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He only compromised women who were of age, unlike Wickham and Willoughby. Mr. Elliot was no friend to widows. Crawford left Julia alone, and was pretty upfront about Maria: an engaged woman can be pleasing without danger. He blames Maria for her weakness, but she is complicit. Julia shrugged him off when he slighted her, after all.
He was cruel to poor Fanny, but never entertained the villain trope of abducting/compromising her, a la John Thorpe. There would have been consequences from her father, her brothers, her uncle, and her cousins. He at least paid her the compliment of seeing her as an equal.
I still dislike him, and he would never deserve Fanny. Do you guys think he would have tried to run off with her if she hadn't had so many male relatives?
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Okay I really hate to start the day defending John bloody Thorpe, but here we are.
Because seriously? No. Thorpe did not "abduct" Catherine and he certainly did not compromise her. She went with him willingly, her brother was with them the whole time, yes in a different carriage but never out of sight, and society wasn't so strict that one ride in a carriage meant anything to anyone. Even if they had made a habit out of it, people would have merely talked! They would have been subject of gossip, not pleasant but not the end of the world. The kind of "compromise" alluded to in the first post simply didn't exist. It's made up as a plot device for fanfic! An excuse to make forced marriage scenarios happen because it's a popular trope... I digress.
The point is, Thorpe engages in nothing beyond regular, heavy flirtation and courtship behaviour. Is he good at it? Heck no, but at least he actually means to marry the girl and HE is convinced she actually wants it. ...And while he is incompetent and unpleasant about it, nobody could really call him subtle. He has many flaws and he should have backed off sooner etc, but that Catherine was too naive to notice that he's trying to flirt with her is not his fault. That one's on her and most other women would have noticed (and thus found Thorpe even more unpleasant).
So, if Thorpe neither abducted nor compromised her in this scene, what did he do wrong? He ignored Catherine when she said no. Yes, she went onto his carriage willingly and she did consent to the trip... But when she said no he ignored it. Indeed, he does NOT view as an equal because he ignores her opinion and seeks other means to gain her consent, by employing others to fight for his cause, obnoxiously persevering in his quest and turning deaf whenever she says no, sure that eventually, he will make her say yes. Thorpe is vulgar, stupid, disrespectful, selfish, rude, loud and utterly unable to get a hint. But he's no villain. He's a bloody fool and nothing more.
But yes, he regularly ignores every inconvenient no. Does that remind anyone of someone else? Because Henry Crawford does the same. He never respects Fanny's no. That she dares to say no to him, by ignoring him and acting cold in the beginning, is what starts his whole mission to poke a little hole in her heart in the first place. Their whole relationship is built on his desire to MAKE her say yes, and in the beginning he wasn't even serious about his intentions. He didn't mean to fall in love, that was an accident. (Also, he offers through Mary to convey Fanny from Portsmouth to Mansfield in his Barouche, so... good that the compromise trope isn't a real thing, because if so, the attempt was certainly there)
Henry Crawford first saw Fanny as a fun game to play, a near impregnable castle to capture, and then, later, he viewed her as his personal saviour, the angel to cure him from his sins and make him a better man. The infallible creature that was to bless him with every happiness. Not once did he view her as a person with a heart and a will of her own, and neither did he respect her like one. And most of all, whenever she said no, he did not listen.
So no, Crawford is not better than Thorpe. Only more clever and charming, which ultimately, makes him the more dangerous of the two, if anything.
Spirited and incisive distinction between Henry Crawford and John Thorpe! But Thorpe may be a villain yet, for more insidious reasons. He lies without compunction, his fabulism fueled by a petty, vindictive character that stops at nothing when attempting to shape the world according to his ego. His lies about Catherine’s stature and fortune drive the seminal events of the story: her unctuous invitation to Northanger and her cruel expulsion from it.
But what to expect from a man who loves neither novels nor nature? I like Thorpe’s brand of villainy; it operates at a less obvious but potentially more devastating level because his vulgarity and bombast make him easy to dismiss.
I always saw his talk about Catherine’s fortune as his usual boasting, but with unfortunate, unintended consequences. He was planning to marry her, so he wanted people to believe he was marrying well. He didn’t plan for the General to desire a match with Henry instead, and he certainly couldn’t have predicted the General’s cruel treatment of Catherine. The General, on the other hand, intentionally acted cruelly.
This ignores some fundamental aspects of consent. Thorpe deceived her about Miss Tilney, so he gained Catherine's consent by deception. She changed her mind as soon as she found out. Even if there weren't deception involved, Catherine could change her mind at any time. Instead of letting Catherine out of the carriage, he kept going. She's telling him to stop, and he continues driving. She was going through his head when he had a young woman telling him how upset she was, and he ignored her? I'm not sure kidnapping is the best word here, but it's not exactly wrong.
I’m sorry, I can’t let any defense of John Thorpe stand! 😸I’ve known too many John Thorpe’s in my life to not to want to punch him every time he’s in the novel. Getting Catherine in that carriage under false pretenses and not listening when she asks him to stop would be seriously frightening behavior if this weren’t a comedy. He also shows a nasty inability to hear no. Usually not because he ignores it, but because he’s too much of a coward to ask at all. And the lack of a no means yes, right? That’s why it’s also not fair to blame Catherine for not noticing his interest and shutting him down. He’s never direct.
That being said. I think both can be safely tossed on the refuse pile in which ever order you wish.
Now I'm curious as to where the irritatingly all-pervasive compromise trope came from. It's not Georgette Heyer, it is?
Might be. She may have invented the Little Season, after all.
To the fanfic writers: couples were not compromised into marriage by them being alone together for a short period or by one tripping over the other. Also, a woman could not compromise a man into marriage even by sleeping with him. He could always say no and she would bear the entire burden of the shame if anyone found out.
A man might feel that his honour required him to propose if by his own actions he'd inadvertently led a lady to believe he'd been courting her with serious intentions; this is the issue Frederick Wentworth faces. But there was nothing a woman could do that would force a marriage; from a legal point of view, in fact, there was nothing anyone could do to force an adult man to marry. Yes, a parent could withhold an inheritance, but the man could still tell Dad to shove it.
On top of this, being in public rooms was not considered being alone. Servants and others would routinely be in and out of those rooms. I. wealthier homes, a servant might even be in the room whenever it was in use. Likewise, walking together with someone in a public space was not considered being alone either.
The whole "if a bodice is ripped, a woman is 'compromised'" trope is the funniest to me. Seeing nipples was not considered all that scandalous. Necklines so low that nipples were either on display or nip slips were certain to happen came in and out of fashion. Further, public breast feeding was not uncommon, especially for lower classes.
While the later Victorians were much more strict in concepts of propriety in mixed company, even then, no one could be forced to marry by law. A woman might face extreme or even dire consequences if she did not marry at her guardian's command, but the right of refusal by a woman at the alter was protected by Church law.
From what I've heard, Georgette Heyer applying a lot of the norms she was taught in her own late-Victorian upbringing is what originated the idea that the Regency was a lot stricter than it really was. I find it slightly baffling because you can see this in Austen's work. Lizzy and Darcy being alone at Hunsford was not a compromise. Darcy seeking out Lizzy to go on a little walk with her was not a compromise. Mrs Bennet forcing her to be alone with Collins was not a compromise. In S&S Elinor's family gives her privacy with Edward at the end. Henry Crawford is allowed to be alone with Fanny in order to propose but that's not enough to force her to marry him!
I love fan creators and I love fanart but I really wish people would pay a little more attention to the actual source material sometimes.
There is one very narrow exception to that, which (of course) involves Scotland: under Scottish law, mutually agreeing to marry and having sex was legally enough to constitute a valid marriage, and there were cases of women bringing actions against men who were claimed on those grounds to actually be their husbands, whereas the men would of course say that no, the women were only mistresses. The fun part, of course, was proving that marriage had actually been promised. There's a really fascinating paper about it here. There weren't a lot of these actions, and only a third or so succeeded, but it was pretty much the only circumstance in which a woman could "compromise" a man by sleeping with him, though his provable promise of marriage was also an essential part. Of course, what the law was saying there was not that they "had to marry" but that they already had married, and therefore he was stuck whether he liked it or not. Of course, the circumstances don't really make for a great beginning to a romance novel, since a couple who had gotten to this point were unlikely to live together happily afterwards or have any kind of late-blooming romance.
I’m afraid “Bridgerton” has cemented the compromise trope into our cultural zeitgeist. There’s no getting rid of it now.
John Thorpe = annoying incel with no concept of boundaries
Henry Crawford = player and predator, no moral compass
Spot on! Nailed it
Julia doesn't shrug him off so much as mope and sulk for weeks about it...and she stops staying with her sister and goes to stay with other relatives in town when Crawford reappears in their circle. The attentions that he WAS giving to Julia before the play were sufficient for Crawford to reflect that, had they continued much longer, it would have been reasonable for everyone in their circle to assume an engagement between them was imminent.
Maria attempts to shrug him off. Marrying Rushworth is one big shrug. She ices Crawford out the first time they meet after her marriage and just like he can't take Fanny's 'no' to his proposal at face value, he can't handle Maria acting as though he's nothing to her even though that's exactly what she is to him. We don't know which of them proposed the elopement, but if it was Maria then 1) he should have told her no, then and there, and immedeatley left London. He's a rich bachelor, he has the privilege of being able to just upand leave.At the very least, he would then have avoided taking a PUBLIC step he must have known would have hurt the woman he's professing to love (Fanny) If heproposed the elopement, then of course Maria is going to take that as a promise of love and eventual marriage.
Crawford makes a sport of making women love him, exactly like Willoughby. He elopes with Maria without loving her exactly like Wickham, knowing that the result is going to be her disgrace. Maria being 21 and married as opposed to 16 and NOT married is such a low bar to squeak over that its more an indictment of Willoughby and Wickham than a mark in Crawford's favour! If Fanny was of the sort to run off with a man, I doubt he'd have had any semblance of long-term interest in her. Her male relatives are also Maria's male relatives, so I don't think they really entered into the calculations. Although, he might have taken Fanny's "No" more seriously if she HAD been Sir Thomas' daughter, not his nice.
Of all Austen's villains, John Thorpe is the only one to not cause permanent material harm to someone so...idk, props to him, I guess?
Henry Crawford is a flirt. He likes the ego boost. We have no evidence anywhere that he would ruin an unmarried woman, which is why I always say he's better than Willoughby and Wickham.
Does it do emotional damage? Yes for sure. But he just wants women to love him, he doesn't ruin them. The play was a special situation, but even there Maria came out fine.
The affair was Maria's idea and she was married, she knew what she was doing. Henry thought she would be smart enough to not get caught.... idiot.
We see him differently, though we agree he’s a flirt. But I think he uses flirtation as a means to an end.
Unfortunately he also uses people as a means to the end of his own amusement and cruel manipulation. He and his sister make sport of Fanny for lack of anything more interesting to do while stuck outside of the city, with Henry aiming to make Fanny fall in love with him as an indication of his prowess with women. She’s a worthy challenge precisely because she seems impervious to his tactics.
At first anyway. Even when he appears to develop something akin to genuine feeling for her, it is neither abiding nor stronger than his impulse to control others for little more than his own fleeting pleasure. His behaviors are akin to those of classic psychopathology where, among other things, a disregard for truth, outsized charm, a tendency to paint oneself as a victim, acute intelligence, and a restless, easily bored self-absorption drive an incapacity to empathize with others.
Ugggggg.. he's not a freaking psychopath, he's a product of his society. Women around him pretend to be in love constantly. Imagine what it would be like to be surrounded by Caroline Bingleys and Lucy Steels. That is his society. Of course he thinks flirtation is harmless because he doesn't believe love is real. Women around him pretend to be in love so he pretends back.
He's just better at it.
Also, Mary defends Fanny from aunt Norris and Henry wants to take her from her abusive home. They are both more empathic to her situation than the 90% of the Bertrams.
Exactly. He's coming from London society, where flirtation really is meaningless. I've said this before, but Henry and Mary are more fish out of water than anything else.
Yes, they don't understand life in the country or the Bertrams.
If Henry had a little more common sense, he'd have found a way to get Fanny home. Not come running back with his sister to take her to Mansfield, although it's clear he wanted to, but maybe contacting Edmund and telling him what he found - Fanny wasting away in uncouth surroundings, with only her sister for any support. Perhaps even a letter to Sir Thomas.
BTW, never did I dislike Sir Thomas more as when his wife openly wished for Fanny when her son came home near death, and he didn't send for her immediately.
"Let's go find him and give him a medal: the Not As Much A Jerk As You Could Have Been Award!"
"At Least He's Not A P*do !" Damn, the bar really is a tripping hazard in hell, isn't it ?
Values change over time. The fact that someone was "of age" had much less significance in Austen's era. Though it wasn't common (more so among the high aristocracy and royalty), it wasn't unheard of for a lady to marry at 16 with her family's full support. According to the values of the era, Henry Crawford's transgression was far more serious than Wickham's. There was no way to undo compromising another man's wife. According to Church of England rules, no one may remarry if he or she had been married to someone still living. Even if the solution Mary proposed happened and Henry and Maria married, they would be relegated to the amoral fringe of society, where men like Henry's uncle lived openly with their mistresses. Lydia and Wickham running off will remain a shocking story, but it's no reason for them not to be received in a respectable home (as Mr Bennet soon realizes). What Mary doesn't understand is that for Edmund to accept a marriage between Henry and Maria would literally be breaking his vows as a clergyman.
That being said, Henry is a far more complex character than Wickham. Austen's point is that the frivolity with which he approaches life is actually dangerous. He sees toying with a woman's feelings as harmless fun, but that doesn't make him a "villain." He sees in Fanny the rewards of a more serious life, but he lacks the values and strength of character to pursue it. He would never gain Fanny's love, but he could have earned her respect, as he was beginning to in Portsmouth, and that could have been the basis of a marriage. Edmund clearly will never be in love Fanny, but he certainly respects her.
I see both Henry and Mary as victims of abuse. They were both a mess because of that, im my opinion.
Wickham, on the other hand, shows all the hallmarks of genuine psychpathy, including low impulse control and lack of any conscience (remember when he expects Lizzy to still be into him after everything that happened with Lydia? Totally clueless about social mores)
The Admiral's home was described as "kind" and the Crawford's were each doted on by their foster parents.
When it says "Admiral Crawford was a man of vicious conduct" this is related to his promiscuity and carelessness which drives Mary (who is an adult) out of the home to preserve her respectability. The so called "rears and vices."
Crawford is spoiled by an indulgent and permissive foster parent who didn't teach him morals, that's not really abuse.
Fair enough. I just relate to them
I mean, it was definitely a dysfunctional home, to say the least, and they had already lost their own parents. And the aunt/uncle who took them in each had a "golden" child, and so each of them was spoiled by one and neglected by the other.
So I can see where you'd get that.
And the way the uncle's lack of any sort of disguise of his immoral (in that society) behavior from his niece was definitely a form of abuse. I kinda view him as a higher-class, slightly more educated version of Fanny's father to be honest.