i love you green. i love you forests. i love you smell of damp earth. i love you feeling before the storm breaks. i love you moss. i love you rivers. i love you streams. i love you thunderstorms. i love you sunlight shining through leaves.
Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which had drawn from every poet, worthy of being read, some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling. Persuasion, Chapter 10
A million fan fiction writers may cry, but I must speak this truth: Fitzwilliam Darcy will be the kind of father who gives his children a handshake at Christmas and that is their allotment of physical affection for the year
It is so human and so not romance novel that after Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice reads Mr. Darcy's letter and accepts that Wickham was the real villain and not him, her reaction is not, "Oh no, I loved and lost him!" it's "Oh shit, I fucked up! I hope I never see that man again in my entire life."
The real problem with both "Persuasion" 2022 and Mansfield Park 1999 is that they didn't just change Anne Elliot and Fanny Price, they turned the main characters into people to whom the story could not happen. I do not believe that "Anne" 2022 would have been persuaded to give up Wentworth by her family. She's just not the kind of woman who would be. There was no reason for her and Wentworth to not get back together almost the moment they saw each other, because her personality was so different that them staying apart was illogical.
Jane Austen, whose personality was bestowed on "Fanny" 1999, would probably not have survived at Mansfield. She'd have been sent packing to Portsmouth years ago. She would have gotten in a fight with Mrs. Norris. Fanny Price's personality is just as vital to the story as her being pushed down by abuse. A different personality would make her into Jane Eyre and Jane Eyre famously did not get to stay with her wealthy relations long term.
So often, the events of the story are very tightly tied to the personality of the characters, which is why alterations to the character ruin the story. P&P 2005 gets away with making Darcy shy and Elizabeth more angry because that story can still be achieved with those traits. It's less interesting than canon Darcy's arrogance and snobbery, but it works. A snarky Fanny Price makes the story fall apart. Anne Elliot despising her family makes her story illogical.
You cannot just take a completely different person, throw them into a story and expect it to happen in the exact same way. It wouldn't.
if George Wickham lived today he would use his career as an influencer to peddle some kind of scammy MLM scheme and end up going to prison for wire fraud, having a Netflix documentary made about him, and a bunch of people would propose to him via letter in jail
Emma 2009 starting with the idea that the worse DID happen (her mother dying) is a really excellent choice actually because it simultaneously humanises her father who can easily become a little one-note by explaining his stance, and sets up the rule that the story of Emma breaks, given that it is fundamentally a story about how sometimes the worst does NOT happen (you behave awfully but you are forgiven and still loved. You meddle and almost ruin your friend's life but she ends up happy despite it all. You are badly treated by a man but you never loved him so it doesn't hurt you. You are loved by the person you love).
#everyone these days is all 'oooh keri russell of the prestige cable drama scene' #but let's not forget the importance of her romcom era #i wasn't sure about this one at first in that way where people make movies/shows about the *trappings* of a regency-set story #while missing basically the entire point of regency settings and the things that make them compelling #aka the bridgerton scenario #a vaudeville sort of clown-show of people going through the fancy dress motions - ends up all pose and no meaning #all hat and no cattle #where they make them about clothing and dances and tea when regency stories need to be about money basically #it's the money (lack of/fear about/differences of) which give the dances and tea and clothing their meaning #(aka as austen says: everything is about sex except sex which is about money) #(source: she says that when i read it) #and 10 minutes into this one I realised it actually wasn't doing the regency halloween costume bit: it was ABOUT people who do that #actually 10 seconds in when jane seymour appears in a bonnet and holding a lamb #a lamb which on closer inspection is rigid and plastic #and yet it's still quite good spirited: it's making fun of that sort of surface-level fixation but at the same time is quite affectionate #also james callis is there doing possibly the Biggest Acting I've ever seen him do and you know what a high bar that is #the director basically let james callis and jennifer coolidge loose in a country house and didn't reign them in #a good time!
I just noticed a tiny detail in P&P95 that I’ve never picked up on before. Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper of Pemberley, says that the little office-type room was where the late Mrs. Darcy liked to write her letters and was her favorite room in the house.
This is the same room we see Darcy in during the flashback when he’s writing the check to Wickham.
That means that Darcy chose to use his mom’s favorite room as his personal office. I assume that the house must have had another, bigger study that the late Mr. Darcy used and that our Mr. Darcy could have also used, but our Mr. Darcy chooses to hang out in his mama’s room. 🥺❤️
Ranking Jane Austen heroines/women on how good of a mother they’d be?
As with the men, I think they would all be good mothers, though in different ways.
Elizabeth Bennet: Soccer mom, she wasn't given the opportunity to have a structured education herself, it will be different for her kids. She's hiring the best governess she can find (after Darcy does a full background check), she's encouraging her kids to do extracurriculars, they will speak six languages that she doesn't understand or else! Has a minor panic attack if she says anything that sounds even remotely like something either of her parents would say.
Jane Bennet: Gentle mom, she cannot imagine punishing her children, she just has a killer disappointed face (she is unaware of this). Encourages her children to always try to understand both sides of the story. Will eventually fall for a lie one of her children tells and be devastated when she figures out the truth.
Anne Elliot: Perfect mother, there is indeed no one so proper, so capable as Anne. She has also watched her sister do everything wrong and she knows exactly how to do it right.
Emma Woodhouse: Scatterbrained mom, makes a resolution to teach her daughter fancy work but then gets distracted and the sampler is left half finished. Promised to read with her son but they only make it halfway through the novel. Good thing she hired an excellent "Miss Taylor" to pick up the slack! And despite her occasional screw-ups, her kids love her to pieces. They just better be on guard when they hit 18 and she starts trying to marry them off.
Marianne Dashwood: Crunchy mom, or whatever the Regency period equivalent would be. She wants her kids to feel the dead leaves between their toes, she encourages them to write poetry and play moving ballads. Otherwise, a lot like her own mother (they have very similar personalities)
Elinor Dashwood: I-Say-I-Love-You-With-Food Mom, she may not be exactly emotionally available, but she orders her daughter's favourite meal when she's sad and there are tiny hearts in the stiches of her son's clothes. She makes sure her kids are provided for, educated, and healthy. When she asks if they are hungry, they know she's saying, "I love you."
Fanny Price: Nurturing mom, she will be everything for those children that Edmund and William were to her, but nothing like Sir Thomas, Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris or her own parents. She has a good deal of experience from nursing her own siblings so it's a pretty smooth beginning.
Catherine Morland: Overconfident mom, Catherine has been there and done that, she has six younger brothers and sisters after all, she's READY! This will be easy! All you have to do is make sure the baby is fed, washed, changed, and napped... oh... it's a lot harder to do this when you have only slept for 2.5 hours last night... (I know she would have servants, but still, being a new mother is tough!)
Bonus: Jane Fairfax tries to keep Frank from spoiling the kids, but it is literally impossible. He keeps buying them huge presents and then she would be the bad guy for saying no. Also, she knows that Frank lost their child in Kensington Gardens (twice), that's why she always insists he take a footman now.
Bonus bonus: Harriet Smith has a special box where she keeps all the 'treasures' her kids collect. It is her most precious possession.
idk much about historical accuracy but i’m thinking about how marianne would have the dress with more exposure and elinor’s more wrapped up and reserved, for visual metaphor