Austen on Illness

Since finishing Sense and Sensibility a few month ago, I have been interested in the use of illness in Austen's work. Some of her most ridiculous characters suffer from or fear illness (often imaginary), and use it to control situations (like Mrs. Bennet and her "nerves"; the hypochondriac Mr. Woodhouse; and the tyrannical Mrs. Churchill, whose illnesses "never occurred but for her own convenience"). On the other hand, bright, lively, and "too" romantic characters suffer life-threatening illnesses and emerge transformed (Marianne Dashwood and Tom Bertram; Col. Brandon's first love is a notable exemption from the "re-emerged"). Illness is often used as a sort of punishment for high living, unhealthy ideas about romance, or betraying social values. Sound familiar? It's like how every prostitute from Manon Lescaut to Marguerite Gautier dies from tuberculous (usually). Illness is still today linked with punishment, unfortunately. Just look at what people continue to say about AIDS. And if you went to that link and feel a little sick, here is a tonic: Blanche tells Rose "AIDS is not a bad person's disease." I'm still surprised and a little sad that line doesn't receive a standing ovation. Austen uses this familiar message of illness and punishment, but allows her characters to face death and repent, albeit their lives proceed more subdued and responsible than before.

In her essay "On Being Ill," Virginia Woolf writes about the transformative aspect of illness. It reveals undiscovered places within ourselves; precipices and flowering valleys, that sort of thing. Illness can change our relation to the world. Through a feverish lens, "friends have changed, some putting on a strange beauty, others deformed to the squatness of toads, while the whole landscape of life lies remote and fair, like the shore seen from a ship far out at sea." It is akin to a religious experience; we see, for the first time, things that have always been there, such as the clouds moving and changing shape, and we speak the truth of our body. "Illness is the great confessional."

In S&S, after her life-threatening illness, Marianne tells her sister that it gave her time to reflect: "It has given me leisure and calmness for serious recollection," and the result is her resolution to "atone" to God and her family, and to live less selfishly. She sees her illness as her fault: "brought on by myself," but her survival was a rebirth, and a chance for change. Contrast this with Col. Brandon's first love, the doomed Eliza, who was "seduced" into "a life of sin" and consequently "faded" and became "worn down by acute suffering of every kind," finally dying, of course, of "consumption." Her sins were greater than Marianne's, and her tragic life serves as a warning against the allure of sensual libertines. But it isn't a clear-cut anecdote. Eliza's story is as much a tragedy about awful marriages, where an unkind husband whose "pleasures were not what they ought to have been" can send a young and inexperienced woman with a lively mind into the arms of another man. And then another and another. And yet part of me smirks at the story-within-a-story. It is so over the top, not to mention cliched, that it seems like a joke. Coupled with Brandon's tiresome and maudlin delivery, I have to wonder if it is inserted as a sort of reminder of the tragic Romances that would have been popular with girls like Marianne; this is the sort of pulp they eat up, but also, this sensibility destroys lives.

In MP, Tom Bertram's illness also provides a renewal: "He was the better for ever for his illness. He had suffered, and he had learnt to think, two advantages that he had never known before." He became "useful," "steady and quiet," and learned to "not [live] merely for himself." But first it was necessary to suffer, which Austen views as an advantage. True suffering humbles the extravagant, and the ones who can and will repent, do.

Tom and Marianne made the most out of their time away from the world, whereas others, like Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Woodhouse, and Mrs. Churchill, fake illness as an escape. Woolf writes about the opportunity for escape in illness, saying: "We cease to be soldiers in the army of the upright." The ill are deserters, and escape the daily drudge. That release from responsibility can be appealing to those who are unhappy or just childish and selfish. It is also a way for those with little or no power to exert their influence.

This use of illness as a punishment is uncomfortable with me, after all the garbage I've heard about STDs through the past decade, but it is worth looking at as a plot device. In Austen's world, every action has a consequence, and yet I don't believe illness is used merely as a punishment. The emphasis is on the somewhat spiritual suffering the characters undergo to develop and grow. Fevers are a good way to externalize that suffering. If I were a historian or new more about 19th century literature, I'm sure I could write a more nuanced perspective on this topic. It might be a fun dissertation.

"Very little is needed to make a happy life"

...reads a fortune cookie I got after dinner with Christopher. That night is a good example of the cookie's maxim. We were off and we had enough money to enjoy a good dinner out. I was so happy to be out with Christopher I was giddy. We returned to the first restaurant where we ate when Christopher first moved to Chicago. I ordered a Pink Lady 'cause there are worse things I could do, but quickly realized I would've preferred a vodka stinger. However, that was a minor disappointment, something that only provided contrast to the fun of dinner out: overhearing conversations, watching the characters that came in; the jacket he wore and was she out with her mother dressed like that? Not to mention the food! But what I really took away from the evening was the fortune cookie that told me what I needed to hear: "Very little is needed." Just the basics, plus a good book, and someone to love, be it sister, friend, or lover. Maybe? That list is in the works.

I keep coming back to Dersiewicz's chapter on Emma and everyday matters. Up until this morning it was tangled in my mind with what a high school classmate said recently via a Facebook post: "Are people who focus on politics and their children's health and future really the same as those who indulge themselves in personal activities like reading, writing and drinking (a lot!)? Or are the former more mature and ambitious?" She clearly favored her lifestyle, or maybe felt the need to defend it. Unfortunately, she caught me up in her classic troll technique of presenting a dichotomy and as though there were only those two types of people (superior and inferior).

For a couple days I thought about what I saw as the inward vs. outward lifestyle. I've chosen the quiet life, I thought. At least for now. I decided against flight attendant training, something I'd been working towards for months. A career in customer service, the irregular schedule, and my own introverted tendencies detracted from the appeal, but also, importantly, I didn't want to give up the peaceful little life I had going.

The day I received the email inviting me again to attend training, I had finally gone to a yoga class. It felt great--so good to move my body. Afterwards, I had a vegan lunch with the cute instructor and we talked easily about books and dogs and volunteering. I left feeling invigorated, and this lunch was the impetus for me to volunteer at the cat shelter.

When I got home I took a hot bath and read Ulysses. Afterwards, propped up on a pile of pillows, surrounded by unfolded laundry, happy, and excited about my life, I checked my email and saw the invitation.

I didn't know what to do. I knew I was supposed to feel excited, but I didn't. I really was happy with life. After my surgery put off training initially, I had accepted the fact that I wasn't going to be able to go. I felt conscious of a metamorphous; that I was resting before I grew into something really beautiful and good, and I wasn't sure a life (or a few years) as a flight attendant would help me along that path. If I didn't do it, though, I'd need a really good reason to stay. Or did I? Was being happy enough?

I was concerned that if I didn't choose the more active, adventurous life, I would be "missing out;" my life would be dull, and as a consequence, I would be dull. The prospect of future regret was terrifying. And what would I do instead, really? Continue working this minimum-wage job, fading away to a nobody? While Elise and Christopher strove to meet their goals, coming home exhausted from long days of work and school, sometimes not even sleeping because there was still that paper to write...I would be there, having spent the better part of my day cleaning the kitchen and reading. How would that feel? Would life be intolerably empty? What would I have to offer anyone?

"[Austen's] genius began with the recognition that such lives as hers [which seemed uneventful compared to her aunt's or cousin's or brothers'] were very eventful indeed--that every life is eventful, if only you know how to look at it. She did not think that her existence was quiet or trivial or boring; she thought it was delightful and enthralling, and she wanted us to see that our own are, too. She understood that what fills our days should fill our hearts, and what fills our hearts should fill our novels" (Deresiewicz, 27).

And really, this isn't about an outward/inward, quiet/active life. There is no such dichotomy. Our lives--all of our lives; butcher, baker, and sex toy maker--are too rich to be crammed into some label. Let's take a note from Jane Austen and that fortune cookie, and just appreciate how good life is, how much happens every day. There's a real humility, and a kindness towards people when you believe that every life is eventful, and it's exalting.