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WHY DO JANE AUSTEN’S NOVELS MAINTAIN THEIR APPEAL to readers who are far removed in time and geography from her world of rural Regency England? One possible explanation may be found in the fact that she populates her narratives with characters engaged in the relentless pursuit of a happiness that they only achieve after rigorous self-examination, reflection, and decisions that often defy the constraints of class, economics, and gender. Happiness not only pervades the “very texture” of Austen’s novels (Gross 203), but it is situated as a potential prize for all her protagonists. Those characters willing to engage in the process are rewarded with a marital partner who shares their values and reciprocates their affection, which is Austen’s definition of true happiness within the context of her novels. While some lesser form of contentment may come to those who settle for more immediate satisfactions, only those willing to persevere can achieve their happiness. It is an irresistible, as well as a modern democratic notion, to offer happiness to anyone determined enough to pursue it.
Yet, Austen also imbues her texts with moral components that require a differentiation between genuine happiness and transient pleasures, particularly those delights associated with the kind of self-centered hedonism or dissolute excesses exemplified by Sense and Sensibility’s John Willoughby, Mansfield Park’sMaria Bertram and Henry Crawford, or Pride and Prejudice’sLydia Bennet and George Wickham. For a character to achieve true happiness in an Austen novel, he or she must engage in a course of self-evaluation and self-transformation that will facilitate making those choices that will lead to a happiness both long lasting and morally correct.
Conversely, those who view happiness with a lazy cynicism, such as Charlotte Lucas, for whom “‘[h] appiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance,’” receive Austen’s ironic reproof (23). Thus, when Elizabeth learns of Charlotte’s engagement to Mr. Collins, she wishes her friend “all imaginable happiness,” a phrase suggesting that very little happiness can be imagined as the result of such a union (125). The low expectations that Charlotte brings to her marriage are sure to be realized because she has refused to participate in the process of pursuing genuine happiness and instead has settled for a more immediate and material comfort. Austen...