janebossten

[janebossten]

“We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.” ― Jane Austen, Persuasion

[janebossten]

Say there's a person you see in the glass every day

A baronet he’s been made

He’s always reading this book about his family

You even might call it vanity

And then something changes, and he changes

From a baronet with lots of money

Into a poor man that is kind of scummy

From a baronet with lots of money

Into a poor man that is kind of scummy

Is it worth it?

Elliot?

Is it?

[janebossten]

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta

write me a love letter whilst you’re pretending to ignore me even though I’m in the same room as you then shove it in my face before leaving without giving me the chance to answer

[janebossten]

Austen heroines

Having read most of Austen’s novels, I wonder which of Austen’s heroines is most similar to Austen herself. I think Persuasion is the one that Austen is projecting her own struggles into, but knowing how biting Austen could be, I think the gentle Anne Elliot might not be the answer. Also, I love how Austen writes about women and only women, so much so that I got caught up in their characters and ignored the men. I have very one-dimensional views of the men of Austen. 

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Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.

Jane Austen, Persuasion (via antigonick)

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[janebossten]

~A sign~

Were we supposed to pay special attention to Captain Wentworth not catching Louisa? Is it some sort of big metaphor? Because the end of the novel is so uncertain. He could go off to war and die. He could turn out to be a huge jerk like Mrs. Smith’s husband (now that I think about it, it seems like his name might be Mr. Smith). Is him not catching Louisa some sort of sign to us that he’s not reliable and we shouldn’t trust him. He definitely feels guilty for not catching Louisa, but I can’t help but think that there might be a bit more to the moment.

[janebossten]

Louisa’s theme song

(This is terrible I’m sorry but I think it relates to the darkness and weird clashing with the people coming to see the dead girl)

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Terrible morals

Don’t jump off of things

Don’t rely on other people to catch you

Don’t have a daughter who doesn’t look like you

Don’t get sick

Don’t be a woman

Okay but maybe “don’t rely on other people to catch you” might be ~deeper~ than I thought. Sir Elliot relies on other people for money and goes into debt and has to move out of his house. Mrs. Smith relies on her husband for her wellbeing and ends up worse for it. Anne relies on the opinions of other people to decide whether she should marry or not. More broadly, and this is most certainly not their fault, women were forced to rely on their husbands and fathers a lot of the time to have any sort of livelihood.

[janebossten]

Tolerable

I don’t need you to tell me I ought to be dancing

I don’t need you to search for a girl I should ask

You don’t have to convince me

You can be sure that they are not enough

And only Jane Bennet is good

I don’t need more reminders I’m socially broken

I don’t need you to fix what I’d rather forget

If this ball would be over

Leave me alone with noises in my head

She can’t compete with all that

She’s tolerable, tolerable,

But not handsome

Enough to tempt me

And as you can see

She’s slighted

By other men

Unworthy of me

Fitzwilliam Darcy

And truly our party is all that I need

And the rest of the world falls away

Whaddya say? 

I never thought there’d be someone like you who would slight me

Well?

So just take your ten thousand a year and I beg you, go

Hertfordshire will despise you

My mom won’t even like you

For your cash

And that’s all that she’s wanted for longer than you could possibly know

I’m tolerable, tolerable,

But not handsome

Enough to tempt you

A proud sort of dude

And manners?

Have you any?

It is quite impossible

Oh how I long to see you disappear

It’s not even plausible

You’re the last man in the world I’d hold dear

He’ll be the only one

That you’ll know how to see

You two will marry

It'll be us? It'll be us?

And only us?

I’ll marry Darcy? He won’t despise me?

Don’t believe that

You and me?

That's really the last thing we need

And the rest of the world falls away

And the rest of the world falls away

The world falls away?

The world falls away?

And it's only us?

 Darcy

Elizabeth

Magical narrator

[janebossten]

LISTEN IT’S SO GOOD (I’m a band kid, can you tell?)

[janebossten]

Gender and Emma

Did you really just compare being a governess to being a SLAVE? That's kind of ridiculous, Jane, especially after you just wrote a novel about the slave trade, but considering you didn't treat that one very well either, I'm not surprised. Anyway, the fact that Emma ends up with Knightley at the end of this novel was the worst thing that happened since Catherine Moreland stopped being a tomboy. I can see a marriage to Knightley being super oppressive, because he very much likes to tell Emma what's wrong with her. Then we have Isabella, who isn't portrayed as the happiest clam ever. Emma is reduced to playing matchmaker, but you know, it's the typical white feminism coming out again where white women wanted desperately to work and women of color would have LOVED a day off.

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Illness and Emma

Much like in Persuasion, illness is really taking up a lot of Austen’s thoughts in Emma. In both novels, illness seems to be a big force in pulling people together. Emma and her father have a really close relationship due in part to his obsession with illness and her need to protect him. There is also a lot of language of health and illness (ill used, etc.). Apparently there are really hot takes in the Austen fandom about whether Mr. Woodhouse is a hypochondriac, but all I have to say about that is that he turns out to be right in a way about Mrs. Churchill, who nobody believed about her illness. I find it funny that Mrs. Churchill is disbelieved and Mr. Woodhouse is humored.

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[janebossten]

Knightley is weird

Watching the movie made me realize how big of an age gap there was between Emma and Knightley (okay, it really bothers me that I can't call the men by their first names because I can never remember what they are but whatever). I found the relationship between Knightley and Emma to be rather disgusting in the book, but the movie magic made it easier to ignore how gross and condescending and yucky their relationship is. Like, yeah, I get Emma has some failings and needs a bit of moral instruction, but does it have to be in this weird pseudo-father way? Emma's own father is so obsessed with sickness that he can't really give her that guidance, but did we have to get all daddy issues here?

[janebossten]

EMMA. (2020) dir. by Autumn De Wilde.

[janebossten]

Thoughts on the Movie Adaptation of Emma

The soundtrack was BOMB. I don't know how historically accurate it was, but man, it slapped

Miss Bates was cast perfectly. The actress was also in Call the Midwife and I love her. Her tall, awkward self was just perfect. I saw a video comparing several of the mocking Miss Bates scenes and she was definitely my favorite Miss Bates.

The costumes were also so good?? Again, I'm not sure how historically accurate they are and don't want to watch the twenty minute video about it, but they were nice to look at

One thing that always bugs me about old-timey movies is the actors' straight teeth

The characters in the film were all so idiosyncratic that it really helped me understand them a little better going back to the third volume of the book

I want to throw Mrs. Elton out the window

I love the imperfections in the movie, like Emma hiking up her dress to warm her butt and the nosebleed she gets when Knightley proposes. It's a good reminder that people back then were just people with cold butts and bloody noses like us.

Mr. Woodhouse is an icon in the movie and is almost more of a person than he is in the book. Like, in the movie it was clearer to me that he was a person too, who is more than his obsession with illness, and it was obvious that he loved Emma, whereas in the book he seemed kind of self obsessed to me

Kay had a really interesting post on Emma and lesbianism, and I totally shipped Emma and Harriet in the film, which was not something I picked up on in the book