The Other Austen

Guaranteed to Bring Out the Bitch In You

  • 10th December
    2012
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  • 10th August
    2012
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Is the article about "Fanny Price: Is she queer?" really yours? And can I read it somewhere? The more I know of the world, the more I lean towards subversive interpretations of The Sovereign Lady and I'd be interested in suggestions of articles exploring "shocking" things. Thanks for being an awesome blog celebrating Austen's bitchiness!

Asked by: litlass

Yes indeed! You can read it here: 

http://independent.academia.edu/EmilySnow/Papers/1337864/_Is_she_queer_Fanny_Prices_Protest_Against_Sublime_and_Beautiful_Heteronormativity

Hope you enjoy! And that it fucks your shit up. :)

  • 9th August
    2012
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    2012
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  • 14th March
    2012
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  • 10th January
    2012
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Which Jane Austen heroine are you?

The ladies at Hellogiggles, Zooey Deschanel’s site, wrote modern characterizations of Jane Austen’s heroines. Which one do you resemble most? I think in manner, I am most like Fanny Price and Anne Elliot here, and most like Elizabeth Bennet in my beliefs.

You are quiet and unassuming.  You’re more of a watcher than a go-getter.  In fact, your observational skills are quite keen.  You don’t feel the need to say every single thing that pops into your head.  You choose your words carefully.  You really resent being labeled as mousy because you’re not an attention whore.  But you do privately think that attention whore is the perfect word to describe some of the people you know and that says something about you, too.  When you fall for someone, you fall hard and long.  You are loyal, you have convictions.  You prefer the term ‘conservative’ [EW! except not!] to describe your nature but you know others that think you’re uptight and a prude (namely the attention whores.)  But you are sweet and even gentle.  It’s just that more often than not, you are overlooked.  Sometimes you wish that actually, you weren’t so smart and observant so that at least you wouldn’t notice when people fail to notice you.  Oh well.  You are Fanny Price.

They dumb our heroines down a bit (especially Marianne, who I consider intellectual), but it’s worth a read! :)

Check it out here!

  • 2nd December
    2011
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  • 3rd October
    2011
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On Feminism and Jane; Or, Why the Quiet BAMF-itude of Austen’s Heroines Actually Matters

fiercedandelioness:

One of my women’s studies professors told our class on multiple occasions that telling women’s stories was the first and one of the most fundamental parts of feminism.  That women have been erased from the narrative for so long, the first step to equality is simply to tell women’s stories.  Whether they are the stories of women speaking out, women fighting back, women rejecting convention or simply the stories of women living lives, women in domesticity, women in the quiet background of history, we need to tell their stories.  I would add to this queer people, trans* people, people of color, everyone whose story is never told — the silent majority, if you will.  The first step to fighting back is simply telling our story, saying out loud, “We are here.”

This same professor hates Jane Austen.  Like really, really hates her and her books.  And she was so disappointed by the fact that I love Austen, I actually felt a bit guilty about it.  But then I thought, aha, watch me use your own argument against you, Irlene!  And so now I am.

Because see, Austen was all about telling women’s stories.  Yes, she was writing about a very small socioeconomic niche in society — the landed gentry somewhere between the nobility and the professional classes.  So, yes, a bunch of privileged white British women.  And yes, the stories are just these tedious little snapshots of the day to day, and they are all romances in the end, but don’t you see how the tedium is important?  The stories are small because real women in their situation lived small lives.  But that doesn’t mean they’re not important; it doesn’t mean they aren’t stories worth telling.

Lizze Bennet, who rejected two perfectly good offers of marriage, knowing full well she was expected to accept whatever was offered and consider herself lucky, knowing she could die an impoverished old maid.  Elinor Dashwood, emotionally supporting her whole family and putting her own suffering to the side because she loves them and they need her to protect them from the cruelties of society.  Emma Woodhouse, running this show and talking too much, and laughing at the world that seeks to silence her.  Fanny Price, who steadfastly refused to give in, no matter that she was threatened with rejection, poverty, and the disapproval of the only family she’d ever known.

Read these books and tell me these women aren’t strong.  Tell me they’re not fighting the society they’re trapped in.  Hell, for their time in place, the idea of marrying for love rather than social politics and money was absurd and nearly revolutionary.  And here was Austen, writing them the ending she never had, writing them the endings society at the time could never truly allow, writing the little lives of the women she knew, telling their stories, because they were important, because they were there.

  • 8th September
    2011
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  • 2nd September
    2011
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Why do we have to ‘LIKE’ characters in order to enjoy a novel? Jane Austen was perfectly capable of creating heroines and heroes who are generally liked by most people. Ever think that she made Fanny and Edmund harder to like for a reason? Perhaps she was writing her most powerful satire against 18th/19th-century conservative agenda? Seriously, like Prudie says in The Jane Austen Book Club, we’re not voting for prom queen here.

Why do we have to ‘LIKE’ characters in order to enjoy a novel? Jane Austen was perfectly capable of creating heroines and heroes who are generally liked by most people. Ever think that she made Fanny and Edmund harder to like for a reason? Perhaps she was writing her most powerful satire against 18th/19th-century conservative agenda?

Seriously, like Prudie says in The Jane Austen Book Club, we’re not voting for prom queen here.

(Source: austenconfessions)

  • 14th July
    2011
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    2011
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  • 7th July
    2011
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  • 8th June
    2011
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