I do not understand Jane Austen or the nature of her work. But I do understand there are a lot of devoted Jane Austen fans. Can somebody help me figure out what you see in her work?
When I have read Jane Austen, of my own accord. I got a chapter in, read snippets in other sections of the book and never forced myself to read it again. Now I have to get all the way "Persuasion" for my British Lit, women writers class. I am about 3/4 done with it. And I have to admit I am still confused.
Jane Austen writes like an 18th century middle school girl. All internal feelings and gossip of a character who can never act for herself. All about social positions and wondering if somebody likes them or not.
The story almost makes sense if I cast Ann as an Ogre or Vampire or some other social outcast that is hiding who they really are. (Hence the rise of the Twilight series?)
The class started so promisingly with Aphra Behn, who at least wrote of topics of action, then Evelina by Fanny Burney. In Evelina the character once again tells all her emotions and thoughts and worries about social missteps, and can not talk for herself, but at least it was written with every scene dialoged up and easy to play in your head, something that Austen doesn't do a lot of. Austen tells us about it, and doesn't show it. UGH if I were her writing teacher . . .
This is the same time period as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Now there was a story. Of course Mary Shelley had an awesome mother who firmly believed women should not been as the frail, pale and ignorant. That treatsy today seem like no big deal, but Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a whole book on it "The Vindication of the Rights of Woman" and if I was any guess by the nature of what we have been reading, it was sorely needed.
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