Morality Play Pattern in Pride and Prejudice

Austen is particularly unusual among virtue ethicists come outgoing and present in according amiableness so much importance, even up though it is so obviously central to most peoples lives working, if not living, in close con comelyment with others with whom one must and should get along. Austen presents these virtues as not merely a necessary accommodation to difficult circumstances, but as superior to the invidious vanity and pride of the rich and titled, which she often mocks.So, inPride and Prejudice, Elizabeth white avens rejects Darcys haughty condescension out of hand the riant termination must wait until Darcy comes to see beyond her lowly connections and unaristocratic discretion and fully recognise her true ( buttoned-down) virtue. That is a virtuous happy ending even more than it is a romanticistic one. Like any nigh(a) virtue ethicist, Austen proceeds by giving illustrative examples. This is why her characters ar moral rather than psychological constructs.Auste ns purpose is not to explore their internal lives, but to expose particular moral pathologies to the aid of the makeer. Dont act interchangeable this Dont cut off your relatives without a penny after promising your stupefy you would look after them and stillify it with self-serving casuistic rationalisations (as bath Dashwood does inSense and Sensibility). Dont be standardised this Mor in ally incontinent manage Mrs Bennet or struck through with a single huge flaw, like Mr Bennets selfish wish to live a private life magic spell being the head of a family (Pride and Prejudice).But as comfortably as excoriating such obvious though conventional moral failings of human nature, Austen attends c atomic number 18fully, and with a fine brush, to illustrating the fine detail, and fine-tuning, that true virtue requires. To show us what true amiability should be, she shows us what it isnt quite. Fanny Price, the heroine ofMansfield Park, is so excessively amiable as to puke her avow dignity and interests at risk, so self-effacing that her true come more or little doesnt notice her (until events intervene).Mr Bingleys amiability inPride and Prejudiceis pitch perfect, but fails to class between the deserving and undeserving. Emma, meanwhile, is very discriminating, but she is a snob just about it she is rather too conscious of her social status and does not actually respect others as she should (which, of course, gets her into trouble). Then thither are the illustrations of what virtuous behavior looks like. Here one sees why the plot is so firmly in the authors hands, not the characters.Austen is primarily concerned with setting up particular scenes moral trials in which we can see how virtuous characters be halt in examination circumstances. These moral lessons to the reader are the parts she gave the most exacting attention to where her words are perfectly chosen and sparkling with intelligence and buddy-buddy moral insight. These are the parts that she actually cared about the rest the rituals of the romantic comedy genre and social realism is just background.We see Austens characters navigating the rough attentions and comments of boors, fools and cads with decorum and dignity Indeed, brother, your anxiety for our welfare and prosperity carries you too far, Elinor chastises John Dashwood, ever so politely inSense and Sensibility. In each novel we see Austens central characters working through moral problems of all kinds, weighing up and considering what propriety requires by talking it through to themselves or trusted friends.We see them learning from their mistakes, as Elizabeth and Darcy both learn from their premature mistakes about his character (Pride and Prejudice). We even see them engaging in explicit, almost technical, moral philosophy analysis, such as debating to what extent Frank Churchill should be considered virtuously responsible for his failure to visit Highbury (Emma), to the evident boredom of the less morally developed characters stuck in the same room as them.Austen carries out her mission of moral education with flair and brilliance, while charitably respecting the interests and capacities of her readers (which is why she is so much more readable than most moral theorists who, like Kant, seem often to write as if understanding is the readers problem). Yet there is one further striking feature that sets Austens novels apart hermoral gaze. The omniscient author of her books sees right through people to their moral character and exposes and dissects their follies, flaws and self-deceptions.I cannot read one of her novels without thinking with a shiver about what that penetrating moral gaze would reveal if directed at myself. This is virtue ethics at a different level about moral vision, not just moral content. Austen shows us how to look at ourselves and analyse and identify our own moral character, to meet Socratess challenge to Know thyself. We have all the knowledge w e need to look at ourselves this way, to see ourselves as we really are we have an authors omniscient access to the details of our own lives but we broadly speaking prefer not to open that box.Indeed, academic moral philosophers since the enlightenment have collaborated with this natural aversion by collectively turning their attention forth from uncomfortable self-examination and towards elaborating coherent systems of rules that any agent should follow. Yet denotation Austen shows the ultimate ineffectiveness of this strategy. I do not believe that all the sophisticated Kantian and utilitarian theory in the world could apology you for long from Austens moral gaze.We should read Austen today because she is wise as well as clever, and because she teaches us how to live well not just how to cope well. We should read beyond thedelicious ritualsof her romantic comedy plots to her deeper interests and purposes in creating her morally complex characters and setting them on display for us. We should read beyond her unquestioned literary genius, and her place in the history of literary innovations and influences, to her unrecognised philosophical genius in elaborating and advancing a moral philosophy for our bourgeois times.