To think that most Jane Austen's heroines didn't find happiness in marriage?

[bgmama]

I am a big fan and I must have read the books a hundred times, but I am starting to realize that most heroes in her books are either assholes or idiots and towards the end of the book they stop being assholes or idiots and become worthy of marrying the heroine. I am not talking only of Mr Darcy here, but most others too. AIBU to think that this transformation didn't last very long and they went back to their usual ways shortly after the marriage was consummated? And that the heroines were miserable and were told to LTB at some point during their lives?

It was obvious reading P&P that neither Jane nor Elizabeth would be happy in their marriages. Jane was far too much like Mrs Bennett and Elizabeth too much like her father. Both marriages would have gone the same way as the Bennetts.

Elizabeth is horrifically snobbish about her mother, Aunt Phillips and younger sisters, and this could only be magnified by her marriage.

In what way is Jane like Mrs B?!

I love this thread.

Yes, Mary and Mr Collins would have been a perfect match.

Incidentally, JA obviously realised all her readers would be going "Wickham and Lydia... not a hope in hell", because doesn't she have some sort of throwaway remark about how Lydia managed, against the odds, to cling on to the respectability marriage had given her, and Wickham behaves reasonably well (largely because he knows what side his bread is buttered on - Jane and Bingley are soft enough touches that he and Lydia can invite themselves for protracted stays, and Darcy is basically prepared to bung him a wodge of cash every so often if only to prevent them from coming to make protracted stays).

I've always wondered what Knightly saw in Emma. She annoying, shallow an immature.

This is why I love Wuthering Heights - now that’s a book about realistic relationships!

I particularly disliked Edmund in Mansfield Park and felt fanny could have had far more fun with Henry Crawford.

Deffo Anne and wentworth would be fine, I think Mary was considered by her mother for Mr Collins but charlotte siezed her chance to escape.

I liked the portrayal of the Bennett parent in the Kira knightly film so much warmer and kinder than in the book.

WH couldn’t get part the dog hanging

It’s horrendous and violent but a much more realistic view of the world we live in than anything Jane Austen wrote, and from the mind of a 20 year old woman who barely left her hometown.

Hmm, you see, I've always read WH as horrendously overblown (it really annoys me in fact, it's not realism, it's melodrama of the most ridiculously over the top kind).

JA on the other hand was a stark realist. I always think it's a complete mistake to read her novels as romances with happy endings. She's actually completely clear-sighted about the shitty situation women in her world were in - mere possessions and pawns in the lives of men. (Which incidentally is, I think, why we're having this thread: at heart, none of us quite believe the "happy endings" for the characters, hence talking about it - and the thing is, I don't think JA actually believed them either, but was obliged by the conventions of the genre to put them in).

I am a huge Austen fan and (with the exception of Anne Elliot) I totally agree and think this was intentional. I don't think Austen meant to write epic romances. I think she wrote dramatised but accurate accounts of what the lives of women were like in those times. I feel sad reading them sometimes (but have done many times, they really are fabulous books)

"Hell's teeth! What a pile! All this could have been MINE!"

😂😂😂😂

She definitely married him for his pad!

I don't tend to enjoy film adaptations but I thought the Keira Knightley version made this very obvious (as an aside, I call this "Skinny P&P" to differentiate from the better BBC version, where they're all a little plumper and less polished!)

Agree Fermats I think she was very realistic in her view of women.

I thought especially in sense and sensa the contrast between Eleanor and marianne was portraying that. I fancy colonel Brandon too.

Fanny price though!! She needed s good head wobble fancy picking wet fart Edmund over naughty Henry.

sea I rooted for her to pick Henry too! Austen's own mother disliked Fanny and called her "insipid". She's not wrong!

I've always wondered what Knightly saw in Emma. She annoying, shallow an immature

YY!

Emma is like the Mum at playgroup whose baby is sitting up first and who always looks amazing and says things like "don't worry, we don't all have tine to brush our hair every day".

In fact, Emma is Lemon Drizzle Cake Mum!

Austen actually lets Lydia get away with a hell of a lot. In a Victorian novel she'd have died in the gutter.

^This. 😂

I always thought the thing that first changed Elizabeth’s mind about Darcy was meeting his housekeeper. The way she spoke of what a wonderful and gentle and generous person he was showed her that the people who know him feel entirely different. And then he went so far out of his way to make her comfortable in an incredibly awkward situation, her turning up at his home after cutting him down to size when he proposed. I thought the film really breezed over such a pivotal moment.

Elizabeth a gold digger Mary intelligent Jane like Mrs Bennet
Wuthering heights a realistic portrayal of relationships
I feel like i have entered an alternate universe!

I don't think anybody who's read a biography of Dickens would say he is 'nice'.

Totally agree. More people should be made to read biographies of Dickens.

Elizabeth a gold digger shock Mary intelligentshock Jane like Mrs Bennetshock
Wuthering heights a realistic portrayal of relationshipsshock
I feel like i have entered an alternate universe!

^All of this.

Add message | Report | Message poster specialsubject Fri 06-Jul-18 20:48:09
tried p and p again recently for the first time as an adult.

abusive marriage where Mr bennet holds Mrs bennet in contempt. Possibly because he didnt father sons and blamed her, as consistent with the times.

Jane is a fool but seems to have married another so should be ok. Elizabeth is marrying for money ( i.e. prostitution) although a girl has to eat, if she doesnt get on her back she wont. Lydia gets groomed and has a lucky escape as he marries her, although as she will bore him rigid I dont think she will much of a life , probably dead early from syphilis as he screws around. Kitty is an idiot. Mary lives in a house full of idiots who hold her in contempt for being intelligent, but as only dumb men come by I suspect she will never marry.

I completely disagree.

Mr Bennet wasn't remotely abusive to his wife. It's true that he can't respect her, but he berates himself for falling for a pretty face rather than a strong character, and he urges Elizabeth to have higher standards.

Jane may be a soft touch, but Austen makes it clear that Bingley is cut from the same cloth, and that they'll be happy together.

As for Lizzy being a "prostitute"- what an absurd reading! I think Austen is merely making the rather astute point that status and wealth render a prospect more attractive, but it's very evident that it's the meeting of minds and her growing realisation of Darcy's good character which ultimately seal the deal.

You are closer with your assessment of Kitty and Lydia, although I think there is some suggestion that there's time yet for Mr Bennet to imbue Kitty some sense once she is away from Lydia's malign influence.

Mary is not remotely intelligent, as I read her, but a pompous prig who would have suited Collins very well. I think her prospects are probably the bleakest- perhaps she will end up a fairly impoverished spinster, but I should imagine that Jane and Lizzy see to it that she is kept in respectable circumstances. Who knows- maybe Charlotte dies in childbirth, and Collins goes on to marry Mary, so she gets to remain in Longbourn?

Not read the whole thread but have you read Rebecca? All about the 'happily' ever after.

I love Rebecca!

I don’t mean Wuthering Heights is a realistic portrayal of all relationships, just that it highlights some of the crap women and men had to go through and doesn’t go with any stereotype of the time. Heathcliff isn’t a love rat, scoundrel officer, he’s a violent, obsessive, (possible) rapist. It’s men at their worst and women at their most vulnerable. Contrary to that we have Cathy who marries for the idea of happiness in those days (big house, security) who then becomes mentally ill and dies. It’s brutal but relevant.