Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen
Seminar für Englische Philologie
PS II: Jane Austen
Wintersemester 03/04

Aspects of Civility
in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

by

Michael Helten

April 2004

Contents

0. Contents 0

1. Introduction 1

2. Negative aspects of civility 2
2.1 Sneering civility – Miss Bingley 2
2.2 Shallow civility – Sir William 3
2.3 False civility – Wickham 4
2.4 Condescending civility – Lady Catherine 4

3. Mr Collins – the formal aspect of civility 4
3.1 Collins’s first letter 5
3.2 Negative politeness strategies 6
3.3 Mr Collins’s reception in society 8
3.4 The importance of formality 8

4. External and internal factors of politeness 10
4.1 Mr Collins – dominated by external politeness factors 10
4.2 Pemberley & Rosings as symbols 11
4.3 Mr Collins – an epitome of impoliteness 11
4.4 Masked face-threatening-acts 12
4.5 Collins’s collected offences during his proposal 12
4.6 Two different proposals 14

5. Civility: a decisive factor in the main characters’ relationship 14
5.1 Civility as the basis of Darcy’s and Elizabeth’s conduct 15
5.2 Phase 1: Misunderstanding 16
5.3 Phase 2: The proposal – a “breakdown of civility” 17
5.4 Phase 3: Reconstitution via civility 17

6. Conclusion 18

1. Introduction

Decisive parts of both plot and meaning of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice are conveyed by means of conversations. “In them the word becomes an authentic deed”, as H. BABB puts it.¹ In linguistic terms, conversation is discourse – and discourse is necessarily social discourse.² Taking into consideration that Jane Austen’s age “was an age of society’s predominance, when man was viewed primarily as a social creature”³, and that “’ways of putting things’, or simply language usage, are part of the very stuff that social relationships are made of”⁴, it is not hard to realize how much importance lies in the way the characters in Pride and Prejudice express themselves. Therefore, when he focuses on the various linguistic aspects of civility in Pride and Prejudice, the reader can throw light on the novel from a different angle.

Civility is derived from the Latin word ‘civilis’, meaning ‘of or pertaining to citizens’. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is “behaviour proper to the intercourse of civilized people; ordinary courtesy or politeness, as opposed to rudeness of behaviour; decent respect, consideration”.⁵ J. HARRIS notices that Jane Austen “explores [Richardson’s] important word civil”⁶, without giving her finding consequence enough to go into much detail. However, when the word root civil itself occurs “over seventy times in the novel”⁷, seventyeight times to be precise (while occurring only forty times in Sense and Sensibility, for example), and words closely related to civility appear in over one-hundred-and-fifty instances in the course of the novel⁸, it becomes clear that the aspects of civility deserve a closer look. Because the social scheme has changed significantly since the time Jane Austen wrote her novels, the vocabulary related to civility has undergone some significant changes as well. The gaps in meaning between politeness, civility and gentleness have been diminished or have ceased to exist altogether in some speakers’ vocabulary⁹. The aim of this paper is therefore to pinpoint the different notions of civility and words related with civility as they are employed by Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice. In the course, most attention will be paid to Mr Collins, a character who miraculously manages to be an epitome of both politeness and rudeness.

2. Negative aspects of civility

After having walked three miles through the mud from Longbourn to Netherfield, Elizabeth is received “very politely” by Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst – although at least Miss Bingley cannot stand Elizabeth; “and in their brother’s manners there was something better than politeness.”¹⁰ (p.28) The narrator’s comments let the reader know that politeness is not necessarily something good in itself – neither is civility: when Mr Bingley visits the Bennets after his return from London, he is “received by Mrs. Bennet with a degree of civility, which made her two daughters ashamed.” (p.257)

2.1 Sneering civility – Miss Bingley

Quite a number of negative notions of civility and politeness can be perceived in Pride and Prejudice. These notions find their most significant representative in Miss Bingley, who meets Mrs Bennet, whom she despises, with “cold civility” (p.35), and who is even able to encompass “sneering” and “civility”, when she attempts to insult Elizabeth in public by inquiring after the whereabouts of the militia, thereby alluding to Wickham’s and Lydia’s elopement (p.206). Tension is created in all the conversations between Miss Bingley and Elizabeth, because the form of the civilities that are passed back and forth between them stands in clear contrast with what the two actually want to convey. This falseness leads Elizabeth to eventually find Miss Bingley so untrustworthy that she does not even take her warning about Wickham’s character into consideration, although Miss Bingley claims to be making the recommendation “as a friend.” (p.76 f.) Decorum matters to Miss Bingley and her like. 

[....]

1 Babb, Howard S. “Dialogue With Feeling: A Note on Pride and Prejudice.” The Kenyon Review 20.1 (1958): 203-216. p.203

2 Yule, George. Pragmatics. Oxford: OUP, 1996. p.59 Hereafter abbreviated YULE.

3 Morris, Ivor. Mr. Collins Considered. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. p. 68

4 Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson. “Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena.” Questions and Politeness. Ed. Esther N. Goody. Cambridge: CUP, 1978. 56-289. p. 60 Hereafter abbreviated BROWN AND LEVINSON.

5 Etymological source and definition: The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.

6 Harris, Jocelyn. Jane Austen’s Art of Memory. Cambridge: CUP, 1989. p.127

7 Paris, Bernard J. Character and Conflict in Jane Austen’s Novels. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1978. p.106. Hereafter abbreviated PARIS.

8 all numbers were extracted with help of the search function of Digitale Bibliothek Band 59: English and American Literature. The word roots whose occurrences were added are gentle (19 occurrences), complaisant (6), (well-)bred (12, polite (26), cordial (10), decorum (4), etiquette (2), officious (4), formal (12), impertinent (14), insolent (6), impudent (4), rude (5), deference (6), and apology (21). ceased

9 compare: Stokes, Myra. The Language of Jane Austen: A Study of Some Aspects of Her Vocabulary. Houndmills: Macmillan, 1991. p.96. Hereafter abbreviated STOKES.

10 all text quotations according to: Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. London: Penguin, 1994.