Sanditon

Throughout the narrative, Austen uses nature as a motif to highlight the characters’ fascination with health. This motif is at the center of the book and connects with all its major themes. Mr. Parker mocks his siblings’ hypochondria as evidence of the connection between Leisure and Vanity—with too much time on their hands, the Parker siblings imagine terrible illnesses as a way to give their lives purpose and drama. However, Mr. Parker’s obsession with the health benefits of the sea reveals the same underlying problem: Freed by economic privilege from the day-to-day concerns of survival, he turns his attention to the most modern of ambitions—wellness. Mr. Parker believes the human experience can be perfected—a belief that, as luck would have it, is highly marketable.

At the beginning of the narrative, Mr. Parker talks about the benefits of bathing in the sea and breathing in the sea air. From his perspective, “The sea air and sea bathing together were nearly infallible, one or the other of them being a match for every disorder, of the stomach, the lungs, or the blood; they were anti-spasmodic, anti-pulmonary, anti-septic, anti-bilious, and anti-rheumatic” (70). Nature holds medicinal properties for Mr. Parker in the same way that Diana and Susan’s tinctures and smelling salts have an almost mystical therapeutic power for them. According to Mr. Parker, Sanditon and its saline air give restoration and healing to everyone who lives there—according to Mr. Parker, Clara Brereton’s health and beauty have increased since she arrived: She was lovely before arriving, but “since having the advantages of Sanditon breezes, that loveliness [is] complete” (75). Mr. Parker’s delight in the saline air of Sanditon is inextricable from his financial interest in the town—evidence of The Corrupting Power of Ambition. He presents the sea air as a cure for all of life’s problems, whether sickness, sadness, or poverty, but in reality, he is a businessman whose entrepreneurial imagination is so boundless that he wants to turn the very air into a commodity for sale.

The novel’s descriptions of nature and the sea air connect directly to Sanditon. In an island country like England, a seaside town is hardly unique, but Mr. Parker and Lady Denham’s fascination with nature only applies to the nature found at Sanditon. This is because these characters have connected nature with their financial success and return on their investment. When Mr. Parker describes the health benefits of nature, he goes on to say, “If the sea breeze failed, the sea-bath was the certain corrective;—and where bathing disagreed, the sea breeze alone was evidently designed by nature for the cure” (70). Mr. Parker subtly pitches a seaside stay at a resort to the Heywood family as the cure for illness. Austen uses the humor of this moment to satirize Mr. Parker’s audacity at suggesting nature as a cure for the family who already lives in the countryside. However, according to Mr. Parker, the sea air offers benefits that cannot be found elsewhere. This commodification of nature highlights The Social Effects of Economic Inequality, as the benefits Mr. Parker touts are available only to those with the means to travel for leisure.