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Introduction |
| Long before television and videos became standard home
entertainment, families often enjoyed spending the evening with neighbors
and friends playing cards and other games. Parlour games were a popular
entertainment in Jane Austen's time, and many different kinds of word games,
card games, and games of skill appear in Austen's novels. Depending on
the personality and intelligence of the players, the games could be witty
and entertaining or dreadfully dull. Card games were played mostly by men,
and the host and hostess might bow to the wishes of their guests by assembling
a whist party for visitors keen on the game. Women often sat on the sidelines,
observing the play and engaged in conversation. If certain numbers were
needed to make up a game, however, women would be expected to join the
table. Parlour games included many activities that children enjoyed such
as bilbocatch, draughts, and spillikins.
"Games of skill, games of chance, games with words were familiar features of Jane Austen's life from first to last," notes Alistair M. Duckworth, an English instructor at the University of Florida in an essay titled "'Spillikins, paper ships, riddles, conundrums, and cards': games in Jane Austen's life and fiction." In her many letters to friends and family, Austen speaks of the different games she plays with her young nephews and friends - children's games such as nines, Battledore and Shuttlecock, and spillikins; word games such as riddles and conundrums; and card games such as whist, commerce, loo, cribbage, and speculation. Professor Duckworth remarks on Austen's appreciation of the use of games as a helpful distraction during times of grief or sickness as she amuses her nephews with speculation and spillikins after the death of their mother. In her novels, however, Austen often treats game-playing (and game-players) severely. Professor Duckworth sees this as a separation between family and society. Within the family unit, games are useful, enjoyable entertainment; in society, "games become the expression of inconsequential or repugnant behavior." In Pride and Prejudice, games are carefully woven into the novel's structure to present extremes of society and behavior. The Phillips' 'nice comfortable noisy game of lottery tickets, and a little bit of hot supper afterwards' is shown in contrast to the 'superlatively stupid' dinner party and quadrille with Lady Catherine de Bourgh. We can imagine the rollicking noisy evening at the Phillips with the five Bennet girls and several young military officers at hand. It would certainly seem coarse compared to the quiet and formal evening at Rosings where the only conversation concerned the game at hand. The game table is a bit livelier at Netherfield where Charles Bingley entertains his sister and brother-in-law, the Hursts, and the Bennet family. Here, Professor Duckworth adds, the "social-climbing Bingleys at Netherfield play games that recall their origins in trade and announce their aspirations: commerce, picquet, loo, vingt-un." Mr. Collins uses game-playing as his ticket to high society with Lady Catherine, where he is delighted to be included in an invitation for quadrille. Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy stand in contrast to the many avid game-players of the novel. While both are competent at games, neither is obsessed by them, choosing to spend their leisure time at other forms of entertainment. When the flirtatious Miss Bingley hears that Darcy "did not wish for cards," she rejects Mr. Hurst's request for a game leaving him "therefore nothing to do, but to stretch himself on one of the sophas and go to sleep" (Chpt 11). Unlike Mr. Hurst, "an indolent man, who lived only to eat, drink, and play at cards" (Chpt 8), Mr. Darcy enjoys an evening spent reading, writing letters, and music. One of the consequences of excessive game playing is the likeliness of compulsive gambling, a problem which may be responsible for much of George Wickham's financial difficulties. Gentleman of Jane Austen's time enjoyed considerable leisure hours, and often found themselves in debt due to gambling at cards. At Netherfield, Elizabeth Bennet is fully aware of the monetary loss possible at the card table when she makes excuses to avoid joining a game of loo where the stakes may be higher than she would care to wager. But when the Bennet girls attend the Phillips' supper party young Lydia shows herself to be "extremely fond of lottery tickets. . . eager in making bets and exclaiming after prizes" and keeps her attention on the game rather than the conversation or people at her table. On the way home from the supper party, Lydia continues to "talk incessantly of lottery tickets, of the fish she had lost and the fish she had won" (Chpt 16). This children's game seems most appropriate for silly Lydia. Professor Duckworth suggests that Jane Austen uses games to highlight the two extremes of characters in Pride and Prejudice and to "expose obnoxious behavior much in the way she does in her letters. . . Her interest lies not in condemning cards as such but in evaluating social performance in any behavior." Work Cited
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