I willingly watched PBS’s Masterpiece Theater last night as they began their series, “The Complete Jane Austen“. The first installment was a lesser known classic, “Persuasion” which was published after her death. Fortunately, I have studied Ms. Austen extensively, but have sadly only read a few of her pieces. I am fascinated with the public’s love of her. In fact, walking in Target the other day, I loved seeing all the responses to such an author. It is exciting for those of us who study them. There was an fiction piece depicting Jane Austen’s lost diary and then Mr. Darcy’s response to his role in “Pride and Prejudice”. I am guessing it would be hard to quantify the amount of impact a female writer of her time had on our world today. Let alone she single handedly created the parameters for a chick flick.
Jane Austen is something that I, unfortunately, have shied away from because I struggle with the idea of mainstream literature. Admittedly, though I have been bitten by the Jane Austen bug and have been slowly seeing why the whole world is in love with her. What an amazing love story she can tell. My lack of love was not representative of her skill, but rather more about the popularity. I have succumbed to her popularity much like I did Virginia Woolf who is one of my great loves.
To venture away from nerdy lit talk I am going to go more into story line. I wish I could make a comparison between novel and movie, but “Persuasion” is not a book I have read. The story line as presented by PBS’s Masterpiece Theater was amazing. From the beginning I was sucked in by Ann’s plainness. An attribute popular in this time period in literature. It is almost as if the women writers of this time were chanting the popular theme of modernity that screamed, “Plain women love too”, making plain be replaced by “fat”, “divorced”, “single”, “shy” or whatever commonality we all share. This to me suggests, that like other 19th century writers that Austen was understanding of the believed male’s idea of the perfect women just did not exist.
My own favorite part of the movie beyond the chick flick genre part of it, is when Anne is discussing literature and it’s viewpoints of women vs. men with Mr. Elliot (her supposed intended). He discusses how writers have it right on their opinion of women. She suggest maybe it just isn’t so reminding him that most of the opinions are written by men. It was just poignant to the time period and really spoke to me more about Jane’s feelings of being a published writer than Anne’s feelings of being a women portrayed by male writers.
Mr. Wentworth, Anne’s love interest and later intended, was very handsome with endearing looks and attitude. Both lead roles captured the characters so marvelously I wanted to pop through the screen and knock some modernity into them. I also love Austen’s use of social roles to help elevate or inhibit the characters so that the ending is much more dramatic when Anne is running through the streets of Bath and people are looking on as if she has lost her mind. In modern times, most people wouldn’t even bat an eye unless she rammed into them.
There were two irritating parts to me and that was the long held out kiss where Anne would go in for the ending kiss and draw back. They held us out for at least 10 minutes it felt. It felt too pushed and too “movie like” for me. I understand it wasn’t proper for a man and women to kiss in the street at this time but the fact that Austen has them do this speaks volumes about her rebelling from what women should do. So let the poor woman do it already. It felt too much like acting at that point.
And the second, is it a little odd that Sir William Elliot lays eyes on Anne and the instant chemistry and reaction to one another is felt by the audience. However, they are meaning to portray him as a bad guy, as he is in the text, but it is rarely seen in the movie. Instead he comes across as a sincere gentleman and a match for Anne. Minus one tiny issue, he is her cousin! Cousin….I realize things are a little more hard as far as the dating scene goes given the issue of travel in this time period but must she be engaged to her cousin. I even think at one point he said, “first cousin”. Not making a judgment, just curious about that little characteristic of the characters.
My favorite part about 19th century female writers is the suttle rumblings of feminism. They couldn’t picket out in the streets or scream at the top of their lungs like we can. They are often criticized for not demanding more, but in reality I think they were quite brave for even venturing out and speaking up in their suttle ways, even if it is just through characters. Mary Wollstonecraft who wrote, “Vindication of the Rights of Women” is considered one of the first female authors to specifically address the rights of women. Her piece was written in 1792 and when Jane was a child and at a time when information didn’t travel as quickly as we are used too. “Persuasion” was completed in 1816 and published in 1819. So the idea of females being remotely able to express themselves the way Anne (would/should) have just would have not happened. The fact that Ms. Austen wrote it the way she did created the dramatic ending she was likely after while still making a statement about what a woman should be allowed and not allowed to do. It also plays into the title of “Persuasion”. All of Anne’s life she is persuaded who to be and what to do. In the street in Bath she decides to make the decision for herself. Beautiful writing and exactly why I study literature.
I highly recommend anything Jane Austen and recommend you tune in next week as Northanger Abbey is next in the series. Another classic I have not read but likely will after the movie.
