Response Questions #1 (due Friday by 5pm)
This week’s readings: CAOW, “Love and Friendship” and “Lesley
Castle”
Choose ONE of the following to respond to in a 1-2 page
response (double spaced). Since you have
all week to do this, put some thought into it and don’t just give me an
answer. Explain why you read the story as you do and offer support from the
text. A good answer should have some
element of a ‘close reading,’ which examines a short passage from the book and
‘reads’ it from your perspective. Don’t
assume that everyone sees the same passage or ideas as you do—help us see your reading. Other than that, go wherever the question
takes you.
1. Based on these two works
(one finished, one probably unfinished), what kind of woman was the young
Austen? If we can glean character,
ideals, values, and eccentricities from a literary work, what do these stories
say about the woman behind them?
Additionally, how might these works contradict the portrait her brother,
Henry, wrote about her to preface her posthumously published works? Remember he praised her modesty, sincerity,
and abhorrence for anything “vulgar.”
2. Why do you think Austen
gravitated to the epistolary novel (or in this case, story) in her early
career? What did it allow her to reveal
about her characters and/or satirize about the world around her? Would these stories make as much sense—or be
as outrageously funny—if we took out the back-and-forth letters?
3. Somewhat similar to the
question above, what do you feel are the limitations of the epistolary
novel? What directions does it not allow
Austen to move in? Is she aware of this? Do we ever get the feeling that she’s
metaphorically panting herself into a corner?
Related to this, why do you think she might have abandoned the form for
her later works?
4. Jane Austen was a notable
defender of the novel as a literary form, writing in the early novel Northanger Abbey that although “our
productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of
any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been
so much decried.” Yet in “Love and
Friendship” in particular, she seems to be satirizing the girls’ love of novels
and the values they instill. Why does
she implicate novels in her satire, and what might be her overall message in
doing so? You might consider the works
they read (only one or two are mentioned) and the lingo they pick up from them,
notably “sensibility.”
After reading both stories, I realized that the young Jane Austen was nothing like what her brother said. Austen was a sarcastic little girl who seemed very aware of her surroundings. Saying that she was never “vulgar” is proven wrong within the first page or two (such as when Laura makes herself out to be quite conceited, mentioning her “charms” and her “perfections”). Austen made her characters out to seem like real people, and she played on the stereotypes of women, making them into a big joke. When one reads these novels (especially “Lesley Castle”) they might notice a bit of a feeling like they know these characters, which is interesting since we know that people had reiterated that Austen’s characters were based on no one. With the feeling of knowing these people, even know it feels like they almost need an opening that states, “All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental,” just as they do in the films.
ReplyDeleteBeing a female myself, I have come across many of these women. I’m sure I’ve had “friends” who described me as “pleasing both in [my] Person and Manners,” but I, too, didn’t have “the hundredth part of [her] Beauty or Accomplishments.” Austen seemed to look closely at the women around her and captured the true essence of women in these stories. It always seems that, stereotypically, women are conniving, over-the-top dramatic creatures. Even in the 21st century, bringing light to this seems almost vulgar. Most women, especially myself, would never admit to being this way, but all of us women have a bit of it in us. Just like someone mentioned in class, it all stems from a slight bit of jealousy. The shorter women want to be taller; the taller women want to be shorter. I want an ass to fill out my jeans, and I have friends offering me some of theirs all the time. The fact that Austen came across this discovery and laid it out in her writing shows how she was most definitely ahead of her age with thoughts and ideas, not to mention the feeling that she has more of a mindset of a 21st century woman who seems state, “I couldn’t care less about what you think of me (on the outside), I’m going to be me.”
This is a great response; as I hoped, it shows you another side of Austen, one she tried to explore and that circumstances--and perhaps, the market--forced her to curtail. But this Austen is still in the works, you just have to look for it. However, it reminds us that Austen was audacious, innovative, and surly. She cared most about satire initially, and that satirical impulse never entirely went away. However, in the early 19th century with the rise of Romanticism, it became very unpopular and dated. She had to change with the times--otherwise, she would be "vulgar"!
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ReplyDeleteThe early Jane Austen was a women who knew the way the world around her worked, and was quite noticeable of the depths of human stupidity and arrogance. Thus, she applied what she knew to the two epistolary stories she wrote before she was twenty years old. However, it's easy to see that her family wanted to shield her grossness from the public eye, which is why they always kept saying that she barely ever wrote, and reinforced the idea that she was as girly as any girly girl could possibly be.
In the first story, “Love and Friendship,” both the two leads, Laura and Sophia, are extreme representations of what a female typically behaved like during that time. Laura always broke mad, and Sophia would pass out. Laura was controlling and self-centered, oblivious to the fact that the whole world didn't revolve around her. Coincidences kept happening to the main characters. Every trope at that time was used by Jane.
The point is that, if Jane was as pure as her brother (and her family) often said she was, then how in the world would she know these archetypes as well as she did? It's easy to get a basic understanding from reading a book, but to truly explore and comprehend something fully, Jane had to have been around people who did gross things. And of course her family knew this. They just wanted to censor the real her because they were either weary of how outsiders would perceive Jane and themselves, or they were jealous. Maybe it was even a mixture. Given how snooty people were back then, I figure most would be more likely to read a book by someone pure and modest, then by someone gross and detestable. If her family had not wanted her to write (or be exposed to impurity) they wouldn't have allowed her to write at all; her father wouldn't have gotten her a desk; they would have kept books away from her (especially vulgar ones); and they would have not allowed her to leave the house and go do things that were perhaps unladylike. By them saying that she was modest it allowed them to cover their own asses by essentially saying "Jane was a very good girl, she barely ever wrote,and she stayed away from anything vulgar and crude. We raised her to be a lady, and that is what she is."
Great points...the Austen we see in these works belies the one Henry wanted us to see (though he knew we wouldn't read those works, because they weren't published in his lifetime). However, as you say, she knew all the tropes, themes, and stereotypes, and she had read widely. She knew how men saw women, and more importantly, how they wanted to see women. She at first satirizes the fictional view of women, and then starts branching out, more interested to show us how SHE sees women (which few men could know or care about). The danger of this, as we will see, is that men ignore it or find it unworthy of serious art. And that's the Catch-22 of a woman writing in the 19th century: you either conform to the stereotypes (and are shallow, silly, sentimental, etc.) or defy them (and are vulgar, foolish, insipid, uninspired). Most women writers fell prey to changing tastes and were written out of the canon; Austen was one of the few to find a way to be 'universal' without entirely compromising her uniquely feminine vision. Exactly what that is still provokes some debate.
DeleteCan one really determine who an author is purely by their works? Is Austin’s personality evidenced through her characters? This is not an easy thing to decide. Some people believe authors do simply “write what they know.” Is this the case and early Austin is simply a reflection of her characters? I sure as hell hope not!
ReplyDeleteThese stories show shallow, self centered woman. They are centered on marriage for money but not necessarily love. I don’t wish to believe Austin is much like her characters. I truly hated Laura in Love and Friendship. Her and just about everyone she interacted with were over the top. For her companion Sophia to have died of fainting was absurd to me as I’m sure Austin intended it to be.
Nothing more can be said about these women then they were senseless. Stupid and senseless.
I can see who Austin is, or at least thinks she is, based on what her satire is directed at. Her portrayal of the women as stupid and senseless tells me she must be a sensible and when I say this I mean the modern sensible, grounded, level headed. Through we have yet to read pride and prejudice and I have only read snips it I had thought that Austin would be like Elizabeth Bennet. What I have read Elizabeth is seen by other women as vulgar. When reading I picture Austin as Elizabeth most when walking three miles in the mud to see her sister. Austin embraced vulgarity. Just to write as much as she did at the time alone was vulgar was it not?
From the way the marriages played out in her stories confirms Austin’s feelings about marriage for love. Why else would her marriages so quickly and easily tragically ended. Poor Augustus and Edward left alone with no so much as a visit from their wives, that is an awful was to live. What an awful life companion to choose.
This is highly contradicting of how her brother describes her. She is not sweet. Though I know a woman or two that I feel fit perfectly in the stereotype that Austin makes fun of I would never dear to publicly ridicule them! It is just not what I would consider “nice and sweet.” Sure like most people I tell my best friends how stupid I felt these women are but I care to much about public opinion to write it publicly. One of the great thing about Austin, she just didn’t care, she wrote her works anyway, they probably needed to hear of how silly they were acting.
Her brother swears there is not likeness to real people but who better for Austin to use then the public she sees around her.
Yes, I think early on, Austen (careful--not "Austin" :) ) shrank from there stereotypes she saw in books and how keen women were to adopt them (since, they assumed, this would get them husbands). As a young person, she wanted to lash out and lampoon everything, showing people how stupid they were and priding herself on her own good taste. But as she matured, she realized that satire only went so far (and tastes in literature had moved on from the 18th c.), and she wanted a more nuanced approach to discussing/critiquing the ills of her society. Of course, her brother didn't want the world to see this side of her--the witty, sarcastic vamp--so he painted her too much the other way. Yet we can't ignore what she wrote, which presents a more complicated and contradictory character.
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