A slightly later post this weekend, because I spent most of yesterday getting ready for and then attending the Merola Opera Program’s Spring Benefit (you can see a cell phone snapshot of me and my friend Michelle, Merola’s Director of Membership and Marketing, here). In the midst of a long, fun day of setting up auction items, scrambling into my evening dress, greeting friends and bidding on auction items, and then listening to a wonderful concert and dancing into the morning, I found myself thinking about parties and balls in novels. A number of memorable ones spring to mind, beginning with the assembly ball in Pride and Prejudice. In fact, Pride and Prejudice has a number of ball and party scenes, including the memorable the Netherfield ball. When the A&E adaptation first aired, my friend Penny commented on how often the characters went to parties. She said she could imagine Jane Austen as a writer thinking “how am I going to get these characters together? I have to have another party scene.”
In an era when characters can’t make cell phone calls or send texts and emails or tweets and where it’s difficult for unmarried men and women to interact unchaperoned, balls, receptions, and other social occasions provide rich opportunities for the characters to interact. There’s the chance for private conversation during a dance (Darcy and Elizabeth at the Netherfield ball) and the opportunity for one character to observe another (Darcy makes a disastrous impression on Lizzy at the assembly ball and the Netherfield ball confirms Darcy’s negatives of the entire Bennet family). The chance to advance multiple story lines in one scene (both the Darcy/Elizabeth and Jane/Bingley relationships move forward in these various party scenes). A ball can be the occasion of an unexpected meeting (Marianne encountering Willoughby and his wife in Sense and Sensibility). It can be spun-sugar covering for scenes of intrigue and drama (the Grenville ball in The Scarlet Pimpernel).
One of the more dramatic real historical entertainments is the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Brussels at which Wellington learned that Napoleon had stolen a march on him. Soldiers left the dance floor to join their regiments. The duchess’s ball has been brought to vivid life in a number of novels–by Thackery in Vanity Fair, by Georgette Heyer in An Infamous Army, by Bernard Cornwell in Waterloo. I had the fun of writing about it myself in Shores of Desire (what could be a better setting for drama? all the characters together as they receive news that will change all their lives in myriad ways). I’d love to use the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in a Charles & Mélanie book some day, either in flashback or in another prequel.
Balls and parties an also be a way for a writer to introduce the reader to an array of characters and to their world. Edith Wharton does this brilliantly in the opening The Age of Innocence. You get a sense of the world of the Archers and Wellands in a way you wouldn’t in small scenes and the ripples in that world caused by Ellen’s return from the Continent come through vividly.
Secrets of a Lady opens with Charles and Mel returning from a ball, but after that has no scenes set at social gathering. I deliberately wanted to pull Charles and Mélanie out of the jewel box world represented by the Esterhazy ball they’ve attended before the book opens. Beneath a Silent Moon, on the other hand, opens with the Glenister House ball. Inspired by a number of memorable book openings (notably the one from The Age of Innocence) I wanted to set up the various characters and the world of the Glenister House set. And I wanted to show the difficulties both Charles and Mel are having adjusting to London society and the strain that that’s putting on their marriage.
Do you have some favorite scenes from balls or other parties in books? Writers, do you like writing scenes set at parties? What are some of the challenging of writing scenes in which one has to juggle a number of characters and plotlines?
In keeping with the theme, in this week’s Fraser Correspondence addition, Mélanie gives Gisèle (newly married and in Scotland) an account of a ball Lady Frances has given.
March 31, 2009 at 4:16 pm
There are two balls in Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel novels that I love.
As you mentioned, there’s the Grenvilles’ ball in the first novel. Marguerite’s bewilderment and strife contrast so sharply with the gaiety around her.
I also love the scene in the Bath Upper Rooms in Lord Tony’s Wife, where Percy, Marguerite and even Prinny are conspiring to keep Monsieur le Duc busy so Tony can run away with Yvonne.
I wrote a masquerade scene in Blakeney Manor, which I’m currently trying to relocate within the changes for the new draft. I find party scenes a challenge, but I love to read them if they’re well done, so I keep trying.
March 31, 2009 at 6:54 pm
I haven’t read “Lord Tony’s Wife,” Cate. It sounds like a great scene. There’s such wonderful tension in ball scenes when something is happening under the surface that some characters are conspiring to keep from most of the guests. What do you find particularly challenging about party scenes? I like reading and writing them, but it is tricky to keep track of where everyone is, and to give a sense of the whole event while at the same time staying in the pov of whichever character one is following.
April 9, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Actually, I can think of another reason for party or ball scenes, other then to bring people together.
I’m currently finishing a romantic comedy I’ve been writing on the side for well over a year (god, almost two, I have been busy), and many subjects discussed on this website were discussed in the script. Such as the works of Jane Austen, an entire speech describing the plot of Sullivan’s travels, avoiding the stereotypical “Hollywood ending” declaration of love, etc…
In this contemporary story Jane Austen’s use of balls are brought up in another context. First, early on, when defending the fact that Austen wrote intelligent romances yet remained single herself, the heroine has a small rant where she points out the difficulties in meeting people in regency era society. Including lack of travel generally, lack of opportunity for females specifically, more extreme separations due to money, and the ridiculous fact that two people could be in the same room and not be allowed to speak without a proper introduction by a common acquaintance. She claims Jane would have better luck in the modern world.
Later she tries to test this theory, and despite all of technology and feminism at her disposal she still uses Jane’s fondness for party scenes to help her figure a man out. She declares that Jane always uses one, and a party is a place where you can watch a man’s interaction with others, observe him speaking to a large scale of different personalities, and see where he fits in a group dynamic. Almost a sociological experiment. In fact, she points out that according to Jane’s examples, a man who feels the need to be the center of attention at a party and make everyone like him no matter what is usually a man not to be entirely trusted. Unlike a man who attempts to make others comfortable, to encourage them to speak their minds and join in, or one who keeps his own counsel because he is comfortable with himself.
So I think a party is not just a place to put different people together, but a way of putting a single character under several new and different types of spotlights all in one evening
April 14, 2009 at 7:07 am
Oh, Angelique, your script sounds fabulous! I so agree about both parties providing opportunities for men and women to interact in the Regency when they couldn’t be alone unchaperoned and about the social spotlight being a great way to examine characters. I expanded on this post on History Hoydens last week and one point I brought up is that “There’s the added tension of the fact that even if it isn’t a masquerade ball, everyone to a certain extent wears a mask in a very public social setting.” And perhaps different masks with different people. A party scene is a wonderful way to examine those masks and perhaps to strip them away.
April 14, 2009 at 11:19 am
I love that! Great metaphor! Especially speaking about a time when there were often masquerade balls which were famous for the freedom of hiding behind a mask and letting a little loose, stretching the limits of such strict social regiments. We’re meant to think there’s no more need for these, because socially we are much freer, but people still like the idea of experimenting without consequence, so it simply takes on different forms, like travel (which happens to be part of the idea for my next script) .
There’s always been that saying about a man having many different faces, and I’m always saying that there’s as many ways to live as there are people in the world. Some of my friends and I combine the two, discussing how we have many versions of ourselves, many sides, that different friends appeal to. We were arguing that this is one reason you shouldn’t assume two separate friends of yours will automatically get along just because they have you in common. They may relate to you for totally different reasons. We also pointed out that this may be one reason monogamy and the concept of true love is so hard. How to find one person who suites all parts of yourself, weather it’s to compliment or provide contrast, and do the work normally done by many.
The best part is those social masks, while often thought of as false, “hiding the real face” may not be masks at all but true faces that appear under different circumstances. People are so multi-layered.
I always loved the bit in “Pride and Prejudice” when Elizabeth introduces Darcy to her Aunt and Uncle Gardner and based on previous experience expects a certain kind of reaction. Then she’s surprised when he is perfectly friendly. The obvious reason that is usually credited is that she has changed him to some extent. While true, another reason is that her Aunt and Uncle, while poor, are socially refined and pleasant. As he has pointed out himself it was not necessarily their lack of fortune but their embarrassing and rude behavior that created his feelings for the rest of her family. That book is so full of depth, in the way Austen could look at a situation from all sides. She would have been a wonderful diplomat.
At one point I sorely wanted to use that scene as inspiration for another “test” in my script. The heroine was going to introduce the hero to a group of eccentric acquaintances with very different views then himself and see how he reacts. Unfortunately, like so many things, the idea had to be cut since it was already running too long.
April 14, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I think that’s so true, Angelique–we’re slightly different people in different parts of life, with different friends, co-workers, acquaintances, family. I don’t think social masks are necessarily a bad thing–they can be precisely what’s needed to get smoothly through a given situation, as I’m sure Mélanie would say. But they do create interesting layers to a scene.
I’ve always thought the scene with Gardners says as much about Elizabeth’s changing views of Darcy as about Darcy’s changing views of Elizabeth. Elizabeth (and the reader) see that Darcy doesn’t judge people based on birth and fortune. I love that whole sequence.