I know it would kill the whimsy a bit, but it would be interesting to see period dramas frame their heroines marrying for love less as "I think of marriage as a love match in a modern romance way" and more as "since I'm allowed choice, I want to ensure this man will actually respect me as a person for my whole life. I'm entering a contract where he has alarming control of my life, and I want to make sure it's not terrible, even when neither of us is young and hot anymore."

It's not said explicitly in so many words, but this is what Jane Austen was trying to say 250 yeas ago. "Make sure your husband has a good moral education and basic decency before you marry him."

Yup. In a world where you legally can’t get a job without being irrevocably cut off from every relationship you’ve ever known (and the jobs all SUCK to boot), there is no happy ever after without a well-padded purse. True love’s kisses won’t feed you.

Austen’s stories had two intentions: 1. To teach young ladies that no man who truly loves you would ask you to starve for him. 2. To point out to everyone else how awful systems that create situations where people must choose between being fed and being loved are.

That isn’t to say that folks didn’t hope for a life partner they’d love (Who wouldn’t want that?), but it could never be the singular or primary focus. A lady or gentleman determined to marry for love at all costs in a period piece is as anachronistic as a can of Spam.

It’s important to note that every single Austen novel includes at least one marriage made for the wrong reasons to underline just how important it is for the heroine to choose someone who will respect and take care of her.

If you think the main draw to Pride and Prejudice is "enemies to lovers with a rich man" then you've explicitly missed the point.

The draw is "rich haughty man realizes the error of his ways, makes sincere attempts to rectify his mistakes, and in the end expects literally nothing in return because he does genuinely truly love the girl who rejected him and he didn't want her to ever believe she 'owed' him or that he did it merely to get in her good graces"

And we cannot forget, "girl realizes that she's not as good at judging other people as she thinks she was, that she's following the same unhappy path as her father, and that she needs to change too. And she does."

the worst thing about trying to give every jane austen protagonist a bad carbon copy of elizabeth bennet’s judgy wit

is that not even pride & prejudice thinks that behaviour of hers is entirely a good thing?

Like?? half of lizzy’s entire character arc is realizing that her judgy wit that she always congratulated herself on was based on really shaky foundations?? because she’s not nearly as good a judge of character as she believed, and that it’s actually kind of a character flaw motivated by the TITULAR combination of faults??? that she has as much pride & prejudice as she accuses others of having? & that she needs to let go of that a bit, in order to have better relationships with the people around her???

LIKE?

also this tends to cluster with not processing the contextual elements of the plot with enough attention to notice that Mr. Bennett is, in fact, Part Of The Problem.

because Lizzy over-developed those traits as part of deliberately being his daughter as much as possible and dissociating herself from her mother. but stepping outside the narrow context of their family where those are The Two Options reveals him as also embarrassingly flawed, and the terrible limitations of this approach to cultivating one's own character.

that's a big part of the story! some of the themes rather hinge on it!

Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy being like, "I am 100% committed to respecting your 'no', but I heard you wouldn't promise my aunt not to marry me so I had to come and check just one (1) more time."

Anne Elliot is a Radical

The more I read Persuasion, the more I am convinced that Anne Elliot might be the most radical Jane Austen heroine. She has a strong appreciation for the navy even though her father hates it for turning commoners into gentlemen, she appreciates Charles Hayter for bettering himself through education and solidly establishing himself in the gentry, she completely scorns the Dowager Viscountess for being vapid and does not care at all about her rank; and at the end, in a book mainly from Anne’s point of view, we have this narration:

“Captain Wentworth, with five-and-twenty thousand pounds, and as high in his profession as merit and activity could place him, was no longer nobody. He was now esteemed quite worthy to address the daughter of a foolish, spendthrift baronet, who had not had principle or sense enough to maintain himself in the situation in which Providence had placed him.”

Which is the clearest take-down of the class system in Jane Austen, in my opinion. The actual point of this book might be showing again and again that people of lower birth can have more merit than those born high. Anne is all the more radical because she is the highest born heroine and yet still sees the flaws in a system that serves her.

Yes. I have read, here on Tumblr (maybe it was you who said it) that Austen’s novels grow increasingly critical of the British class system, culminating in Persuasion’s thorough takedown, as you have detailed. To extend the point, there is also how differently Sir Walter and Anne think of Mrs. Smith. When Anne wants to visit her and skip out on Lady Dalrymple, Sir Walter says,

“A widow Mrs. Smith, lodging in Westgate Buildings! A poor widow, barely able to live, between thirty and fifty; a mere Mrs. Smith, an everyday Mrs. Smith, of all people and all names in the world, to be the chosen friend of Miss Anne Elliot, and to be preferred by her to her own family connections among the nobility of England and Ireland! Mrs. Smith! Such a name!”

Anne does visit her – and the plot rewards her for it.

I think it’s something that grows more and more overt as Jane Austen writes. No longer subtext (Lady Catherine vs. the Gardiners) but text.

Actually, I know damn well Darcy never sat down and thought about marrying Lizzie. If he had, it would have been a week before he was rounding up Bingley, sitting him down, and looking him in the eye like he was about to propose high treason and going, "Jane. You still down bad for her?"

Coin toss whether Bingley would actually get to answer before Darcy turned around and flipped over a whiteboard like

and launched right into the most detailed migration pattern known to Regency England to keep the extraneous Bennets as contained as humanly possible by rotating them between various Bingley/Darcy estates. Like, we're talking about trading them off for minor holidays a decade out kind of detailed.

"If you and Jane take them for Lady Day ten years hence, Elizabeth and I will take them for Michaelmas. We'll all be together for Christmas and Midsummer, so we'll divide the responsibility individually on those days."

This would be followed by thirteen different spreadsheets projecting joint expenditures so Bingley knows what sort of financial commitment he'll be shouldering and how to minimize it, what proportion Darcy will take care of, what the estate plans are in case Darcy predeceases anybody, when they should probably roll out various stages to keep it from affecting their respective sisters' ability to maximize their own husband-hunting--whole nine yards.

Darcy does not know that he'll probably be murdered when the Bingley sisters find out why he asked for their social calendars. He'd be marginally fine with that at this point, because the fucking Napoleonic War campaigns were not as meticulously planned as his roadmap to getting the other three Bennets satisfactorily married, and Darcy feels about as able as if he'd spent the last year on Elba.

It takes Bingley a few minutes to realize why this is happening, then he's like

"You proposed to Elizabeth?! Congratulations!"

Darcy... knew there was something he was forgetting.

That man would have kicked the Collins's door open with four binders tucked under each arm, dumped them in a pile in front of Elizabeth, and loudly announced that if they get married tomorrow he can have her entire family except for Jane extraordinary renditioned to the Scottish moors by Sunday and then been like

"Why are you yelling at me?! I promise you, it will work! You'll never see anyone in your family except for Jane again, I swear it!" when she starts yelling at him.

People who long for some imaginary idyllic past that never existed aren't reading enough female-written classic literature or they aren't paying attention when they do, because the imagined social contract of men holding power and wealth and using it to provide for and protect women has never worked.

Jane Austen emphasizes marrying prudently, but without sufficient independent wealth (rare), a woman's life becomes tied to a good man's survival. Mr. Dashwood inheriting late and dying early put his wife and daughter's fates in the hands of his selfish son. When women cannot work, they must hope that their fathers live until they marry, hope that their brothers will take care of them, and hope to be provided for as widows. Even love matches can end in ruin if the man holding the money is incompetent, as Mrs. Smith in Persuasion emphasizes. But men are supposed to provide for the dependant women in their lives, Jane Austen points to this social contract again and again, so why does it fail? Because there are almost no consequences when men refuse to do their duty. No one shuns John Dashwood for the way he treats his female relations. The only ones with the power to hold men accountable are men themselves, and why would they do that?

Not to mention that a man can uproot his entire family's life without any need to consult them (North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell), the jobs available to women were degrading and poorly paid (Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë), escaping abuse was dangerous and legally difficult (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë & Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë), being born as an intelligent woman was seen as a curse because it was useless and wouldn't get you married (The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot), etc. etc. etc.

Elizabeth Bennet might have gotten her fairy tale ending, but Charlotte Lucas would have given her left kidney to be able to get a job and pay for "comfortable home" all on her own.

Accidentally started rereading Northanger Abbey, and was sudden reminded all over again that Jane Austen is, in fact, fucking hilarious.

NA is her parody/satire of Gothic novels at the time, and she starts the book by choosing violence-- she describes the "tragedy" of the main character, Catherine Morland, a girl Determined to be a Heroine even though ALL ODDS are against her: she has a sane father who doesn't lock up his daughters, a healthy mother who didn't die in childbirth, no preternatural talent for music or drawing through which to reveal her Deepest Soul, and-- most shockingly of all-- absolutely zero love interests for whom she can wander the hills mourning their starcrossed fates until she wastes away from the sheer Sentimentality of it all.

But don't worry! She's got this FIGURED OUT. She KNOWS why she has not yet found her TRUE LOVE:

(SPOILER: She is introduced to a mysterious young man who lives in an ABBEY, which everyone knows means he has a DEEPLY MYSTERIOUS SECRET PAST and is maybe a TRAGIC HERO or even a ROMANTIC MONSTER and either way this is IT this is Catherine's TIME TO SHINE she is going to get a good grade in DOOMED LOVE, a thing that is normal to want and--)

(...meanwhile Henry Tilney-- an ordinary guy who never expected "get cast as the Hero in some Grand Gothic Romance" to show up on his bingo card-- starts wondering when exactly he started finding Catherine's attempts to locate bloody daggers in his linen closet charming.)

I think this post explains why I like this book. Jane Austen said, "Hey, you, girl who inhales gothic romance novels. Yes, you. I know you live 200 years in the future, but what if I told you a story about a girl who is super into gothic romance novels who goes on a Real World Version of a gothic adventure? And it will be funny because I'll highlight all the silly things you do without being mean about it, and yet you'll also be able to identify each trope and how I play it straight but just give it a realistic execution. Oh. But there is one thing. The hero. The hero is not a brooding jerk but a really sweet, funny guy who shares this girl's interests, and does what he can to support her and make her feel comfortable when she has anxiety. So...., uh, anyway, want to read that?"

Part of why I hadn't read this novel was because I was worried it would be making me the joke. But it didn't. Instead, it is Galaxy Quest for gothic romance fans.

(Also I will never be over the sheer romanticism of Henry standing up to his father and then riding seventy miles to propose to Catherine. I just....there are Grand Romantic Gestures, but that is so Next Level. Every time I think about it, I need to fall on the floor and die from it all.)

OMG, that’s it, THAT’S IT! Northanger Abbey **is** the Galaxy Quest of gothic romance! A parody, yes, but with such love and heart that it is arguably the best example of the thing that it parodies!

finally reading persuasion. late 20s girlfailures constantly yearning after missed connections RISE UP

frederick treating anne increasingly tender while anne is growing more confident in his presence is making me scream cry throw up pull my hair out bang the walls roll on the ground etc etc. jane austen put crack cocaine in this shit!

HIS LETTER IS SO FUCKING CRAZY ACTUALLY .

I'm not going to tell anybody what to do but the 1995 adaptation is short, free on Youtube, and one of the best Austen adaptations out there, so like. Make good choices.

Mary Bennet lovers: She's so neglected and ignored by her whole family!

the actual novel

Jane, Elizabeth, Kitty, & Lydia: Hey Mary, want to come with us?

Mary: No, and it's stupid that you want to go at all.

Also, when it comes to their mother, I am sure she points out that Mary isn't as pretty as the others at home, but in public I cannot believe she's not hyping Mary's accomplishments because that is totally in character for her. She is trying to marry these girls off; she always praises them and derides other girls (mostly Charlotte Lucas) when we hear her talk about her daughters.

I mean, this comment about the Assembly ball, "Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood." If that wasn't Mrs. Bennet, it was Mrs Philips and they are in this together, or it's someonerepeating Mrs. Bennet's propaganda.

Not to be cliche, but Jane Austen's novels are a lot about how great power & wealth should come with great responsibility, and how most of the wealthy and powerful fail at that. She's asking questions like, "Is that insanely wealthy person polite, charitable, and considerate in a way that befits his station in life?" and she's finding most of them wanting.

So what you're saying is that Spiderman belongs in a Jane Austen novel.

Honestly, I think she'd want a word with Tony Stark

So I made notes when I read Pride and Prejudice because I had so many spoilers for this book thanks mostly to tumblr, and yet here are some things that took me quite off guard:

Darcy’s introduction in Pride and Prejudice is really ‘what if you had just had the worst month of your life because your ex-bestie tried to lover boy scam your baby sister out of her share of your dad’s life insurance and your friend dragged you to a shitty party in a dive bar in the neighbourhood where he’d just signed a short term lease, and you decided to let your bad mood show because you were never going to see any of the assholes in this stupid shitty bar EVER again. And your friend ended up making out with a girl he’d just met there while you were stuck talking to her sister who was less cute and then her mother appeared and started trying to matchmake and started saying how if she was twenty years younger she’d clime you like a redwood and ooooh is that a black Amex, guess the next round is on you hahhahahahaha, while her other sister (how many fucking sisters does she have?!) flashed an obviously fake ID at the bar and ordered six vodka-diet red bulls and no one in her family except the less-cute sister even tried to stop her. And you went home and consoled yourself that you would never see any of these people again but then you met them over and over again because they live next door and your friend and the cute sister keep meeting up to make out but not actually date and then. You fall in love with the less-cute sister because it turns out she’s really witty and charismatic but she already knows and remembers and resents the fact that on a day when you were in a shitty mood you called her mid out loud in a dive bar.’

Darcy’s introduction in Pride and Prejudice is really ‘what if you had just had the worst month of your life because your ex-bestie tried to lover boy scam your baby sister out of her share of your dad’s life insurance and your friend dragged you to a shitty party in a dive bar in the neighbourhood where he’d just signed a short term lease, and you decided to let your bad mood show because you were never going to see any of the assholes in this stupid shitty bar EVER again. And your friend ended up making out with a girl he’d just met there while you were stuck talking to her sister who was less cute and then her mother appeared and started trying to matchmake and started saying how if she was twenty years younger she’d clime you like a redwood and ooooh is that a black Amex, guess the next round is on you hahhahahahaha, while her other sister (how many fucking sisters does she have?!) flashed an obviously fake ID at the bar and ordered six vodka-diet red bulls and no one in her family except the less-cute sister even tried to stop her. And you went home and consoled yourself that you would never see any of these people again but then you met them over and over again because they live next door and your friend and the cute sister keep meeting up to make out but not actually date and then. You fall in love with the less-cute sister because it turns out she’s really witty and charismatic but she already knows and remembers and resents the fact that on a day when you were in a shitty mood you called her mid out loud in a dive bar.’

AUSTENLAND (2013) dir. Jerusha Hess, Jared Hess