Category: Austen

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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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We’re awkwardly aware of the age gap between Mr Knightley and Emma – 16 years makes us uncomfortable. It gets worse when Harriet develops a crush, a full 20 years, making Mr Knightley more eligible to be her father than her husband. His companions are often younger; his brother and sister in law, both Mr and Mrs Elton, Robert Martin, and Mrs Weston may be younger than him also. Exceptions are Mr Woodhouse, Mr Weston and Miss Bates who have elements of childishness in their characters. Mr Knightley might be the only real adult in Highbury.

In chapter 41 it feels like Mr Knightley is sitting at the kids table. “[P]laced as to see them all”, he witnesses Emma and Frank’s games, morphing into a disappointed parent (a role he often slides into with Emma) observing their treatment of Jane. He suspects Frank of “double dealing”, of an “inclination to trifle with Jane Fairfax.” Emma is too caught up in Frank’s attention to herself and her schemes of “making him over to Harriet” to observe clearly. Mr Knightley’s senses have been sharpened by his jealousy of Frank.

The image is from Taylor Swift’s music video I Bet You Think About Me, it looks as though she’s telling the children to behave but, if you’ve seen the video, she’s there to corrupt them, clearly indicated by her bright red dress in comparison to the pure white of the children’s dresses (almost copies of each other).

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#taylorswift #mrknightley #emma #janeausten

Lady Susan has an amazing ability to waltz into a situation and mess it up for everyone. Mrs Mainwaring loves her husband who loves Lady Susan, she is “insupportably jealous and so enraged against” Lady Susan that it is “time for (her) to be gone.”

Sir James Martin is (probably) in love with both Vernon ladies and devastated when they leave Langford in this scene though in the book he’s the one that leaves.

Lady Susan “bestowed a little notice” on Sir James Martin, “in order to detach him from Miss Mainwaring” and managed to get him to “make proposals to (her) for Frederica” her daughter. Masterful.

Audio from Fortnight by Taylor Swift

Video from Love and Friendship (Lady Susan adaptation) by jane Austen

If you’d like to discuss Austen with me (possibly with a Swiftie slant?) you can book here

Sunday Star Times 23/3/25

In the more than 200 years since Jane Austen published, people and society haven’t changed all that much (even though I’m writing this on a computer rather than with a quill).

She may be dead, but the patriarchy (sadly) isn’t. Austen lived in a time when it was hard(er) to be a woman; none of her novels bore her name during her lifetime, as it was considered scandalous for a woman to write, let alone earn a living. Let’s be honest: if we were talking about Shakespeare, there’d be no question of continuing relevance. Lydia Bennet is almost ruined by eloping, just as women are slut-shamed today. Lizzy Bennet might be called “mouthy” for daring to have an opinion, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh is recognisable as a micromanager.

The spectre of Napoleon loomed large during Austen’s life (and in her novels), exactly as a couple of male figureheads on the other side of the globe do for us now. Our more connected and mobile world means we are as affected by their decisions as she was by someone just across the channel.

Marriage for financial security, depicted in Austen’s novels, may be making a comeback. In the current climate, with increased economic pressures and uncertainty, it could be argued that you can’t afford to choose a partner without considering their finances. Charlotte Lucas has no affection for Mr Collins when they marry, but marriage is necessary for her survival.

Austen’s novels provide a sense of justice. Bad things happen, but they happen off-page, and everyone gets the ending they deserve (except perhaps Mr. Collins). Lizzy marries someone who appreciates her intelligence; Darcy gains a partner who will tell him off when he needs it. With the way things are going, it’s comforting to know that happy endings exist. 

Frances Duncan (she/they), of Te Whanau ā Apauni, writes Austen-inspired fiction, offers Austen-inspired Life Coaching, hosts The Amateur Austenite Podcast and founded the Jane Austen Society of Aotearoa New Zealand. (Obsessive, much?) On Instagram she creates videos of Austen adaptations paired with Taylor Swift lyrics. Her latest novel is Bag a Boyfriend a contemporary Pride and Prejudice set in a reality TV dating show.
The Jane Austen Society of Aotearoa New Zealand, which celebrated its tenth anniversary last year, will host a birthday party at Elixir in Chews Lane this December to celebrate Austen’s 250th birthday.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/francesduncandoes
Website: https://francesduncandoes.com
Society Website: https://janeaustensocietynz.wordpress.com