Comments on: The Tournament of Novels – Final Round

By: Jeff Peters

Jeff Peters — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:57:55 +0000

Pentamom, stop with the straw men. If you know people who are like any Austen character, then you are obviously not living in any real world. There are no people like that. There probably never were people like that. Human nature doesn’t operate that way.

And psychoanalysis differs in your claim about Bronte’s characters being less real than Austen’s. Sorry, but you can’t just throw out such absurd claims. Making things up isn’t an appropriate argument.

By: pentamom

pentamom — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:49:11 +0000

All I can say, Jeff, is that as a person who lives in the real world, as opposed to one who judge the real world by what one finds in lit crit, I have known far more people like Elizabeth Bennet than like Heathcliff, like Mrs. Dashwood than like Mr. Rochester, and so forth. The Bronte characters may be interesting icons of psychological abnormalities, but their behaviors and relationships are far more “fake” than anything one finds in Austen, and only a feminist/Marxist wallowing in self-referentialism could possibly construe the relationships in Austen as being about “domineering attributes.” If you don’t see “actual moral dilemmas” throughout Austen, you don’t really know how to look. Although, I admit they are there in Bronte, too — just like they’re there in Spider-man.

By: Jeff Peters

Jeff Peters — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 13:18:25 +0000

Um, Blake, not everyone in graduate school is rich or affluent. Actually, very few people are. Your statements above are the same as your claims about feminism, odd deflections from reality to hide from the fact that you lack an argument.

And there is no strain of feminism saying people should work. There is a strain of feminism saying that the girls don’t need to work because of their gynecological superiority. Work, in feminism, is a choice. I never provided it as a choice but an obligation. Furthermore, “work” in the feminism understanding isn’t work in the 19th century – many women worked as farm hands and the rest back then. Ever read Thomas Hardy? The work feminist want for women is high paid corporate “work” where they “manage” people and don’t have to dirty their hands.

You toss around terms without having a clue what they mean, which is rather sad.

By: Blake

Blake — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:59:28 +0000

Jeff, I think there is something supremely ironic about the idea of someone who has been to graduate school snubbing Jane Austen and/or her characters as “spoiled” and “rich”.

It’s almost comical that you – far more “spoiled” and comparatively affluent than either Austen or her characters – have taken it upon yourself to judge what a woman’s “real” experience is, and what sort of woman is “really” qualified to comment on it.

You simply don’t have any right to say Austen’s concerns “don’t count”.

And I do think you are promoting a form of feminism – that strain of feminist vitriol that irrationally attacks and even scapegoats homemakers, often using words similar to those you used (“spoiled” and “should get a job”.

You use the same language that “angry” feminism takes when it wishes to shower its contempt on women who are neither resentful nor rebellious. That is why I think your view of Austen is nothing more than identity politics – the politics of resentment.

By: Blake

Blake — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:44:08 +0000

And, BTW, I love Jane Eyre, so the lack of realism is not a criticism I’m making.

I love the Brontes too; I hate to have to argue “against” them. (My favorite was Villette).

But the reason I am so insistent on the impending poverty of the Bennetts is because that mother was so unprepared to take on the responsibilities.

So, yeah, I really did see an impending “crash” coming – one that really felt to me like it’d be disastrous for the whole family.

But I admit: my mind no doubt put at lot of that in there. (As a kid I couldn’t stand to watch “I Love Lucy”, because of my outsized sense of dread – even knowing it was just a comedy, I still kept expecting something really really awful to happen to poor Lucy….) ha ha

By: Jeff Peters

Jeff Peters — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:38:44 +0000

Pentamom, from the various critical works I’ve read on both Emily and Charlotte’s novels, I have always seen psychoanalysis verifying that the emotions are true or representing actual emotions. The whole “madwoman in the attic” belief was based on showing how the interactions represent true angst and the suppression of various classes. That isn’t true in Austen’s work. If anything, the works are popular because they are a fantasy. They contain what can only be described as soap opera melodrama that the others lack. Young female readers wish that the domineering attributes and fake relationships were reality in the same way they wish that they could marry a vampire from Twilight. In the Bronte novels, you are confronted with actual moral dilemmas, raw passion, and coming to terms with darker aspects of psychology, which is what young teens want to avoid.

By: pentamom

pentamom — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:30:46 +0000

And also, the equation of a somewhat broader view of social conditions with “realism,” in the context of the absurdities of the Brontes’ stories is also ridiculous. The issues of poverty and wealth are not the only “realities” of life. The fact that almost nobody behaves the way almost everybody behaved in Bronte novels, and that there are people all over the place who behave much the way Austen’s characters behaved (allowing for differences in social custom and class expectations) is much more pertinent to what’s realistic. But there’s a word for people whose measure for everything is economic.

And, BTW, I love Jane Eyre, so the lack of realism is not a criticism I’m making.

By: pentamom

pentamom — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:26:55 +0000

Blake, give it up. People who think that a woman who is not starving by definition lives a flat, one-dimensional life and therefore cannot write about life really are not worth arguing with.

I do think you’re overstating the case about Austen’s women and “poverty,” but you are correct insofar as they really were economically at risk — had they not married securely, they would have been forced into a lifestyle for which they were by no means prepared and therefore subject to great hardship, and getting a job was NOT an option, unless you include prostitution among the possibilities. This was not true for all of them, but was definitely true for the Dashwoods, and the Bennets if at least one of them had not married into a family wealthy enough to support a passel of spinsters.

At any rate, the equation of middle class affluence with knowing nothing about reality and living a one-dimensional life is beyond silly.

By: Jeff Peters

Jeff Peters — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 05:33:33 +0000

I also find it odd how you first accused me of promoting feminism, when everyone knows that the Austenites are the ones doing such. Then you say I am talking about identity politics when you were the one doing so. You ignored other literature, actual historical context, and other things that are completely improper when discussing works.

By: Jeff Peters

Jeff Peters — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 05:31:39 +0000

“You are saying that the Brontes are more “realistic” than Austen.”

Yes, they are. They deal with the social climate and atmosphere of their day regardless of the allegory surrounding it.

And you keep claiming Austen wrote comedies when she didn’t. You also ignore that Gaskell did not write Gothic works. Why is it that you make such inappropriate claims and ignore reality? That isn’t healthy.

Only someone who denies reality can claim that her depictions have anything to do with reality in a direct or symbolic level. She was out of touch with real life. You seem to act like that is impossible when the average person knows that there are those out there completely out of touch with the dangers and problems of the world.

It is also obvious that someone like Gaskell was actually able to capture the plight of the poor, the struggling, and those who suffered far more than Austen ever could. Why you ignore that is baffling.