Cassandra Leigh, Jane Austen's mother, and representations of mothers in her novels
Living what could be described by some as a fairly uneventful life, there is as you can imagine little information about what Cassandra Austen, Jane’s mother was really like. I have read that she was considered witty and a little more outgoing than her Reverend husband, which is probably where Jane inherited her witty personality from. Cassandra also liked to write little verses herself, so I think Jane gained a lot from her mother. She came from a higher social rank than her husband, but she is said to have lived a non-luxurious lifestyle and managing the household within the couple’s means.
I can’t find much evidence to suggest what sort of relationship Cassandra and her daughter Jane had. Cassandra had poor health and Jane took on a lot of the household responsibilities from her mother to help. We know that Jane’s father supported her extensive reading and writing, but whether her mother did is unknown.
So what about the representation of relationships between daughters and mothers in Jane’s novels?
Two of Jane’s heroines have both lost their mother – Emma Woodhouse and Anne Elliot (Persuasion). Emma’s governess Miss Taylor becomes a sort of substitute figure for her missing mother, but is more like a friend. It is actually Emma herself who steps up to fulfil a mother role for herself with her own self-assuredness. However, Anne Elliot has Lady Russell who steps in to fill her mother’s shoes and takes it upon herself to advise the Elliot family and manage Anne’s love life.
Fanny Price (Mansfield Park) has a mother and family but is portrayed as if she is an orphan, being sent to live with her aunts and cousins by her parents who have an ever growing brood of children that they can’t afford. Her mother has no affection for her, and they do not write to each other. Lady Bertram and Mrs Norris take on guardianship of Fanny, but Mrs Norris doesn’t like Fanny and Lady Bertram treats her almost like a pet to keep her company. Though Lady Bertram wasn’t much of a mother to her own daughters, but Mrs Norris was happy to step in:
“Lady Bertram did not go into public with her daughters. She was too indolent even to accept a mother’s gratification in witnessing their success and enjoyment at the expense of any personal trouble, and the charge was made over to her sister, who desired nothing better than a post of such honourable representation, and very thoroughly relished the means it afforded her of mixing in society without having horses to hire.”
Mrs Bennet (Pride and Prejudice) is a subject of debate when it comes to the relationship with her daughters. She has her clear favourites amongst her five daughters and “Elizabeth was the least dear to her of all her children”. She can be depicted as a very selfish person with no one having compassion for her poor nerves, however, her life revolves around finding good husbands for her daughters. So looking at it this way, she is actually looking out for her daughters to see that she marries well. In the novel, even Jane describes her as “their affectionate mother”.
Mrs Dashwood (Sense & Sensibility) is by no means a terrible mother, though Eleanor does tend to fill the role of providing motherly advice. Mrs Dashwood does love all her daughters dearly and wants to see them happy, but she have a greater bond with Marianne, perhaps because they are more similar in sensibility. She encourages Marianne to wallow in her feelings for Willoughby whereas Eleanor tries to help her keep her feelings in check.
Mrs Morland is also a loving mother, but has too many children to concentrate on. She doesn’t go as far as Mrs Price in Mansfield Park, but does allow Catherine to go to Bath with the Allens, even though Mrs Allen’s judgement is deemed non-trustworthy. Perhaps she is slightly naïve to the ways of the world. Though it cannot be denied she wanted her children to be happy, she for the most part left Catherine to herself:
“Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children every thing they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in lying-in and teaching the little ones, that her eldest daughters were inevitably left to shift for themselves; and it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, base ball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen to books – or at least books of information.”
As we can see from the above, Jane’s novels tend to feature a series of either absent or imperfect mothers. Whether this is telling of her own relationship with her mother or not is unclear. Although I wouldn’t read too much into it, as the bumbling reverend Mr Collins is unlikely to be a direct representation of her father either. Family relationships are so central to Jane’s novels that it’s easy to start questioning about her own family relationships. Jane did take inspiration from her surroundings when writing her novels, but her characters were never a direct representation of another, taking only individual characteristics and small details. Though some of Austen’s favourite books that she took inspiration from had a similar theme, i.e. Emily St Aubert lost her mother in Mysteries of Udolpho, and Cecilia had also lost her mother. Perhaps she was following the trends.
