Pride and Prejudice & The Awakening: What is food if not domestication or temptation?

Illustration for Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. CE Brock. 1895.

“What a superbly featured room and what excellent boiled potatoes! Many years since I’ve had such an exemplary vegetable. To which of my fair cousins should I compliment the excellence of the cooking?” 

The line has become a meme, plastered on t-shirts and making its way through various shades of internet relevancy. In its simplicity, it represents a dull, awkward character’s obliviousness as he makes a social faux pas. It’s fantastic writing, reflective of Austen’s subtle yet biting wit on topics of social conformity and gender. Too bad it’s not actually in the book. 

It is, however, based on a line from the novel. Mr. Collins, who plans to propose to Elizabeth Bennet, accidentally insults her mother, Mrs. Bennet. When he tries to compliment her on the food, he puts his foot in his mouth, instead: 

“The dinner too in its turn was highly admired; and he begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellency of its cooking was owing. But he was set right there by Mrs. Bennet, who assured him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen. He begged pardon for having displeased her. In a softened tone she declared herself not at all offended; but he continued to apologize for about a quarter of an hour (Chapter 13).”

Credits for the understated humor of “boiled potatoes” goes to the writers of the 2005 movie adaptation, but the social politics of women, cooking, and wealth are clearly as pertinent today as they were in Georgian England. 

The bumbling, status-obsessed Mr. Collins is not liked by the Bennets (or the implied author), and his faux pas during dinner is Austen’s way to highlight the awkwardness and inappropriateness of his proposal to the intelligent and independent Elizabeth. This is not the only instance where food and dining are used as literary devices for social commentary, particularly on the role and expectations of women in wealthy, white households. In fact, Austen often uses food to encourage the female protagonist of Pride and Prejudice toward her ideal marriage candidate, Mr. Darcy, which would fulfill her era’s expectation of women to marry and “keep” a home under the best possible outcome.

In summary, the 1813 novel follows the Bennett family, which consists of five daughters. Their mother, Mrs. Bennet, hopes to marry her daughters off to wealthy, eligible bachelors. The impetus is that the Bennets do not have a son, and without a male heir, the Bennet’s family home will be inherited by Mr. Bennet’s nephew Mr. Collins, instead of his children. Although noted as unfair and unfortunate, this legal arrangement is taken as a fact of life that must be resolved through traditional means. In addition, while the protagonist Elizabeth is somewhat resistant to the strict gender norms of the Georgian era setting (for instance, she walks several miles through the rain and muddies her dress), she ultimately finds a husband in the wealthy and respectable Mr. Darcy. Thus, Pride and Prejudice ends happily with a woman fulfilling her domestic role of becoming a wife for the richest man possible. 

However, while the treatment of food in Pride and Prejudice encourages marriage and traditional gender roles around domesticity, the details of a meal are used to sway that encouragement in certain directions. For example, as Mrs. Bennet explains, women are expected to “keep” a table, but cooking is reserved for domestic employees. Therefore, although not involved with the labor of food, food acts as a sort of ambassador for wealthy, eligible women such as the Bennet sister. As such, the accepting or rejecting of a dinner invitation is often related to the acceptance or rejection of a wedding proposal. That may seem like a jump to contemporary readers, but even today, most romances start with a dinner date. In Austen’s case, whether a literary meal goes well or poorly reflects back on the women and how they should proceed regarding the proposed engagement. 

As opposed to the uncomfortable scene with Mr. Collins, the Bennet’s meal with Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley toward the end of the novel is portrayed positively, as the novel works towards engagements for both Elizabeth and her elder sister Jane (who in another moment of Austen wit is comically perfect compared to everyone else in the family). As Mrs. Bennet remarks happily:

“What say you to the day? I think every thing has passed off uncommonly well, I assure you. The dinner was as well dressed as any I ever saw. The venison was roasted to a turn–and everybody said, they never saw so fat a haunch. The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the Lucas’s last week; and even Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges were remarkably well done; and I suppose he has two or three French cooks at least” (chapter 54).

Although neither Elizabeth nor Anne stepped foot in the kitchen, the quality of the meal is conflated with positive pairings towards marriage, Elizabeth with Mr. Darcy and Anne with Mr. Bingley. The lack of social awkwardness further encourages this role for the two Bennet women. In addition, for the case of Austen’s protagonist Elizabeth, this positive meal is paralleled by a positive dining experience she experienced while dining as a guest at Mr. Darcy’s mansion.

The message is clear: a marriage to Mr. Collins would be awkward, inappropriate, and unhappy–boiled potatoes compared to a marriage to Mr. Darcy, which would be fulfilling and satisfying, both socially and materially. The expectation is that Elizabeth, trained by her mother to manage the food and cooking of a household, will uphold the same high standards for Mr. Darcy’s table when she becomes his wife. 

In fact, even the sensory details of Elizabeth’s meals with Mr. Darcy are highlighted in their pleasure and richness. As Nina Auerbach examines in “Waiting Together: Pride and Prejudice,” Austen uses the domestic gender roles surrounding food to encourage Elizabeth not only towards marriage, but towards marriage to Mr. Darcy through richer sensory descriptions: 

“…when Bingley and Darcy appear for dinner at last, in all the glory of prospective husband-ness, food seems to spring into abundance for the first time […] For the first time, Mrs. Bennet applies the numbers with which she is obsessed, not to abstract and invisible sums of money, but to the immediately edible and nourishing. Contrary to sentimental myth, it is not women but available men whose presence makes a house a home” (Auerbach). 

The implication is that Elizabeth (and her story) are not complete until she is married, specifically to Mr. Darcy. 19th-century assumptions about women and the home reinforce the need to marry in Pride and Prejudice, and these assumptions are portrayed through food, with pleasurable food standing in for the pleasure of a well-matched marriage. Writing during a time when female sensuality would have been taboo, food also allows Austen to suggest that a well-matched marriage is both socially and physically nourishing.

Unfortunately, marriage isn’t the best possible outcome for all women.

While food in Pride and Prejudice represents a guide to the most blissful domesticity, food in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is often an electric symbol for temptation, in particular, sexual temptation away from the home and husband. Chopin’s 1899 novel follows its protagonist, Edna Pontellier, who is dissatisfied and confined by domestic restraints. Her husband is wealth-obsessed and often outside of the home, preferring the company of his gentlemen’s club. Although not especially unkind, Mr. Pontellier is critical of her skills as a mother and housekeeper, even though as a wealthy woman she has several servants at her command. Still, critique of the food is directed toward the wife and mother of the home. 

As Edna starts to withdraw from the social expectations of motherhood and marriage, Mr. Pontilier notes this withdrawal by becoming an obnoxious food critic. After Edna ignores her social duties to entertain, her husband aggressively spices his food while passive aggressively critiquing her performance as a mother and wife:

“Mrs. Pontellier did not wear her usual Tuesday reception gown; she was in ordinary house dress. Mr. Pontellier, who was observant about such things, noticed it, as he served the soup and handed it to the boy in waiting.

‘Tired out, Edna? Whom did you have? Many callers?’ he asked. He tasted his soup and began to season it with pepper, salt, vinegar, mustard–everything within reach.” 

Mr. Pontellier goes on to chastise Edna for going out on her own and for breaking social convention as he adds cayenne to his already very seasoned soup, the same soup Edna had been eating with “evident satisfaction.” Although they are eating the same dish, Mr. Pontellier exclaims that “This soup is really impossible; it’s strange that woman hasn’t learned yet to make a decent soup” before departing from the table. He purposely conflates his distaste for the soup with his wife’s unconventional behavior. 

Like anyone would, Edna picks up on Mr. Pontilier’s thinly-veiled and heavily-spiced insults, and she finishes the meal alone while her husband dines yet again at the club. Afterwards, she throws a vase against the fireplace and flings her ring to the floor in fury. This is the soup that ends Edna’s marriage, not legally, but emotionally and spiritually. Chopin uses food here to show how assumptions about woman and the home thwart Edna’s longing for happiness and love. In contrast to this unsatisfactory meal, Edna would go on to plan an extravagant birthday dinner party–without her husband there to judge her.

In addition, while Edna’s dinner with her husband is bland and disappointing, her meal with Robert, the object of her desire, is not only tempting and satisfying, but sexy as hell. This meal is poignantly set outside, literally outside the home. In addition, it is Robert who provides food for Edna, foraging and cooking the meal himself. The rustic dishes are described in delicious detail. After waking from a nap, Edna meets Robert outside alone:

“He stirred the smoldering ashes till the broiled fowl began to sizzle afresh. He served her with no mean repast, dripping the coffee anew and sharing it with her. […] while Edna slept Robert had foraged the island. He was childishly gratified to discover her appetite, and to see the relish with which she ate the food which he had procured for her.”

This scene, where Robert cooks for Edna, also foreshadows their confession of love, which will also take place outside, at a cafe where a woman named Catchie sells milk, cheese, fried chicken, pork chops, and coffee (all indulgent, tempting dishes). Unlike in Austen’s novel, food in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is a visceral literary representation of temptation away from a flavorless marriage and toward pleasure, sexual gratification, and extramarital affairs. 

In Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the most romantic thing that can happen is for a man to come over for dinner and propose marriage. In Chopin’s The Awakening, the most romantic thing that can happen is for a man to cook for you in the woods, over a fire he built himself, releasing you from the stifling domestic expectations of your tepid husband and spoilt children. 

In both these novels of Domestic Realism, food is emblematic of 19th-century European and American expectations of women in regards to the home, but while Pride and Prejudice pushes towards marriage with the wealthiest bachelor, The Awakening tempts towards sexual and social freedom with a sizzling, hot pan. Unfortunately for Edna, this ends in disaster. Despite confessing their love for each other, Robert is unwilling to commit adultery, and Edna knows her husband will be unwilling to grant her a divorce. Seeing no way out of her situation, Edna walks, naked, into the ocean and to her death.

Luckily, most women today can inherit property or divorce an ill-fitting spouse, lessening the stakes and circumstances of Austen and Chopin’s novels. However, these works’ continued popularity prove that many of these expectations around women and the home remain a part of our contemporary culture to some capacity. The conflicts present in these narratives still resonate with readers struggling to grapple with gender implications surrounding the home and family. While domesticity is the happy conclusion of Pride and Prejudice, in The Awakening, it is an antagonizing force that can break a life apart. What both these novels have in common is that food and dining are paramount to establishing how readers should interpret marriage: appropriate or mismatched, bland or sensual… satisfyingly domestic or devastatingly tempting.  

Karen Sims is a PhD candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant at Georgia State University. Her fiction, creative nonfiction, and food writing have appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, MSU Roadrunner Review, Put A Egg On It, and others. Her story “Raohe Night Market” won the 2024 Steven R. Guthrie Memorial Writers’ Festival Contest in fiction. Originally from Taiwan, she also publishes under the name 蘇祺 Suqi Karen Sims. Her research interests include nonwestern narratives, myths, and food as literary device. She is an Assistant Editor at Five Points.