General Consent in Jane Austen: A Study in Dialogism

Kathleen James-Cavan is an assistant professor and Graduate Chair of the
English Department at the University of Saskatchewan.

Barbara Seeber brings a refreshing approach to Austen criticism and
Austen’s works. Grounding her methodology in the theories of Bakhtin
and Althusser, she “explores the struggle of a particular language to
achieve ideological dominance, to manufacture consent” in Austen’s
works. She concludes that the novels’ meanings are situated “in the
interaction between different voices,” and that there is no general
consent. Along the way, the reader is treated to insightful readings of
most of the Austen canon.

Seeber refuses to side with either Austen critics who maintain that the
novels endorse a Tory status quo or those who valorize the subtext for
its subversion of dominant ideology. Such readings limit Austen’s
texts “to half their potential meaning.” Instead, she “brings to
the foreground narratives that dialogize the main narratives.” In
addition, she asserts the dialogism of her own text. She states, for
example, that Austen’s depiction of Mansfield Park as a site “of
polyphonic play” in one chapter of her book coexists with her view in
another that it is also a site “of violence and repression.” She
does not resolve creative contradictions.

Both general and specialist readers of Austen’s work are well served
here. Part 1 examines the dialogism provided by paired heroines:
Marianne and Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Emma Woodhouse
and Harriet Smith in Emma, Fanny Price and Mary Crawford in Mansfield
Park, and Anne Elliot and Louisa Musgrove in Persuasion. Part 2 reads
back into the dominant narrative the suppressed stories of Colonel
Brandon in Sense and Sensibility, Wickham and Georgiana in Pride and
Prejudice, and Mrs. Smith in Persuasion. In Part 3, Seeber investigates
histories of domestic violence in Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and
Lady Susan.

This book could have been enriched by a consideration of Austen’s
incomplete novels, The Watsons and Sanditon, as well as a few more
samples of the juvenilia. As it stands, it is a sparkling, and most
welcome, contribution to Austen studies.