ESC: English Studies in Canada

EYES AND THE IMAGERY OF SIGHT IN PRIDE AND PREJUDICE LESLEY H. WILLIS University of Guelph I ” ! er business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, mouth, hands and feet,” says Charlotte Bronte of Jane Austen. "What sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study, but what throbs fast and full, though hidden ... this Miss Austen ignores."1 I do not quarrel with Charlotte Bronte's assertion in so far as it relates to the human eye, for the imagery of sight, used as a metaphor for judgment, is crucial to the idiom of Jane Austen's novels. But I contend that the eye is, in Pride and Prejudice in particular, the symbol of "what throbs fast and full, though hidden" - that very element which Charlotte Bronte feels to be missing from Jane Austen's fictional world. The act of looking plays a considerable part in the development of mutual awareness and reciprocal feeling between the principal characters, and its increasing complexity parallels the growing intricacy of personal relationships within the book. The interchange of unfavourable impressions between Darcy and Elizabeth at the Meryton assembly, signalling, as it were, the beginnings of sexual attraction seen through the wrong end of the telescope, is effected largely through the medium of the eyes, and the subsequent development of their relationship is shown by the gradual, but by no means smooth or even, synthesis of corrected perception with communication. From characters watch­ ing other characters there evolves the more complex pattern of the watcher watched; "occupied in observing Mr Bingley's attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend."2 Later the very nature of the watcher's watching is observed. Charlotte Lucas, hoping that Darcy admires Elizabeth, sets herself to find it out. "She watched him whenever they were at Rosings, and whenever he came to Hunsford; but without much success. He certainly looked at her friend a great deal, but the expression of that look was disputable. It was an earnest, steadfast gaze, but she often doubted whether there were much admiration in it, and sometimes it seemed nothing but absence of mind" (181). Where the development of mutual awareness is in question the act of looking frequently has direct or indirect sexual significance. Charlotte is not the only En g lish Studies in Ca n a d a , n, 2, Summer 1976 157 Imagery of Sight in Pride and Prejudice one to be interested in the state of other people's affections. Mrs Gardiner "narrowly observed" Elizabeth and Wickham (142), Miss Bingley watches Darcy jealously to ascertain the nature of his feelings for Elizabeth, and Elizabeth and Darcy frequently look at each other. It is worth noting that Nan Mykel in "The Id and Eye" makes a good case for considering the eye as a universal sex symbol, especially when there is repression of sexuality as such;3 and while sexuality is not repressed in Jane Austen's novels, it is not expressed either except in the context of shameful elopements. "What throbs fast and full" remains "hidden," all the more effectively, perhaps, because the imagery of sight is also used as a metaphor for judgment, and the importance of judgment is much more readily discernible in Jane Austen's works than is that of sexuality. Yet even on the simplest and most concrete level the visual element particularly important in Pride and Prejudice, which was originally entitled First Impressions - has sexual significance. The faces of the all but dowerless Bennet sisters must necessarily be their fortunes; when Jane Bennet becomes engaged to Mr Bingley her mother exclaims "I was sure you could not be so beautiful for nothing!" (348). And the implications are sexual as well as economic, as can also be seen at the Meryton assembly. Although admiration of Darcy's and Bingley's appearance is in direct proportion to the size of their respective incomes (at least until Darcy offends the majority of the people there), something more than an economic appraisal of two newly arrived bachelors is taking place...