Jane Austen, the Secret Radical

The presence of the militia in the novel, then, introduces layer upon layer of anxiety. There’s the anxiety which always attaches to the sudden arrival of large numbers of strange men in a neighbourhood. Elizabeth really isn’t wise to walk alone, as she does early in the novel. It’s noticeable that she stops doing it. But there are also political anxieties – what if the strange men become radicalised?

The militia aren’t in the novel to provide young men for the Bennet girls to dance with; they bring with them an atmosphere which is highly politically charged, they trail clouds of danger – images of a rebellious populace, of government repression and, more distant but insistent nevertheless, the fear of what might happen if the men in the militia, the troops, mutiny. The militia embody one of the central questions of the age – who should you be afraid of?