REGULATED
HATRED: AN ASPECT OF THE WORK OF JANE AUSTEN'
D.
W. HARDING
[Summary and detailed analysis of the
essay for students of Indian Universities] by Dr. S. Sreekumar
Summary
of the essay
The
popular impression of Jane Austen discourages many people from reading her
works. Reading public considers her as the upholder of urbanity and as a refuge
for sensitive people. Harding says that these conventional opinions about
Austen are false. She is able to camouflage her dislike of the society and her
books are read and enjoyed by the sort of people whom she disliked. Unexpected
astringencies are surreptitiously introduced by the novelist into the works.
Harding calls these astringencies ‘regulated hatred”. Examples of regulated hatred are
given from Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and
Emma. Even the caricatures of Mrs.
Bennet and Mr. Collins we enjoy without realizing that Austen hated these
characters. She saw Mr. Collins as a comic monster. The marriage of Collins and
Charlotte was, for her, a sign of the degradation of contemporary society.
Austen
was fascinated by the Cinderella theme but with the fairy godmother omitted. In
Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility
and Pride and Prejudice the theme is
treated without any complication. The heroines in these novels are rewarded for
their good sense. But in Mansfield Park the
heroine is shown as a submissive character. Mansfield
Park shows the heroine as priggish.
The
Cinderella theme is modified in Emma. Emma's
personality includes some of the tendencies and qualities that Austen most
disliked. In Emma the progress is not
towards vindication but towards self-enlightenment. In Persuasion, the novelist introduces the fairy god mother. But
neither the heroines nor the fairy god mother is perfect in these novels.
