Lady Susan’s titular character, Lady Susan Vernon—an aging but attractive widow—is clever and cruel. She decides to visit her brother-in-law, Charles, and his wife, Catherine, because she’s been kicked out of her previous residence: she was staying with a married man, Mr. Manwaring, and his wife and family. After seducing Mr. Manwaring and his friend, Sir James Martin (who was engaged to Mr. Manwaring’s sister, Miss Manwaring) Lady Susan left the estate. Upon arriving at the Vernons’, Lady Susan continues to engage in schemes that give her a sense of power over other people, all the while making those people miserable. But her cruelty is seemingly motiveless, which seems to suggest that Lady Susan is bored and frustrated rather than truly vindictive. And as a woman in 18th-century Britain with fewer rights and opportunities than men, her apparent power over others is largely illusory—in reality, she depends on the very people she manipulates and takes advantage of. By presenting Lady Susan as a monstrous female character who is still powerless, the novella suggests that Lady Susan’s villainy is actually the result of the social limitations placed on women at this time.
Although Lady Susan tells her friend Alicia Johnson that she’s “independent,” she’s actually in a dependent position due to her gender and financial status—what little power she has comes from others. As Lady Susan reveals in a letter to Alicia, she decides to visit her brother-in-law, Charles, because it’s her “last resource”: when her husband was alive, they sold their estate, and there’s little money left. She’s happy that Charles is gullible, but he has all the power in this dynamic, so he could force her to leave at any time. Furthermore, while Lady Susan’s daughter, Frederica, is submissive, Frederica is mostly afraid that Lady Susan will force her to marry the “contemptibly weak” Sir James—which Lady Susan does plan to do. This means that Lady Susan’s power over Frederica depends on her manipulation of Sir James; Lady Susan is “sure of” his cluelessness, but she still needs his cooperation. In some cases, Lady Susan isn’t able to manipulate situations directly, which shows that she lacks any real power. In order to sustain her affair with Mr. Manwaring, Lady Susan needs Alicia to ensure that her husband, Mr. Johnson, isn’t around to interfere. Alicia already resents her husband, but Lady Susan must feed into that resentment to get the outcome she wants—again, she depends on other people to achieve her aims and feel powerful.
Furthermore, Lady Susan doesn’t even seem to have a concrete motivation for seeking power over others—she acts out of boredom, frustration, and a desire to prove that she’s in control, even if she really isn’t. Her affair with Mr. Manwaring is a perfect example: early on, Catherine’s brother, Reginald, describes the affair as giving Lady Susan the “gratification of making a whole family miserable.” He’s probably right—Lady Susan had nothing else to gain, since Mr. Manwaring can’t marry her because he already has a wife. Lady Susan later decides to marry Reginald, again with no obvious motive; while the marriage would help her financially, she’d depend on Reginald’s father for money, meaning that this arrangement wouldn’t give her any real agency. She persists in the scheme because she’s angry at Reginald for being kind to Frederica, and she wants to spend their marriage punishing him. Above all, she seemingly just wants to convince Reginald (and other people) that she has power over him. But this is largely illusory, since, as a man, Reginald will always have more legal rights and social influence than Lady Susan does—regardless of Lady Susan’s ability to manipulate him within their relationship.
While Lady Susan’s inferior social status as a woman is the reason why she has no actual power (she merely has the illusion of power), she utilizes and benefits from the limitations imposed on other women—in fact, her ability to manipulate exists in part because of these limitations. Ironically, stereotypical expectations of women in 18th-century Britain—that they’re natural conversationalists, and that they should be attractive to men—are what gives Lady Susan the power to control others. Reginald is seduced by her beauty, and even her sister-in-law, Catherine, admits that Lady Susan is uniquely “brillia[nt]” and later guesses that Lady Susan’s “command of language” is what allows her to lie convincingly. Lady Susan eventually confirms to Alicia that she’s good at manipulating language because her prescribed role as a woman in society means that most of her time is spent conversing. Catherine is the person who best understands Lady Susan’s deceit, since she spends time with her in person. However, “common decency” dictates that she can’t warn Reginald about Lady Susan directly. Instead, Sir Reginald, their father, writes to Reginald and openly disapproves of Lady Susan—but this disapproval would mean more coming from Catherine, who has met and observed her. Because Catherine is a woman, however, it’s not her place to say anything, and her limitations leave Reginald vulnerable to Lady Susan’s manipulation.
While Lady Susan is undeniably cruel, she isn’t harshly punished for her cruelty. At the end of the story, Lady Susan’s engagement to Reginald falls through, Mr. Johnson forces Alicia to stop contacting her, and she decides to marry Sir James. Though none of this was what Lady Susan planned, she isn’t losing anything particularly meaningful: she never truly loved Reginald, and her friendship with Alicia was shallow. It’s unclear as to whether “Lady Susan was or was not happy,” and it’s implied that readers should pity Sir James more than Lady Susan, since he’s easily manipulated—Lady Susan could do worse than a rich, gullible husband. Lady Susan’s rather favorable outcome suggests that author Jane Austen doesn’t condemn her—even though she doesn’t approve of Lady Susan’s actions, she seems to sympathize with the root of her frustration at being financially and socially dependent on others. And although Lady Susan’s schemes will likely continue, it seems that she’ll never have any real power of her own.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Gender, Power, and Manipulation ThemeTracker
Gender, Power, and Manipulation Quotes in Lady Susan
I congratulate you and Mr Vernon on being about to receive into your family, the most accomplished coquette in England. As a very distinguished flirt, I have always been taught to consider her; but it has lately fallen in my way to hear some particulars of her conduct at Langford, which prove that she does not confine herself to that sort of honest flirtation which satisfies most people, but aspires to the more delicious gratification of making a whole family miserable. By her behaviour to Mr Manwaring, she gave jealousy and wretchedness to his wife, and by her attentions to a young man previously attached to Mr Manwaring's sister, deprived an amiable girl of her lover.
I was certainly not disposed to admire her, though always hearing she was beautiful; but I cannot help feeling that she possesses an uncommon union of symmetry, brilliancy and grace. Her address to me was so gentle, frank and even affectionate, that if I had not known how much she has always disliked me for marrying Mr Vernon, and that we had never met before, I should have imagined her an attached friend. One is apt I believe to connect assurance of manner with coquetry, and to expect that an impudent address will necessarily attend an impudent mind; at least I was myself prepared for an improper degree of confidence in Lady Susan; but her countenance is absolutely sweet, and her voice and manner winningly mild. […] She is clever and agreable, has all that knowledge of the world which makes conversation easy, and talks very well, with a happy command of language, which is too often used I believe to make black appear white.
Now however, we begin to mend; our party is enlarged by Mrs Vernon's brother, a handsome young man, who promises me some amusement. There is something about him that rather interests me, a sort of sauciness, of familiarity which I shall teach him to correct. He is lively and seems clever, and when I have inspired him with greater respect for me than his sister's kind offices have implanted, he may be an agreable flirt. There is exquisite pleasure in subduing an insolent spirit, in making a person pre-determined to dislike, acknowledge one's superiority. I have disconcerted him already by my calm reserve; and it shall be my endeavour to humble the pride of these self-important De Courcies still lower, to convince Mrs Vernon that her sisterly cautions have been bestowed in vain, and to persuade Reginald that she has scandalously belied me.
I wish you could get Reginald home again, under any plausible pretence. He is not at all disposed to leave us, and I have given him as many hints of my father's precarious state of health, as common decency will allow me to do in my own house.
You must be sensible that as an only son, and the representative of an ancient family, your conduct in life is most interesting to your connections. In the very important concern of marriage especially, there is everything at stake; your own happiness, that of your parents, and the credit of your name. I do not suppose that you would deliberately form an absolute engagement of that nature without acquainting your mother and myself, or at least without being convinced that we should approve of your choice; but I cannot help fearing that you may be drawn in, by the lady who has lately attached you, to a marriage, which the whole of your family, far and near, must highly reprobate.
Frederica is too shy, I think, and too much in awe of me, to tell tales; but if the mildness of her uncle should get anything from her, I am not afraid. I trust I shall be able to make my story as good as hers. If I am vain of anything, it is of my eloquence. Consideration and esteem as surely follow command of language, as admiration waits on beauty. And here I have opportunity enough for the exercise of my talent, as the chief of my time is spent in conversation.
I hope you will excuse this liberty, I am forced upon it by the greatest distress, or I should be ashamed to trouble you. I am very miserable about Sir James Martin, and have no other way in the world of helping myself but by writing to you, for I am forbidden ever speaking to my uncle or aunt on the subject; and this being the case, I am afraid my applying to you will appear no better than equivocation, and as if I attended only to the letter and not the spirit of Mama's commands, but if you do not take my part, and persuade her to break it off, I shall be half-distracted, for I cannot bear him. No human being but you could have any chance of prevailing with her. […] I do not know how to apologize enough for this letter, I know it is taking so great a liberty, I am aware how dreadfully angry it will make Mama, but I must run the risk.
Oh! How delightful it was, to watch the variations of his countenance while I spoke, to see the struggle between returning tenderness and the remains of displeasure. There is something agreable in feelings so easily worked on. Not that I would envy him their possession, nor would for the world have such myself, but they are very convenient when one wishes to influence the passions of another. And yet this Reginald, whom a very few words from me softened at once into the utmost submission, and rendered more tractable, more attached, more devoted than ever, would have left me in the first angry swelling of his proud heart, without deigning to seek an explanation! Humbled as he now is, I cannot forgive him such an instance of pride; and am doubtful whether I ought not to punish him, by dismissing him at once after this our reconciliation, or by marrying and teasing him for ever.
For an hour or two, I was even staggered in my resolution of marrying him—and though this was too idle and nonsensical an idea to remain long on my mind, I do not feel very eager for the conclusion of my marriage, or look forward with much impatience to the time when Reginald according to our agreement is to be in town. I shall probably put off his arrival, under some pretence or other. He must not come till Manwaring is gone. I am still doubtful at times, as to marriage. If the old man would die, I might not hesitate; but a state of dependence on the caprice of Sir Reginald, will not suit the freedom of my spirit.
Why would you write to me? Why do you require particulars? But since it must be so, I am obliged to declare that all the accounts of your misconduct during the life and since the death of Mr Vernon which had reached me in common with the world in general, and gained my entire belief before I saw you, but which you by the exertion of your perverted abilities had made me resolve to disallow, have been unanswerably proved to me. Nay, more, I am assured that a connection, of which I had never before entertained a thought, has for some time existed, and still continues to exist between you and the man, whose family you robbed of its peace, in return for the hospitality with which you were received into it! That you have corresponded with him ever since your leaving Langford—not with his wife—but with him—and that he now visits you every day. Can you, dare you deny it?
My dear Alicia,
I yield to the necessity which parts us. Under circumstances you could not act otherwise. Our friendship cannot be impaired by it; and in happier times, when your situation is as independent as mine, it will unite us again in the same intimacy as ever. For this I shall impatiently wait; and meanwhile can safely assure you that I never was more at ease, or better satisfied with myself and everything about me, than at the present hour. Your husband I abhor—Reginald I despise—and I am secure of never seeing either again. Have I not reason to rejoice? Manwaring is more devoted to me than ever; and were we at liberty, I doubt if I could resist even matrimony offered by him. This event, if his wife live with you, it may be in your power to hasten.
Whether Lady Susan was, or was not happy in her second choice – I do not see how it can ever be ascertained—for who would take her assurance of it, on either side of the question? The world must judge from probability. She had nothing against her, but her husband, and her conscience.
Sir James may seem to have drawn a harder lot than mere folly merited. I therefore leave him to all the pity that anybody can give him.
