I have
just been re-reading Maggie Lane’s brilliant Jane Austen and Food. In it, she makes the perceptive point that
Mrs Norris in Mansfield Park is ironically
named - from the French nourrice, a
nurse. She behaves in the most un-nurturing way towards Fanny Price and seems
to take every opportunity to put her down.
I began
to think about other Jane Austen surnames which might be significant in some
way. Fanny Price’s own surname, for example, could also be viewed as ironic.
For much of the novel, she is seen to have little
value. Her own mother is happy to give her away to her rich relations, surely
a traumatic experience for a timid ten-year-old girl. And Henry Crawford values
her only as a plaything when he aims ‘to
make a small hole in Fanny Price’s heart’.
Fanny is
not taken in. Underneath her shy and retiring exterior, she is spot on in her
judgement of the Crawfords and, when Henry proposes, she courageously refuses
him, in spite of her uncle’s strong disapproval of such wilfulness. She is, as Sir
Thomas, Edmund and even Henry Crawford himself eventually realize, priceless, with a moral worth beyond
value.
Even the
cloddish Mr Rushworth’s name carries a hint of irony. Maria rushes into her engagement with him,
unable to bear the humiliation of Henry leaving without declaring himself. And worth is not a quality we associate with
Mr Rushworth – or, indeed, Maria.
We might
note, too, Mary Crawford’s letter to Fanny about Tom Bertram’s illness. She
makes it clear that, if Tom dies of his fever, then a future ‘Sir Edmund
Bertram’ would sound very well.
In Emma, there is surely more than a touch
of irony in Frank Churchill’s name. Frank
– that is, honest and open – he is not. And Churchill carries associations of Christian
good behaviour, which, again, is wide of the mark. By contrast, Mr Knightley’s
name suits his character and we see him taking the time and trouble to be kind
to Miss Bates and Harriet Smith, both persons of little social consequence.
In Sense and Sensibility, the name Dashwood
might be interpreted as an oxymoron.
Marianne certainly has the dash
which leaves Elinor with too much of the phlegmatic, though steadfast, wood. Elinor needs more dash and Marianne needs to be more grounded
(wood), which is exactly what happens
over the course of the book.
Persuasion is, perhaps, the novel with the
most interesting surnames. We know that Sir Walter Elliot is very aware of the
value of a good name. He is scathing of Anne visiting an old school friend Mrs
Smith: ‘A mere Mrs Smith – and everyday
Mrs Smith, of all people and all names in the world to be the chosen friend of
Miss Anne Elliot…’ Anne makes no
reply, though she is well aware that her sister’s friend, Mrs Clay, a woman
with no fortune, and ‘no surname of
dignity’ is covertly making up to her father.
Mrs Clay’s
surname sounds suitably cloddish and sticky but she has enough guile to elope
with William Elliot, Sir Walter’s heir, at the end of the book.
Sir
Walter himself is overly concerned with appearances. At the end of the book,
when he learns that Anne is going to marry her former love, Captain Wentworth (a
match which had gravely displeased him ten years earlier), he decides that, (Captain Wentworth’s) superiority of appearance
might be not unfairly balanced against her superiority of rank; and all this,
assisted by his well-sounding name, (a name of ‘worth’) allows him to give
them his blessing.
The
surnames in Pride and Prejudice make
a different point. Both Darcy and Lady Catherine de Bourgh have surnames of
Norman-French origin, thus demonstrating their aristocratic credentials. However, and this could be an example of Jane
Austen’s ironic sense of humour, the maiden name of both Darcy’s mother and
Lady Catherine was Fitzwilliam, a surname which indicates illegitimacy as fils (French: son) was used for the illegitimate
children of kings or princes. Fitzwilliam might be an aristocratic name, but
there’s a definite whiff of irregular behaviour about it.
The one
book which doesn’t appear to use surnames to indicate anything about their
owners is, surprisingly, Northanger Abbey.
Why, I wonder.
All pictures are from The Ladies’ Pocket Magazine
Elizabeth
Hawksley
