Lady Susan

As an epistolary narrative, the novella is composed as a series of 41 letters and is among the shortest and least well-known of Austen’s works. Lady Susan is believed to be written between 1793 and 1794, making it one of Austen’s earliest writings, although the novella itself was not published until 1871 within an Austen biography written by Edward Austen-Leigh. Many critics argue that because the novella was written when Austen was quite young, it is not a fully formed narrative but rather exists as a kind of narrative experiment that Austen used to pave the way for her more notable works, including Pride and Prejudice. Austen has become one of the most famous female British authors, even though she published her books anonymously and had relatively little success when she was alive. Despite the unfinished nature of the narrative, Lady Susan is still popular with modern audiences and has been adapted for the stage as well as reimagined as a novel multiple times, possibly due to the continued popularity of Austen’s writings in general. Jane Austen wrote exclusively about upper class relationships, and this novella concerns the same kind of landed British gentry.

However, although this novella concerns the same types of characters found in Austen’s longer and later novels, there are important differences to note. Lady Susan subverts the tropes of the traditional romance novel in which the female protagonist is often passive. In contrast, Lady Susan herself is anything but passive, instead playing an active role in the manipulations of both her own future and that of other characters. Although Lady Susan looks the part of the traditional romantic female lead in that she has a demure kind of beauty, she adamantly challenges all other societal expectations of women as she is manipulative and overly flirtatious. Beautiful, intelligent, and conniving, Susan prefers suitors who are younger than she is, possibly because they are easier to manipulate.

In contrast, most romance novels feature women as the younger partners of much older and more experienced men. Although the novella concludes with a kind of moral ending as the narrative does not play out in the way in which Lady Susan imagined, nonetheless, she succeeds in marrying a wealthy man, which was her goal to begin with. Unlike Austen’s other novels, in which bad characters reap the ill fate of their actions, Lady Susan’s manipulations do not negatively affect her future. There is some indication that she and Sir James will not have a happy marriage, although one could argue that Susan does not believe any marriage is a happy one as it essentially constitutes female imprisonment. Susan emerges from the debacle with Reginald and the Manwarings without any inclination to change or any repercussions for her behavior. The novella does not exist with the same heavily moral undertones of Austen’s longer works, but rather seems to exist as a snapshot of British society, and specifically, the roles and expectations of women in the late 18th century.

Lady Susan flagrantly defies these expectations as the novella follows her manipulations of women and men within her social enclave alike. Using her wiles, Lady Susan convinces Reginald that all rumors he has heard about her are false, although this deception only lasts for a time. Susan succeeds in manipulating even Catherine into believing that Susan is distressed by Frederica’s escape, which, in truth, Susan is, although she obfuscates her motivations. Herein lies the most notable aspect of all of Lady Susan’s lies: She uses the truth to cover them, oscillating between truth and fiction to suit her own purposes. Herein, Austen comments on the nature of truth in society—that truth can exist as a communal kind of commodity. Without other people to believe, Austen suggests that the truth is useless. Therein, the truth can be manipulated to construct an idea of oneself that one desires. Austen criticizes the nature of British society that upholds a stringent belief in the virtue of truth but allows itself to be so easily misled from that truth.

In Austen’s society, truth and beauty were seen as inextricable from one another, an idea that is expressed through the first impressions of Lady Susan upon both Reginald and Catherine. Essentially, these characters are easily manipulated by Susan because they believe that truth and beauty go hand in hand, that one necessitates the other. Because Susan upholds the appearance of a good British lady, her motivations and behavior are excused; she can explain away the vile reality that stares these characters in their faces. They become easily confused, in part because they inherently know that she is deceitful; however, Lady Susan’s art lies in her artifice. Austen criticizes the shallow nature of her society, which values appearance almost to the exclusion of virtue. For modern audiences, such easy manipulations might be hard to believe as all fall under Lady Susan’s spell for a time, even those predisposed not to like her, such as Reginald and Catherine. It may be difficult for modern audiences to believe that one person, much less an 18th century woman, would be so adept at deceit.

And yet, other aspects of the society are exposed by Austen that demonstrate how necessary it is for Susan to engage in such manipulations. Austen identifies the crucial role that marriage plays in determining a woman’s social status. The women in the novella cannot be extricated from their husbands, even though their husbands are, for the most part, utterly useless. The men in the novella hold extreme power over their wives, dictating exactly where they shall live, how much allowance they shall be given, and even who their friends can be. The audience witnesses the severe social pressures at work upon these women, even as they struggle to attain some form of agency, usually through the manipulation of their husbands, suitors, or other males in their social circles. None of the women within the novella are without artifice. While Susan’s manipulations are central to the narrative, Austen also exposes Catherine’s own plots to convince Reginald to marry Frederica, even though Reginald completely dismisses her. Catherine plots to have Frederica taken away from her mother at many points throughout the novel as well. Although these plots can be viewed as being more altruistic in nature, they demonstrate the same manipulative tendencies as Lady Susan herself, whom Catherine so vocally despises.

Even Frederica is not without her own sort of artifice, as one cannot believe either the harsh criticisms of Susan or the kind platitudes of Catherine in this regard. Rather, Frederica uses the men, specifically Reginald, at her disposal to prevent herself from being married to a man she despises. Although none of the characters notice this, it is difficult to believe that this movement itself was not without some sort of connivance on the part of Frederica; she knew exactly which man could make her plight known and used Reginald’s affection for her mother against him. Each character demonstrates the stringent roles the women must play into as well as the importance of appearance in terms of maintaining the façade of these gender roles while still exerting some agency over the trajectory of their own lives. None of these women are wilting violets; rather, they turn the men in their lives into their playthings in a way that is as impressive as it is self-serving. The nature of British 18th century society required these women to play their roles as vice belies their supposed virtues. Austen heavily relies upon the use of dramatic irony to depict this difference between interiority and exteriority, wherein the interior lives are fraught with often self-centered motives disguised by the thin veneer of righteousness required by society.