One of Jane Austen’s most dislikeable characters is the bumbling, insensitive, and ultimately pathetic clergyman Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice. All the other characters of the book mock Mr Collins, and you’d be forgiven for thinking he represents Jane Austen’s real feelings about pastors, or even the church in general. However, in her book Mansfield Park, the male protagonist Edmund Bertram can think of nothing better than joining the clergy.
Jane Austen had some interesting things to say about evangelicals. She once wrote, “I do not like the Evangelicals”. A few years later, though, having since penned Mansfield Park, she wrote that she was now, “… by no means convinced that we ought not all to be Evangelicals”.
Mr Collins proposes to Elizabeth in the 2005 film adaptation of ‘Pride and Prejudice’. A cringe-worthy scene.
So what’s going on? What is Jane Austen doing with these characters, and how do they reflect her actual faith (or lack thereof)? Is it right to “claim” Jane for Christianity as some have done?
The Last Virtue Ethicist
C.S. Lewis, himself enamoured by Jane Austen, noted that in her work, characters underwent a change in self-perception; what he called an undeception (yes, this is where we took the name of the podcast from). A key to this undeceiving was the slow development of character traits that can lead someone to become ‘good’. This is perhaps most clearly portrayed in Pride and Prejudice, where, upon reading a letter by Mr Darcy, Elizabeth finds herself ashamed of the prejudice she held against him. Part of her development was acknowledging where she fell short – both of her peers, but also of God Himself.
This is an example of Austen’s ‘virtue ethics’, which many scholars, including Karen Swallow Prior, have identified in her work. They point to Austen’s desire not for a rules-based morality—which Mr Collins is an exemplar of—but rather a more general ‘holiness’.
“What Austen does in her novels is present characters in situations that are very emotional, and very hard for us if we were in those situations today,” Karen said, speaking on Undeceptions. “She calls on her characters to develop and exercise virtue rather than relying simply on their own subjective emotions or individual perspective.”
The Reverend Paula Hollingsworth of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, notes that at no point does Austen criticise Christianity directly, but rather the believers who fail to live up to its commands. “What’s most important for Jane Austen is what I would describe as a ‘Holiness direction’, which is the desire that the Christian faith will impact our lives and our morals,” she said. “At the end of Mansfield Park, you have (the character) Sir Thomas Bertram reflecting on his daughter’s upbringing, and one of the things he says (about his daughters is that) they’d been instructed theoretically in their religion but never required to bring it into daily practice. This is all about the importance of bringing your faith into daily practice.”
Karen adds that, despite Austen not being the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of a Christian author, “her faith was very traditional in the sense that her theology and her faith come out of her naturally”. This is perhaps best exemplified (in a literary sense) in three prayers Austen wrote, all rooted in the Book of Common Prayer and displaying a deep, active faith.
“Give us grace, Almighty Father, so to pray, as to deserve to be heard, to address thee with our hearts, as with our lips. Thou art every where present, from thee no secret can be hid. May the knowledge of this teach us to fix our thoughts on thee, with reverence and devotion that we pray not in vain. Look with mercy on the sins we have this day committed and in mercy make us feel them deeply, that our repentance may be sincere and our resolution steadfast of endeavoring against the commission of such in future.” – Jane Austen
Austen’s spiritual legacy
Jane Austen is not remembered as a theological author in the same manner as C.S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, or G.K. Chesterton. But the themes of holiness, virtue, and the value of a lived and practised faith are clear in her work. As Karen says: “We are creatures of interpretation, and we interpret all the time, whether we realise it or not. Austin’s novels are all calling us to be better interpreters of ourselves and other people, and life and God.”
Adapted by Alasdair Belling from Undeceptions episode 161 ‘Jane Austen’. Listen here.
Want to be further undeceived?
Check out our network of podcasts and articles in the Undeceptions Library.
