#jane austen parallels

[comicaloverachiever]

She must allow him to be still frequently coming to look; anything less would certainly have been too little in a lover.

Emma by Jane Austen (illustration by Hugh Thomson) Emma. (2020) dir. Autumn de Wilde

[kajaono]

Me, a Persuasion-fan when this moment happened!

Honestly, how can it be that a zombie PP adaptation adapated the iconic love letter better then Netflix Persuasion?! Honestly! I better have Darcy citing Captain Wentworths letter then... this:

[fromdarzaitoleeza]

Franz Kafka, the metamorphosis / Jane Austen

[flowerytale]

Virginia Woolf, from a diary entry featured in "A Writer’s Diary" Clarice Lispector, from "A Breath of Life" Patti Smith, from "Devotion" Elena Ferrante, from "Incidental Inventions" Marguerite Duras, from "Écrire"

Jane Austen’s writing table at Chawton Cottage, Hampshire Charlotte Brontë's writing desk on display at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, England Virginia Woolf's writing desk in her writing lodge at Monk's House in Rodmell, Sussex Reconstruction of Daphne du Maurier's study at the Smugglers Museum, Jamaica Inn, Cornwall

[fictionadventurer]

Fantasy retelling of Northanger Abbey:

Innocent young Catherine Morland is overjoyed to have the chance to go to the King's City, leaving her quiet country town for a more diverse and magical metropolis.

Catherine loves reading fairy tales about the dramatic deeds of long-ago fae.

Henry Tilney is a trickster fairy prince who is jaded by a lifetime of dealing with the machinations of the fae courts. He gets amusement out of living among humans and laughing at their follies.

Catherine meets Henry and is immediately awed at his backstory and (metaphorically) enchanted by his charming personality.

For reasons unknown, Henry's father encourages Henry to romantically pursue Catherine. Henry half-heartedly goes along with it, because it's not a bad idea to stay in Dad's good graces.

And then he's shocked to find himself actually falling in love--because Catherine loves him and because she's genuinely innocent and good in a world where he thought such people didn't exist.

To everyone's surprise, Catherine gets an invite to stay at Henry's father's palace.

An actual enchanted fairy palace? How could Catherine say no?

As they're traveling there, Henry plays up all the old fairy tale tropes warning Catherine how to behave. He's joking (things haven't been like that for centuries) but Catherine still takes it to heart.

Catherine hears of the dramatic tale of the life and death of Henry's mother (perhaps a human? So Henry's actually only half-fae?). With her imagination primed by the stories she knows, Catherine starts to interpret faint "evidence" as proof that his mother's actually hidden away under a fate-worse-than-death curse, perhaps just waiting for a pure-of-heart maiden to come break the spell.

Henry catches Catherine during her quest and is amused and a bit offended. Do you know what you're saying? Maybe things like that could happen long ago and far away, but the fairies are Christianized now. Enchantments like that are far too brutal to consider.

She's right that his dad's a jerk, though.

Not long after this, Henry's dad sends Catherine away in disgrace. He had heard that Catherine was the Chosen One of a prophecy and wanted her to increase the power of his kingdom. He's shocked to learn it's not true (you mean humans can lie?), and in his anger he's harsh in sending her away.

Henry refuses to abandon Catherine and gets himself banished for refusing to give her up.

He shows up at her ordinary home and declares his love and they live happily ever after.

[i-wished-for-you-too]

good omens season two, episode six // jane austen’s persuasion, emma, and pride and prejudice

[bethanydelleman]

Sometimes I feel like Mansfield Park is a direct response to Pride & Prejudice. Did Jane Austen get some fan mail where someone expressed that she'd "reformed a rake with the love of a good woman"? Was she tearing her hair out because that's NOT what Darcy/Elizabeth is AT ALL.

Did she pull out her pen and scream, "I'll show you a real rake and the heroine is going to flat out REFUSE to reform him! And then he's going to fuck her married cousin just in case I haven't made my point CLEARLY ENOUGH."

All for her own sister to regret that Henry Crawford didn't end up with Fanny...

[villetteulogy]

‘[…] had I really loved, could I have sacrificed my feelings to vanity, to avarice? — or, what is more, could I have sacrificed hers? — But I have done it. To avoid a comparative poverty, which her affection and society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost every thing that could make it a blessing.’ Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 9, Vol. III.

I can’t believe Jane Austen predicted snowbaird 210 years ago!!

‘[…] she loved him. She’d said so last night in the song. Even more, she trusted him. Although, if he ditched her in the woods to claw out an existence alone, no doubt she would consider that a breach of faith. He had to think of just the right way to break the news. But what would that be? “I love you deeply, but I love officers’ school more?” That wasn’t going to go over well. And he did love her! He did! It was just that, only a few hours into his new life in the wilderness, he knew he hated it.’ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Chapter 30

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Intense Subtext in Front of Oblivious Side Characters: "I had no wife in the year six"

There's a thing, I guess it would be considered a trope, that is one of my favorite such things in any form of media but especially any sort of romance-centered story. I don't know of an existing term for this and I'm terrible at being concise so I'm not sure how I could put it briefly. Basically, it's the thing that happens when a larger interaction is happening with a group of people but there's a subtext to it that means something very different--and generally, much more meaningful--to the central characters. You could call it something like Intense Subtext in Front of Oblivious Side Characters.

I've been thinking for a while about possible parallels between BLs and Jane Austen novels and/or adaptations. This is my attempt at taking a small, specific example of a parallel I sometimes notice and talking about it. Austen's novels do a lot of this trope I mentioned. That's in part because of choices Austen made in what she wanted to write about. But it's also because of the social context of her time. There was a lot going on that people couldn't be explicit about, for a variety of reasons. I think one reason why I see similar things happening in some BLs--and maybe one reason for the appeal of certain types of BLs--is the fact that being queer in a homophobic society makes openness complicated in a way that doesn't come up as much for hetero relationships these days. Especially when we get into things like office romances, in which appearances have higher stakes. These complications around openness have a kind of similarity to the reasons Austen's characters had to play a lot of things close to the chest.

Fellow Old Fashion Cupcake fans will remember an example from that series that I think really fits here. Nozue and Togawa agree to attend a goukon, or "mixer" as it's sometimes translated--basically a group hangout intended to help men and women meet for the purpose of finding people to date. Nozue is hitting it off with a cute younger woman, which is bad enough. But then he mentions his "anti-aging" efforts, and because of the mysterious way he words it, the woman asks, "Does that mean you're in love?" which of course catches Togawa's attention even more. He's clearly affected when Nozue answers, "If I were, I wouldn't be here."

@jdramastuff did a great screenshot post of this scene if you want to see what this looked like.

After Nozue's comment, Togawa starts knocking back alcoholic drinks like it's going out of style, ensuring that Nozue will have to help him home instead of going home with the woman who's been flirting with him.

(You could argue that this isn't so much a case of subtext as it is the significance one person assigns to what another is saying. Subtext really requires some degree of communication between more than one person. But while Nozue doesn't fully grasp what's going on, I think he does understand in some ways what he's communicating. I don't want to go on too much of a tangent, so I'll just say that having just read the manga the series was based on, it strengthened my belief that while Nozue is repressed, insecure, even deluded at times, he has glimmers of awareness of his feelings for Togawa and even suspicions of Togawa's feelings for him, and on some level he knows what he's saying, though I don't think he knows in this moment how much these words will hurt Togawa.)

I have another favorite example of this, a scene from Persuasion. It's rendered really well in the 1995 adaptation of the novel with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root. (The whole thing is phenomenal, by the way--I think it's the best Austen adaptation ever made, personally.)

A bit of background for anyone not familiar with the story: Anne Elliott was engaged to Captain Frederick Wentworth in 1806 but was convinced by Lady Russell, her neighbor/family friend and a kind of surrogate mother to her following her mom's death, to break off the engagement. She has regretted it ever since. Wentworth was deeply hurt and angry when she broke things off, not surprisingly.

More than eight years later, Anne is visiting her sister and her sister's in-laws, the Musgroves, when Wentworth comes to the area and starts spending a lot of time at the Musgrove place (and with the Musgroves' eligible young daughters). Wentworth acknowledges Anne, but just barely, while paying enough attention to both the Musgrove girls that everyone is gossiping about which one he's going to marry. Anne's sister Mary was away at boarding school when her previous relationship with Wentworth happened, so neither Mary nor the Musgroves are aware Anne and Wentworth were involved and think they were only acquaintances.

At a dinner party, the Musgrove girls try to look up the ship that Wentworth first commanded, the Asp, in the Navy List, a book that chronicles the various ships in the British Navy, their commanders, and so forth. Wentworth tells them not to bother--"she" is not in the current version of the List because "she" no longer exists.

Louisa and Henrietta Musgrove are suitably horrified.

Admiral Croft, Wentworth's brother-in-law and superior in the Navy, remarks that Wentworth was lucky to get a command so early in his career at all, no matter how seaworthy (or un-seaworthy) the ship was.

(Remember, 1806 was the year that Anne and Wentworth became engaged and then un-engaged.)

Gut-wrenching. And nobody else sitting at that table has any idea what just happened. I love it.

I have some more thoughts about this languishing in an excessively long post in my drafts, which I'll try to get out one of these days. I know I've talked to a few people about trying to do some BL/Austen posts and had meant to tag them but the only person I remember talking with about it was @absolutebl. If you're reading this and you want a heads up next time I write about this stuff, let me know!

[macaulaytwins]

The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice // Emma, Jane Austen

[kirstnotkrist]

horrors

Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate), Vincent van Gogh  Emma (2020) dir. Autumn de Wilde

[comicaloverachiever]

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (illustration by Hugh Thomson) Pride and Prejudice (1995) dir. Simon Langton

[mametupa]

[texaschainsawmascara]

Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen / Nizar Qabbani / Player of Games - Grimes / x / If - Unloved / Emma - Jane Austen / The Book of Promethea - Hélène Cixous / Timor Mortis - Louise Glück

[gyllenswiftcevanslipa]

Crowley and Aziraphale + Jane Austen = 💔

“My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire.”

― Jane Austen

[dubiousculturalartifact]

consider: the best adaptation of Mansfield Park is actually Austenland (2013)