Jane Austen, Detective

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:45 pm by Peter Leithart

Jane Austen, Detective 2017-09-06T23:45:18+06:00 Peter Leithart

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PD James devotes a considerable amount of space to Austen in her autobiography, including biographical details about Austen and an appendix where she analyzes Emma as a “detective story.” She notes that detective stories don’t need to have murder, but only mystery: “facts which are hidden from the reader but which he or she should be able to discover by logical deduction from clues inserted in the novel with deceptive cunning but essential fairness. It is about evaluating evidence, whether of events or of character. It is concerned with bringing order out of disorder and restoring peace and tranquility to a world temporarily disrupted by the intrusion of alien influences.”

This is not confined to Emma. Ellen Belton (in an article in Nineteenth-Century Literature 1988) reviews a number of novels to show that throughout her career Austen was writing “mysteries without murder.” Northanger Abbey is a parody of a Gothic novel, and like most Gothic novels includes hints of real mysteries. Catherine Morland suspects that General Tilney may have murdered his wife, and looks in every nook and cranny of the Abbey for evidence of foul play. Austen differs from the Gothic novels of her time in offering a final, complete, and rational explanation of the mystery and by connecting the reader’s experience of coming to that conclusion with a growing illumination of the heroine who is investigating the mystery herself.

I think this quality comes to the fore in Emma more than other novels. At least, it was in studying Emma that I first realized Austen’s gifts in mystery writing. Importantly, these are not tangential to the character or plots of the novel. Emma is a problem-solver throughout; problem-solving is one of Emma’s favorite pastimes. And throughout the novel, Austen presents the possibility of untying knots and solving riddles as a key indicator of character. In addition to Emma’s overall interest in problem-solving, the book has a number of incidents involve ciphers, games, codes, riddles. The charade that Elton writes for Emma in chapter 9 provides an excellent example. Harriet is completely incapable of figuring out the mystery for herself, and Mr. Woodhouse is also mystified by it. Emma is far superior at problem solving, but in solving the charade, she actually misses the whole point of it, namely, that it is addressed to her and not to Harriet. The other main incident of this kind is the game of anagrams in Book 3, when Frank Churchill is sending coded messages. Here, Knightley shines like a Holmes or a Dagleish, recognizing the symptoms of an attachment between Frank and Jane Fairfax, signs of intelligence between them:

“Mr. Knightley, who, for some reason best known to himself, had certainly taken an early dislike to Frank Churchill, was only growing to dislike him more. He began to suspect him of some double dealing in his pursuit of Emma. That Emma was his object appeared indisputable. Every thing declared it; his own attentions, his father’s hints, his mother-in-law’s guarded silence; it was all in unison; words, conduct, discretion, and indiscretion, told the same story. But while so many were devoting him to Emma, and Emma herself making him over to Harriet, Mr. Knightley began to suspect him of some inclination to trifle with Jane Fairfax. He could not understand it; but there were symptoms of intelligence between them—he thought so at least— symptoms of admiration on his side, which, having once observed, he could not persuade himself to think entirely void of meaning, however he might wish to escape any of Emma’s errors of imagination. She was not present when the suspicion first arose. He was dining with the Randalls family, and Jane, at the Eltons’; and he had seen a look, more than a single look, at Miss Fairfax, which, from the admirer of Miss Woodhouse, seemed somewhat out of place. When he was again in their company, he could not help remembering what he had seen; nor could he avoid observations which, unless it were like Cowper and his fire at twilight, “Myself creating what I saw,” brought him yet stronger suspicion of there being a something of private liking, of private understanding even, between Frank Churchill and Jane.”

This comes out in the game of “alphabets” that they then play. Frank has just revealed some information that he shouldn’t have had, and this provides a further hint of what Knightley has suspected. As they play the game, Frank sends messages to Jane through the game:

“Miss Woodhouse,” said Frank Churchill, after examining a table behind him, which he could reach as he sat, “have your nephews taken away their alphabets—their box of letters? It used to stand here. Where is it? This is a sort of dull-looking evening, that ought to be treated rather as winter than summer. We had great amusement with those letters one morning. I want to puzzle you again.”

Emma was pleased with the thought; and producing the box, the table was quickly scattered over with alphabets, which no one seemed so much disposed to employ as their two selves. They were rapidly forming words for each other, or for any body else who would be puzzled. The quietness of the game made it particularly eligible for Mr. Woodhouse, who had often been distressed by the more animated sort, which Mr. Weston had occasionally introduced, and who now sat happily occupied in lamenting, with tender melancholy, over the departure of the “poor little boys,” or in fondly pointing out, as he took up any stray letter near him, how beautifully Emma had written it.
Frank Churchill placed a word before Miss Fairfax. She gave a slight glance round the table, and applied herself to it. Frank was next to Emma, Jane opposite to them—and Mr. Knightley so placed as to see them all; and it was his object to see as much as he could, with as little apparent observation. The word was discovered, and with a faint smile pushed away. If meant to be immediately mixed with the others, and buried from sight, she should have looked on the table instead of looking just across, for it was not mixed; and Harriet, eager after every fresh word, and finding out none, directly took it up, and fell to work. She was sitting by Mr. Knightley, and turned to him for help. The word was blunder; and as Harriet exultingly proclaimed it, there was a blush on Jane’s cheek which gave it a meaning not otherwise ostensible. Mr. Knightley connected it with the dream; but how it could all be, was beyond his comprehension. How the delicacy, the discretion of his favourite could have been so lain asleep! He feared there must be some decided involvement. Disingenuousness and double dealing seemed to meet him at every turn. These letters were but the vehicle for gallantry and trick. It was a child’s play, chosen to conceal a deeper game on Frank Churchill’s part.

-The other way that Emma reveals Austen’s skill as a “detective” novelist is her control of information. She provides most of the information we need to draw conclusions about what’s going on, but she doesn’t make that information obvious. We don’t know that we have it most of the time, because it comes largely through the stream of consciousness that flows from Miss Bates. She holds back information carefully, revealing hints enough that we can figure out something is up, particularly when we are seeing things through the eyes of Mr. Knightley. Belton: Austen “never withholds from the reader information that is available to the detective/heroine. Nor does she conceal the detective/heroine’s thoughts and conclusions. She provides us with clues that allow us, if we are clever, to solve the mysteries ahead of the heroine. What keeps us interested and enriches the ‘game’ is the fact that most of the mysteries Austen offers us

are merely covers for deeper mysteries, which must be identified before they can be solved.” Later detectives are smarter than the reader, but not Austen’s heroines: “She may be highly intelligent, but she is unlikely to understand her own story before we do. Her own personality prevents it, causing her to commit errors based on either too great a readiness to trust her own impressions . . . . or too great a reluctance.” Austen is aiming to “educate and refine both her heroine’s perceptions and judgment and those of the reader. For Austen the mystery format is not a game that is played ‘against’ the reader; it is a game that is played in a very special sense ‘with’ him.”

One of her techniques for giving yet controlling information is “embedding of important information in a mass of unimportant detail.” When Frank is found “deedily mending” Mrs. Bates’s spectacles, we have been given some information to sift through. Is this the kind of thing we’d expect from Frank? Is he the kind of young man given to doing good deeds for old women? Emma interprets the whole things from the viewpoint of her own conviction that Frank is courting her, but there is something amiss that might lead in a different direction. Austen also controls information by controlling point of view. In his now-classic book on rhetorical criticism, Wayne Booth uses Emma to illustrate how point of view is used as a mechanism of persuasion. Fiction is attempting to persuade us to like and appreciate certain characters, and dislike others. The author is coaching our judgments by the way characters are described, by the way they speak, by their actions, and so on. One of these techniques of persuasion is point of view. If we see Emma’s actions through her eyes, they look one way; but imagine the story of Emma told from the viewpoint of Harriet Smith, Emma’s live doll. Occasionally, we see things through the eyes of Knightley, and that shapes our judgments, particularly if we are convinced, as Austen wants us to be, that we can trust Knightley. Information is still given, but the controlling point of view may conceal the true import of the information.

PD James gives some superb examples of Austen’s subtle distribution of information in Emma. She hints that Austen has developed the novel so that we initially are in on the joke. We know that Emma is misconstruing Elton’s attentions, which are really being paid to herself not to Harriet. But the second book, where Churchill is introduced, is far more subtle. There are, as James notes, plenty of clues, but Austen has tricked us by the obviousness of Book 1. We are lulled, and we think we are following what’s going on. But like a detective novel, we discover afterwards that there were a lot more clues buried in the story than we realized. Frank shows up in Highbury, after many delays, only after Jane Fairfax is in town, and all the while he’s there he spends an inordinate amount of time at the Bateses. After his first meeting with Emma, Frank goes off to the Bateses. His father is going elsewhere, and Frank doesn’t go with him. Nor does he go off to visit his step mother as one might expect. Instead, he goes off to the Bateses, and later tells Emma that Miss Bates kept him there for ¾ of an hour.

In chapter 24, Emma and Frank are walking and Frank suddenly asks Emma her opinion of Jane’s skill in music. They converse on the subject, playfully continuing their speculations about Jane’s affair with Mr. Dixon. The following chapter, Frank is off to London for a hair cut, a dandyish move if there ever was one. The next thing you know, a piano has appeared for Jane, and the donor the piano is a matter of speculation. Before he leaves Highbury, he visits the Bateses before saying goodbye to Emma, and then during his conversation with Emma, he comes close to revealing his secret, apparently assuming that the shrewd Emma has already figured it out, which of course she hasn’t. Frank comes late to the strawberry outing at Donwell, and he comes in a huff, a condition that Emma describes as being “out of humor.” He says when he gets there that the party is breaking up – “I met one as I came” – and complains of the heat. Jane has only recently left the picnic, and Frank has undoubtedly run into her on his way there. He is frantic because he realizes that he’s made a mess of his secret engagement by playing around with Emma.

As Belton points out, the romances in Emma are all conundrums, or at least are made such: “Each of the novel’s three volumes revolves around a courtship, but each courtship poses a riddle: who is courting whom? In volume 1 Emma thinks Mr. Elton is courting Harriet; she learns eventually that he has been courting Emma. In volume 2 Emma thinks Frank Churchill is courting her; she later learns that he is engaged to Jane Fairfax. In volume 3 Emma is led belatedly and reluctantly to the conclusion that Mr. Knightley is in love with Harrier; it turns out, of course, that he has been in love with Emma all along. Only the last of these conundrums really matters to Emma. In solving the first two she has simply been clearing the ground for the third and most important one. She has also been preparing for the most difficult riddle of all, the riddle of her own affections. Emma, like all of Austen’s detective-heroines, is not investigating criminals, but potential marriage partners.”

As the novel progresses, Emma is learning more about her own feelings. She examines her feelings for Churchill and concludes that she is not in love. She is beginning to be able to discern between true love and infatuation. Austen has, I think, a couple of reasons for burying clues like this in her novels, and particularly in this novel. As I’ve mentioned earlier in the term, Austen’s novels are “hermeneutical dramas” (Tony Tanner’s phrase). They are dramas of interpretation and discernment, as everyone attempts to “read” the signs and symptoms that offer clues to character. For Austen, interpretation is the beginning of morality, because we have to see clearly in order to make right judgments and act rightly. We’ll return to this point, which is central to Emma

She is also training us to read. She quite consciously wanted the reader to do some work, and wants the reader to be put through the same moral training her heroines do. Emma misses Elton’s intentions; we probably don’t. But that might lull us into moral pride, not unlike Emma’s own pride in her own discernment. The case of Churchill bursts our self-confidence, as we might well miss the clues as badly as Emma does.

Austen also writes with charades and conundrums of her own. That is, not only are there clues for the characters to find, but there are also clues to the reader. The one specific song that Jane Fairfax plays is Robin Adair, a traditional song. Jane has just been playing a dance tune that she and Frank danced to at Weymouth, playing it as a secret thank you to Frank. Frank identifies he song that follows, Robin Adair, as “his favorite,” seeming to refer to Mr. Dixon but actually referring to himself. This song seems to be sending a different message, at least in retrospect. That song includes the lines “But now thou’rt cold to me/Robin Adair. Yet him I lov’d so well/ Still in my heart shall dwell; Oh! I can ne’er forget/ Robin Adair.” Jane may not do it deliberately, but she plays a song of cooling love, one that foreshadows (in Peter F. Alexander’s words) “the pain of having to endure his extended absences from Highbury, his flirting with Emma during the ball at the Crown and more particularly during the Box Hill excursion, the torments of the Donwell strawberry-party, and her decision to break off the engagement
with him and sacrifice herself to the governess-trade.”

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