The Power Of The Meryton Ball By Jane Austen

So it’s a Meryton Assembly ball, where Austen arranges the rendezvous of her heroes and heroines. The dancing at the ball is integral to develop a type of relationship she anticipates. It’s a time of perfect pleasure for many of the girls and their families from Elizabeth’s neighborhood. Jane’s and Bingley’s chemistry in this ball, as Austen depicts, completely matches with each other. The Meryton ball works as a catalyst to advance a love between Jane and Bingley, they exchange amorous glances since it is for what she does painstaking efforts to cultivate love in her characters through dancing, the love that must be emerged from her characters’ inner most feelings for each other, and the love that must be the reason of a marriage. Bingley’s
appreciation of Jane during his two dances with her at the first ball, and his falling in love with her, serve half of the purpose of Austen to introduce the ball in the very beginning of her narration. This scheme of Austen’s narration situates her characters in a frame of close proximity from where the flow of the narration is fixed on Austen’s matrimonial plan of her heroines. Jane’s and Bingley’s love episode at the Meryton ball can also be understood through the following explanation of the ballroom atmosphere, “Because a ball was considered a social experience, a couple could (at the most) dance only two sets (each set consisted of two dances), which generally lasted from 20-30 minutes per dance. Thus, a couple in love had an opportunity of spending as much as an hour together for each set”. (Dancing at the Netherfield Ball). When Bingley and Jane by taking the full advantage of these rules of the ball dance with each other, they fall in love with each other.
Coming directly from Austen’s personal experiences and from her culture, these accounts enrich her narration in a way that is uniquely her own.
Allison Thompson in her book, Dancing Through Time: Western Social Dance in Literature, 1400-1918: Selections, chronicles the history of dancing in Western culture from 1400 to 1918. On the Regency era dance culture, she particularly mentions Austen, stating, “The novelist Jane Austen was an enthusiastic dancer and dancing forms an important part of all of her fictional heroines’ lives” (116). Thompson has noted Austen’s love of dancing, and she expresses little surprise at the depiction of so much dancing in the backdrop of Austen’s love for it, but, surprisingly, it’s not just Austen’s love for dance behind her depiction. If we read Fullerton’s following statement in A Dance with Jane Austen, “Jane Austen fell in love with Tom Lefroy as they danced together and their romance was conducted almost entirely at balls” (10), then it can be easily implied that Austen due to her personal experience was well aware of the possibility of falling in love that used to thrive on dancing at the balls. In Pride and Prejudice, she fully exploits this possibility to take it to the further stage of a marriage. Austen’s concern with the marriage of her heroines is not hidden from her readers, and this is the demonstration of her concern, which makes us to perceive her approach towards the dancing and the ballrooms, which, in turn, are associated with the matters of matrimony of her heroines. As Austen’s own life was spent visiting the different balls from Steventon to Bath, she views this as a valuable chance, which every young man and woman must avail. There is no denying that Austen purposefully uses balls and dancing to fulfill her purpose of depicting them. In Pride and Prejudice, can we imagine Darcy and Elizabeth and Bingley and Jane courtships and subsequently their marriages without their dancing with each
other? If the pleasant apprehensions of falling in love do always exist during the dancing, then, the apprehensions of not reaching out the wedding floor with the same partner are also always present. The distance from the dance floor to the wedding floor has to cover, by every character, very cautiously. Jane’s and Bingley’s path towards their marriage is hampered by the third party, who is Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy’s path is hampered by his own faults. But Austen’s wise crafting of the incidents constantly juxtaposes prospective life partners in the situations, and these situations could not be better avail other than the dance floors, wherein they could better discovers themselves and the opposite partner. It’s Austen’s conviction of her ideology about the balls that she views them as the most concrete object, which could further the plan of a successful marriage of her characters. When Bennet girls meet and interact with Bingley and Darcy at their first ball, their interaction and dancing with each other don’t bring the desired outcome for Elizabeth Bennet. To find suitable marriage partners is Bennet sisters’ ultimate motive, as Austen intends, but Darcy and Elizabeth appear to be poles apart. Their pride and prejudice against each other, which stems from this ball, seems to undermine their acquaintance at the very initial stage. Quite contrary to Darcy’s behavior, the history of the Regency era describes that it was expected from the gentleman to dance with as many ladies as he could, otherwise, it would be rude not to follow this rule. This point is well made in the novel. This is the reason why Darcy’s refusal to dance with Elizabeth at the Meryton ball is attributed to his rude behavior. (Dancing at the Netherfield Ball). Austen herself has experienced different types of treatment at the ballrooms. The following one is not so different from Elizabeth’s experience with Darcy’s pride. Austen writes to her sister on 9 Jan 1796,