According to the following website, 25000 pounds in 1814 had the same buying power as 2.561 million current dollars.
OK, that sounds like a lot. :-) I guess the blog post I linked to in #35 was putting it in purely relative terms: apparently the eligible bachelors in other Austen novels are even richer. But then, £2.2 million wouldn’t buy you the lifestyle to which the Elliot daughters are accustomed, i.e. a huge country pile complete with horses and servants and ‘seasons’ in London.
If Sir Walter were to remarry, and have a son, then the heir would be this son. That is the reason for the disapprobation […]
I don’t think the mere possibility of a new heir is the reason for their disapproval. After all, Sir Walter's estate is entailed and wouldn’t go to his daughters anyway (very unfair, I agree), so I don’t think his having a son would make them any worse off than they are at present. If anything, a half-brother would be more likely to support them financially than a distant cousin.
I suppose you mean that they object to the estate going to Mrs Clay’s son specifically, because they look down on Mrs Clay. It’s true that they do, although that’s only partly based on snobbery; it’s also partly a judgement on her character (Anne and Lady Russell think Mrs Clay is only after the money and social status). If Sir Walter married Mrs Clay, Mrs Clay would take over the running of the household from Elizabeth and surpass both Elizabeth and Anne in rank – I suspect that’s more of a concern than the possibility of a son.
For Jane Austen, it is quite proper for Anne to dream of a marriage to Captain Wentworth, but not for the widowed Mrs. Clay to dream of one with the widower Sir Elliot.
Yes, although the two situations are not exactly parallel. Mrs Clay has neither wealth nor social status, whereas Anne and Captain Wentworth each bring one of those things to the table. And crucially (for Austen), they also like and are attracted to each other, whereas Mrs Clay’s motives are more suspect (assuming she even has designs on Sir Walter, which is pure conjecture at this point). William Elliot is described as having ‘purchased independence’ by marrying ‘a rich woman of inferior birth’. We know that Sir Walter disapproves of the union for that reason alone, but I don’t think Austen would necessarily see it that way (as long as William didn’t marry her just for her money and she didn’t marry him just in expectation of the baronetcy). For Austen, money is a perfectly acceptable and necessary consideration when deciding whether to marry someone, but it shouldn’t be the only consideration.
Anne, at age 27, is described as having been a very pretty girl "but her bloom had vanished"; "she was faded and thin", and "haggard." At 27.
Yes, crazy, isn’t it? Same with Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice, who is also described as practically an old spinster at about the same age. Although there is also this passage: ‘It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any charm is lost. It was so with Elizabeth, still the same handsome Miss Elliot that she had begun to be thirteen years ago.’ So the implication is that Anne’s disappointment and regret have hastened her physical decline.
Gerade durch den extrem eng gesteckten Rahmen entsteht eine Dynamik, die wir so heute nicht mehr haben.
Yes, well put. I agree.
