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Elinor Dashwood 🤝🏼 Margaret Hale

19-year-old girls whose spine must be splitting from carrying their entire family on their back and additionally being forced to keep someone else’s secrets

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I picked up another one of those "Jane Austen heroine solves a murder" books but this one is about Emma which is maybe the most correct pick for Murder Solving Austen Heroine. Anyway here's my list in order of most to least likely to (try and) solve a murder:

Catherine Morland - not only did she try and solve a murder, she invented a murder just so she could solve it. Iconic. Catherine would leap at the chance to solve an ACTUAL murder that she knew for SURE happened. Whether she's successful depends entirely on how closely the crime followed the plot of the average Regency CSI episode. Either she gets it in one or makes ten wrong guesses in a row. RIP Cathy you would've been the true crime girlie of all time

Emma Woodhouse - she's the smartest prettiest nosiest bitch in Highbury she has appointed herself lead detective (Harriet is the junior detective taking notes and gasping at the correct times) and she Will get to the Bottom of This. Sets up a dramatic reveal to accuse completely the wrong person, but in a way that lets someone else (probably Knightley or Jane Fairfax) figure out who the actual murderer was.

Lizzie Bennet - depends on 1) who died and 2) where. If there's any possibility Lydia did it she does NOT want to know and will interfere with the investigation. If it doesn't affect her personally she wants to know what's going on but is minding her business about it. If it affects her personally she's actually probably the most effective crime solver of the lot presuming she and Darcy can work together (if they're at odds her beef obscures her intellect) (i have not read death comes to pemberly nobody bring it up thank u)

Marianne Dashwood - honestly more likely to be, like, a witness or somehow involved with the victim and get accused of a crime of passion. I think she could figure it out to clear her name but she has to work around Elinor being like LET THE POLICE DO THEIR JOBS.

Anne Elliot - witnessed the whole thing bc the killer didn't notice her in the room. Fortunately Wentworth is willing to listen to her and it gets solved quickly.

Fanny Price - witnessed the whole thing bc the killer didn't notice her but nobody listens to her except the killer who then kidnaps her to tie up loose ends. Edmund rescues her and when he's like "why would you come after Fanny" and the killer's like "well she saw the whole thing" they're all like "Fanny why wouldn't you say anything" and she just stares into the camera like. Ok.

Elinor Dashwood - not her circus NOT her monkey also she's impeding the investigation bc the victim was Willoughby and she helped Colonel Brandon hide the body.

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rip emma woodhouse you would’ve loved being bisexual

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What really gripped me first about Mansfield Park was how well Austen writes the feeling of being shy and quiet and getting bulldozed by everyone talking over and at you. And the special mortification of just wanting to sit there quietly and having people try to force you to talk and then completely misinterpreting your reactions.

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Not to be cliche, but Jane Austen's novels are a lot about how great power & wealth should come with great responsibility, and how most of the wealthy and powerful fail at that. She's asking questions like, "Is that insanely wealthy person polite, charitable, and considerate in a way that befits his station in life?" and she's finding most of them wanting.

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Charlotte Lucas is such an important character to me. It’s so rare to have a female character who is entirely uninterested in romantic and marries for reasons other than love who is also portrayed as a decent, sensible person.

Whether you view her declaration of “not being romantic” as her being aro/ace, otherwise queer or just having different priorities, I love how not be interested in romantic love doesn’t mean she doesn’t love at all. She cares deeply for her family, especially her sister and of course for Elizabeth, to the point that she made sure to personally let her know about her engagement to Mr Collins in order to minimise hurt feelings as well as plotting out different men Lizzy could potentially marry because she knows Lizzy wants that romantic love as well as financial stability and even though she doesn’t feel that way, she cares enough about her friend to understand.

Lizzy reacts poorly to Charlotte’s choice to marry Mr Collins initially, for understandable reasons, but she and the reader alongside her eventually come to understand it was a practical decision and that marrying for money doesn’t make her a selfish person. She is a good wife to Mr Collins but she also gets to have her own home and space away from her family where she can live in relative comfort. She’s such an unique character and I really appreciate Austen including her and showing how marriage in this period was not just about love but also a financial agreement and women aren’t the problem for recognising this and trying to use this to get the best possible outcome for themselves and their families

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grabs your hand. you've had enough plot and exposition and character development lately im taking you to the beach episode

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“Covid game me narcolepsy” no you fucking pervert it didn’t. You’re just a weirdo with a gross fetish. Covid didn’t make you suddenly want to fuck dead people. Keep that shit to yourself you gods damned weirdo

I have type 2 Narcolepsy. Studies have shown that serious viral infections can cause people to develop Narcolepsy if they are already genetically susceptible to having it. This includes covid. That is what happened to me.

You on the other hand might want to google the difference between Narcolepsy and Necrophilia….

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Modern Readers: hey, what if Mrs Bennet was the smart one all this time and we were too blinded by MiSogYnY to see it?

Jane Austen: Mrs Bennet’s brain conveniently removed the part where Wickham was a gambler and a scumbag just because he was the one that married her daughter.

Modern Readers: no, really-at least she was the one that was taking her daughters’ future seriously!

Jane Austen: she willingly ignored what this marriage would have meant for Lydia in the long run simply because she had a marriage to brag about.

Modern Readers: she was stil better than Mr Bennet! He didn’t think about it at all!

Jane Austen: Mr Bennet was just as bad as his wife, just in different ways.

Modern Readers: stop putting Mr Bennet on a pedestal just because he is funny!

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I was so ready to say that Captain Benwick is in fact quoted, but then I mentally went back through persuasion and... I’m blown away actually. How did I never notice this lol

Jane and Bingley never have a recorded word between them?? I need to lie down…

Isn't that fascinating? I forget where I first learned this, but I did check and it is true. All their dialogue is described, either by Jane Bennet or the narrator.

There is a really interesting chapter of What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan where he lists all the characters who speak but are never quoted and it's somewhat shocking:

Captain Benwick, Persuasion Anne de Bourgh, Pride & Prejudice Georgiana Darcy, Pride & Prejudice Mr. Perry, Emma Robert Martin, Emma

The Captain Benwick one really blew me away because he seems to say so much! The Emma ones are fascinating because Mr. Perry is talked about all the time and his advice is discussed, but he's never even on page. He haunts the narrative as much as Mrs. Churchill. Robert Martin is never allowed to defend himself from Emma's slander by being quoted to the reader. We can only imagine him through her filtered opinion.

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so it turns out that time actually does go by faster as you get older. just like how adults told me it would when i was younger. pisses me off

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on that note: sometimes family is just a baker and his wife, their weird ass old neighbour, a twink, his mother, his cow, a teenager that runs around with a knife and an adhd girlie with family issues who talks to birds

every time I discover a ‘new’ sondheim musical (that I haven’t seen before) there is always a moment when I physically want to throw up (affectionate) bc what do you mean it’s 4 pm on a random day and I just heard the most devastatingly beautiful lyrics ever written about the human experience and what it means to be alive what do you mean the choice may have been mistaken but the choosing was not I am actually going insane

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please god take the glue that keeps mr. darcy’s pants zipped during the netherfield ball and put it in my roommates’ stupid ass mouth so they can shut the fuck up for GOOD omg

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Very pro weird girl. Not budging on that.

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today I used the phrase "breasting boobily" in casual real life conversation and everyone was shocked asking how I came up with that and I had to explain it. ive been at the devil's sacrament so long that I forgot he wasn't god

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i am nooooot locked the fuck in. im locked the fuck out. call the locksmith

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Tired of the “she did nothing wrong” mindset. She did EVERYTHING wrong and I’m still on her side and that’s true dedication baby.