Hyphochondria: An Austen Motif

By Mary Smythe, author of The Happiness of A Most Beloved Sister

It can be universally acknowledged that there are an inordinate number of hypochondriac characters throughout Jane Austen’s body of work. Most of her novels have at least one—sometimes more—as part of the cast, defying per capita standards of the era. Examples include, but are not necessarily limited to:

• Pride and Prejudice: Mrs Bennet (and possibly Anne de Bourgh, though it’s debatable)

• Mansfield Park: Lady Bertram

• Emma: Mr Woodhouse, Isabella Knightley, Mrs Churchill

• Persuasion: Mary Musgrove

• Sanditon: Diana, Susan, and Arthur Parker

  
  

Even when there is no hypochondriac character to pinpoint, there is sometimes real illness—such as Mr Allen and his gout—or the novel is set in a place like Bath or Sanditon, locations renowned for their healing. It’s impossible not to notice this motif, even for a casual reader.

So why all the malingering in Austen’s novels? It likely began at home. Jane’s mother, Cassandra Leigh Austen, has been reported to be a lifelong hypochondriac. She was always supposedly suffering from one thing or another, with complaints varying from asthma to dropsy to general biliousness, all of which would be difficult to prove or disprove by rational observation. Jane herself once described her mother’s complaints as ‘chiefly in her head’, confirming the doubtfulness of Mrs Austen’s complaints. The fact that Mrs Austen lived to an impressive 88 years of age and, in fact, outlived her most famous daughter by an entire decade, further suggests that her ailments were more fancy than fact.

Even if Jane was sceptical of Mrs Austen’s imagined maladies, she still had a loving and meaningful relationship with her mother, with whom she lived her entire life. She was a good helpmeet to her husband, raised eight children with care and devotion, and supported Jane’s creative efforts. She was a strong, if flawed, woman—just as one might find in Jane’s novels.

The impact of Mrs Austen’s hypochondria on Jane can be seen in the various characters she created who reflect her mother’s condition, both sympathetic and critical. “In Austen’s era, hypochondria could be utilized and performed as a source of social power or protest—it could be ‘enabling as well as disabling’…[Austen’s characters] perform hypochondria for a specific goal,” states Christian Lewis, author of ‘A Malady of Interpretation,’ “whether to get attention, to shirk duties, or to combat loneliness.” In short, hypochondria serves as a way to achieve the ends of the supposedly afflicted, a manipulative tool to draw in caregivers.

On the somewhat more sympathetic end, we have Mrs Bennet of Pride and Prejudice. She is supposedly the closest mirror of Mrs Austen with her ‘nerves’ and ‘flutterings’. The novel’s narrator makes it fairly clear that we’re meant to take her self-proclaimed infirmity with a grain of salt because “When she was discontented she fancied herself nervous” (P&P, Ch 1). A deeper consideration, however, makes Mrs Bennet more worthy of our compassion. Given her precarious position in life as the wife of a landowner destined to leave his family destitute

upon his death, one could easily read Mrs Bennet’s false complaints as an expression of implacable anxiety, possibly also symptomatic of related depression. If she can’t make Mr Bennet and her daughters take her more valid concerns seriously, then she can pretend illness and garner their attention that way. She succeeds insofar as she manages to make herself into a spectacle, but none give her the comfort she craves and she ends up hurting her real cause with her theatrics. The reader can’t help but share in her family’s exasperation, yet she deserves our compassion, as well.

Another character who evokes similarly contrasting feelings is Mr Woodhouse of Emma. He is actually only one of three hypochondriacs in the novel, including also his daughter Isabella Knightley and the off-page phantom of Mrs Churchill. In the case of Mr Woodhouse—and Isabella, who clearly inherits her father’s anxieties—we have another character who is equally irritating and sympathetic in how he portrays his health. Unlike Mrs Bennet, Mr Woodhouse is more afraid of those around him becoming sick rather than fancying himself constantly suffering from one thing or another. This leads him to coddle Emma and everyone else he knows with useless advice, while ironically being the one who actually requires coddling.

It can be difficult to understand why Emma and Mr Knightley indulge him so much unless one recalls his sad backstory. Years before the events of the novel, he tragically lost his wife to unknown means—though it’s not difficult to assume that she died as a result of illness, as would have been relatively common at the time. Traumatized by her passing, Mr Woodhouse became deeply fearful of general change and abandonment, as seen in his anti-marriage stance with both Mrs Weston (nee Taylor) and Isabella. Emma is comparatively untouched by this anxiety shared by her father and sister due to “her mother [having] died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses,” leaving her as the most rational leader of the trio. Indeed, Emma becomes more parent to Mr Woodhouse than he is to her. Though it’s hardly a healthy dynamic, it’s not difficult to understand how they became the way that they are and feel sympathy for their loss.

Not so with other portrayals of hypochondria in Austen’s novels. Mrs Churchill, for instance, is set up solely as an antagonist who uses her purported illnesses to control Frank and his movements. Mr Woodhouse can be accused of the same sort of manipulation, though he comes across as more wheedling than commanding and so it’s easy to forgive him, especially when we contrast his very real fears with Mrs Churchill’s selfishness. Since Mrs Churchill actually does die during the course of the novel, one might believe that she was sincere all along:

“Mrs Churchill, after being disliked for at least twenty-five years, was now spoken of with compassionate allowance. In one point she was full justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill. They even acquitted her of all fancifulness, and the selfishness of imaginary complaints.”

However, the vague nature of how she passed, and the phrasing Austen uses here to imply that those who knew her were merely reluctant to speak ill of the dead, doesn’t necessarily acquit her of tormenting her ward. It’s just as likely that she died of an acute attack of some sort and she never saw it coming.

Similarly, though to less actual effect, Mary Musgrove attempts to lure her family to her side by complaining of various non-specific ailments. It doesn’t work because she’s so unpleasant about it and the Musgroves, as a whole, have cottoned onto her fakery, but she decidedly knows what she’s doing. In her mind, they will have to give her the attention she feels entitled to if she’s sick. Per John Wiltshire, who wrote Jane Austen and the Body, “The very indefinability of illness is the source of its potency, its infinite usefulness as a vehicle of covert manipulations. The ill person (or the person who complains of being ill—which may amount to much the same thing in texts, and even in practice) lays friends and relations under tribute.” In short, hypochondria can be utilized as a bludgeon to force caretakers into catering to the whims of the supposed ‘sufferer’ by playing on their sense of duty.

There is yet a third type of hypochondriac within Austen’s coterie who falls somewhere between compassion and callousness: the relatively harmless, but no less burdensome, lazy faker embodied by Lady Bertram of Mansfield Park. The novel isn’t clear on the source of Lady Bertram’s indolence, but some hypothesize that she was depressed, under the influence of substances, or simply lazy—all valid considerations better explored elsewhere. Here, I postulate that she had hypochondria and utilized it to evade the necessary duties of a baronet’s wife, including—but absolutely not limited to—finding husbands for her daughters.

Conveniently, Mrs Norris is more than willing to take over her sister’s burdens, though of course we all know how well that turned out. One could certainly argue that Lady Bertram caused harm through inaction, though she herself is entirely benign and wishes no specific ill on anyone. All she wants is to be catered to—primarily by Fanny before her sister Susan happily takes over the role—and avoid social obligations. She has no deeper schemes, no real drive to arrange others to her whims, just a desire to…not. She can, however, be roused to joyfully greet her husband upon his after a long-term absence and sit with her injured son, so it seems that her selfishness gives way in the right circumstances.

Overall, Austen treats hypochondria with nuance; some portrayals are sympathetic, while others are critical, and yet others are mixed, but no two representations are exactly alike. You see this same tendency with how she treats the clergy—some rectors are bumbling or grasping, such as Mr Collins and Mr Elton, while others are noble romantic figures, such as Mr Tilney and Edmund Bertram. Her malingering characters range from the highly unlikeable and whiny Mary Musgrove to the sweet but self-infantilizing Mr Woodhouse to the admittedly irksome Mrs Bennet to the entirely benign Lady Bertram. Each of these characters shares the same disorder, yet their motivations are all dissimilar from one another. In this way, Austen acknowledges both that, while their pretended helplessness is a burden to those around them, they’re still unfortunate souls who cannot help the frustration they create.

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References:

“A Malady of Interpretation: Performances of Hypochondria in Jane Austen,” Nineteenth Century Studies, 2021, Vol 31 (2021), pp. 22-37. Published by Penn State University Press.

“Jane Austen’s Hypochondriacs” by Jason Tougaw. Published in Psychology Today, 2019.

101 Things You Didn’t Know About Jane Austen by Patrice Hannon, Ph.D.

Illustrations (all public domain)

Et le mien ne drogue pas! (Mine Doesn't Do Drugs), Abel Faivre

Tabitha Grunt, or the Walking Hospital, George Cruickshank, 1813

Pride and Prejudice, 2005, Focus Features

Emma and Mr Woodhouse, Emma, Hugh Thomson, 1896

Mary Musgrove, Persuasion, C.E. Brock

Emma, 2020, Universal Studios