Tutors: Dr Christina Lupton and Dr David Taylor

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1418241

Student ID: 1418241

EN330 Eighteenth Century Literature

Tutors: Dr Christina Lupton and Dr David Taylor

Word-count: 5,463

The role of shopping in Jane Austen’s Emma.

One need only readthe most often quoted line of Austen’s to see that marriage and class are foundational themes in her novels: as ‘it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife’ (Pride and Prejudice, 1), a parallel acknowledgement might be that Austen’s novels are primarily concerned with just that − single men, good fortunes and prospective wives. Emma is no exception. Marriage and class are certainly the wheels on which the novel itself, and the society of Highbury, turn.Austen wrote at a time when marriage and class were intertwined; the social rank to which one was born tended to govern the marriage in to whichonewasdestined. Hence, in her works, marriages often occur within class boundaries as opposed to across them. Yet, a truth relatively unacknowledged in the divergence of these themes is the role of choice − ‘the act of choosing; preferential determination between things proposed; selection’ (OED). While marriage is characterised by ‘the act of choosing’ someone with whom to spend the rest of one’s life, there is no such process of ‘selection’ regarding the class to which one is born. Therefore, although marriage and class are certainly the primary issues considered by Austen, she cannot do so without simultaneously, even if subconsciously, raising this issue of choice, or lack thereof. This theme may be nowhere more evident than in Emma, having at its heart Miss Emma Woodhouse, whose ‘love of match-making’ (53) − theact of making marriage choices for other people − is what colours the plot of the novel. Thus, what it means to be the ‘chooser’ or the ‘chosen’ isilluminated in every relationshipdepicted in Emma.

Austen’s exploration of the role of choice reflects the increasingly materialistic nature of the society in which she was writing; a period that began to privilege the ‘consumer’, i.e. the ‘chooser’. Indeed, the era of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is deemed as a ‘crucial moment in the development of consumer culture, one in which luxury shopping could truly become […] ‘social habit’’ (Pinch, xii). Austen’s decision to include the rather ‘revolutionary’ (xxiii) setting of a shop − Ford’s, ‘the principal woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher's shop united;the shop first in size and fashion in the place’ (Austen, 140) − not only situates Austen within this significant historical momentwhen luxury shopping was on the brink of ‘becoming ordinary’ (xi), but it also acts as a metaphor for the theme of choice. With just ten explicit referencesto Ford’s, and only a few scenes actually taking place there, it would be easy to either miss the presence of Ford’s entirely, or, if noticed, to dismiss it as simply one of the ‘minute details’ of the novel (Sir Walter Scott,200). Yet, as Pinch argues, Ford’s is ‘essential to the texture of this novel’ (xii). Indeed, although it would be false to describe Emma as a novel about shopping, one could certainly call it a novel about choice, and, as shopping is an activity determined by choice (‘the act of choosing’ from an array of objects one that one wants), the setting of the shop is remarkably deliberate. This essay will analyse the position of Ford’s,and the shopping behaviours of some of the novel’s main characters, in order to suggest that Austen uniquely employs the shop as a setting from which to make observations on the act of choosing.

Before grappling with the role of the shop in Emma, it is important to gain a historical picture of the significance of shopping generally in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This is particularly important, as the significance of shops and shopping in literature from Austen’s era may well be lost on modern readers, as shops have since become ordinary fixtures, blurring into the background of our daily lives (not least because the popularity of online shopping has rendered even the physical space of a shop obsolete).However, as the quotidian nature of shopping was only just forming in Austen’s era, the moment when shopping was ‘on [its] way to becoming ordinary’ (Pinch, xi), it should not be overlooked. Although the practice of selling and buying goods was, of course, not a new concept, ‘shopping’ as a cultural activity did not begin to take shape, as historian Helen Berry writes, until ‘local markets’, which had been ‘the main centres of consumption in England’, ‘underwent a crucial transformation during the period 1690-1801, when trade “passed into the hands of shopkeepers”’ (378). This physical shift of shopping from the busyoutside market placesto the more intimate spaceof a shop, brought with it an equally notable shift in the nature of trade; the move from perfunctory and practical purchasing − ‘shopping for necessity’ − to middle-class polite spending − ‘shopping for luxury’ (Pinch, xii). Pinch alludes to the contemporary debate on luxury spending in the eighteenth century, stating how the value of it was ‘hotly contested in English political and literary circles’, seen by some as ‘synonymous with vice’ in contrast to others who saw ‘the pursuit of luxury goods […] as a legitimate source of personal happiness and […] of national health and pride’ (xii). For writers to include shopping as part of their narratives was, therefore, to enter intothis contemporary debate, indicating their own opinion through their presentation of shopping.

Shopping must also be contextualised within the eighteenth century culture of ‘politeness’. Commenting on the Third Earl of Shaftesbury’s idea of politeness, Klein writes that it was considered the ‘positive form of the highest achievement in human culture’ (188). Indeed, it was an aim to which many aspired, largely those who desired to be considered a member of ‘polite society’ and in possession of all the airs and graces with which this was associated. As politeness was an inherently social concept, ‘seen as an attempt to grasp and frame an interactional view of human relations and society’ (187), in order to prove one’s status as a polite individual, a societal platform from which to do this was vital. Many eighteenth century consumers found one such platform in shopping, as successful luxury shopping in this era depended entirely on one’s ‘almost daily ability to negotiate the rules of polite consumption to their own social and economic advantage’ (Berry, 393) and, as such, ‘required a considerable amount of social skill and economic nous on the part of the consumer’ (393). Berry lists ‘gesture, verbal exchange, and a ritualised pattern of behaviour as the customer engaged with the shopkeeper’ (377) as examples of necessary shopping behaviours that perfectly aided performances of politeness. Therefore, by ‘viewing the rise of “politeness” as an aspect of commercialization’ (Klein, 187), the increasing popularity of the activity can indeed be partly attributed to the fact that it produced a polite lifestyle, since it provided ‘people who were among, or who aspired to join, the ranks of […] ‘polite society’’ the opportunity to flaunt polite behaviours (Berry, 377).

Interestingly, to ‘shop’ did not necessarily mean to ‘purchase’; as much as shopping was about someone making their choice of goods, it was also about exercising their ability to not make a choice and simply browse. Indeed, browsing was as significant as purchasingsince many believed that deep scrutiny of an object was vital. Browsing was a practice observed by those wanting to seem as though the quality of goods was of extreme importance, when actually, they were only doing so in order to demonstrate the quality of themselves, in terms of their social rank, discernment abilities and politeness. Ironically,then, this focus on the object was not about the object at all, but about the consumer. As such, the years between 1790 and 1820 saw aspiring and higher ranks of society entering shops purely to browse rather than buy, as can be gleaned from a letter written in 1798 by Maria, a young ladywho recounts to a friend having received an invitation to accompany other ladies on a ‘shopping tour’:

I declined accepting their invitation; alleging that I had no occasion to purchase any-thing today; and therefore begged to be excused from accompanying them. They laughed at my reason for not engaging in the expedition. “Buying […] is no considerable part of our plan, I assure you. Amusement is what we are after.” (208)

Berry’s observation that ‘some eighteenth-century women turned browsing into an art form, and a distinctive pleasure in its own right’ (387) is telling of how common such browsing, or ‘amusement’, trips were. Yet, emphasis should be placed on the ‘some’ of Berry’s comment, sinceit would be misguided to infer that all women saw browsing as polite society at its finest, as Maria’s response indicates:

A most insignificant amusement this, said I to myself! […] Of all expedients to kill time, this appears to me […] the most ridiculous and absurd. What possible satisfaction can result from such a practice? […]is it any advantage to the mind? Does it enlarge the understanding, inspire useful ideas, or furnish a source of pleasing reflection? (209-10)

If Mary Wollstonecraft were to answerMaria’s rhetorical questions, she would certainly respond in the negative. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1793) she writes scathingly on the lack of depth of women who partake in activities such as shopping:

[…]but, I contend, that [conversation between French women] is not half so insipid as that of those English women whose time is spent in making caps, bonnets, and the whole mischief of trimmings, not to mention shopping, bargain-hunting. (93)

The divisive nature of shopping as illustrated by these sources, again speaks to the contemporary debates surrounding the activity, demonstrating how eighteenth century consumption was ‘neither as straightforward or as familiar an activity as one might assume’ (Berry, 393), bound up with de facto ideas about class and behaviours, which created a contemporary air of sensitivity surrounding it as a growing social phenomenon. With an understanding of the multi-faceted opinions around shopping, literature from this period with references to the act of shopping or that uses the setting of a shopare highly significant. Situated within this ‘crucial moment in the development of consumer culture’ (Pinch, xii), Austen is one such author, Emma is one such novel, and Ford’s is one such place of notability.

A primary avenue for exploring the significance of shops and shopping in Emma can be ascertained by considering where Austen positions Ford’s; the shop is only mentioned in the middle paragraphs of the central volume of the novel− at its heart. Although this might make the shop easy to miss, since it is not a thread that runs throughout, it is remarkable because Austen thus projects a sense of centrality about Ford’s that works on the level of narrative structure. She further compounds this air of centrality about Ford’s, as the shop finds itself geographically at the epicentreof the town of Highbury. Indeed, we are told it is accessible enough for ‘“every body [to attend] every day of their lives”’ (Austen, 157). Since it is ‘the principal woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher’s shop united’ (140), the centrality of it is perhaps necessary and unsurprising. But it is certainly significant, as it indicates how Ford’s is the focus of Highbury, both geographically and socially. Austen thus not only establishes her acute awareness of increasing consumer culture by including a shop at all,but this deliberate sense of structural and narrative focus on Ford’s indicatesAusten’s desire to channel both the readers’ and Highbury citizens’ attention in the direction of Ford’s.

Furthermore, by limiting the references that are made to Ford’s to the very centre of the novel, Austen invites the reader to do a parallel narrowing down in their conception of Highbury. In other words, one can access Ford’s by viewing it as a microcosm of the town itself. This is indeed true if one thinks in terms of class and social mobility, since the neutrality of Ford’s allows for a unique crossing of classes. As Brodie posits, ‘Austen devotes much of her narrative genius to outlining communities, then exploring the permeability of their boundaries’ (59). Indeed, although Highbury can certainly be seen as hierarchal, it is in fact ‘a place of status ambiguities’ (Pinch, xiv). Harriet’s potential marriages to men of ‘real, long-standing regard’ (Austen, 17) would secure her ‘rise in the world’ (61) from merely ‘the natural daughter of somebody’ (19) to a ‘well married’ gentlewoman (61). Similarly, the Coles’ family have gone from little wealth, living ‘quietly, keeping little company, and that little unexpensively’ (162) to yielding great profits from ‘the house in town’ (162), thus making them ‘second only to the family at Hartfield’ (163). Downward social movement is also illustratedthrough the financially ‘poor’ Bates women and Jane Fairfax, who have ‘sunk from the comforts [they] were born to’ and therefore whose ‘situation should secure [Emma’s] compassion’ (295). Ford’s reflects this same permeability ofsocial boundaries, as a place that can be, and is, visited by ‘everybody’ (157). Although Frank Churchill’s ‘every body’ may not mean ‘every body’ as in ‘any body’, but ‘every body’ as in people of social importance, it certainly is a place that is ‘crisscrossed by many feet’ (Pinch, xi), and these feet belong to people across social boundaries. For example, the ‘respectable’ (12) Mr. Weston, ‘“comes to Highbury six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford’s”’ (157); Harriet accidentally meets Robert and Elizabeth Martin there, members of the town’s working community who are deemed ‘“inferior as to rank in society”’ (50); even the unnamed woman who Emma sees from the doorway of Ford’s is ‘travelling homeward from shop with her full basket’ (183). Ford’s thus provides a uniquesetting for Austen to emphasise and reflect the socially mobile world that Highbury epitomises.

Consequently, the lack of class distinctions within Ford’s makes it a place simultaneously owned by everybody and nobody. In this way, outings to the shop are unlike any other in the novel, marked by a potent sense of neutrality; one does not need an invitation to attend Ford’s, unlike the other social events in the novel, such as the ball at the Crown Inn, the Coles’ party or the outing to Box Hill, encounters reserved only for invited ‘especial [sets]’ (86) of people.Nor does attendance at Ford’s resemble visiting someone’s house on a social call, like Randalls, Maple Grove, or Hartfield, since, by entering Ford’s, one inhabits a space of neutrality and equality, rather than one shaped by the social positioning of the Ford family. Indeed, even though Mr. and Mrs. Ford of course own Ford’s, their ownership is significant for its insignificance; the reader never meets Mr. Ford, and only explicitly sees Mrs. Ford on one occasion where she has just two lines of speech. The near silence of the Fordspertains to the polite culture of shopping, wherein the shopkeeper was required to submit to the customer entirely and relinquish their own sense of identity. Berry quotes an eighteenth century tailor for whom ‘the polite show of manners that his customers expected was a source of loathing, […] a subservient self-denial of his own individualism and identity’ (393). The ‘self-denial’ of the shopkeeperis reflected in the lack of presence maintained by the Fords. The reader who, like Miss Bates ‘did not see [Mrs. Ford’s] before’ (Austen, 186) behind the counter,might also ‘beg [Mrs. Ford’s] pardon’ (186), for allowing her ownership of a space so significant in the novel to have faded into insignificance.

As such, Ford’s is a place of both structural and geographical centrality and is a microcosmic version of Highbury itself. But why does Austen make a shop so central a setting in a novel that is not about shopping? One answer can be found in that it situates Emma within a ‘crucial moment in the development of consumer culture’ (Pinch, xii), where, for a fashionable shop to be the destination of almost everybody’s daily walks, was an aspect of life ‘that [was] on [its] way to becoming ordinary’ (xi); in creating Ford’s, Austen imprints a unique and contemporary stamp on the town of Highbury, distinctly marking it by social transition. Yet, Austen uses Ford’s and the activity of shopping more pertinently and self-consciously than simply to reflect social change since Ford’s alsoacts as a metaphor for Austen’s musings on choice. The exploration of choice largely relates to the relationship plots of the novel, both marital and platonic, and there is certainly a tangible dynamic between ‘chooser’ and ‘chosen’ in every relationship depicted in the novel; Mr. Weston chooses Miss Taylor explicitly saying it is ‘a great deal better to chuse than to be chosen’ (14), Emma chooses Harriet to be her new companion as ‘exactly the young friend she wanted’ (21), and, to the surprise of everybody, Frank Churchill chooses Jane Fairfax, despite seeming to have chosen Emma. Austen also shows characters exercising their right to refuse being chosen − for instance, Emmarefuses Mr. Elton, and Harriet refusesRobert Martin − neither woman reciprocates the choice made. Furthermore, Austen exposes what it looks like to have someone choose for another person in Emma and Harriet’s relationship. Given the prevalence of Austen’s theme of choice, what better place could she have chosen to compound it, than a place that depends entirely on someone entering and choosing, from an array of objects, one that they desire? The link between shopping and relationships is therefore evident, aschoice is central in both instances. In order to see how Austen uses the shop as a metaphor for choice, one might take a closer look at the scenes at Ford’s.