Video and audio from Pride and Prejudice 1995
Featuring a (slightly modified) aromantic pride design you can get on a bunch of different items over on Redbubble
I spoke on this topic at an Austen meeting, you can read it here
Author: Frances
The problem with “I”
Thoughts on writing in first person
I normally write, and read, novels in the third person. Writing my collaborative writing project in first person was hard. Often I would write a scene in third person then go back to rewrite it in first. Eventually, when I really got into the book and was writing daily, it became habit.
Some books written in first person feel basic; you can’t get away from the voice of the point of view character, it feels like they’re telling you a story and every sentence seems to start with “I”, something I tried very hard to avoid. But when first person perspective is done well, I stop noticing. (Similarly with present tense which I’ve never even attempted to write because it seems almost impossible, but done well is great.)
The way third person perspective is written these days it feels like first person anyway; you follow one character, have access to their thoughts and feelings. Occasionally there are multiple point of view characters (which honestly can get really confusing, so much so that authors put the characters name on each of their chapters).
The way that Austen writes is so complex, so skilled, it’s difficult to pick apart the nuance. In Emma for example, we see things from the title characters perspective but Emma is an unreliable narrator; what she sees is not necessarily the truth – we believe it however, because it’s told to the reader as though it is fact. But somehow little bits of knowledge unknown to Emma creep into the narrative. Mrs Weston and Mr Knightley discuss Emma when she isn’t there so it can’t all be coming from her. The voice of another narrator, the author, may hint what Emma is missing.
Austen is well known for being one of the pioneers (she didn’t create it, but she was an early adopter) of free indirect discourse which is a fancy way of saying first and third person are blended. Austen is still narrating (third person) but she allows us to peek into the minds of her characters (first person), occasionally even the narrator seems to speak in the voice of a character. But, it takes a lot of skill to pull this off and isn’t really accepted in novels these days – you do first or third and that’s it.
Hmm, it appears I’ve wandered off from my original topic of first person narratives and landed in praise of Austen – not like that’s unexpected!
Finding a dress
I needed to find a dress for Jane Austen’s birthday party. After a costume store failed, I found a dress hire place.
Things didn’t start out great. The internet told me Attire for Hire was in the Johnsonville Mall. It was not.
Eventually after circling the block, the directions pointed across the carpark where I spotted a sign. Unfortunately once I got there I couldn’t figure out how to get into the building as the most obvious entrance showed only two businesses, neither the one I was looking for.
After a panic attack on the stairs above the car park at the back of the building, I was rescued by Judy.
This is how you get into the building:
Thankfully Judy wasn’t annoyed and showed me into the space. Rows of gorgeous dresses line the walls, on a shelf many sparkly accessories rest, in the dressing area there are shoes that look supremely uncomfortable.
The first dress I tried on was exactly what I had envisioned; blue, ridiculously large skirt…but it didn’t fit. Considering the thin staps and how much I would have stumbled over that skirt, it’s a good thing the back wouldn’t do up.
Judy had pulled several sparkly dresses for me to try, the bronze one though not in my colour she’d intuited I’d like after our phone call. She was right, if only it had a lower back. Each of them was gorgeous! One would need the straps adjusted and two of them I’d need to wear a strapless bra, not really an option when you’re endowed like me (despite a reduction!). Additionally, they all would have been uncomfortable to wear for several hours, especially as I’d worry about catching the beading and/or sequins.
The dress I chose was the first I tried on. Judy hadn’t pulled it for me to try originally but she grabbed it the moment I walked in. She is a genius. It’s not the huge skirt, sparkly dress of my dreams but it felt right. Not only could I move with ease, I felt like me (at one point I had a dress with a similar skirt), I felt comfortable, would be able to run around organising all evening and it was still gorgeous. Bonus points for it matching my hair. Just look how happy I am trying it on.
Running events and being a “public face” (urgh hate that term) is difficult for someone like me who prefers to sit in the back row and listen intently. Getting my hair and makeup done professionally plus picking glorious outfits eases some of the stress – not only do I not have to do all that work myself, it gives me the confidence that even if I screw up, I look mighty fine doing it!
Audio throughout is myself and Judy talking plus The Life of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift (I was in the top 0.01% of listeners in 2025)
The Gardiners knew
When the Gardiners meet Mr Darcy in the company of Lizzy at Pemberley she is relieved to have “some relations for whom there was no need to blush.” Swiftly Mr Darcy brings his sister to meet them and the Gardiners recognise “that there was no other way of accounting for such attentions from such a quarter than by supposing a partiality for their niece.” During the visit they determine that Mr Darcy “was overflowing with admiration” for Lizzy, concluding with “it was evident that he was very much in love with her.”
Mrs Gardiner wishes to know the full truth of the matter especially when it appears Lizzy has told Mr Darcy about Lydia’s elopement (a circumstance they would try to keep as secret as possible).
Oh, that I knew how it was!
Both Gardiners consider there was some sort of understanding between the two or “would never have yielded” to allow Mr Darcy to organise Lydia’s marriage.
Video from Pride and Prejudice 1995 / Audio from Cassandra by Taylor Swift
The last line of the novel is devoted to the Gardiners:
With the Gardiners they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.
Schrodinger’s Rapist
On a recent episode of The Amateur Austenite I spoke about my theory of Schrodinger’s Rapist in relation to Mr Elton and Mr Collins. Already similar characters as they are male, clergymen, full of themselves, and determined to do well, when they propose to the protagonist of the novel in which they exist they are both revealed to be what I call Schrodinger’s rapists.
SHELDON: … in 1935, Erwin Schrodinger, in an attempt to explain the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, he proposed an experiment where a cat is placed in a box with a sealed vial of poison that will break open at a random time. Now, since no-one knows when or if the poison has been released, until the box is opened, the cat can be thought of as both alive and dead.
PENNY: I’m sorry, I don’t get the point.
SHELDON: Well of course you don’t get it, I haven’t made it yet. You’d have to be psychic to get it, and there’s no such thing as psychic.
PENNY: Sheldon, what’s the point?
SHELDON: Just like Schrodinger’s Cat, your potential relationship with Leonard right now can be thought of as both good and bad. It is only by opening the box that you’ll find out which it is.
The Big Bang Theory, Series 01 Episode 17 “The Tangerine Factor”
This interaction from The Big Bang Theory sitcom was my introduction to Schrodinger’s Cat. But I had vague recollections of a similar story in Anne of Green Gables (actually a sequel called Anne of the Island, which I didn’t recollect reading). Anne and her friends attempt to gas a stray cat, but it doesn’t go to plan.
..when the box was lifted in the morning, Rusty bounded at one gay leap to Anne’s shoulder where he began to lick her face affectionately. Never was there a cat more decidedly alive.
“Here’s a knot hole in the box,” groaned Phil. “I never saw it. That’s why he didn’t die..”
Till they take the box off the cat, they assume that the cat is dead. It’s been enclosed in a box with gas, surely it will die. But they hadn’t considered all the circumstances, they didn’t know about the knot hole in the box.
What does that cat have to do with Mr Elton and Mr Collins?
Like Sheldon explains to Penny, a potential relationship “can be thought of as both good and bad.” You could say the same about men, we don’t know how they’ll react till they’re in the situation.
Rape is non-consensual sexual contact. Would Mr Elton or Mr Collins go so far? We don’t know. What we do know, is that they both refuse to hear no, when quite clearly spoken by the woman they are proposing to.
Emma’s situation is particularly precarious, trapped alone in a carriage with a man who refuses to listen to her then acts like a petulant child when she finally gets through to him. Lizzy at least is in her parents home which, despite her mothers wishes, offers some level of protection.
Had Pride and Prejudice and Emma been written by another author these scenes may have developed very differently. Consider Tess of the d’Urbervilles a novel about a woman being blamed, scorned and ostracised for a physical act she did not consent to. That is literally the whole point of the book, I still can’t understand why we’d read it (I read it for university), let alone consider it a classic.
Perhaps Austen is commenting on clergymen, supposed to be pillars of society but more interested in aggrandising themselves. Or she may be reminding us that we can’t trust even those who have a direct line to god (sadly, a lesson many learned).
What is evident throughout her writing is her awareness of the plight of women. Maria Rushworth is cast out of society for her affair but Mr Crawford can walk into any drawing room he likes. Lydia Bennet would have been ruined, and her family along with her, had Mr Darcy not paid Wickham to marry her. Willoughby doesn’t provide for his child (to a woman who is a child herself) and is free to marry a wealthy woman, casting aside Marianne Dashwood, another young woman he seduced (though thankfully not physically).
Mr Collins and Mr Elton highlight that men may not ask for consent, they may turn a deaf ear to a refusal. In different circumstances, instead of being rejected suitors, could they become rapists?
Want to discuss Austen more? Check out my sessions.
Pleasure vs Joy
Reading Living the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron I came across this quote which really stuck with me;
Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.” – Eckhart Tolle
In a lot of ways pleasure is easy to find; a hot shower, a cup of coffee (if you drink it, I don’t), good chocolate, a hug. Joy is something deeper and doesn’t necessarily need a cause in the same way that pleasure does.
I’ve found joy in being myself. When I lean into my neurodivergence, don’t try to be “normal” and follow my passions it’s so much more than pleasure. There’s a lightness that comes with joy and an ease.
Patting a dog gives me pleasure; being the person that wants to engage with every dog and give them that pat is the thing that gives me joy. You could say it’s about intention or situation rather than what you do.
In short: Be you. Find joy.
If you’d like help finding your joy, check out my coaching
Celebrating 30 years of Jane Austen
1995 was 30 years ago. Let that sink in.
That was the year of the revival of Jane Austen. BBC released the hugely popular adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, there were movie versions of Persuasion (with Amanda Root) and Sense and Sensibility (directed by Ang Lee, written and starring Emma Thompson). Plus we can’t forget, what I’ve heard many Austenites refer to as the most true adaptation of Emma, Clueless. This was followed by two (more historically accurate) adaptations of Emma in 1996.
After the success of Pride and Prejudice, Andrew Davies become known as the adaptor of Jane Austen for the screen. His very weird worrying wild wonton Sanditon is the culmination of his years of work, leaving Austen entirely behind. But can anything really move further from Austen than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? (Definitely check out that movie adaptation, the liberties they’ve taken with its source material enhance the concept.)
Austen Societies across the globe swelled, where they existed, and popped up, where they didn’t. Sadly, it took almost 20 years before New Zealand followed suit (that was me btw).
2025 is not only the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth, it’s the 30th anniversary of her rebirth. Because there seems to be an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice every decade, it’s also the 20th anniversary of the 2005 adaptation (with Kiera Knightley). As this was a movie, rather than a television series, it’s showing in selected theatres to celebrate.
In 2005 I watched the movie at Reading Cinemas in Courtney Place (closed since 2019 but rumour has it that it’ll reopen) which was conveniently next door to my office. I refuse to comment on whether I skipped out during a work day to watch an Austen movie for the first time in a theatre. Today I’ll watch it from a reclining seat at the Queensgate movie theatre, appropriately attired.
If you love Jane Austen check out the upcoming events for the Austen Society
Plot Twists
During a coaching series there’s always a point where something unexpected happens, often it’s accompanied by the client feeling unmotivated / wanting to quit.
I get it. You’ve been working on making your life better then something goes wrong, and it feels like it’s all been a waste of time, and maybe you’ll never get to where you want to be.
Maybe you’re feeling resistance because change is hard, the unknown is hard, maybe people won’t like you if you change etc.
All of this is expected, totally normal.
Once you know it’s going to happen you can indeed “yell “Plot Twist!” and move on.”
I’ve had clients come into a session very tense who relaxed once I mentioned plot twists. They understood it was part of the process. When they hit them earlier than other clients (you start to notice a pattern) I congratulate them.
The concept of plot twists slots conveniently well into my Austen-inspired life coaching.
I’d love to help you navigate some plot twists in your life. If you’re interested you can book here.
Emma is Clueless
Cher is clueless about her feelings for Josh – just as her regency counterpart, Emma, is clueless about her feelings for Mr Knightley. Emma is unaware that her determination not to marry is because she’s in love with Mr Knightley, her heart is reserved for him.
Video from Clueless
Audio from The Alchemy by Taylor Swift
Video from Emma (1996)
Audio from The Alchemy by Taylor Swift
If you didn’t know Clueless is based on Jane Austen’s Emma – where have you been?? It’s an appropriate title considering Emma thinks she knows what’s best for everyone but she really has no idea.
If you’d like to discuss Austen with me you can book a time
What a Man Should Be
This weekend I participated in a discussion with JASNA Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho Region entitled “What a man should be” based off this quote from Emma:
“So unlike what a man should be!—None of that upright integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that disdain of trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of his life.”
Emma’s talking about Frank Churchill but who she’s describing is Mr Knightley. It’s not the first time she compares Mr Knightley to other men —consciously, or unconsciously as she does here.
When Emma is disappointed with Mr Weston, she again (unconsciously) describes Mr Knightley: “General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.” Then she adds as an afterthought; “She could fancy such a man.” Austen is making a joke that will take the length of the book to pay off.
At the ball Emma compares his figure to the men around him, unaware that she’s describing her attraction to him. “His tall, firm, upright figure, among the bulky forms and stooping shoulders of the elderly men, was such as … must draw every body’s eyes; and, excepting her own partner, there was not one among the whole row of young men who could be compared with him.”
When she’s telling Harriet that Robert Martin doesn’t have the manners of a gentleman she says; “..Mr. Knightley’s downright, decided, commanding sort of manner, .. suits him very well; his figure, and look, and situation in life seem to allow it..”
At the Cole’s party, Emma remarks to Mrs Weston; “I know no man more likely than Mr. Knightley …to do any thing really good-natured, useful, considerate, or benevolent. He is not a gallant man, but he is a very humane one…” In deference to Mr Knightley’s integrity she tells Harriet, though it pains her to do so, that he “is the last man in the world, who would intentionally give any woman the idea of his feeling for her more than he really does.”
Austen provides a comparison between Mr Elton and Mr Knightley. Emma thinks to herself that Mr Elton “is almost too gallant to be in love.. he does sigh and languish, and study for compliments rather more than I could endure.” But when Mr Knightley proposes he says “I cannot make speeches, Emma” .. in a tone of such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing.—“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”
Emma admires Mr Knightley’s integrity, how he manages relationships, his figure, his manners, his character and his honesty.
Want to discuss Austen further with me? check out the details