Perspectives on Pride and Prejudice: Phenomenology

by Beth Cykowski, scholar of Continental Philosophy.

Phenomenology is a game-changing philosophical discipline developed in the early twentieth century. The term literally means knowledge (logos) of things (phenomena). Phenomenology dispenses with the traditional divide between ‘subject’ and ‘object,’ and instead considers how entities ‘show up’ in our immediate experience. It recognises that as humans we are not detached, rational subjects, but rather culturally embedded, situated, embodied beings. It attends to the quality of experience, or what it is like to have this or that experience.

So how could a philosophical discipline associated with Germany and France be relevant to Pride and Prejudice? The 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel is, for me, the articulation of a rich phenomenological imagination. Like Austen herself in relation to her readers, the team behind the production do not patronise with clichĂ©, instead they win us over with a subtly immersive experience of what it would be like to inhabit Elizabeth Bennet’s world.

There are layers to this immersion. On the surface we have the famous plot beats of the story. These happenings are brought to life with Andrew Davies’ script which reveals the inner lives of the characters’ experiences, the problems and insecurities that plague them, or, considered phenomenologically, what it is like to be them. Then we have the settings that host the drama of the novel: the elegance of Pemberley, the ostentation of Rosings, the buzzing social hub of Meryton. We’re taken into drawing rooms and across sweeping grounds and around roaring fires, and in these places we witness the interpersonal dynamics that characterise Austen’s prose. The physicality of these settings merges with and makes manifest the mental states of the characters. During the Netherfield ball scene, for example, we are transposed into Elizabeth’s tense mindset as she scans the room for Wickham, endures a taut dance with Mr Darcy, and drowns in embarrassment as Lydia and Kitty run riot and Mrs. Bennet loudly briefs her table on the inevitability of Jane and Bingley’s engagement. The colour, noise, heat and pace of the scene embody her turbulent thought processes as she attempts to keep her countenance. The subject-object distinction is undermined as Elizabeth’s external surroundings blend with her internal experience, making for a scene that fizzes with phenomenological insight.

The constellations of small details and light touches that punctuate this scene and others make us feel as though we are with the characters, sharing their plight, walking in their shoes. We find these phenomenologically powerful moments not only in the big ‘crescendo’ scenes but in the inconspicuous junctures between the action: the Bennet women getting ready in the morning; the indication of long, dark, freezing winter days where there’s little to do; the hours spent staring out of the window of a carriage en route to relatives in a distant county, the din of horses’ hoofs splitting the tranquillity of the rural landscape.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger claimed that human beings are ‘thrown’ into a world that they immediately begin to grapple with. The human mind is not a rational control centre, separate from an ‘objective’ world. Rather, the world already appears to us as meaningful, as somehow ‘for’ us. This is the achievement of the adaptation: we are already there, already invested, already involved.