Joseph Carroll's version of Darwinian literary critique

I find Joseph Carroll’s model to be a dissatisfactory account of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and I feel opposed to Darwinistic literary criticism. I am frustrated with this somewhat recent article in that Carroll seems to be saying “Hey, Darwinian literary criticism isn’t quite right, but I’m gonna’ make it right by saying that the human mind is unique and varies widely with culture, point of view, and individual biases.” To me, he is taking a system that he desperately wants to be correct - but sees that it is flawed and too structured and inflexible- and trying to correct it by laying on top of it the notion that it just cannot be inflexible. He wants to broaden the perspective but I really think that his propositions make Darwinism un-Darwinist. He’s proposing to adapt a system, but he needs to recognize that it is just his own separate system that satisfies his personal rationalizations.

On page 78 Carroll expresses ‘fair confidence’ that energetic active research in the near future will do away with the ‘obstructions that have temporarily arisen from the premature consolidation of certain orthodox doctrines’. This statement arouses much discontent in me. I think he is being roundabout and indirect. Such a prediction is arrogant, very weak, and I think farfetched. I don’t think he is wise to make a claim about not yet existent research to do away with long-standing ways of thinking. He is being cowardly non-confrontational yet very critical. He is backwards because he says orthodox doctrines have caused temporary obstructions, but I must assert that the Darwinist theories are much more premature, young, and temporary than the orthodox doctrines. He is very arrogant to think a theory 200 years of age will wipe out a system thousands of years of age.

He attempts to disarm any opponents by claiming that Darwinian analysis applies to EVERY work of literature no matter what. But the support he gives for this claim immediately reveals its fallacy. Carroll says, “If Darwinism gives a true account of the human mind….” I could continue this sentence but upon this conditional I am already decided. He gives an ‘if’ which already weakens his bold assertion about Darwinian analysis applying to all literature. His ‘if’ gives two options; either Darwinism gives a true account of the human mind, or it does not. Darwinism is theory and is therefore not truth, and therefore cannot give a true account of anything, let alone the intricacies of the human mind.

I really dislike how Carroll’s approach reduces Austen’s artistic work to a biological account of animals seeking after resourceful mating partners. He says on page 97 that “men seek to acquire resources and to use them to acquire mates, and women seek mates who are in possession of resources.” I disagree on many levels with this Darwinist view. I believe that love is the proponent of human life. Love is not even really addressed in this animalistic account. I do not believe in animal-human equality and therefore cannot adapt to many of the claims Carroll makes. I do give Carroll credit for attempting to broaden the view with statements of the complexity, unpredictability, and exceptions of the human mind and I do find some of his analysis of the novel to be interesting and accurate, but again, I feel that by trying to change Darwinian critique to be more flexible, he is weakening Darwinism with his own preferences.


(I apologize for the lengthiness of this blog entry).