Question

According to the Novel Jane FairFax and Frank Churchill Justified in keeping their Engagement a Secret ?
What are their Prospects for a happy marriage ?

Answer 1

Answer:

Secret engagements are a bad business in Austen’s universe. Emma calls Frank and Jane’s engagement “a very abominable sort of proceeding,” and despite her compassionate feelings for Jane at the novel’s end, believes Miss Fairfax allowed her affection to “overpower her judgment”

Marriages take work, commitment, and love, but they also need respect to be truly happy and successful.

Answer 2

Explanation:

Secret engagements are a bad business in Austen’s universe. Emma calls Frank and Jane’s engagement “a very abominable sort of proceeding,” and despite her compassionate feelings for Jane at the novel’s end, believes Miss Fairfax allowed her affection to “overpower her judgment” (III.1, III.12). Mr. Knightley agrees, calling Jane’s consenting to the engagement her “one fault” (III.15). For their part, Frank and Jane admit in several instances that their actions are cause for guilt and repentance.

How should modern readers understand the condemnation so forcefully placed upon Frank and Jane’s secret agreement? Why do Austen’s characters — Mr. Knightley in particular — believe the couple to have acted improperly? Mrs. Churchill’s discovery of the relationship would have no doubt ended all communication between the lovers, and, while their actions are deceptive to a certain degree, they could have been painted in a more positively romantic light than Austen chooses to use.

Frank’s actions are perhaps more understandably reprehensible. In his flirtations with Emma, he needlessly exposed her to censure from the community and heartbreak for herself. As Emma states, he came among them with “professions of openness and simplicity” and led them to believe they were all on “an equal footing of truth and honour” (III.10). Emma’s feelings, of course, are colored by her embarrassment: Frank’s honesty would have saved her from unkind conjectures about Jane and Mr. Dixon. But Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley share Emma’s belief in Frank’s impropriety, and Frank himself admits he acted poorly in hiding his engagement and flirting with Emma.

But what of Jane? She feels the weight of her part in the scheme, as evidenced by her sickness, but her actions are less clearly worthy of blame. She never flirts with other men or acts, like Frank, with a deceptively “open temper” that serves to hide “trick and littleness” (II.7, III.10). And yet, Jane feels guilty. She tells Mrs. Weston that she “never can be blameless”: “I have been acting contrary to all my sense of right; …and the kindness I am now receiving, is what my conscience tells me ought not to be” (III.12). Jane’s decision to enter into a secret engagement is private and personal. But both she and her community seem to believe that she owes them a window into her most intimate secrets. How can we account for this?

I’m sure this question could be answered from a historical perspective to shed light on proper nineteenth century courtship practices. This would be an important and interesting analysis, but I wonder if the novel’s portrayal of Jane’s actions also reveals its indebtedness to eighteenth century sentimental fiction. Understanding Jane’s feeling of guilt, I think, may shed light on the larger role of sentimentality in Austen’s world.

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