THE WAY TO HAPPINESS

            The first striking resemblance – and the one on which the whole of this work is based – between Jane Austen’s novels and Aristotelian thought lies in the importance bestowed on happiness or the good life. Aristotle is famous for his philosophy centered on happiness as the ultimate goal or target aimed at by any human being,[2] and not surprisingly, all of Jane Austen’s six novels reach their ending when their main heroines reach and secure their happiness. This only shows that from Jane Austen’s perspective the greatest stake in the story of one’s life is whether one has succeeded in gaining happiness. And like Aristotle, she seems to believe that once achieved, this happiness can hardly be lost again, because in order to have gotten to it one needs to be strong and constant in doing what is right.[3]

            And here, the second great similarity between Jane Austen’s novels and Aristotelian philosophy becomes obvious. For her novels imply what Aristotle explicitly says in his Nicomachean Ethics: “excellent [virtuous] activities or their opposites are what determine happiness or the reverse.”[4] Therefore, all Jane Austen’s virtuous characters are ultimately blessed with happiness, while her passionate, whimsical and pleasure-seeking characters seem to bring upon themselves the punishment of wretchedness, at the best, and of an unhappy future.

            By adopting this view on man’s purpose or goal in life, Jane Austen places herself in the moralist tradition,[5] specifically that initiated by Aristotle. Moreover, in accord with this tradition, the principles promoted in her novels are clearly opposed to the ones supported by the modern society and its philosophy.[6]

            First of all, by insisting on happiness as being a matter of merit, that is, the more virtuous one is the more chances of becoming truly happy one has, she gives to the concept of happiness a rather universal and generally shared value. Selfishness, passion, moods, lust (all that may be comprised in Anne Crippen Ruderman’s phrase “radical individuality”[7] and which I have called at the beginning relativism) have no standing before Jane Austen. In her view, happiness is not something which can be relatively defined by everybody according to their tastes – for example, Mary Crawford of Mansfield Park seemed to identify it with wealth (MP 293) – but something that each person can build for himself or herself, by doing their duty as human beings. And this duty, according to Jane Austen and of course to Aristotle, is to continuously search for what is truly good for them, not just for what appears to be so at certain moments.[8] The fulfillment of this duty confers in fact the true pleasures of life and perfect happiness. However, the inner character of a person has to be formed in this direction from early youth, because as both Aristotle and Jane Austen underline, habit has an enormous influence on the way in which people develop their later affinity or, on the contrary, disparity to virtue and virtuous activities.[9]

            Secondly, and very much related to the first point, Jane Austen opposes through her ideas what I have called the flight from responsibility. Actually, the kind of life she recommends is one full of responsibility, because as happiness represents the most important thing in her characters’ lives (PP 241) and as she considers it is within their power to attain it,[10] she not only claims it is every person’s responsibility whether he or she is happy or not, but moreover, that it is also a duty to try and obtain happiness, and a violation of duty to pursue any other target than true happiness. Let me stress here the fact that duty, the way Jane Austen presents it, is not something coercive or imposed from the outside. To do one’s duty, in her view, means to live according to our nature, that is, virtuously. This represents for both Aristotle and Jane Austen the most pleasant sort of living. Virtue, as presented by Jane Austen, is also not something which must be forced on us by others. It is a means through which – from her perspective and Aristotle’s – we are sure to achieve happiness. But it remains for every person to choose virtue or not. Of course, as Jane Austen amply illustrates in her novels – see the case of Henry Crawford of Mansfield Park – not choosing virtue is the same thing as choosing wretchedness.

T.S. Eliot once observed in one of his critical essays: “It is proverbially easier to destroy than to construct.”[11] He was of course referring especially to the critics of society, “from Arnold to the present day [who engage in an] attack upon aspects of contemporary society which we all know and dislike.”[12] Apparently this has but little to do with the writings of Jane Austen. Yet it has been my purpose to prove that Jane Austen is a writer who had what T.S. Eliot would have called a “constructive philosophy.”[13] She not only promotes a certain way of living well our lives which is very similar to the way in which Aristotle describes the good life, but through the development of her characters, she also illustrates the results of applying, or else, of ignoring this philosophy and these principles.[14]

Thus, Jane Austen’s novels are not primarily a critique of the society in which she lived,[15] neither do they break with tradition, but rather they bring – very much like and in accord with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics – a detailed recipe for a successful life and the achievement of happiness through commitment to the virtues.  

SUMAR: