Abstract
In her final fragmentary novel Sanditon, Jane Austen develops a theme that pervades her work from her juvenilia onward: illness, and in particular, illness imagined, invented, or self-inflicted. While the “invention of odd complaints” is characteristically a token of folly or weakness throughout her writing, in this last work imagined illness is also both a symbol and a cause of how selves and societies degenerate. In the shifting world of Sanditon, hypochondria is the lubricant for a society bent on turning health into a commodity. As a result, people’s rationality and their moral character come under attack. Catherine Belling’s recent subtle study, A Condition of Doubt: The Meanings of Hypochondria, unveils hypochondria’s discursive and cultural character. Running sharply against the tenor of Austen’s treatment, however, she argues in defense of the rationality of hypochondriacs; the notion that the condition may involve morally significant defects is not entertained; any connection to the commercialization of health care is muted. Here, I contrast Austen’s morally and epistemically negative rendering of her hypochondriacal characters in Sanditon with Belling’s efforts to create a sympathetic understanding of people with hypochondria. I will argue that, despite time gaps and genre differences, joint consideration of these texts can help bioethicists better appreciate how medicine can intensify, pathologize, and exploit anxieties about illness and death, thus adding to the challenges of living well in the face of mortality and morbidity.
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Notes
For a discussion of the relationship among apothecaries, surgeon, and physicians—the “medical professionals” of Austen’s time—see Wiltshire (2005).
Not that the connection between medicine and science is absent from Sanditon. Charlotte Heywood recommends scientific study of one of Arthur’s complaints—transient hemiparesis brought on by the consumption of green tea (Austen 1988a, 418).
Mr. Woodhouse may be something of an exception to the inconsistency of attitudes about risk among hypochondriacs; his anxieties concerning the well-being of his intimate circle, as well as himself, range remarkably widely, and they include carriage safety. No one is likely, nonetheless, to see him as possessing a sound understanding.
For a rewarding discussion of the relation of Austen’s work to postmodern and enlightenment sensibility, see Bonaparte (2005).
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Acknowledgments
As always, I am grateful for the close attention to this manuscript provided by Hilde Lindemann. I much appreciate as well the care lavished on an earlier draft provided by three anonymous referees and by Grant Gillett.
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Nelson, J.L. Odd Complaints and Doubtful Conditions: Norms of Hypochondria in Jane Austen and Catherine Belling. Bioethical Inquiry 11, 193–200 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-014-9522-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-014-9522-7