Why "Willoughby"? Formality and Familiarity of Address in Austen

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'GOOD GODI WILLOUGHBY, what is meaning of this? Perplexed at Willoughby's formality of manner when she spies him at fashionable party in London, Sense and Sensibility's Marianne Dashwood thus reproaches her supposed suitor (201). The public outburst hastens revelation that he has decided to marry wealthy Grey instead, but modern-day readers might yet be left musing upon another mystery: Why does Marianne call him 'Willoughby? Indeed, she drops formal Mr. while addressing and speaking of Willoughby soon after they become acquainted, signaling precipitous intimacy that is echoed (for time) in Willoughby's own dubiously familiar address of her as 'Marianne.' What should Marianne's missing Mr. mean to Jane Austen's readers? This casual salutation may seem small matter of bygone manners, until we consider that through it Marianne unknowingly, and curiously, aligns herself with repugnant set of secondary characters from other Austen novels: fickle-hearted, gold-digging Isabella Thorpe, with her 'Morland' and 'Tilney'; flirtatious Lydia Bennet, with her 'Wickham' and 'Denny'; and obnoxious Mrs. Elton, whose mention of her new pal 'Knightley' so incenses Emma. What is Marianne, misguided but lovable heroine, doing in such company? A writer concerned with employing, in words of Northanger Abbey narrator, the best chosen (3l), Austen took especial care in crafting her characters' speech; through it, she aimed for effect of naturalness on one hand, and significance on other. In these novels, Juliet McMaster has rightly noted, is character, talk is action (88). When speaking, Austen's characters reveal their personalities, motivations, and desires, they enrich texture of scene before us, and they often clue reader into off-stage or potential plot developments. When we consider Austen's mature works as comedies of manners in which heroines navigate their enlarging social circles and ultimately pair with life partner, precise form of discourse-that intriguing confluence of manners and speech-becomes even more telling. Recently, Mary Ann O'Farrell has limned Austenian manners as a language to be read and language in which to write, an invitation to learn how to see, read, comprehend, and know social world (101). Along similar lines, Bharat Tandon argues that Austen's use of speech does not simply reflect conversational manners of her day but coaxes her readers into sophisticated social listening and judging (xiii). Might we be meant to hear something in 'Willoughby' and other intriguing informalities in these novels? The expected etiquette among Austen's country gentry characters is fairly set, as many popular descriptions of Regency manners in her work can attest. (1) This social code includes relative formality of address. The names her young characters call their peers, therefore, can communicate clear-cut relationship status and signal when intimacy shifts (from new acquaintances to dear friends or engaged lovers, for example). Close family members and longtime friends thus usually call each other by their first names while newer acquaintances of this class use Mr. or Miss (unless one happens to be rare, titled Sir or Lady). In 'Willoughby and 'Marianne' and elsewhere, however, we can hear Austen playing with these social expectations. When characters' naming habits violate polite norms, change, or resist change, Austen engages readers with concise conversational clues to character of speakers and to narrative developments. As seen in Familiar Four (Marianne, Isabella, Lydia, and Mrs. Elton), seemingly simple element of discourse-the level of formality with which Austen's characters speak to and of each other-can be magnificently precise, revealing, and operative. In Sense and Sensibility, Marianne's relationship with handsome and well-bred Willoughby moves fast from start, progress charted in couple's speech as well as their actions. …

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