Not all endings are happy, and Jane Austen knew that. Major characters in her novels do get their happy endings, but others wind up with a life of disappointment, heartache, and trouble.
Lost Love in Mansfield Park
Whilst Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram finally get together and have a chance to love one another at the end of the story, others do not fare so well.
- Maria Bertram makes what turns out to be a hurtful decision to leave her husband for a fickle lover, and winds up sullen and alone, looked after by an aunt with a similar disposition. She is, for the most part, facing a life of ostracism and closed doors.
- Mary Crawford set her cap for Edmund Bertram, so long as he decided to do something more exciting than serving as a clergyman. Whilst Jane Austen’s “wicked” characters are sometimes easily dismissed, one can imagine Mary Crawford’s disappointment when Edmund and his family shunned her after she made thoughtless remarks concerning his brother’s death and inheritance. Mary was sent packing, so to speak, and though she landed on her feet, readers must admit to the fact that after all of her hard work chasing Edmund, she must have suffered a moment’s frustration over the affair.
Lost Love in Pride and Prejudice
Whilst this Jane Austen novel is perhaps one of the most famous love stories penned in English literature, it also contains one of the saddest examples of lost love in her works.
- Mr. Bennet, father of the famous heroine Elizabeth Bennet, lives a life of disappointment. He loves his daughters, but knows that, save for his two eldest, they are silly and thoughtless. He has no sons to carry on the family heritage and inherit the estate of Longbourne. But most importantly, his wife, a great beauty when they married, was not a soul mate. He did not marry her for love so much as for her beauty, and then he spent a lifetime repenting his decision.
Though a smart, intelligent man, Mr. Bennet made a rash decision, for which he paid the rest of his life. A life of quiet disappointment and desperation is perhaps the saddest sort of life there can be, and through her acute study of human nature, Jane Austen saw this and incorporated this tragic note into perhaps her most joyful romance.
Other Examples of Lost Love
There are many other examples of lost or disappointed love in Jane Austen’s works, including Caroline Bingley (for whom one probably does not have much sympathy) and the daughter of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, both in Pride and Prejudice, and Anne Elliot’s oldest sister in Persuasion.
With study, many other disappointments can be brought to light, as Jane Austen wrote about life as she saw it, and she saw it very well, both sides of it, the light and the dark.
As glorious as it is when Jane Austen writes about the light, she does not turn her face from dark disappointment and heartache. She often has her characters suffer before they win their hearts’ desire, for those lucky enough to do so.
And for those who do not, it is easy to feel sympathy for their plight, for Jane Austen is not insensitive, but rather instills in all of her characters a feeling of humanity that links them to the reader, either through personal experience, or else remind of an acquaintance.
Jane Austen’s lost loves are universal losses. Just as her happy endings make life somehow brighter.
Sources:
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, Doubleday, 1945.
Persuasion, by Jane Austen, Oxford University Press, 1990.
Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen, J.M. Dent (Everyman), 1998.
Pamela Mooman - Pamela Mooman I am an award-winning writer and editor. I have more than 19 years of experience working in a variety of subjects and ...
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