My Dear Alice Comparison

Composers are connected in their desire to express their personal values within a changing world

The comparative study of Fay Weldon’s non fiction text Letters to Alice and Jane Austen’s comedy of manners narrative Pride and Prejudice reveal connections between the authors in their desire to express their personal values and beliefs through the vehicle of their fictional characters. Exploration of connections such as the value of literature and the lives of women in different societies presented in the texts heighten our understanding of the composer’s contexts and the values they wish to convey through their writing. The shared aspects of the form of both texts such as the use of letters and the fictitious framework of Weldon’s Letters
To Alice provides a connection through which the readers can appreciate the values Austen and Weldon seek to express.

Austen’s comedy of manners explores her patriarchal, provincial 19th century English world which is satirically commented on by Weldon as she expresses her own independent success, displaying the changing nature of society and the empowerment of women through her character Aunt Fay, a second wave feminist and a successful and independent writer.

Moreover the character of Aunt Fay highlights the stark contrast between the modern world in which marriage becomes a focus of love and happiness as opposed to the 19th century necessity for financial security which left women at the mercy of men. ‘I am not romantic…I ask only a comfortable home... I am convinced that my chance of happiness is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state’. Charlotte’s direct speech epitomizes the marriage of Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins, a marriage of necessity for pragmatic Charlotte who reflects the general feeling of young women and her desire for a financially secure, appropriate marriage, a trait which is condemned by Austen through Elizabeth’s disapproval and her branding of the marriage as ‘unequal’. Weldon’s narrative however appreciates Charlotte Lucas’ financial situation, despite the fact Aunt Fay and niece Alice are in no way required to marry, reflecting that ‘to marry was a great prize’, the objectification of women and marriage through the noun ‘prize’ displays Weldon’s understanding of the financial weight and importance marriage carried to young women like Charlotte. Weldon also comments on Mrs. Bennett’s understanding of the situation facing her daughters, ‘Mrs. Bennett, the only one with the slightest notion of the sheer desperation of the world’, displaying to the reader that in fact Austen through Elizabeth presents an unconventional and unrealistic picture of a young woman’s liberty with marriage through her insistence of finding love before marriage.

In a comparative the study of an older valued text and a contemporary appropriation the connections established between the texts enhance our understanding of values and attitudes in each society as well as the personal beliefs conveyed by the author.
Through Weldon’s 20th century appropriation of Austen’s epistolary structure Aunt Fay highlights the values of Literature within 19th century English society and our contemporary world. Fay Weldon connects to Pride and Prejudice through her exploration of Austen’s rural English societies attitudes and her values toward education and literature. In so doing, her commentary on Austen’s gentrified society and the value of literature takes a 20th century perspective. ‘My dear Alice, it was good to get your letter…your doing a college course in English Literature… (Specifically) and obliged to read Jane Austen… and you find her boring’. Weldon’s 1st person ironic narration in the form of letters highlights Alice’s 20th century struggle to study the ‘big L’ and reveals the novels connection with Austen’s
narrative.
Weldon expresses her own opinion on literature through the imagery in the extended metaphor of the ‘City of Invention’, which allows her to highlight her value of the ‘literary cannon’. This provides a vehicle through which Fay Weldon is able to express her own views on the value of good literature which she expresses as a medium through which readers can ‘admire…learn…marvel and explore’. LINK TO QUESTION

Moreover, Weldon fights that literature must and does remains integral through the use of the religious language in the rhyming couplet, ‘only persists…all in all to thee’ expressing the importance of literature through sacred language.
Her insistence on the enlightenment literature can provide through its enduring success and enjoyment contrasts with her view of Alice’s generation’s fixation with film and television, which in her opinion ‘can never enlighten’. Weldon’s opinion of the values of good literature are also reflected through Darcy’s condescending belief in a woman’s ‘improvement of her mind by extensive reading which makes her an accomplished woman and ready for marriage’. Here the direct speech of Darcy displays the value of both literature and reading to regency period, gentrified society as well as the value this society placed on educated people, and women. Elizabeth Bennett’s behavior and enjoyment of reading is contrasted against the superficial and hypocritical attitude of Miss Bingley whose ‘attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr. Darcy’s progress through his book as in reading her own’, displaying Austen’s enduring respect for education and reading and as well as the value her society placed on the educated. Austen enhances this attitude through the contrast of characters actions in her social commentary by painting those with an appreciation of literature in a positive and appropriate light whilst making out those who do not to be
superficial and debase. Austen continues to convey her personal opinion of the institution of marriage through the study of various marriages in her novel Pride and Prejudice which gives an insight into the traits Austen valued in a successful marriage. Her portrayal of Lydia and Wickham’s union as a match ‘only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue’, expresses her opinion on the fickle nature of a marriage with no intellectual or deeper connection. This view is mirrored in the unequal marriage of both Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and Charlotte Lucas to Mr. Collins, whose unions were based neither on intellect or love. Contrasting these unsuccessful marriages is the happy and lasting marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, and more poignantly the attitude of Elizabeth Bennett who ‘could be neither happy nor respectable unless she esteemed her husband’. Whilst Austen breaks conventions by focusing on love in marriage she maintains the importance of appropriate and eligible unions displaying her value of her 19th century values and manners.

Dependency of women on men and family members and the constraints they faced from the stifling conventions and unquestioned values of their society, epitomized by the high modality, definite statements of Austen as the omniscient narrator. ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife’. This authorial intrusion and informative sarcasm mocks the very rituals and accepted values of this society which confined and limited women and presents Austen’s own attitudes toward these conventions. She shows her value of the educated and independent minded woman through Elizabeth Bennet and through herself as a single, successful female writer. Aunt Fay defends this ‘crusading zeal’ of Austen by maintaining that her form of conveying her message through her novels has in fact become more meaningful in her belief that ‘enlighten people and you enlighten society’. She builds on these ideas of Austen’s novels changing the values and ideas of people and therefore societies toward women by presenting the character of Aunt Fay as the successful independent woman without the burden of the necessity of marriage for financial security. Aunt Fay suggests that women who are successful do not need to depend on men as they have done in the past, saying that ‘Success kicks away the stool of masochism, on which female existence so often depends’, this enhances our understanding of the changes in society that have led to the liberation of women and enhances our understanding of the personal values Weldon and Austen hold toward the role of women.

Through their novels and their own lives Fay Weldon and Jane Austen successfully express their own personal values and attitudes toward their societies. This desire to display their views and opinions connects the authors and highlights some of the key connections in their writing. Our understanding of these beliefs is heightened by an understanding of their contexts and an appreciation of the changes in society and the world.