‘Intricate characters are the most amusing’
Creating and developing your characters
This chapter is about the thing that makes writing and reading such good fun – creating and developing characters. My advice to writers starting out is to forget about plot; concentrate on character, and everything else will follow. Here we will look at some of Jane Austen’s immortal characters and how she created and used them.
In Pride and Prejudice Mrs Bennet is visiting Netherfield, where Jane is staying, having been taken ill.
‘I am sure,’ she [Mrs Bennet] added, ‘if it was not for such good friends, I do not know what would become of her, for she is very ill indeed, and suffers a vast deal, though with the greatest patience in the world – which is always the way with her, for she has, without exception, the sweetest temper I ever met with. I often tell my other girls they are nothing to her. You have a sweet room here, Mr Bingley, and a charming prospect over that gravel walk. I do not know a place in the country that is equal to Netherfield. You will not think of quitting it in a hurry, I hope, though you have but a short lease.’
‘Whatever I do is done in a hurry,’ replied he; ‘and therefore if I should resolve to quit Netherfield, I should probably be off in five minutes. At present, however, I consider myself as quite fixed here.’
‘That is exactly what I should have supposed of you,’ said Elizabeth.
‘You begin to comprehend me, do you?’ cried he, turning towards her.
‘Oh! yes – I understand you perfectly.’
‘I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen through, I am afraid, is pitiful.’
‘That is as it happens. It does not necessarily follow that a deep, intricate character is more or less estimable than such a one as yours.’
‘Lizzy,’ cried her mother, ‘remember where you are, and do not run on in the wild manner that you are suffered to do at home.’
‘I did not know before,’ continued Bingley immediately, ‘that you were a studier of character. It must be an amusing study.’
‘Yes; but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least that advantage.’
‘The country,’ said Darcy, ‘can in general supply but few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society.’
‘But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.’
Study the different ways that Jane Austen introduces her characters and experiment with the method that will work best for your story. Here are some of her techniques:
Show your characters doing the thing they most love doing
In the opening scene of Persuasion we see Sir Walter Elliot doing the Regency equivalent of googling himself.
Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed. This was the page at which the favourite volume always opened:
‘ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL.
‘Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15, 1784, Elizabeth, daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county of Gloucester, by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth, born June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a stillborn son, November 5, 1789; Mary, born November 20, 1791.’
EXERCISE: THE SIR WALTER ELLIOT METHOD
Introduce a character by showing them doing whatever it is they love to do or something that they do when they are alone. This might be something quite mundane in real life but which in fiction can be made enthralling. Make sure readers know how your characters spend their time, including idle moments.
Let your hero or heroine be discovered by the reader
The Austen heroine isn’t always in the spotlight straight away. Jane sometimes wanted to establish a character’s world and predicament before placing her centre stage. She did this with Anne Elliot, whom we are told was ‘only Anne’. Fanny Price doesn’t make her entrance until Chapter 2 of Mansfield Park.
Fanny Price was at this time just ten years old, and though there might not be much in her first appearance to captivate, there was, at least, nothing to disgust her relations. She was small of her age, with no glow of complexion, nor any other striking beauty; exceedingly timid and shy, and shrinking from notice; but her air, though awkward, was not vulgar, her voice was sweet, and when she spoke her countenance was pretty. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly.
The benefits of this strategy are obvious when the heroine is quiet or neglected, but even Elizabeth Bennet is introduced in this way, and of course Mr Darcy makes a sulky first appearance. The world of your story can seem more real if readers are led into it and then discover the central character there. An opening like this can feel like going to a party and only after a while finding that the most interesting person, the one that you will lose your heart to, is that one over there in the corner. Only slowly focusing on the central character will keep your readers on their toes and leave you able to spring surprises and take the story in unexpected directions. The downside of this strategy is that impatient readers may not get the immediate focus they want.
EXERCISE: LETTING THE READER DISCOVER THE HERO OR HEROINE
Write or recast an opening so that a principal character is not immediately centre stage. Open in media res, with action and dialogue. A variation on this is to open with some sort of graphic element, or a letter, newspaper article or piece of non-fiction, that will intrigue while establishing the tone and contributing texture.
Be upfront with the introductions
Sometimes Jane Austen introduces her heroine to the reader straight away. She does this with Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey and with Emma Woodhouse. She is quick to point out the faults and foibles of both heroines.
‘Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.’ But just a few lines later we learn that ‘The real evils indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.’
Here Jane sets up her plot – the danger is at present unperceived but we realize that all will not remain well in the village of Highbury.
Writing to her niece, Fanny Knight, in March 1816, Jane remarked ‘pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked’. Make sure your characters don’t cause your readers to feel like that. Readers don’t have to like your characters, but they do have to find them intriguing. When Jane Austen was writing Emma she said that she was working with ‘a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like’. And here is the opening of Northanger Abbey:
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard – and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good livings – and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on – lived to have six children more – to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number; but the Morlands had little other right to the word, for they were in general very plain, and Catherine, for many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features – so much for her person; and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind. She was fond of all boy’s plays, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief – at least so it was conjectured from her always preferring those which she was forbidden to take. Such were her propensities – her abilities were quite as extraordinary. She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in teaching her only to repeat the ‘Beggar’s Petition’; and after all, her next sister, Sally, could say it better than she did. Not that Catherine was always stupid – by no means; she learnt the fable of ‘The Hare and Many Friends’ as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinnet; so, at eight years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off. The day which dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine’s life. Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character! – for with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.
EXERCISE: BE UPFRONT
Have a look at the openings of Emma and Northanger Abbey (above) and then write one of your own, in which you are upfront with an introduction, making sure that the reader starts seeing the character’s faults, oddities and idiosyncrasies straight away. Begin showing your central character’s complexity from the very first page.
Let your characters introduce themselves
Sometimes the best way of introducing your characters is to hand things over to them. Whether you are writing in the first or the third person, make sure that your characters’ voices are heard from early on. It may be that you want to show a particular point of view from the very first page, or have your characters argue or involved in a conflict immediately. In Sense and Sensibility the first thing we learn about sensible Elinor Dashwood is that she can stop her mother acting rashly.
You might like to let a character take over the narration completely. In Lady Susan we are given almost nothing but the characters’ voices as the novel consists of letters. Even if you don’t want to tell the whole of your story in this way (or through diary entries, emails or whatever), you can use some of these forms as conduits for characters’ voices. The white space around one of these communications on the page of a book is pleasing to the eye, and readers will find that your novel is more of a page-turner if you use them – the pages really will be turned more quickly. Introducing a character through a letter also means that you are crediting the reader with enough intelligence to read between the lines. Of course you can use this method of introduction later on in a novel too. You can be subtle and sly and really have some fun.
Here is Mr Collins’s first letter to the Bennets.
Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent,
15th October.
DEAR SIR, – The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured father always gave me much uneasiness, and since I have had the misfortune to lose him I have frequently wished to heal the breach; but for some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with any one with whom it had always pleased him to be at variance. [. . .] My mind however is now made up on the subject, for having received ordination at Easter, I have been so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has preferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavour to demean myself with grateful respect towards her ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which are instituted by the Church of England. As a clergyman, moreover, I feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in all families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds I flatter myself that my present overtures of good-will are highly commendable, and that the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate will be kindly overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the offered olive branch. I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologize for it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible amends, – but of this hereafter. If you should have no objection to receive me into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting on you and your family, Monday, November 18th, by four o’clock, and shall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday se’nnight following, which I can do without any inconvenience, as Lady Catherine is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided that some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day. I remain, dear sir, with respectful compliments to your lady and daughters, your well-wisher and friend,
William Collins.
SHOW THE READER WHAT’S BEEN LOST AND WHAT’S AT STAKE
In the opening of Persuasion, as well as showing readers what it is that Sir Walter most cares about, Jane Austen cleverly gives a miniature history of the Elliots. She goes on to reveal (in a subtle way) what the future may hold for them and what one of the central issues of the novel will be. Writers often slip this sort of information into their opening scenes. Readers need to know what most concerns the characters, what the characters care about and what they long for. Characters have often lost something. Sir Walter’s son and heir was stillborn and his wife is dead. What will become of the Elliots and Kellynch Hall?
Make sure you don’t delay when it comes to telling your readers what’s at risk. You can be subtle about it and slip it in the way Jane Austen does in Persuasion – the last novel she finished – or be more overt, following the model of Sense and Sensibility, her first published work, in which readers discover what has been lost and get little sketches of Elinor, Marianne, Margaret and their mother all in the first couple of pages. By evoking feelings and ideas of loss you can make readers care about your characters straight away.
1. What’s been lost. All readers will have a vivid memory of a time when they lost something. It might be a person, a place, a thing or a version of a former self. When he was about four my son lost a new spade at the beach. It was a sharp blue metal one with a sturdy wooden handle. Although we bought an identical one the next day, he carried on mourning the loss of the original, and the spade has become family shorthand for situations of minor tragedy.
Think about a time when you or somebody you know lost something. It is probably easier not to focus on the death of a loved one; rather think about an object, a place or a childhood friend you lost touch with. Write about that time. Carry on for a few paragraphs and see where it takes you. Once you have something on paper, experiment with recasting it in the third or second person; more distance between you and the memory may help you craft better fiction. What you write could become part of a novel opening, a short story or a passage that gives readers a subtle insight into one of your characters.
2. What is longed for. Good novelists ensure that we know what characters most want. The fun starts when desires conflict. Mr Bennet wants to be left alone in his study/library: ‘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.’1 Mrs Bennet wants security for herself and her five daughters: ‘The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.’2 And who can blame her?
Write a scene in which you show through dialogue and action what it is that one of your key characters longs for. Try to be subtle. Repeat this for each of your major players. Don’t expect everything you write to end up in your finished work; just use this exercise to get to the heart of what each character wants.
3. What is found. Later on in your story your characters may find what they had lost or a replacement for it. They may or may not get what they have longed for. Will they find it for themselves or with the help of somebody else? Perhaps your hero or heroine will give something to somebody else. In Mansfield Park Fanny becomes the agent of her own destiny when we see her buying a replacement silver knife for the one that her sister Susan has lost. Lost objects can act as symbols. That knife is an emblem of discord and unfair treatment in the Price family. Mr Darcy finds Lydia and restores the Bennets’ respectability. But sometimes the attempt to restore something can be indicative of thoughtlessness and show that a character is, as Mr Woodhouse puts it, ‘not quite the thing’. Willoughby tries to give Marianne a horse to replace the one she lost along with the family home and fortune. It is a present that she cannot accept. The Dashwoods cannot afford to keep a horse, and she should not accept a gift from a man so recently known to them. Later on, Marianne has the use of Colonel Brandon’s library and then becomes the mistress of his lovely home, finding a replacement for Norland, which she loved so much. She’ll have plenty of horses too.
Write a scene that shows a character trying to replace something (not necessarily a physical thing) that another character has lost by giving them a present. How will the gift be received? This probably won’t be a scene for your story’s opening as readers will most likely need to understand the characters and what has befallen them before this happens.
UNLIKELY HEROES AND SURPRISING HEROINES
Jane Austen continually challenged herself and her readers by creating intriguing and surprising characters. With the successes of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice under her belt, she must have felt confident during the writing of Mansfield Park. She approached it determined to try something new, and in Fanny Price she gives us a heroine who contrasts strongly with Lizzy Bennet. Mansfield Park would have surprised readers who had anticipated a ‘marriage plot’; this is a much more complex novel, one that would have defied expectations.
Many people find Mansfield Park the least appealing of Austen’s novels. Even if you’re one of those, you’ll still be able to take inspiration from it and its rich cast of charming, bad, dangerous, feckless, dim, determined, scheming, ineffectual, vulgar, good and completely believable characters.
Characters can be found in different places and different ways. In Mansfield Park, as in the other novels, we can spot echoes of people that Jane Austen knew, but a special writerly alchemy of observation and imagination was required to transform and shape aspects of those people into a cast of characters.
Eliza de Feuillide was Jane Austen’s cousin, the daughter of her father’s sister Philadelphia, who had gone to India, like so many women of the time, to find a husband. Eliza fluttered into the Steventon family like an exotic butterfly among the cabbage whites of Hampshire. Her first marriage was to a French count; he was guillotined in 1794. Eliza took part in the family’s theatricals, and after she was widowed both James, Jane’s eldest brother (also a widower), and Henry (younger and more dashing) pursued her. Eliza was fourteen years older than Jane and an important influence on her. Jane’s early work Henry and Eliza seems to be about Henry Austen and Eliza’s romance (they later married); Love and Freindship was dedicated to Eliza, and there seem to be elements of Eliza’s life in Lady Susan too. There are certainly echoes of Eliza in Mary Crawford.
On 13 December 1796 Eliza wrote to another cousin, Phylly Walter, of the current situation with James Austen:
I am glad to find you have made up your mind to visiting the Rectory, but at the same time, and in spite of all your conjectures and belief, I do assert that Preliminaries are so far from settled that I do not believe the parties ever will come together, not however that they have quarrelled, but one of them cannot bring her mind to give up dear Liberty, and yet dearer flirtation – After a few months stay in the Country she sometimes thinks it possible to undertake sober Matrimony, but a few weeks stay in London convinces her how little the state suits her taste – Lord S’s card has this moment been brought me which I think very ominous considering I was talking of Matrimony, but it does not signify, I shall certainly escape both Peer and Parson.
And on 3 May 1797 (also to Phylly Walter) she wrote of Henry Austen: ‘Captain Austen has just spent a few days in Town; I suppose you know that our Cousin Henry is now Captain, Pay Master and Adjudant [sic]. He is a very lucky young Man and bids fair to possess a considerable Share of Riches and Honours; I believe he has now given up all thoughts of the Church, and he is right for he certainly is not so fit for a Parson as a Soldier.’3
Eliza was pretty, amiable and an accomplished flirt. She and Jane were clearly very fond of each other, and later on, when Eliza had married Henry Austen, Jane would stay with them in London, going to parties, the theatre, the circus and galleries as well as using their home as a base when she was working on her proofs.
EXERCISE: FINDING A CHARACTER4
Think about a person who made a strong impression on you, perhaps somebody who seemed glamorous or odd, was a bully, a square peg or particularly attractive, or someone you really disliked. (This exercise works best if you choose somebody that you have lost touch with.) Write a sketch of this person or a short scene in which they do something that you recall. This might be when you first met them. Use particular details. What were their oddities or distinguishing features? Can you remember particular phrases that they used, what they wore or particular possessions of theirs?
Now move this person either forward or back in time. What would they be or have been like at fifteen or twenty-five, forty-five, or eighty-five? Pick the age for them that seems most interesting. What job would they have? Would they be rich or poor, single or in a relationship? What would their clothes be like? Would they have a car? Where might they have moved to? What would their house be like? What would their ambitions be and what might they long for? What would they have failed at? You could write a CV for them, but include all the things they had left unfinished or failed at too.
Now write a sketch of this character at this age.
Now write an internal monologue for them. Concentrate on really capturing their voice.
Finally, writing in the first or the third person, whichever you prefer, send them out somewhere and see what happens.
‘Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them in order that the reader may see what they are made of.’
Kurt Vonnegut5
Jane Austen was very good at making dreadful things happen or almost happen to her characters. The way that they are brought low is always completely plausible; the calamities that befall them are nothing like the ones that she joked about in her Plan of a Novel according to hints from various quarters. In this the heroine is ‘continually cheated and defrauded of her hire, worn down to a Skeleton, and now and then starved to death’.
In Sense and Sensibility the Dashwood sisters and their mother go from riches to (relative) rags; in Pride and Prejudice Lizzy Bennet is threatened with marriage to Mr Collins and then, when Lydia runs away with Wickham, the whole family faces being plunged into the outer darkness of social ostracism. Just when Lizzy has met Mr Darcy at Pemberley and things are going swimmingly, everything seems to be snatched away; her sister Jane has already seemingly lost Mr Bingley. In Persuasion Anne Elliot has had years of sadness and regret at the loss of Captain Wentworth. In Emma Jane’s eponymous heroine is berated by Mr Knightley, and then, when she begins to realise that she is in love with him, thinks he is in love with Harriet Smith. Catherine Morland is expelled from Northanger Abbey.
But here we’ll look at the dreadful treatment that Jane Austen metes out to poor little Fanny Price. Removed from her home to the initially terrifying world of Mansfield Park, Fanny is homesick for Portsmouth, but when back at Portsmouth she longs for Mansfield. She is bullied by her cousins Maria and Julia and her evil Aunt Norris, falls in love with Edmund but has to watch in silence while he falls for the glamorous Mary Crawford, a woman who is everything that Fanny is not. Worst of all, she is almost forced into marriage with Henry Crawford, a man whom she can never respect or love. By refusing Henry Crawford she seems to throw back in her uncle’s face everything that he has ever done for her, and Fanny, always so eager to do what is right, hates to be seen as obstinate, disobedient and ungrateful.
This is from Mansfield Park, Chapter 32.
‘Sit down, my dear. I must speak to you for a few minutes, but I will not detain you long.’
Fanny obeyed, with eyes cast down and colour rising. After a moment’s pause, Sir Thomas, trying to suppress a smile, went on.
‘You are not aware, perhaps, that I have had a visitor this morning. I had not been long in my own room, after breakfast, when Mr Crawford was shewn in. His errand you may probably conjecture.’
Fanny’s colour grew deeper and deeper; and her uncle, perceiving that she was embarrassed to a degree that made either speaking or looking up quite impossible, turned away his own eyes, and without any farther pause proceeded in his account of Mr Crawford’s visit.
Mr Crawford’s business had been to declare himself the lover of Fanny, make decided proposals for her, and entreat the sanction of the uncle, who seemed to stand in the place of her parents; and he had done it all so well, so openly, so liberally, so properly, that Sir Thomas, feeling, moreover, his own replies, and his own remarks to have been very much to the purpose, was exceedingly happy to give the particulars of their conversation; and little aware of what was passing in his niece’s mind, conceived that by such details he must be gratifying her far more than himself. He talked, therefore, for several minutes without Fanny’s daring to interrupt him. She had hardly even attained the wish to do it. Her mind was in too much confusion. She had changed her position; and, with her eyes fixed intently on one of the windows, was listening to her uncle in the utmost perturbation and dismay. For a moment he ceased, but she had barely become conscious of it, when, rising from his chair, he said, ‘And now, Fanny, having performed one part of my commission, and shewn you everything placed on a basis the most assured and satisfactory, I may execute the remainder by prevailing on you to accompany me downstairs, where, though I cannot but presume on having been no unacceptable companion myself, I must submit to your finding one still better worth listening to. Mr Crawford, as you have perhaps foreseen, is yet in the house. He is in my room, and hoping to see you there.’
There was a look, a start, an exclamation on hearing this, which astonished Sir Thomas; but what was his increase of astonishment on hearing her exclaim – ‘Oh! no, sir, I cannot, indeed I cannot go down to him. Mr Crawford ought to know – he must know that: I told him enough yesterday to convince him; he spoke to me on this subject yesterday, and I told him without disguise that it was very disagreeable to me, and quite out of my power to return his good opinion.’
‘I do not catch your meaning,’ said Sir Thomas, sitting down again. ‘Out of your power to return his good opinion? What is all this? I know he spoke to you yesterday, and (as far as I understand) received as much encouragement to proceed as a well-judging young woman could permit herself to give. I was very much pleased with what I collected to have been your behaviour on the occasion; it shewed a discretion highly to be commended. But now, when he has made his overtures so properly, and honourably – what are your scruples now?’
‘You are mistaken, sir,’ cried Fanny, forced by the anxiety of the moment even to tell her uncle that he was wrong; ‘you are quite mistaken. How could Mr Crawford say such a thing? I gave him no encouragement yesterday. On the contrary, I told him, I cannot recollect my exact words, but I am sure I told him that I would not listen to him, that it was very unpleasant to me in every respect, and that I begged him never to talk to me in that manner again. I am sure I said as much as that and more; and I should have said still more, if I had been quite certain of his meaning anything seriously; but I did not like to be, I could not bear to be, imputing more than might be intended. I thought it might all pass for nothing with him.’
She could say no more; her breath was almost gone.
‘Am I to understand,’ said Sir Thomas, after a few moments’ silence, ‘that you mean to refuse Mr Crawford?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Refuse him?’
‘Yes, sir.’
[. . .]
Sir Thomas came towards the table where she sat in trembling wretchedness, and with a good deal of cold sternness, said, ‘It is of no use, I perceive, to talk to you. We had better put an end to this most mortifying conference. Mr Crawford must not be kept longer waiting. I will, therefore, only add, as thinking it my duty to mark my opinion of your conduct, that you have disappointed every expectation I had formed, and proved yourself of a character the very reverse of what I had supposed. For I had, Fanny, as I think my behaviour must have shewn, formed a very favourable opinion of you from the period of my return to England. I had thought you peculiarly free from wilfulness of temper, self-conceit, and every tendency to that independence of spirit which prevails so much in modern days, even in young women, and which in young women is offensive and disgusting beyond all common offence. But you have now shewn me that you can be wilful and perverse; that you can and will decide for yourself, without any consideration or deference for those who have surely some right to guide you, without even asking their advice. You have shewn yourself very, very different from anything that I had imagined. The advantage or disadvantage of your family, of your parents, your brothers and sisters, never seems to have had a moment’s share in your thoughts on this occasion. How they might be benefited, how they must rejoice in such an establishment for you, is nothing to you. You think only of yourself, and because you do not feel for Mr Crawford exactly what a young heated fancy imagines to be necessary for happiness, you resolve to refuse him at once, without wishing even for a little time to consider of it, a little more time for cool consideration, and for really examining your own inclinations; and are, in a wild fit of folly, throwing away from you such an opportunity of being settled in life, eligibly, honourably, nobly settled, as will, probably, never occur to you again. Here is a young man of sense, of character, of temper, of manners, and of fortune, exceedingly attached to you, and seeking your hand in the most handsome and disinterested way; and let me tell you, Fanny, that you may live eighteen years longer in the world without being addressed by a man of half Mr Crawford’s estate, or a tenth part of his merits. [. . .] After half a moment’s pause: ‘And I should have been very much surprised had either of my daughters, on receiving a proposal of marriage at any time which might carry with it only half the eligibility of this, immediately and peremptorily, and without paying my opinion or my regard the compliment of any consultation, put a decided negative on it. I should have been much surprised and much hurt by such a proceeding. I should have thought it a gross violation of duty and respect. You are not to be judged by the same rule. You do not owe me the duty of a child. But, Fanny, if your heart can acquit you of ingratitude—’
He ceased. Fanny was by this time crying so bitterly that, angry as he was, he would not press that article farther. Her heart was almost broke by such a picture of what she appeared to him; by such accusations, so heavy, so multiplied, so rising in dreadful gradation! Self-willed, obstinate, selfish, and ungrateful. He thought her all this. She had deceived his expectations; she had lost his good opinion. What was to become of her?
‘I am very sorry,’ said she inarticulately, through her tears, ‘I am very sorry indeed.’
‘Sorry! yes, I hope you are sorry; and you will probably have reason to be long sorry for this day’s transactions.’
Henry Crawford is offering Fanny financial security for herself and her struggling family at a level they would barely have dreamed of. He has also been responsible for the advancement of her beloved brother’s career, but she cannot bear to accept him as she knows what he is really like. Mousey little Fanny stands up for herself, and as the onslaught continues we see what she is really made of. Her family will come to realize how right she is to reject Henry, but not for some time. Mansfield Park’s Cinderella rejects the prince because she knows he is really a frog, or, to mix the fairy tales, a wolf. She is subsequently rewarded with her true prince and sees her enemy Aunt Norris banished at last.
Think about what you can hurl at your characters. In a good plot, just when the reader thinks that things can’t get any worse, they do.
Here is Fanny Price standing firm in extracts from Chapter 35. How galling that Edmund says that she is not being rational when she disagrees with him but is saying what she actually thinks and wants.
‘Oh! never, never, never! he never will succeed with me.’ And she spoke with a warmth which quite astonished Edmund, and which she blushed at the recollection of herself, when she saw his look, and heard him reply,
‘Never! Fanny! – so very determined and positive! This is not like yourself, your rational self.’
‘I mean,’ she cried, sorrowfully correcting herself, ‘that I think I never shall, as far as the future can be answered for; I think I never shall return his regard.’ [. . .]
‘We are so totally unlike,’ said Fanny, avoiding a direct answer, ‘we are so very, very different in all our inclinations and ways, that I consider it as quite impossible we should ever be tolerably happy together, even if I could like him. There never were two people more dissimilar. We have not one taste in common. We should be miserable’ [. . .]
‘It is not merely in temper that I consider him as totally unsuited to myself; though, in that respect, I think the difference between us too great, infinitely too great: his spirits often oppress me; but there is something in him which I object to still more. I must say, cousin, that I cannot approve his character. I have not thought well of him from the time of the play. I then saw him behaving, as it appeared to me, so very improperly and unfeelingly – I may speak of it now because it is all over – so improperly by poor Mr Rushworth, not seeming to care how he exposed or hurt him, and paying attentions to my cousin Maria, which – in short, at the time of the play, I received an impression which will never be got over’ [. . .] ‘As a bystander,’ said Fanny, ‘perhaps I saw more than you did.’
DEMONSTRATING HEROICS – AND SOME MORE THOUGHTS ON HORSES
Willoughby’s gift horse to Marianne has to be looked in the mouth. It’s a different matter when Fanny Price’s old grey pony dies (Mansfield Park, Chapter 4).
The ensuing spring deprived her of her valued friend, the old grey pony; and for some time she was in danger of feeling the loss in her health as well as in her affections; for in spite of the acknowledged importance of her riding on horse-back, no measures were taken for mounting her again, ‘because,’ as it was observed by her aunts, ‘she might ride one of her cousin’s horses at any time when they did not want them,’ and as the Miss Bertrams regularly wanted their horses every fine day, and had no idea of carrying their obliging manners to the sacrifice of any real pleasure, that time, of course, never came. They took their cheerful rides in the fine mornings of April and May; and Fanny either sat at home the whole day with one aunt, or walked beyond her strength at the instigation of the other: Lady Bertram holding exercise to be as unnecessary for everybody as it was unpleasant to herself; and Mrs Norris, who was walking all day, thinking everybody ought to walk as much.
Edmund is away when this happens. He has already been established as the kind cousin, the one who comforted Fanny when she was homesick, but his insistence that ‘she have a horse’ and the way he gets one for her, cleverly circumnavigating the objections of his horrible aunt and lazy mother, makes him even more of a hero to Fanny. It is then even more significant when Mary Crawford, at Edmund’s instigation, borrows Fanny’s horse and again she is deprived of it. The Mansfield Park coachman ensures that Fanny knows how superior a horsewoman Mary Crawford is: ‘It is a pleasure to see a lady with such a good heart for riding!’ said he. ‘I never see one sit a horse better. She did not seem to have a thought of fear. Very different from you, miss, when you first began, six years ago come next Easter. Lord bless you! how you did tremble when Sir Thomas first had you put on!’
Write a scene in which a small action by one of your characters advances your plot and changes or reinforces the way that the reader will feel about them.
If you want your novel to be ‘like life’ then the things that your characters do and the impressions that they give shouldn’t be straightforward. Actions must be open to different interpretations. Complicate things and make your characters seem real by ensuring that they act in the sort of complex ways that people do in real life.
Fanny Price is almost on the point of believing that Henry Crawford has changed when he comes to visit her in Portsmouth and behaves so nicely, displaying such good manners towards her less-than-ideal family. Here they are out for a Sunday morning walk (Chapter 41).
When Mr Price and his friend had seen all that they wished, or had time for, the others were ready to return; and in the course of their walk back, Mr Crawford contrived a minute’s privacy for telling Fanny that his only business in Portsmouth was to see her; that he was come down for a couple of days on her account, and hers only, and because he could not endure a longer total separation. She was sorry, really sorry; and yet in spite of this and the two or three other things which she wished he had not said, she thought him altogether improved since she had seen him; he was much more gentle, obliging, and attentive to other people’s feelings than he had ever been at Mansfield; she had never seen him so agreeable – so near being agreeable; his behaviour to her father could not offend, and there was something particularly kind and proper in the notice he took of Susan. He was decidedly improved.
In Pride and Prejudice even the horrible Caroline Bingley tries to behave nicely towards Elizabeth by warning her against Wickham. Caroline doesn’t know all the details of Wickham’s villainy, and Lizzy is determined not to think anything bad of him.
Miss Bingley came towards her, and with an expression of civil disdain thus accosted her: – ‘So, Miss Eliza, I hear you are quite delighted with George Wickham! – Your sister has been talking to me about him, and asking me a thousand questions; and I find that the young man forgot to tell you, among his other communications, that he was the son of old Wickham, the late Mr Darcy’s steward. Let me recommend you, however, as a friend, not to give implicit confidence to all his assertions; for as to Mr Darcy’s using him ill, it is perfectly false; for, on the contrary, he has been always remarkably kind to him, though George Wickham has treated Mr Darcy in a most infamous manner. I do not know the particulars, but I know very well that Mr Darcy is not in the least to blame, that he cannot bear to hear George Wickham mentioned, and that though my brother thought he could not well avoid including him in his invitation to the officers, he was excessively glad to find that he had taken himself out of the way. His coming into the country at all is a most insolent thing indeed, and I wonder how he could presume to do it. I pity you, Miss Eliza, for this discovery of your favourite’s guilt; but really, considering his descent, one could not expect much better.’
‘His guilt and his descent appear by your account to be the same,’ said Elizabeth angrily; ‘for I have heard you accuse him of nothing worse than of being the son of Mr Darcy’s steward, and of that, I can assure you, he informed me himself.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ replied Miss Bingley, turning away with a sneer. ‘Excuse my interference: it was kindly meant.’
Elizabeth decides that Caroline Bingley’s criticism of Wickham is based on snobbery and dislikes Caroline too much to see anything else. If she had thought a little harder she might have wondered why Caroline, who is trying to snare Mr Darcy, would be warning her off Wickham. It’s interesting that Caroline Bingley calls her ‘Miss Eliza’, choosing to use a form of her name that seems more ‘below stairs’ than ‘Elizabeth’. I can’t imagine her using ‘Lizzy’, which is more the Bennet family’s pet name for her. The Lucases and Gardiners also occasionally use ‘Eliza’ but never with Caroline Bingley’s tone.
EXERCISES: MORE IDEAS FOR USEFUL SCENES AND DEVELOPMENTS
1.Write a scene in which a seemingly small action or decision will show the reader new aspects of a character and prove or reveal what they are really like. Such incidents can be of huge significance in your stories.
2.Show a character acting heroically or unheroically or describe one of your characters acting in a way that will show them in all their complexity. Think about how you want readers and the other characters to perceive their action. Things shouldn’t be straightforward; remember that even the horrible Caroline Bingley tried to warn Elizabeth about Wickham. Mary Crawford is beautiful when she plays the harp and is often kind to Fanny, but is manipulative and unprincipled.
3.Do as Kurt Vonnegut advises and make something awful happen to one of your characters. This is likely to be at the heart of your story. Sometimes making a character think that something awful has happened can work really well too. The scene at the end of Sense and Sensibility in which Elinor thinks that Edward has married Lucy Steele just before he reveals that he has come to ask her to marry him is a powerful example of this.6
4.Show your characters acting in tandem as well as in opposition to each other. Think about the way that brothers and sisters behave when they are together. Show how people can unite, squabble, be rivals, etc. Think about how Maria and Julia Bertram behave together and towards each other, and the ways that Tom and Edmund Bertram treat each other.
5.Show your characters making assumptions. Mary Crawford is aghast that there are no locals willing to lend her a horse and cart to transport her harp; Edmund understands that at harvest time nothing can be spared.
There is a myth that Jane Austen didn’t like children because there are so many badly behaved ones in her novels. The little Middletons are some of the most annoying. In Sense and Sensibility (Chapter 21) Lucy Steele says in her ingratiating way,
‘I never saw such fine children in my life. – I declare I quite doat upon them already, and indeed I am always distractedly fond of children.’
‘I should guess so,’ said Elinor with a smile, ‘from what I have witnessed this morning.’
‘I have a notion,’ said Lucy, ‘you think the little Middletons rather too much indulged; perhaps they may be the outside of enough; but it is so natural in Lady Middleton; and for my part, I love to see children full of life and spirits; I cannot bear them if they are tame and quiet.’
‘I confess,’ replied Elinor, ‘that while I am at Barton Park, I never think of tame and quiet children with any abhorrence.’
When children and teenagers behave badly in Jane Austen’s work it is because their parents ignore them, overindulge them or set them bad examples.
Jane Austen loved children. She was very close to many of her nephews and nieces, often mentions what she is doing with them and writes about them and other children in the most affectionate terms. Her description of the young Catherine Morland in Chapter 1 of Northanger Abbey shows how well she understood children and appreciated their need to be themselves.
The day which dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine’s life. Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character! – for with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.
It’s also important to point out that many of Jane Austen’s heroines and key characters are extremely young and would not be thought of as adults today. The behaviour of Georgiana Darcy, Marianne Dashwood, Lydia and Kitty Bennet and Catherine Morland is easier to understand when we remember that they are just teenagers. Fanny Price is introduced as a timid little girl.
The children in Jane Austen’s novels often have important roles in her plots or in key scenes. In Persuasion the nephews that Anne Elliot spends so much time looking after show the reader and Captain Wentworth what a lovely person she is. It is Anne who stays with little Charles Musgrove when he dislocates his collarbone while his parents go out to dinner. And when Charles’s brother Walter, ‘a remarkable stout, forward child, of two years old’, climbs all over Anne and practically strangles her, it is Captain Wentworth who strides in and removes him in what becomes a highly charged scene. Such sudden proximity to the man she is in love with leaves Anne speechless. Afterwards she feels ‘ashamed of herself, quite ashamed of being so nervous, so overcome by such a trifle; but so it was, and it required a long application of solitude and reflection to recover her’.7
In Sense and Sensibility (Chapter 12) Margaret Dashwood tells Elinor that she saw Marianne giving Willoughby a lock of her hair, and then tells Mrs Jennings that Elinor has also lost her heart to somebody.
‘Oh, Elinor!’ she cried, ‘I have such a secret to tell you about Marianne. I am sure she will be married to Mr Willoughby very soon.’
‘You have said so,’ replied Elinor, ‘almost every day since they first met on High-church Down; and they had not known each other a week, I believe, before you were certain that Marianne wore his picture round her neck; but it turned out to be only the miniature of our great uncle.’
‘But indeed this is quite another thing. I am sure they will be married very soon, for he has got a lock of her hair.’
‘Take care, Margaret. It may be only the hair of some great uncle of his.’
‘But, indeed, Elinor, it is Marianne’s. I am almost sure it is, for I saw him cut it off. Last night after tea, when you and mama went out of the room, they were whispering and talking together as fast as could be, and he seemed to be begging something of her, and presently he took up her scissors and cut off a long lock of her hair, for it was all tumbled down her back; and he kissed it, and folded it up in a piece of white paper; and put it into his pocketbook.’
From such particulars, stated on such authority, Elinor could not withhold her credit; nor was she disposed to it, for the circumstance was in perfect unison with what she had heard and seen herself.
Margaret’s sagacity was not always displayed in a way so satisfactory to her sister. When Mrs Jennings attacked her one evening at the Park, to give the name of the young man who was Elinor’s particular favourite, which had been long a matter of great curiosity to her, Margaret answered by looking at her sister, and saying, ‘I must not tell, may I, Elinor?’
This of course made everybody laugh; and Elinor tried to laugh too. But the effort was painful. She was convinced that Margaret had fixed on a person, whose name she could not bear with composure to become a standing joke with Mrs Jennings. Marianne felt for her most sincerely; but she did more harm than good to the cause, by turning very red, and saying in an angry manner to Margaret,
‘Remember that whatever your conjectures may be, you have no right to repeat them.’
‘I never had any conjectures about it,’ replied Margaret; ‘it was you who told me of it yourself.’
This increased the mirth of the company, and Margaret was eagerly pressed to say something more.
‘Oh! pray, Miss Margaret, let us know all about it,’ said Mrs Jennings. ‘What is the gentleman’s name?’
‘I must not tell, ma’am. But I know very well what it is; and I know where he is too.’
‘Yes, yes, we can guess where he is; at his own house at Norland to be sure. He is the curate of the parish I dare say.’
‘No, that he is not. He is of no profession at all.’
‘Margaret,’ said Marianne, with great warmth, ‘you know that all this is an invention of your own, and that there is no such person in existence.’
‘Well, then, he is lately dead, Marianne, for I am sure there was such a man once, and his name begins with an F.’
In the closing lines of Sense and Sensibility Margaret’s future is made clear:
And fortunately for Sir John and Mrs Jennings, when Marianne was taken from them, Margaret had reached an age highly suitable for dancing, and not very ineligible for being supposed to have a lover.
Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communication which strong family affection would naturally dictate; – and among the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.
In The Watsons (Part 1) we have a completely charming little boy; Emma Watson dancing with him is the inciting incident, the event that precipitates the action of the story. This child is the most appealing person in a roomful of boring, stuffy and preoccupied adults.
At the conclusion of the two dances, Emma found herself, she knew not how, seated among the Osborne set; and she was immediately struck with the fine countenance and animated gestures of the little boy, as he was standing before his mother, wondering when they should begin.
‘You will not be surprised at Charles’ impatience,’ said Mrs Blake, a lively, pleasant-looking little woman of five or six and thirty, to a lady who was standing near her, ‘when you know what a partner he is to have. Miss Osborne has been so very kind as to promise to dance the two first dances with him.’
‘Oh, yes! we have been engaged this week,’ cried the boy, ‘and we are to dance down every couple.’
On the other side of Emma, Miss Osborne, Miss Carr, and a party of young men were standing engaged in very lively consultation; and soon afterwards she saw the smartest officer of the set walking off to the orchestra to order the dance, while Miss Osborne, passing before her to her little expecting partner, hastily said: ‘Charles, I beg your pardon for not keeping my engagement, but I am going to dance these two dances with Colonel Beresford. I know you will excuse me, and I will certainly dance with you after tea’; and without staying for an answer, she turned again to Miss Carr, and in another minute was led by Colonel Beresford to begin the set. If the poor little boy’s face had in its happiness been interesting to Emma, it was infinitely more so under this sudden reverse; he stood the picture of disappointment, with crimsoned cheeks, quivering lips, and eyes bent on the floor. His mother, stifling her own mortification, tried to soothe his with the prospect of Miss Osborne’s second promise; but though he contrived to utter, with an effort of boyish bravery, ‘Oh, I do not mind it!’ it was very evident, by the unceasing agitation of his features, that he minded it as much as ever.
EXERCISE: THINKING ABOUT YOUR CHILD CHARACTERS
Look at the children in your work. Are there enough to make the world seem real? What roles do they play in the plot? Could you do more with them? Do your minor child characters (excuse the pun) seem real and complex enough to spawn future novels of their own? Look at how your child characters develop throughout your story and ensure that they have proper arcs of their own.
Write a scene in which you use the actions of one of your child characters to progress the plot. They might blurt something out, like Margaret Dashwood; or something they get up to (think Charles Musgrove, Junior) might bring people together or show them in their true colours. You can use the actions of a child character to send your story in a surprising new direction.
There are very few cats in Jane Austen’s work, though there must have been cats wherever Jane lived and it’s impossible to imagine the Chawton cottage without at least one. Dogs and horses feature far more often. We know that Jane’s brothers hunted (an aspect of my family history I would rather forget). Willoughby, we learn in the final chapter of Sense and Sensibility, finds solace with his equine and canine companions after he has lost Marianne.
Willoughby could not hear of her marriage without a pang; and his punishment was soon afterwards complete in the voluntary forgiveness of Mrs. Smith, who, by stating his marriage with a woman of character, as the source of her clemency, gave him reason for believing that had he behaved with honour towards Marianne, he might at once have been happy and rich [. . .] His wife was not always out of humour, nor his home always uncomfortable; and in his breed of horses and dogs, and in sporting of every kind, he found no inconsiderable degree of domestic felicity.
Jane’s most memorable animal character is Lady Bertram’s beloved pug. Pug is present throughout Mansfield Park – as Lady Bertram’s constant companion on her sofa and a witness to Fanny’s many sorrows. In Chapter 2:
The little visitor meanwhile was as unhappy as possible. Afraid of everybody, ashamed of herself, and longing for the home she had left, she knew not how to look up, and could scarcely speak to be heard, or without crying. Mrs Norris had been talking to her the whole way from Northampton of her wonderful good fortune, and the extraordinary degree of gratitude and good behaviour which it ought to produce, and her consciousness of misery was therefore increased by the idea of its being a wicked thing for her not to be happy. The fatigue, too, of so long a journey, became soon no trifling evil. In vain were the well-meant condescensions of Sir Thomas, and all the officious prognostications of Mrs Norris that she would be a good girl; in vain did Lady Bertram smile and make her sit on the sofa with herself and pug, and vain was even the sight of a gooseberry tart towards giving her comfort; she could scarcely swallow two mouthfuls before tears interrupted her, and sleep seeming to be her likeliest friend, she was taken to finish her sorrows in bed.
Later in the novel, in Chapter 33, Lady Bertram is so impressed that Henry Crawford wants to marry Fanny that she plans to bestow an honour on her that not even Maria received when she married Mr Rushworth: ‘And I will tell you what, Fanny, which is more than I did for Maria: the next time Pug has a litter you shall have a puppy.’ Even this offer isn’t enough to sway Fanny’s resolve.
Think about the animals that should be in your stories. What will your characters’ attitudes and behaviour towards them tell the reader? How might they be used to advance the plot? An encounter with a creature (wild or domesticated) can also be a useful way of bringing an unexpected event into a story in a plausible way. Give a character a pet and take it from there.
Jane Austen doesn’t tell us much about her characters’ appearances, usually just giving us a line or two of description when they are introduced. Here is Mr Collins arriving in Chapter 13 of Pride and Prejudice:
Mr Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great politeness by the whole family. Mr Bennet, indeed, said little; but the ladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr Collins seemed neither in need of encouragement, nor inclined to be silent himself. He was a tall, heavy-looking young man of five-and-twenty. His air was grave and stately, and his manners were very formal. He had not been long seated before he complimented Mrs Bennet on having so fine a family of daughters.
And here is Elizabeth’s first view of Lady Catherine and her daughter (Chapter 29):
Lady Catherine was a tall, large woman, with strongly marked features, which might once have been handsome. Her air was not conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by silence; but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone as marked her self-importance [. . .] When, after examining the mother, in whose countenance and deportment she soon found some resemblance of Mr Darcy, she turned her eyes on the daughter, she could almost have joined in Maria’s astonishment at her being so thin and so small. There was neither in figure nor face any likeness between the ladies. Miss de Bourgh was pale and sickly; her features, though not plain, were insignificant; and she spoke very little, except in a low voice.
Jane Austen uses key details about appearance, manner and style of speaking to quickly establish her characters. She has a particular interest in eyes (of which, more later). It is her characters’ clothes that she really has fun with.
Most writers dress in a modern-day equivalent of what Jo March in Little Women called her ‘scribbling suit’. Jo had a black pinafore that could absorb ink stains; twenty-first-century writers are more likely to favour some daytime approximation of pyjamas, the better to be undistracted by itchy fabrics, stiff collars or belts that dig in. I do this but worry that I’m not abiding by the Pringle Principle, which I established when I was writing my second novel. This is that I should be clad in something that wouldn’t mean dying of shame if my editor Alexandra Pringle suddenly appeared at my door – a highly unlikely event as I live in Southampton. Jane Austen’s scribbling suit would have been a ‘morning gown’. There’s a replica on display at Jane Austen’s House Museum. This comfortable, loose dress would have been made from muslin or wool and been worn at home until dinner. It wouldn’t have been as comfortable as harem pants, a T-shirt and an M & S man’s cardigan (my preferred writing garb) as it would have been worn with stays – the corset of the time.
Jane Austen’s letters provide lots of intriguing details about her attitudes to clothes and the way people dressed. Sometimes we get the impression that she is really interested in appearances, but at other times she is impatient with what she sees as time-consuming trivialities. Many of Jane’s surviving letters to her sister Cassandra were written when one of them was away and shopping for whatever the other one needed, so the precise details of what to buy had to be included. Here is Jane writing to Cassandra on 25 January 1801.
I shall want two new coloured gowns for the summer, for my pink one will not do more than clear me from Steventon. I shall not trouble you, however, to get more than one of them, and that is to be a plain brown cambric muslin, for morning wear; the other, which is to be a very pretty yellow and white cloud, I mean to buy in Bath. Buy two brown ones, if you please, and both of a length, but one longer than the other – it is for a tall woman. Seven yards for my mother, seven yards and a half for me; a dark brown, but the kind of brown is left to your own choice, and I had rather they were different, as it will be always something to say, to dispute about which is the prettiest. They must be cambric muslin.
And this from 18 April 1811 when she is staying with Henry and Eliza and shopping in London.
I am sorry to tell you that I am getting very extravagant, and spending all my money, and, what is worse for you, I have been spending yours too; for in a linendraper’s shop to which I went for checked muslin, and for which I was obliged to give seven shillings a yard, I was tempted by a pretty-coloured muslin, and bought ten yards of it on the chance of your liking it; but, at the same time, if it should not suit you, you must not think yourself at all obliged to take it; it is only 3s. 6d. per yard, and I should not in the least mind keeping the whole. In texture it is just what we prefer, but its resemblance to green crewels, I must own, is not great, for the pattern is a small red spot. And now I believe I have done all my commissions except Wedgwood.
I liked my walk very much; it was shorter than I had expected, and the weather was delightful. We set off immediately after breakfast, and must have reached Grafton House by half-past 11; but when we entered the shop the whole counter was thronged, and we waited full half an hour before we could be attended to. When we were served, however, I was very well satisfied with my purchases – my bugle trimming at 2s. 4d. and three pair silk stockings for a little less than 12s. a pair.
Perhaps Jane saw someone like the dreadful Robert Ferrars (Sense and Sensibility) choosing a fancy toothpick case while she was waiting. If she was reporting on a ball or evening out the details of what had been worn couldn’t be omitted.
MY DEAR CASSANDRA [she wrote from London during the same stay]
I had sent off my letter yesterday before yours came, which I was sorry for; but as Eliza has been so good as to get me a frank, your questions shall be answered without much further expense to you.
The best direction to Henry at Oxford will be The Blue Boar, Cornmarket.
I do not mean to provide another trimming for my pelisse, for I am determined to spend no more money; so I shall wear it as it is, longer than I ought, and then – I do not know.
My head-dress was a bugle-band like the border to my gown, and a flower of Mrs Tilson’s. I depended upon hearing something of the evening from Mr W. K., and am very well satisfied with his notice of me – ‘A pleasing-looking young woman’ – that must do; one cannot pretend to anything better now; thankful to have it continued a few years longer!
In the novels we aren’t given very much information about people’s clothes, so when Jane Austen tells us something about someone’s attire we know that her decision to do so is very deliberate. Northanger Abbey contains more about dress than any of the other novels. Its Bath location, where people went to shop and to see and be seen, and the heroine’s youth makes this fitting. There is a running joke about Mrs Allen’s preoccupation with her dresses, and one of the first things we learn about the lovely Henry Tilney is that he is knowledgeable about dresses and fabrics and whether they will wash well. It shows his sense of humour and his kindness. This is from Chapter 3.
They were interrupted by Mrs Allen: ‘My dear Catherine,’ said she, ‘do take this pin out of my sleeve; I am afraid it has torn a hole already; I shall be quite sorry if it has, for this is a favourite gown, though it cost but nine shillings a yard.’
‘That is exactly what I should have guessed it, madam,’ said Mr Tilney, looking at the muslin.
‘Do you understand muslins, sir?’
‘Particularly well; I always buy my own cravats, and am allowed to be an excellent judge; and my sister has often trusted me in the choice of a gown. I bought one for her the other day, and it was pronounced to be a prodigious bargain by every lady who saw it. I gave but five shillings a yard for it, and a true Indian muslin.’
Mrs Allen was quite struck by his genius. ‘Men commonly take so little notice of those things,’ said she; ‘I can never get Mr Allen to know one of my gowns from another. You must be a great comfort to your sister, sir.’
‘I hope I am, madam.’
‘And pray, sir, what do you think of Miss Morland’s gown?’
‘It is very pretty, madam,’ said he, gravely examining it; ‘but I do not think it will wash well; I am afraid it will fray.’
‘How can you,’ said Catherine, laughing, ‘be so—’ She had almost said ‘strange’.
‘I am quite of your opinion, sir,’ replied Mrs Allen; ‘and so I told Miss Morland when she bought it.’
‘But then you know, madam, muslin always turns to some account or other; Miss Morland will get enough out of it for a handkerchief, or a cap, or a cloak. Muslin can never be said to be wasted. I have heard my sister say so forty times, when she has been extravagant in buying more than she wanted, or careless in cutting it to pieces.’
‘Bath is a charming place, sir; there are so many good shops here. We are sadly off in the country; not but what we have very good shops in Salisbury, but it is so far to go – eight miles is a long way; Mr Allen says it is nine, measured nine; but I am sure it cannot be more than eight; and it is such a fag – I come back tired to death. Now, here one can step out of doors and get a thing in five minutes.’
Mr Tilney was polite enough to seem interested in what she said; and she kept him on the subject of muslins till the dancing recommenced. Catherine feared, as she listened to their discourse, that he indulged himself a little too much with the foibles of others.
When Jane Austen tells us about Catherine’s attitude to clothes, we see how the heroine’s attitudes are very typical of a young woman falling in love, but despite this, Catherine is too sensible to spend a huge amount of time worrying about which dress to wear. She only lies awake wondering which dress to wear for ten minutes (Chapter 10):
The evening of the following day was now the object of expectation, the future good. What gown and what head-dress she should wear on the occasion became her chief concern. She cannot be justified in it. Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim. Catherine knew all this very well; her great aunt had read her a lecture on the subject only the Christmas before; and yet she lay awake ten minutes on Wednesday night debating between her spotted and her tamboured muslin, and nothing but the shortness of the time prevented her buying a new one for the evening. This would have been an error in judgment, great though not uncommon, from which one of the other sex rather than her own, a brother rather than a great aunt, might have warned her, for man only can be aware of the insensibility of man towards a new gown. It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire; how little it is biased by the texture of their muslin, and how unsusceptible of peculiar tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged, the mull, or the jackonet. Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter. But not one of these grave reflections troubled the tranquillity of Catherine.
Jane Austen uses choices about clothes in Northanger Abbey to show us the contrast between Catherine Morland’s two friends Eleanor Tilney and Isabella Thorpe. The vain, shallow coquette Isabella Thorpe writes to Catherine in Chapter 27, ‘I wear nothing but purple now: I know I look hideous in it, but no matter – it is your dear brother’s favourite colour.’ Whereas in Chapter 8 Eleanor Tilney’s dress is much more elegant:
Miss Tilney had a good figure, a pretty face, and a very agreeable countenance; and her air, though it had not all the decided pretension, the resolute stylishness of Miss Thorpe’s, had more real elegance. Her manners showed good sense and good breeding; they were neither shy nor affectedly open; and she seemed capable of being young, attractive, and at a ball without wanting to fix the attention of every man near her, and without exaggerated feelings of ecstatic delight or inconceivable vexation on every little trifling occurrence.
And in Chapter 12:
‘Mrs Allen,’ said Catherine the next morning, ‘will there be any harm in my calling on Miss Tilney today? I shall not be easy till I have explained everything.’
‘Go, by all means, my dear; only put on a white gown; Miss Tilney always wears white.’
Catherine cheerfully complied.
In Pride and Prejudice (Chapter 39) Lydia Bennet demonstrates her silliness with the impulse buy of an ugly bonnet:
Then shewing her purchases: ‘Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better.’
And when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect unconcern, ‘Oh! but there were two or three much uglier in the shop; and when I have bought some prettier-coloured satin to trim it with fresh, I think it will be very tolerable. Besides, it will not much signify what one wears this summer, after the ——shire have left Meryton, and they are going in a fortnight.’
Dressing your male characters is just as important. It isn’t simply about appearance; it’s about attitudes – the attitudes of the person wearing the clothes and the person observing. Catherine Morland thinks Henry Tilney completely dreamy in the greatcoat he wears when he’s driving her in his curricle to Northanger Abbey; in Pride and Prejudice (Chapter 8) Caroline Bingley and Louisa Hurst are swift to notice Lizzy Bennet’s muddy petticoat, something that doesn’t signify with Mr Bingley or Mr Darcy.
‘She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild.’
‘She did indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Very nonsensical to come at all! Why must she be scampering about the country, because her sister had a cold? Her hair, so untidy, so blowsy!’
‘Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to hide it, not doing its office.’
‘Your picture may be very exact, Louisa,’ said Bingley; ‘but this was all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably well, when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice.’
‘You observed it, Mr Darcy, I am sure,’ said Miss Bingley; ‘and I am inclined to think that you would not wish to see your sister make such an exhibition.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ancles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! what could she mean by it? It seems to me to shew an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum.’
‘It shews an affection for her sister that is very pleasing,’ said Bingley.
‘I am afraid, Mr Darcy,’ observed Miss Bingley, in a half-whisper, ‘that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes.’
‘Not at all,’ he replied; ‘they were brightened by the exercise.’
Of course your characters can’t always wear what they would like. You can use their clothes to indicate that they are struggling for money or don’t fit in. Who hasn’t experienced the feeling of wearing the wrong thing – of being over- or underdressed, having the wrong school uniform or being forced to wear something that a parent said ‘would do perfectly well’? Conversely, another way to develop your characters through their clothes is to give them the opportunity to wear exactly what they would like, their fantasy outfit. Poor Mr Rushworth in Mansfield Park (Chapter 15) cannot hide how pleased he is with his silly costume for the theatricals:
‘We have got a play,’ said he. ‘It is to be Lovers’ Vows; and I am to be Count Cassel, and am to come in first with a blue dress and a pink satin cloak, and afterwards am to have another fine fancy suit, by way of a shooting-dress. I do not know how I shall like it.’
Fanny’s eyes followed Edmund, and her heart beat for him as she heard this speech, and saw his look, and felt what his sensations must be.
‘Lovers’ Vows!’ in a tone of the greatest amazement, was his only reply to Mr Rushworth, and he turned towards his brother and sisters as if hardly doubting a contradiction [. . .]
Mr Rushworth followed him to say, ‘I come in three times, and have two-and-forty speeches. That’s something, is not it? But I do not much like the idea of being so fine. I shall hardly know myself in a blue dress and a pink satin cloak.’
1.Put a character in a situation where they can choose exactly what to wear, perhaps for a party, a wedding or a part in a play. What would they dream of wearing? You could also try sending them on a date, to a job interview or to meet prospective in-laws.
2.Send a character out wearing something that they have no choice about or something that will be disapproved of or get the wrong sort of attention. Develop the characters of the observers too.