Category Archives: Pride and Prejudice

Girl Power

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It’s a gray, rainy day in Boston.  The kind of day when you just want to curl up on the couch with a good book, a kitty, a cup of tea, and a fireplace.

Also, the kind of day when you really just don’t want to bother with anything.

In my world, I call them Bartleby Days.

Allow me to devolve into a girl for a few moments.  I will be the first to admit that I’m usually fairly picky about my appearance.  One of the many virtues I picked up from working as a Ballroom Dance instructor (story for another time, folks) is a certain finickyness about my appearance.  I rarely leave the house without doing my makeup (certainly never when I know that I’m going somewhere… yes, class counts as “somewhere”), I at least put a token effort into my hair, and I’m never caught dead in requisite school sweats and ugg boots unless I’m walking around the corner to the drugstore on my day off (I get days off?  Okay, afternoon off).

But one of the key functions of a Bartleby Day is the understanding that, no matter what you do, your hair is simply not going to co-operate.

(…I promise, this is going somewhere quasi-scholarly, bear with me for another moment…)

Growing up, I had many role models.  Most of them were characters from books.  Perhaps one of the most enduring role model of my young life was a certain Hermione Granger.

Here’s the awesome thing about being a frizzy-haired chick in academia: on Bartleby

Me this morning at my most unglamorous (hair Hermione style, sweatshirt, glasses, and *gasp* not even wearing lip gloss!)

Days, I can simply rock the Hermione look.

And I feel okay about that.

As a bookish chick, I find “rocking the Hermione look” comforting.  Hermione is a great role model.  She’s never afraid to be herself (even when that’s not the most popular thing to be), she’s strong enough to not hide behind anyone else, she’s wicked smart, and she always (if indirectly) manages to be the hero.  Harry Potter wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without Hermione proving, once more, that it takes a woman to truly be able to accomplish anything.

Geek girls rule the world and, today on the most Bartleby of days, I wish to salute a few fictitious geek girls who have made my life a better place:

Seriously... get me a library like this, and I'll happily skip about your house singing songs as your trophy wife

*    Belle from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”.  Say what you want about Disney (it’s probably true), but a brunette heroine who is outcast from society because, despite the fact that she’s pretty, she’s simply too nerdy to get along with the popular girls?  A heroine that requires (instead of the requisite gift of roses) a LIBRARY to be wooed?  A heroine who’s more interested in a bookstore than a pair of rippling pectorals?  Yep.  If I were a Disney Princess, I’d be Belle.  Hands down.  Talking clock and teapot and everything.

*    Mina Harker from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  Despite her degradation into generic pretty female love interest in just about every Dracula re-telling, Mina was actually pretty badass in the original.  She was the secretary for what became known as “the crew of light” and so kept all the notes and things tidy.  Without her, the fictitious narrative never would have come to be.  It was Mina’s work in compiling notes, letters, diaries, that made the final volume.  Okay, so maybe the boys didn’t let her go out on the “dangerous missions”, but what do you want from Victorian men?  Mina bound the group together and it was her efforts which ensured that they were able to accomplish their goals and defeat the mighty beast.  Perhaps more importantly, it was her efforts which ensured that documentation of this even survived.  Boo-friggen-yah.

 *   Jo March from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.  When I was a kid, I would read books and eat apples because that was Jo’s favorite thing to do.  Jo reads and writes to an extreme which makes her unladylike (much like the harried author of this blog).  Despite having her nose stuck in a book, Jo also manages to bag the guy at the end and balance being a woman with being ambitious in the nineteenth century.  Yea… I may identify a little bit with this clumsy, tom-boyish, not-as-pretty-as-her-sister literati… just a little.

*    Elizabeth Bennet from Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.  Yes, I know, this book

Totally badass

comes up all the time, but it’s because I LOVE LIZZY.  Oh my god, if you could bottle Lizzy and sell her she’d be in my cabinets all the time.  I’d bathe in her, I’d cook with her, I’d even spritz a little on my pillow every night.  Maybe it’s a stretch to call Lizzy a literati (she’s not really depicted as reading any more than any other strong heroine of the time), but she definitely is smart and (as such) I’m going to label her as a nerd.  She’s clearly focused her time on something besides painting, drawing, playing music, and sewing (she says so herself), so let’s assume for the sake of my list that that something is reading?  Please?  …plus… she fights zombies…

This is by no means a comprehensive list, just a selection of my favorites.  Hopefully it’ll help you get through your gray dreary day.

And remember; Bartleby days happen to everyone.  If the weather (or extenuating factors) have put you in such a slump as this, just think: What would Hermione Granger do?

Also… watch this.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY]

I know that always makes me feel better.

>I Want you to Hit me as Hard as you Can

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Since Austen has been so high on my mind lately, the world has become a hazy rose-hued place of beauty and sensationalism coupled with the grayish-pink normality of daily life.  Things taste of earl grey and smell of violetwater.  I resist the urge to say “Oh my!” and fan myself daintily with a glove-clad hand.  The practice of reading novels is something I must think twice about before engaging in lest I become one of those women who thinks too much and thereby shall never land a husband.
Apparently, I am not alone.  Over this past weekend, this video was brought to my attention.
First and foremost, let me articulate how hilarious I find it.  The following analysis comes not from any lacking in my sense of humor, but rather an over-exaggeration of my sensibilities as a reader of Austen.  Honestly, if I wasn’t wading hip-deep in Austen criticism currently, I probably would have laughed the entire thing away and failed to put a second thought to it.  It is, truly, a funny piece of work.
That disclaimer out of the way, as a theorist I can’t help but note that Lizzie Bennet is likely miscast in her role of Tyler Durden.  Lizzie is most certainly the most famous of Austen’s women and for good reason.  She has a staring role in Austen’s most well read novel.  She has a bright, intelligent, strong personality that a modern audience absolutely connects to.  She is smart, beautiful, and gets the ultimate tall-dark-brooding-handsome-rich man in the end.  If I was stuck in some bizarre and world-altering literary cataclysm and had to choose one of Austen’s women to live as, it would be Lizzie Bennet.  Her story is relatable, desirable, and utterly romantic.
However, one of Lizzie’s most important characteristics is that, despite her brilliance and wittiness, she never outwardly performs any action of social impropriety.  Her barbs are measured, counted, and always reserved for the correct place at the correct time.  There is no unhealthy oppression in Lizzie (that is all left to her father, poor soul).  She says what she wants and needs to, but only does so at moments in which she knows she can get away with it.  Most importantly, Lizzie’s careful application of tact ensures that even her rebellion attracts the most desirable suitor.  Darcy is drawn to Lizzie precisely because of her rebellious streak.  This streak, thereby, goes to re-enforce social norms and the institution of male power within the novel despite its assertion of female agency in the acquisition of that power.
There is undeniably another woman, however, who would be more appropriately cast in this role.  To me, Marianne Dashwood is a much more likely candidate for the institution of such an organization as depicted in this little vignette.  Marianne famously is of a passionate and over-brimming heart, and acts precisely as she feels when she feels it.  She is unable to succumb to the boundaries of social propriety, and though her mind is sharp she cannot tame it to the demands of a society woman.  She, it seems, would instigate such fights.  She would lead the other women into the same lack of restraint that she exhibits throughout the course of her novel.
That being said, Fanny is the perfect candidate for the role of unnamed-Edward-Norton-narrator.  Quite, reserved, constantly told that she is inadequate, unable to stand up for herself, insistently put down by the book’s higher-socially-ranked characters, if anyone required a means of blowing off repressed anger it would be Fanny.  More importantly, the weak and measly push-over that Fanny is is the text-book definition of “beware of the quiet type”.  It would be of no surprise to me that Fanny should imagine herself an alternate person which, once donned, would allow her to act out.  More importantly, Marianne Dashwood would fill that persona swimmingly; wild, romantic, carefree, unbounded; the perfect fantasy for the mousy Fanny to enact in her attempt at conquering her own meekness.
….and perhaps it’s just because my most recent paper is on Northanger Abbey, but where is Catherine Morland?  Don’t satirical Gothic heroines get to beat people up too?
In any case, this certainly inspires further thought.  In recent years, Austen’s works have provided the muse for a series of adaptations which has brought them center-stage in the eyes of the reading masses.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is the first (and perhaps most famous) of these.  It is hard to say whether these appropriations should be grouped into literary fan fiction, or legitimate attempts to make these texts speak to a modern audience.  Having done no lengthy study upon them, it is a difficult distinction for me to make.  I suppose it begs us to first answer the question of how far one can go from an original text while still maintaining its integrity.  Do the zombies make this book another book, or should it still be shelved with its predecessor?  Are we talking about one thing, or two things?  Where does something go from “classical” to “absurd”? 
Rather than proposing any immediate answer to these questions, I’d rather pull a Professor move and allow them to ruminate in your minds.  As per usual, thoughts upon them are always welcome…. Especially if accompanied by beer.

>A Confession

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I have a confession to make.
I wasn’t going to say anything about it, especially in so public a forum as this, but it’s been eating away at me.  I’ve been living with this secret weighing upon me day after day and I just don’t think I can bear it any longer.  I hope none of you will think the less of me for it, but I simply cannot remain silent anymore.
I am having an affair.
A steamy, torrid, passionate affair right under the nose of the man who I am eternally bound to.  I have secret trysts in the library after lectures.  I leave my apartment constantly peering over my shoulder for fear that My Man won’t buy the lame excuse of “lunch with the girls” again.  I creep into my armchair with my sordid companion knowing that someday my Beloved will look out from his perch on my bookshelf and see, his vision suddenly cleared.  Those little “homework sessions” weren’t so innocent.  The time I spent thumbing through pages was perhaps a bit too tender, too enthralled, too loving.  The hours of research weren’t just for class, they were for something more, something dangerous, something that perhaps could be a huge detriment to our relationship. 
I’m cheating on Shakespeare with Jane Austen.
At first it was innocent.  That class reading wasn’t going to do itself.  I had to spend quality time with Jane, my syllabus (Lord High Ruler of my life), demanded it.  But then, somewhere midway through Northanger Abbey, it changed.  No longer was I just doing class reading.  No longer was I taking notes to keep myself awake.  I began to enjoy her company.  I was enraptured, captivated by her wit and charm.  Mesmerized by the research prospects and the impact it could have on my greater sphere of work.  I became a woman possessed, slave to the wiles of another author.
I deluded myself for a long time.  It’s easy to do.  “It’s okay to think whatever I want to think, it’s just a crush, it’s natural.”  “Everyone has urges to stray, the important part is that they don’t follow them.  Fidelity is achieved by action, not thought.”  “It’s just one cuddle session, it doesn’t mean anything.  I bet Will has them with other girls all the time.”  “We’re like SISTERS, we can totally spend time together!”
I didn’t realize how serious things had become until I picked up Pride and Prejudice.  I opened the novel, breathe bated.  I eagerly anticipated that infamous opening line.  Those words that were just so funny, so re-assuring, so much like home that I wondered why it had taken me so long to return to one of my favorite books.  I prepared, primped, projected… and then… they were there.  In front of me.  “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”  I smiled and felt Her bubble up from the pages to embrace me and I fell into that embrace contented, comforted, keen.
There was no doubt about it.  This was going to be a serious problem.
It’s not like you can’t love two people at once, right?  Juliet herself says it, “My bounty is as boundlesse as the Sea,/My Loue as deepe, the more I giue to thee/The more I haue, for both are Infinite…” (Romeo and Juliet, 934-936).  Love doesn’t run out.  It’s not like I’m taking anything away from Shakespeare by loving Austen.  He can’t miss me that much, there are so many other scholars still talking about him… I’m sure he’s barely noticed that I’m gone.  And besides, I’ll be back.  This is just for a semester… just for this one class… or maybe a year if I wind up conferencing with my paper… or maybe two or three if it gets published….
Oh god.  I’m going to have to tell him.  That’s all there is to it.  It’s been going on too long, I’m sure he sees that something is wrong, I just hope he realizes that it’s me and not him.  And that, once this is all over, I’ll be back to him.  He has my intellectual attention now and forever and nobody can take his place in my heart.  Not even a women who wrote such funny prose about some amazing characters and whose works offer a plethora of opportunities for…
No.  Stop.  I’m telling Will.  And I’ll do something nice for him.  Maybe pay him some homage by lecturing the kids at fight call this weekend about the bad Hamlet quartos…