Something Austen got right
Jun. 18th, 2011 11:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
litlover12Having reamed out Jane Austen for her love scenes, I now feel like saying something nice about her. :-) Here's something I recently noticed about the book and that I really love.
Have you ever noticed that there's no real physical description of Elizabeth? I've always thought, and still think, that Jennifer Ehle looked exactly right for the part, but that's not based on anything in the text -- it's just based on how I think Elizabeth should look. (It's probably also based on this picture on the cover of my copy.) But the narrator tells us nothing directly of how she looks -- only how other people perceive her. Most interesting, of course, are the perceptions of Darcy, whose view of her goes from "tolerable" to "pretty" to "one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance" to "loveliest Elizabeth."
Having written this, it occurs to me that doubtless there's some scholar out there who's written a dissertation on Elizabeth as the "object of the male gaze" or some such rot -- as if Elizabeth Bennet could ever be any sort of passive "object."
[Edited to add: I'm sorry that came out sounding rude. As I clarified in the comments, I don't mind when it's pointed out that some female character really is being objectified; I only mind those scholars who see objectification everywhere they look, without ceasing. That's the kind of scholar I was complaining about.]
Personally, I think it's a brilliant move on Austen's part, for several reasons. Mainly because Darcy is so undemonstrative that this subtle technique is perfect for giving us insight into his feelings . . . not to mention serving as a rather amusing commentary on beauty being in the eye of the beholder.
Have you ever noticed that there's no real physical description of Elizabeth? I've always thought, and still think, that Jennifer Ehle looked exactly right for the part, but that's not based on anything in the text -- it's just based on how I think Elizabeth should look. (It's probably also based on this picture on the cover of my copy.) But the narrator tells us nothing directly of how she looks -- only how other people perceive her. Most interesting, of course, are the perceptions of Darcy, whose view of her goes from "tolerable" to "pretty" to "one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance" to "loveliest Elizabeth."
Having written this, it occurs to me that doubtless there's some scholar out there who's written a dissertation on Elizabeth as the "object of the male gaze" or some such rot -- as if Elizabeth Bennet could ever be any sort of passive "object."
[Edited to add: I'm sorry that came out sounding rude. As I clarified in the comments, I don't mind when it's pointed out that some female character really is being objectified; I only mind those scholars who see objectification everywhere they look, without ceasing. That's the kind of scholar I was complaining about.]
Personally, I think it's a brilliant move on Austen's part, for several reasons. Mainly because Darcy is so undemonstrative that this subtle technique is perfect for giving us insight into his feelings . . . not to mention serving as a rather amusing commentary on beauty being in the eye of the beholder.
