#always austen

[bethanydelleman]

My latest post on Always Austen:

How Does Jane Austen/the Narrator Feel About Charlotte Lucas?

Two women are given the option to mary Mr. William Collins, one staunchly refuses, the other agrees. In a novel that’s thesis could probably

[bethanydelleman]

Saw your post about the problem with Mr Collins in adaptations (read a bunch of them after your latest on Austen's knack for character assassination) and I heartily agree! My ideal Collins would be someone like a young Stephen Fry or a young Matt Berry--an actor who can play pompous, play ridiculous, and absolutely play not suitable for Lizzy, but who doesn't feel like the rest of the world is insane for not seeing that he's made of red flags. (Fry would have been PERFECTION in the 1995 series, again slightly older but devastatingly handsome and elegant....and able to spoil all of that the moment he opens his mouth. Check out the Engagement Ring sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie if you haven't seen it.)

Also YES my ideal Mrs Bennet would be someone like Penelope Keith or Miranda Richardson--stylish, gorgeous, FULLY able to play silly and ridiculous but not so much that she flies into unsympathetic. We love Margo Leadbetter and Queenie and that is the energy Mrs Bennet needs.

Adaptations are so interesting to me because of how often they are based more upon each other than upon going back to the source material (like Jonathan Harker NEVER being as heroic as he is in the book in ANY adaptation of Dracula because they all are based on the 1931 version in which he does almost nothing but say "but surely, vampires are a fairy tale!" while his possessed fiancee talks to a bat in front of him), and Mr Collins and Mrs Bennet being presented the way they are is such a great example of that.

Thank you! This question references this article:

The Problem with Portrayals of Mr. Collins

Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society… Having now a good hou

There are definitely trends that seem to run through Austen adaptations. Margaret Dashwood is many people's favourite character based on the 1995 movie and I've heard people get angry when she's left out. The girl is hardly in the book! Elizabeth's line about only marrying for "deepest love," something that Book!Elizabeth Bennet would never say, was in both the 1995 and then the 2005 adaptations, leading to many people mistaking it for canon.

I think Mr. Collins' portrayals play into certain tropes about both clergymen and marrying relatives, so I'm not sure if it came from the adaptations or prior things, but he's never really done correctly. Not even in the earliest adaptations.

[bethanydelleman]

What common misconception you say? People online come up with this theory a lot despite the almost total lack of evidence in the book:

Wickham Didn’t Target Lydia for Revenge

Common Pride & Prejudice Misconceptions, Part 4 I know what you’re thinking, “This is a common misconception???” Let me tell you, about once

[bethanydelleman]

My latest post on Always Austen:

Jane Austen Adaptations and the Problem with Casting

One of the things that adaptations struggle with when it comes to Jane Austen is the fact that many of her antagonists are supposed to be ex

[bethanydelleman]

My latest post on Always Austen:

Emma Woodhouse is a Lovable Heroine (to me, at least)

Emma Woodhouse in various adaptations of the novel Emma is unlikable for a couple reasons, mostly her treatment of Miss Bates, but also beca

To make a brief point about women's work being overlooked and underappreciated again, it helps if you always keep in mind while reading the novel that Emma is a tireless caregiver to her father. All her shenanigans happen in between her caregiving. Something that women have always done and has always been treated as a given, not a "real job," even today.

[bethanydelleman]

My latest post on Always Austen! In a day late celebration of her 250th birthday

What is Unique about Jane Austen?

No one does it quite like Jane Austen! What is it that makes her writing so original? Watercolor by Cassandra Austen, c. 1804 Very Little De

[bethanydelleman]

im curious about what you mean when you call "compromise" a likely ahistorical concept in that post about caroline bingley. have you posted about this before? it's one of those tropes that's almost like furniture in regency setting fic and literature - id never really considered that it wasn't accurate (at least broadly)

I wrote a whole article about it!

The Problem with the Compromise Trope

Or, The “Who Is Holding The Shotgun” Problem To preface, I totally understand why writers use the compromise trope: it’s a basic forced prox

The biggest problem with the trope is that authors rarely consider the power dynamics of the compromise, which is roughly equivalent to a shotgun marriage today. One of the most sensible compromises I've seen is in Bridgerton, surprisingly, because a male relative of about equal status used an actual gun to try and make the compromiser marry his sister. If the female doesn't have a powerful or willing male relation, who holds the shotgun?

Another big problem which comes up a lot in fan fiction is lowering the bar of physical contact. In Bridgerton, Daphne and Simon are fully making out, in a lot of Chinese dramas they lock drunk/drugged up, opposite sex people in a room for an entire night and then let servants "discover" them in the morning. That's very compromising! Yet, you'll read some historical fiction/a lot of fan fiction of a woman doing something as innocent as tripping into a man's arms or being alone in a room with them fully clothed and people scream, "Compromise!" It's just silly. Jane Austen has men and women accidentally alone frequently and no one ever gets married from it.

"Compromise" is a modern term for a trope, I've yet to see it in a single contemporary novel from the 1800s, and while I am certain that shotgun marriages happened throughout history, I'm also pretty sure they didn't happen as often or as innocently as a lot of historical fiction suggests.

[bethanydelleman]

My latest and last post on Always Austen

Jane Austen Inspires not only Appreciation but Creation

A Girl Writing, Henriette Browne (1829–1901) I recently posted a Middlemarch by George Eliot fan fiction on the free site Archive of Our Own

The website will be closing after this month and disappearing December of this year. I will be moving my articles over to my personal website and fixing the URLs.

Thanks for reading!