In “Regulated Hatred: An Aspect in the Work of Jane Austen,” writer D. W. Harding defends Jane Austen from criticism regarding her isolated view. He prefaces his critique by pointing out her works’ reputations preventing many of her biggest readers from bothering to read her works at all. Harding postulates that men of generations preceding his wanted Jane Austen novels to be read on their deathbeds, but why? Harding supports a theory from Beatrice Kean Seymour who wrote, “In a society which has enthroned the machine-gun and carried it aloft even into the quiet heavens, there will always be men and women—Escapist or note, as you please—who will turn to her novels with an unending sense of relief and thankfulness.” Perhaps the scope of the novel does not run the gamut of philosophical ponderings or even the more limited range of social commentary, but why does it have to? Just because the characters in her novels are empathetic to an extremely limited audience does not mean they are not meaningless, let alone entertaining to a broader one. Harding postulates that Austen appealed to a wider audience by being what he called a “delicate satirist”—something that I assume to mean a person who acknowledges the absurdity of her subject with subtle humor but does not overtly criticize it in a satirical manner. Harding describes the novel to have fragments of truth “incorporated in it but they are fitted into a pattern whose total effect is false.” Harding believes that Austen’s novels are “as she meant them to be, read and enjoyed by precisely the sort of people whom she disliked.” Who are these people she disliked? Perhaps the sort of people who cannot see the social commentary within the novel and quickly accept the work as a simple love story, perhaps the sort of people who look at her works and see them as a clever commentary on the simple-minded nature of the aristocracy, either can enjoy her novels.
Harding does not claim Austen’s novels to be strictly satirical, pointing out that she does not use any hidden moral intention commonly found in works of a regular satirist. Being a “delicate satirist” manifests Austen’s desire to find a story of survival in spirit as opposed to open-air conflict. Harding suggests that Austen was protecting her own reputation by writing her books as “good natured” stories that exaggerated the faults of a society to a point where her novels could only be seen as such. Harding prefaces this point saying, “She found […] that one of the most useful peculiarities of her society was its willingness to remain blind to the implications of a caricature.” In a simplistic view, the aristocracy enjoyed a love story while the rest laughed at the ridiculousness of the image Austen paints. In this way, her writing is much more balanced and appealing than it appears. It has that struggle and that social commentary that appeal to so many, but which part of the caricature does one focus on? One can see her novels for the parts that are or are not appealing to him or her.
