I've received many gifts in my search for my own Mr. Darcy, but when asked to recall the most meaningful and touching present I have ever received from a significant other, I need not think twice. My Jane Austen action figure stands proudly next to my computer monitor, her brown curls mischeviously escaping her white bonnet and a 1.5 centimeter quill clutched tightly in her left hand. Her miniature writing desk and a Polly Pocket sized copy of Pride and Prejudice lay at her feet. (I have yet to figure out how to have her actively holding these. As one could imagine, this is not the most high-tech action figure, and limb mobility is limited.)
And yes, I understand the irony of a quasi-immobile action figure, but I like to imagine her agility as similar to her disobedient curls – her strength not in her muscles but in the curious -- and often rebellious -- ideas that seep from beneath her bonnet. She is my literary superheroine - witty, progressive and self sufficient. Most importantly, she is remembered as a genuine figure - like her characters, Jane refused to marry if not for love, but unlike Elizabeth, Anne, Emma, Elinor, Catherine or Fanny, she did fall victim to the conventions of her time and thus never married.
Truth be told, the entire function of Austen’s novels as parodies of 19th century courtship prohibits them from being terribly creative – the pleasure is derived from the comedy of manners that exploited what Austen deemed problematic in her time. Her heroines, typically the plainest in a family of eligible daughters in their early twenties, are all faced with the same obstacles: acquiring a husband that that will yield social advancement and monetary security without submitting to a loveless marriage. The resonance of these classic characters to contemporary characters seems almost too obvious at times. Emma is the girl who keeps herself busy meddling in our people’s relationships to avoid acknowledging her own lack of romance; while Mark Darcy is the sexy, brooding type who irritates you thoroughly before revealing his sentimental side. They are the gossip queens and prom kings of our own youth. In many ways the concept of blending backgrounds is at the forefront of Austen's texts - take the stigma adhered to the naval captains in Persuasion for example, where Admiral and Mrs. Croft have the most beautiful, symbiotic relationship of any of Austen’s characters. Captain Wentworth is considered inferior to Anne consequent to his profession, and Austen’s text points out how her contemporaries disregarded the virtue of such work in this sense. In our modern world, where job importance is often linked to monetary compensation, we can relate to how the noblest of jobs (teachers, social workers, writers) resign individuals to a lower class. Social misogeny has become even more prevalent in our generation, while interracial and interfaith marriages are now more common and accepted. Yet stigmas remain – the starving artist is romantic and desirable, but he is still starving. Austen’s tongue-in-cheek recognition of these inescapable constructs is timeless.
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