Nature Vs Nurture In Pride and Prejudice.

An introduction is amiss, it is an accident by design, not a coincidence as the universe is never so lazy. An introduction compromises my means and manners of presentation, having said that. NATURE is:

“ the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, and landscapes ….”.

In the light of the above understanding of the term ‘Nature’: Education casts a long shadow on a person’s character in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The eloquence of the aforesaid argument borrows its vocabulary from EMPIRICAL findings. Pride and Prejudice is a novel in which the Sun and the Moon are never mentioned, weather is hardly ever discussed. A utilitarian view of natural objects and phenomena is therefore suggested: rain is mentioned, as a key dramatic agent when Mrs Bennet plots to send Jane to Netherfield Park. Apart from a reference to “ Succession of rain” which keeps the Longbourn lasses indoor, sunshine floods the rest of the novel for ought we know. Likewise, all animals are mentioned to their use: horses and ponies for transportation, trout for fishing, birds, ducks and partridges for shooting and eating. When the economy of the narrative demands it that we learn anything about the garden or ground. For instance, only passing reference to or short scenes set in the shrubbery, a hermitage, a paddock, a wilderness and a copse allow the reader to create a piecemeal idea of what grounds at Longbourn might look like. Reverend Collins’s description to boast of the number of trees and the proportion of the land he possesses or perceives (every walk & crosswalk, how many trees ) and also there is no aestheticism in the way his analytical eye fragments and appraise natural settings. The ‘ minuteness’ with which he looks at his garden and the distant dumps of trees prevents him from seeing, and more importantly feeling, the effect, both picturesque and imprecise, of the whole picture. His is not an imaginative or romantic, but a quantitative eye, computing as it does natural sites as if they were figures to be added up. Apart from those few terms and metaphors, one does not get much in the way of natural description. Jane’s ride to Netherfield, her favourite walk at Rosings. A scene between Elizabeth and Darcy in the park at Rosings, the enumeration of places fizzy and the Gardiners are to visit on their way to Derbyshire, Pemberly episode, Bennet girls fondness for walking from Longbourn to Lucas lodge or Meryton. Elizabeth’s walk to Netherfield hall highlights Elizabeths’s vitality more than it does her ability to look at nature. Not being interested in sketching or drawing, she never pauses to look around. The stress therefore on weariness and dirt caused by her walk–not on any aesthetic emotions born of the surrounding landscape.

Only during Rosing episodes author alludes to the “often great enjoyments” she had outdoors, her “favourite walk” and its “nice sheltered paths” furnishing her with hours of solitary strolls which “ no one seemed to value but herself, and where she felt beyond the reach of lady Catherine’s curiosity. Virginia Woolf remarks on Jane Austen’s literary production.

“…..Nature and its beauties she approached in a sidelong way of her own. She describes a beautiful night without once mentioning the moon. Nevertheless, as we read the few formal phrases about ‘ the brilliancy of an unclouded night and the contract of the deep shades of words, the night is at once as ‘ solemn, soothing and lovely’ as she tells us, quite simply, that it was “.

The paucity of natural references in pride and prejudice, the vocabulary related to nature in the shape of trees, However plants, animals, fruits, gardens, weather conditions and landscapes searches comes to a total of 171 words.

In Pride and Prejudice

Let the number of nature-related words be N

N = 171

Number of total words be T

T = 123880

Possibility of Influence be PI

Then

P I = F(N/T)

Now, placing the value

P I = 171/123880

= 0 . 0013.

Now, representing the possibility of Influence on the probability scale.

Probability Scale.

Maximum = 3

Minimum = -3

Range of scale = -3 to 3

Impossible = -3

Possible = 3

Note 1) Both values of -3 & +3 are probable absolutes of their respective meanings.

2) Difference between two integers on a scale is its 10 subpart units.

3) Figure 2 is an expansion of Figure 1

Whereas, education finds favour with Jane Austin. There are implicit suggestions

and explicit instances advocating education’s cause and the aftermath. We witness dialogues discussing education exclusively Caroline remarks :

“ A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and modern languages to deserve the word”. To which Darcy replies, “ To all this, she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading chapter 8 Pride and Prejudice.

The conversation with lady Catherine de Bourgh and Elizabeth at Rosings (chapter 29). Where lady Catherine to her surprise finds that Bennett’s did not employ any governess for their daughters. Lady Catherine also says your parents should have sent you to town for sake of masters. Another reference is in chapter 35, without Darcy’s father help, Wickham’s father “would have been unable to give him a gentleman’s education. Throughout the novel, implicit references to education are made and brought to light. Mr and Mrs Bennet presented in the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice, Mrs Bennet characterized by resourceful ‘nerves’ and “the business of her life” which is to get her daughter’s marriage. Mr.Bennet described as “so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserves and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character”. Mr Bennet mostly retiring in his study alone, both sharing believes contrary to each other perhaps to point difference in education. We are also told of the five daughters, two have father’s good sense two to have demonstrably taken after their mother’s silliness.

Further, characters like Mary described as “the only plain one in the family” and is seen as having to rely on her education and accomplishment to get attention. She illustrates the limitations of mere bookish knowledge. Bingley sisters advocating the expected accomplishments from women of the time-courtesy literature, conduct manuals for ‘genteel women’. Aforesaid differences in characters probably finding roots in their respective experience with education along with character like Mary employed to bring out the complexity of the ideal of learning and education perhaps suggests if not prescribe; that education referred herein is reflective of the social reality of the eighteenth century, reiterating believe in Aristotle i.e. reality shapes up the ideal. As education depicts impinge of social reality upon it.

REASONING through ANALOGY will lead to, an individual’s reality is influenced by their experience with education among other factors (education consisting of social realities of the then prevailing time). Thus education shaping an individual’s character. Thereby education is, in fact, an act on experience that has a formative effect on the mind of an individual. If it is so, then one cannot ascribe to the meaning of word ‘Nature’ indifferent to time of its reference. In eighteenth-century ‘Nature’ began with a sense of primitive i.e, before civilisation in its natural form, only to find meaning in art and culture of civilization as true ‘nature’; finally acquiring psychological dimension. It is quite revealing to notice how the word ‘nature’ itself is used in the novel. Thirty-five of thirty-six occurrence found in the novel refers to the intellectual meaning of the word that is to say the ‘main characteristics’ or ‘essence’ of a thing or person. Therefore, one often finds references to a specific good-or-ill-natured character or human nature in general. The age of enlightenment is inundated with confidence in the inherent goodness of man. The argument that it is intrinsic to human nature, by birth to be moral and good. Descartes locates ‘absolutes’ of ‘reason’ and ‘good sense’ in nature and in doing so defines nature. If we believe in the meaning of intrinsic goodness of human behaviour. The quality of reason, staying true to it, reaching God’s creation, morality and goodness which comes naturally to humans. Any faith in such believes will contradict the notion of outside worldly influence hereupon represented by education, i.e; in the debate of nature versus nurture siding with nature.

Presence of both facets of a coin in the novel leaves the question unanswered as it was left in the novel. Jane Austen did not, could not, should not settle this debate and left it up to the philosophical bend of mind either of EMPIRICAL reasoning or reasoning through ANALOGY.

Sources Referred:

1. Xavier Lachazette, Université du Mans — Nature in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
2. Eighteenth-Century woman Conduct in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice — An Analysis Of Elizabeth Bennet by Alexandra Taawo.
3. Emphasis on Education in Jane Austen’s Novels by N. G .Nandana
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen