also necessitates eradicating women’s true feelings because they are taught that some of their emotions are not right. In Mansfield Park, Fanny never directly expresses her feeling toward Edmund. When Edmund chooses to retract his disapproval and to participate in Lover’s Vows, Fanny cannot feel calm. She is anxious about the change of Edmund’s mind: She was safe; but peace and safety were unconnected here. Her mind had been never farther from peace. She could not feel that she had done 17.

(34) wrong herself, but she was disquieted in every other way. Her heart and her judgment were equally against Edmund's decision: she could not acquit his unsteadiness, and his happiness under it made her wretched. She was full of jealousy and agitation. Miss Crawford came with looks of gaiety which seemed an insult, with friendly expressions towards herself which she could hardly answer calmly…She alone was sad and insignificant…[she might] retreat from it to the solitude of the East room, without being seen or missed (MP 111).. 政治大 However, she cannot express her opinion openly. She is the only one who insists not 立. After Edmund changes his mind to approve of the family theater, Fanny feels worried.. to play a role in the play, but her opinion is rejected by others. Even though Fanny. ‧ 國. 學. does not have to play the Cottager’s wife, thanks to Mary’s interference, she cannot. ‧. feel relieved. Fanny cannot stop herself from feeling jealous for Mary, who has an. y. Nat. opportunity to get close to Edmund.. er. io. sit. The emotion in Fanny’s mind is contradictory. On the one hand, she is safe from being involved in the predicament of this controversial play; on the other hand,. al. n. v i n C hfrom Edmund, theUonly one who is on her she is kept away from others, especially engchi. side but who changes his mind due to his affection for Mary. Fanny cannot change Edmund’s mind, but she never openly expresses her feeling toward this event and Edmund. Her feeling toward Mary is distorted because, as a proper lady, she has to restrain her emotion and passion. Unlike Mary, who never conceals her emotion, Fanny gets used to being silent due to the rule of female propriety that Sir Thomas has established in Mansfield Park. Due to Fanny’s self-control and her obedience to the rule of propriety, she is the only one who is not condemned after Sir Thomas’s return. Nevertheless, we can see the constraint of propriety for women. Although Mary does not hesitate to express her feelings, she is still limited by 18.

(35) social expectation. She has to balance herself as an activist or an observer. when Fanny is agitated because she is required to play cottager’s wife in Lover’s Vows, Mary is the one who notices the social tension and tries to ease it. She notices Fanny’s reluctance and Edmund’s anger at Mrs. Norris’s unkind words4. Mary tries to comfort Fanny and restore harmony. Her behavior wins Edmund’s approval. On this occasion, because of her kindness, Mary appears to be a proper lady. Mary is smart enough to know when she should stop expressing herself and when she should take other’s feeling into consideration. Her observation helps her to consolidate her status as a. 政治大. proper lady, but at the same time, she has to efface her voice and to do whatever lives up to the social expectation.. 立. These two heroines possess different characteristics, but they have to deal with. ‧ 國. 學. the same difficulties in the patriarchal society. They are required to act proper,. ‧. whether it is their genuine intention or not. The proper lady cannot be herself. She. y. Nat. must always follow men’s rule of being proper for avoiding condemnation. Claudia. er. io. sit. Johnson has argued that in Mansfield Park, “masculine discourse” depends on “feminine silence” (112). Indeed, in the eighteenth century generally and in this novel. n. al. Ch. in particular, to be proper is to be silent/silenced.. engchi. i n U. v. Eighteenth-century women are willing to embrace this silence because propriety carries the positive connotations of virtues. Poovey argues that “all of this self-effacing behavior was included in the general category of modesty” (21). The virtue, modesty, becomes a strategy for men to ask their female companions to be proper, which means, to follow their standard of good behavior. Modesty represents men’s request for women. If a woman wants to be a proper lady, she must be modest. Unhappy about Fanny’s refusal to cooperate, Mrs. Norris says that she shall think Fanny “a very obstinate, ungrateful girls, if she does not do what her aunt and cousins wish her— very ungrateful indeed, considering who and what she is” (MP 103). Fanny is humiliated publicly and again is reminded of who and what she is— an adoptive girl from a poor family. 4. 19.

(36) When propriety, men’s control over their belongings, becomes a virtue, it is easier to deceive women to believe being proper is a compliment. “Modesty announces purity in a virgin, promises fidelity in a wife, and thus will continue to be a reflection of her husband’s power” (Poovey 21). To advocate modesty becomes a strategy for men to execute their power over women so that they can consolidate their power and ensure that their properties are in good shape. Modest women not only represent but also showcase men’s social prestige and managerial prowess. As a result, a modest woman is a desirable marriage partner. We can see the. 政治大 court Fanny. The following passage is his reason why Fanny is an ideal marriage 立. importance of modesty in Mansfield Park when Henry Crawford changes his mind to. partner:. ‧ 國. 學. Fanny's beauty of face and figure, Fanny's graces of manner and. ‧. goodness of heart, were the exhaustless theme. The gentleness, modesty,. y. Nat. and sweetness of her character were warmly expatiated on . . . and her. er. io. sit. manners were the mirror of her own modest and elegant mind. . . . but when he talked of her having such a steadiness and regularity of conduct,. al. n. v i n C h and such an observance such a high notion of honour, of decorum as engchi U might warrant any man in the fullest dependence on her faith and. integrity, he expressed what was inspired by the knowledge of her being well principled and religious. “I could so wholly and absolutely confide in her,” said he; “and that is what I want” (MP 200-01). Henry tries to convince his sister Mary that he seriously wants Fanny to be his wife. This passage suggests that Fanny’s appearance is not a critical requirement for Henry’s choice of a wife. Fanny’s manners are the main factor motivating Henry to decide that she is an ideal marriage partner because “[t]he modest woman was made 20.

(37) for marriage” (Yeazell 33). He mentions Fanny’s endurance of other people’s annoyance and complaint, deep affection toward her brother, William, and most importantly, her “modest and elegant mind.” Henry knows that Fanny’s propriety will consolidate the order of family and secure her fidelity to her husband. He then affirms that Fanny is all he wants. Fanny’s modesty, rather than her beautiful face, thus becomes the main reason for Henry’s interest in her. Henry is fully aware of what a wife should be. Unlike Maria or Julia, who flirt with men, Fanny is a model of modesty who stands for the gist of eighteenth-century propriety.. 政治大 survive in the eighteenth century. However, to practice propriety also means to 立. Because of its power to attract a husband, propriety is a strategy for women to. sacrifice their freedom and individual voices. If losing one’s genuine self is the first. ‧ 國. 學. problem that eighteenth-century proper lady face, another related problem concerns. ‧. sincerity. Fanny is undoubtedly a proper lady. Yet her proper behavior invites the. y. Nat. disturbing question: does propriety lead to insincerity or hypocrisy? Davidson offers. er. io. sit. an idea that Fanny’s silence and obedience can be a “chameleon-like” weapon that enables her to achieve social advancement (161). Apart from that, Kaplan in her. al. n. v i n C hEighteenth-CenturyUSocial Experience as Form in dissertation Structure of Status: engchi. Courtesy Books and Jane Austen’s Novels also points out the problems of following conduct-book lessons. She argues that “[c]ourtesy texts…in fact teach deceit or insincerity” (55). A proper lady like Fanny, in other words, may not be very far from an opportunistic hypocrite. In the novel, Fanny always conceals her emotion and chooses to be silent. After Fanny happily receives a chain from Edmund, she discusses with Edmund about the necklace Mary gives her. When she talks about returning the necklace, Edmund insists that she must not do that. Otherwise, it will mortify Mary severely (Austen 180). Edmund also says that he does not wish to see “the shadow of a coolness arise 21.

(38) between the two dearest objects I have on earth” (MP 181). He refers to Fanny and Mary here. After hearing Edmund’s confession, Fanny alone deals with her repressed emotion: She was one of his two dearest— that must support her. But the other!— the first! She had never heard him speak so openly before…It was a stab, in spite of every long-standing expectation; and she was obliged to repeat again and again, that she was one of his two dearest, before the words gave her any sensation. Could she believe Miss Crawford to deserve him,. 政治大 he was deceived in her: he gave her merits which she had not; her faults 立. it would be—oh, how different would it be— how far more tolerable! But. were what they had ever been, but he saw them no longer. Till she had. ‧ 國. 學. shed many tears over this deception, Fanny could not subdue her. ‧. agitation (MP 181).. y. Nat. Austen shows Fanny’s mind to readers after Edmund indirectly confesses his love to. er. io. sit. Mary. Fanny’s propriety forbids her from expressing her disapproval of Mary’s bad morality. She suppresses her emotion and can only release it when she is alone. She. al. n. v i n C h Even though sheUdespises Mary, she cannot speak freely about Mary’s defects. engchi. remains friendly with her. When Edmund says Mary and Fanny are his most beloved women in the world and hopes they can get along with each other, Fanny cannot say anything but can only accept his suggestion. If Fanny vocally criticizes Mary, her rival in love, she would risk revealing her affection for Edmund and violates the rule of modesty. On the one hand, her silence confirms her adherence to feminine propriety. On the other hand, it raises the problem of insincerity. Fanny does not want a friendship with Mary. Mary is her enemy in the love battlefield, but she chooses to be friendly with her. Even though Fanny tries to appear calm, she cannot get rid of an idea that she must dislike Mary. 22.

(39) Her silence contains her sadness, jealousy, and disdain, but all these emotions are not expressed in front of people. Fanny is still a proper lady, but this impulse to be a proper lady problematizes her relationship with Mary. In particular, this impulse predisposes her to focus her attention solely on concealing her genuine feeling, rather than on identifying goodness in others. Despite her weak moral standard, Mary has a favorable impression of Fanny. She believes that Fanny is “as good a little creature as ever lived, and has a great deal of feeling” (MP 158). In fact, it is Mary who offers a helping hand when Fanny is pressed by other family members to participate in the. 政治大 Instead, when witnessing Edmund’s growing affection for Mary, she is overwhelmed 立 family theater that she hates. However, Fanny fails to reciprocate such kindness.. by her own jealousy and the necessity to cover it up. Her concealment is so successful. ‧ 國. 學. that Mary never suspects her interest in Edmund and still believes that Fanny is an. ‧. intimate friend of hers.. y. Nat. Fanny’s silence may be considered an indicator of female propriety5, because a. er. io. sit. modest proper lady should not express her passionate love and resentment openly. However, her silence also raises the problem of hypocrisy6. Fanny pretends to be a. al. n. v i n Cfact good friend of Mary, when in dislikes her. It is no doubt that U h eshenseriously i h gc. Fanny’s propriety wins her the virtue of modesty, but it hinders her relationship with In Kingsley Amis’s famous essay “What Became of Jane Austen”, he has different opinions about Fanny Price. He thinks Fanny is “a monster of complacency and pride who, under a cloak of cringing self-basement, dominates and gives meaning to the novel” (144). Echoing Amis, Margaret Kirkham in her “Feminist Irony and Priceless Heroine of Mansfield Park” states that “Fanny is not a true conductbook heroine” (117). Both of them think that Fanny is deceptive and that she pretends to be a proper lady under her cover of timidity. However, although Fanny does have a problem of being hypocritical, hypocrisy is the result of the requirement of propriety. Propriety is her way to survive in Mansfield Park as an adoptive daughter. She does not pretend to be good or perform as proper lady by her free will. She is required to do so. Because of that, Amis’s and Kirkham’s statements seem too exaggerated. 5. In his Character and Conflict in Jane Austen’s Novels, Bernard J. Paris explores the issues of psychology on Jane Austen’s novels. He argues that “Fanny’s defenses are, broadly speaking, of two kinds: those designed to prevent dangerous situation from arising and those designed to secure reassurance and protection. The preventive defenses include self-minimization; self-accusation; avoidance of attention, competition and triumph; and taboos against pride, envy, and resentment” (47). He does not see Fanny’s silence as hypocritical. 6. 23.

(40) others. Concentrating too much on her own reputation, she cannot interact with others in a meaningful and fruitful manner. She cannot reveal her true emotions and opinion toward others. Her relationship with others lacks sincerity and honesty. Convinced that she must suppress her own genuine desire because of social expectation, a proper lady may appear socially acceptable. Yet her self-hood is necessarily circumscribed, her personal development throttled.. 2.3 Laughing Against Patriarchy. 政治大 a woman’s personal development. Ironically, the most influential textual champion of 立 From the previous sections, we can see that female propriety greatly constrains. propriety, eighteenth-century conduct books, claims that their advice take into. ‧ 國. 學. consideration women’s individuality and, as a result, can improve the quality of their. y. Nat. virtue and what is not:. ‧. social life. For instance, Thomas Gisborne tries to show his readers what is female. er. io. sit. Young women endowed with good understanding, but desirous of justifying the mental indolence which they have permitted themselves to. al. n. v i n Cathnot perceiving a way indulge; or disappointed open by which they, like engchi U their brothers, may distinguish themselves and rise to eminence, are occasionally heard to declare their opinion, that the sphere in which women are destined to move is so humble and so limited, as neither to require nor to reward assiduity (10-1). In this passage, Gisborne shows that he knows the eighteenth-century women’s dissatisfaction with their limited life. They ask to be treated equally as men. However, Gisborne’s conduct book advice women to give up such ambition and to learn instead how the subordination of their desires can increase the “happiness of society” (Gisborne 11). Gisborne does not believe women can control themselves as men do. 24.

(41) He states that women are unreasonable and self-indulgent. His conduct book teaches women to be humble and to place little trust in their own views. Gisborne mentions that when a family introduce their daughters to the public, they must Let her not be distracted in the years by nature particularly designed for the cultivation of the understanding and the acquisition of knowledge, by turbulence and glare of polite amusements. Let her not to be suffered to taste the draught which the world offers to her, until she has learned that,. 政治大 until her has acquired a right judgment and a well-directed taste as to the 立 if there be sweetness on the surface, there is venom deeper in the cup;. Apostle, has become disposed (99-100).. 學. ‧ 國. pursuits and pleasures of life, or, according to the expression of the. ‧. Gisborne writes these warning to women and their family to avoid the possibility of. y. Nat. harms imposed on women. In his description, he implicitly states women are naïve so. er. io. sit. that they are easily allured by enjoyment and deceived by excitement. Their family must teach them what is right judgment and direct them into the right way. In other. al. n. v i n words, women cannot build C their own selfhood independently. Their identities are hengchi U. fully constructed by their family or the society’s will and expectation. Furthermore, Gisborne also lists what women should not learn: Let not the young woman be consigned to some fashionable instructress, who, processing at once add the last polish to education, and to introduce the pupil into the best company, will probably dismiss her thirsting for admiration; inflamed with ambition; devoted to dress and amusement; initiated in the science and the habit of gaming; and prepared to deem every thing right and indispensable, which is or shall be recommended by modish example. Let her not be abandoned in her outset in life to the 25.

(42) giddiness and mistaken kindness of fashionable acquaintance in the metropolis; nor forwarded under their convoy to public places, there to be whirled, far from maternal care and admonition, in the circles of levity and folly, into which, even had maternal care and admonition been at hand to protect her, she ought not to have been permitted to step (101). Women are instructed not to have their own desires. Their desire for wilder social experiences, for “the metropolis,” is frowned upon as dangerous. Their knowledge is chosen and censored by their educators, especially those who can offer “maternal care. 政治大 Because of craving ambition, they may become aggressive and transgress the 立. and admonition.” Pursuing admiration may break down their temperance and chastity.. boundary marked out by their social status. Their desire for dress and amusement may. ‧ 國. 學. make them materialistic and self-indulgent. If they are interested in science and. ‧. gaming, they improperly step into men’s world and forget that their duty should be. y. Nat. fulfilled in the private sphere rather than the public one. Women’s instructress should. er. io. sit. properly supervise them to prevent them from going astray. Gisborne’s advice on women shows that women should not have their free will. Everything they do, or. al. n. v i n C h and needed to beUcensored. everything that they want to do, is limited engchi. Self-effacement is a common problem for proper ladies in the eighteenth. century. Social expectations dictate that they must assume that they can never be men’s equals, let alone men’s superior. If a woman dares to think otherwise, she is likely to encounter ridicule and disdain. John Gregory makes this point clear: By the present mode of female manners, the ladies seem to expect that they shall regain their ascendency over us, by the fullest display of their personal charms, by being always in your eye at public places, by conversing with us with the same unreserved freedom as we do with one other; in short, by resembling us as nearly as they possibly can. —But a 26.

(43) little time and experience will show the folly of this expectation and conduct (17). Gregory reveals his contempt for women. He suggests that a woman’s best blessing lies in her acceptance of her inferiority, her reconciliation with the demand of female propriety. Such assumption and advice are quite common in the eighteenth century. Women accept and follow what those conduct books instruct them to do, and so do their family and the whole society. However, is it necessary that women must follow. 政治大 Feminism raises a question while discussing female characters in the novels of 立. the rules dictated by others rather their free will? Audrey Bilger in her book Laughing. eighteenth-century female authors: Would women’s freedom lead to promiscuous. ‧ 國. 學. behavior” (Bilger 15)? Can women be free and well-behaved at the same time? In the. ‧. view of those conduct books authors, it is impossible.. y. Nat. In the previous quotations, Gisborne clearly indicates that women cannot. er. io. sit. handle their free will and that they will eventually indulge their desire if once they are allowed to pursue freely what they want. Such repressive prejudice is usually couched. al. n. v i n in terms of and disguised byC familial affection. Unsurprisingly, some conduct books hengchi U are written as bequest to offsprings. A case in point is John Gregory’s Father’s. Legacy to His Daughter (1761), in which he instructs his daughter on how to act like a proper lady in the eighteenth century. As Bilger has aptly put it, “[f]rom the late eighteenth century onward, the expressive possibility of women were increasingly hampered by culturally mandated ties of affection and solicitude to fathers, brothers, husbands, and other figures of male authority” (Bilger 21-2). Even when an advice is written by mothers, such as those in Marchioness de Lambert’s Advice of A Mother to Her Daughter (1790) and Lady Pennington’s An Unfortunate Mother’s Advice to Her Absent Daughters, in A Letter to Miss 27.

(44) Pennington (1790), it instructs its readers not to repeat the failures of other women and again mentions their father’s warning and their husband’s commands. In the eighteenth century, women are tied to their family. Adequate education of daughters by their mothers ensures that women are restrained by themselves from generation to generation. It seems that women cannot retake their autonomy under patriarchal suppression because of the well-constructed male censorship upon female sex, censorship in which women themselves also participate. Significantly, while eighteenth-century conduct books seek to subordinate female voices to male. 政治大 which women can potentially subvert patriarchal hegemony (Bilger 24). 立. expectations, the numerous pieces of advice therein also reveal certain ways through. Bilger finds something potentially revolutionary in eighteenth-century conduct. ‧ 國. 學. books. Women cannot fight against men in finance or politics. Their only weapon is. ‧. through communication. Although women’s verbal communication also needs to be. y. Nat. censored by men, Bilger mentions a subtle communication which can strike down. er. io. sit. patriarchal dominance—laughter. “Laughter calls attention to itself in an aggressive, forceful manner and, within the confines of decorum, it suggests an insubordination in. al. n. v i n C She proportion to its volume” (Bilger 24). that laughter can express h emaintains ngchi U. women’s emotion without losing decorum and that it can subtly indicate women’s thoughts. Laughter, unlike language, has its ambiguity and uncertainty which offer women an opportunity to react differently after observing other’s reaction to their laughters. Laughter can mean merriment or sarcasm. It can also be used to ease the tension of a social occasion. Laughter in Bilger’s belief is quite effectively destructive. “Laughing at men involves a rejection of the hierarchy that subordinates women and calls for a rebellion against women’s so-called superiors” (Bilger 116). Bilger’s argument, in fact, draws on Gisborne’s discussion on female laughter 28.

(45) in his conduct book. In Gisborne’s work, he imagines a scenario where a vulnerable man is attacked by women’s laughter: And if a man of grave aspect and more wakeful reflection presumes to step within the circle, they assail the unwelcome intruder with a volley of brilliant raillery and sparkling repartee, which bears down knowledge and learning before it; and convulse the delighted auditors with peals of laughter, while he labours in his heavy accoutrements after his lightarmed antagonist, and receives at every turn a shower of arrows, which. 政治大 In this passage, Gisborne describes men’s predicament when they receive presumably 立 he can neither parry nor withstand (113-4).. “malicious” laughter. He suggests that women should not force men into that kind of. ‧ 國. 學. embarrassment. The laughter bears down men’s “knowledge and learning.” That is. ‧. why he cannot react immediately to his embarrassment.. y. Nat. This imaginary scenario conveys two important messages. One is that women. er. io. sit. can express their true emotion without words or aggressive body language. Laughter may be fierce or blunt, but it has its ambiguity. It can refer to women’s pure. al. n. v i n Cwhole merriment or ignorance of the Another is that women are able to defy U h e nsituation. i h gc patriarchal education. Men expect women to act for their sake. In the public space,. women should follow men’s rules. When men talk about something vulgar, women have to act like that they do not know the meaning behind the vulgar words; when men talk about their business or their interest, women have to pretend intrigued and reply duly. Men do not expect that women can act differently because they think women will behave as the patriarchal society requires them to do. However, laughter can confuse them and arouse the anxiety of patriarchal society. Bilger reads laughter in the context of eighteenth-century female propriety. She accurately describes the psychological repression that a proper lady must undergo: 29.

(46) To act the part of the proper lady, a woman had to conceal anger, aggression, and other ‘unfeminine’ feelings; a lady-like demeanor involved much indirect, circuitous behavior and a great deal of repression and duplicity. Thus, the eighteenth-century woman who had independent views of self-hood was required to live a double life (59). A proper lady who wants to have her individuality must lead a double life. On the one hand she has to follow the rules of being a proper lady and to perform like a proper lady. On the other hand, she has to keep reminding herself what she really wants and. 政治大 to break the manacle of this “double life” and to unleash the pent-up emotions that 立. to express her thoughts privately. However, laughter, Bilger suggests, allows women. such a life must entail.. ‧ 國. 學. With the help of laughter, can women in Mansfield Park move beyond simply. ‧. being men’s property? Does Austen agree with Bilger about the successfully. y. sit. io. n. al. er. questions properly.. Nat. subversive power of female laughter? The next chapter seeks to answer these. Ch. engchi. 30. i n U. v.