Distracted by Jane

So how many marks do you think the person marking my chemistry exam would give me if instead of answering the questions asked, I wrote an essay titled "How much I love Henry Tilney" or "My favourite Jane Austen novel: Northanger Abbey"?

You see I have an exam coming up in the next week and today I tried to study...well that is to say, I usually don't mind studying at all but for some reason I found myself daydreaming about the world of Jane Austen and in particular that of Catherine Morland. And in the time it takes to pick up a book and say "Goodbye study, Hello Tilney" I had assumed the role of Catherine and was walking the halls of Northanger Abbey without any hope of returning to reality in the near future.

Surely I cannot be the only one who gets distracted by the world and characters of Jane Austen at the most inopportune times?

Love as always :)

Mel (Tristans_Isolde) xx

to be a heroine...Lesson #1

Lesson # 1- You don't have to be a "true-quality" heroine.

You may be thinking, what do I mean by true-quality heroine, well Jane Austen refers to a true-quality heroine in the 2nd chapter of Northanger Abbey.

"She was looked at, however, and with some admiration; for, in her own hearing, two gentlemen pronounced her to be a pretty girl. Such words had their due effect; she immediately thought the evening pleasanter than she had found it before − her humble vanity was contented − she felt more obliged to the two young men for this simple praise than a true−quality heroine would have been for fifteen sonnets in celebration of her charms, and went to her chair in good humour with everybody, and perfectly satisfied with her share of public attention."

Often when a person thinks of a heroine they think of a perfect, beautiful, strong woman whom everyone admires, however in the context we are using it- heroine simply means:

1. the main good female character in a work of fiction

The true-quality heroine is I believe the heroine stereotype that the world has created- it is the idealized version. And is more often than not, someone we may look up to but can never relate to. This is what I love about Jane Austen's heroines - and Catherine Morland in particular she is not a true-quality heroine, she does not possess the traits that are often associated with heroines; she is from an average family, she is not wealthy, she has not all that many aquaintances, she is considered plain for most her life and at time is almost pretty and she is not interested in becoming 'accomplished'.

 

So Lesson #1 :  If you want to be a heroine but you don't quite think you fit the "mould" don't worry you don't have to!  be a true-quality heroine! Each heroine in every story is designed by that author specifically to complete the task/ fufill the destiny/ achieve whatever needs to be acheived in order to overcome the obstacles to reach the end- So if all heroines were the same and fit the 'true-quality' ideal they would never be able to be so different!

 

Take Care,

Tristans_Isolde xx

UPDATE (25/05/2011) On futher thought I decided that these lessons should be shorter so I have edited this post a little from the original. Its still basically the same content just shorter :) 

My Love; Mr Henry Tilney

Henry Tilney is my ultimate hero, and because I know all my readers are so kind and will forgive me for saying this but I love him even more than Mr Darcy *gasps*! ....Okay, so if your not too offended to continue reading :) I would love to tell you all who this Henry Tilney is (if you don't already know) and why I love him so much!

Henry is the hero of Jane Austen's wonderful novel Northanger Abbey and the romantic interest of Catherine Morland. He is an exceedingly witty, integellent and charming clergyman in his mid 20's and the younger son of the wealthy General Tilney. Sometimes I find it a little hard to acknowledge exactly what it is about Henry that I like so much but I have discovered that it really is his enitre character (I know that sounds vague). I find Henry to be very mysterious, a lot of the time its hard to know what he truly thinks because often what he says is not at all what he means. Henry uses a lot of irony coupled with sarcasm this along with his forementioned wit and intellegence makes great reading! He also has a very sensitive nature and cares very deeply for his sister, Eleanor and also for Catherine. Of course with all this said Henry is not perfect, he is seems to have an opinion on everything and is always considered to be right- something that he delights in. He also has somewhat of an ego which is perhaps quite flattered at times with Catherine's adoration.

One of my favourite quotes from Henry is:

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid"

I am not normally the type of person to rate humour as a quality I like in a hero, but Henry's is so perfect. So just to finish off,  here is a little excerpt of one of my favourite conversations between Henry and Catherine from the novel.

"Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational again." Catherine turned away her head, not knowing whether she might venture to laugh.

"I see what you think of me," said he gravely - "I shall make but a poor figure in your journal tomorrow."


My journal!"


Yes, I know exactly what you will say: Friday, went to the Lower Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings - plain black shoes - appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed me by his nonsense."


Indeed I shall say no such thing."


Shall I tell you what you ought to say?"


If you please."

I danced with a very agreeable young man, introduced by Mr. King; had a great deal of conversation with him -- seems a most extraordinary genius -- hope I may know more of him. That, madam, is what I wish you to say."

Thanks for reading, I will be continuing with the 'villains we sympathise with' posts shortly :)

What about you, who is your hero? Why?  

Much Love,

Tristans_Isolde xx

*UPDATE (14/05/11):
As you are most likely already aware Blogger has had some issues the past couple of days, the result for this blog was some posts being temporarily taken off. Although the posts were restored the comments were not :) so if you posted a comment on this post I have re-posted it from the notification email I received :)

Villians we sympathise with (Part 3)

A big "Thank you" to Miss Laurie from Old Fashion Charm (which is one of my favourite blogs, I encourage you to check it out if you haven't already), who has been kind enough to give us 6 more suggestions:

Mr Elliot

Mr Elliot is a villain in Jane Austen's Persuasion. He is the cousin of the main character Anne Elliot who re-unites with her family after a falling out when he married a very rich woman who was of inferior birth. After the death of his wife he desires to move up socially, to do this he reconcilles with the Elliots to gain higher social connections. Mr Elliot is very sly in his actions and changes his thoughts, opinions, manner and actions to suit whatever situation he is in. He also proposes to Anne with the intention of setting her up as his wife whilst still keeping Mrs Clay as his mistress.  
Personally I cannot even force myself to sympathise with Mr Elliot, I find him to be a slimeball, he is totally creepy and the only two villains I can think of right now which are worse than he is are Mr Collins (Pride & Prejudice) and Alec D'Urberville (Tess of the D'Urberville's). I am not sure whether I believe his admiration for Anne's character is sincere but I supose you could sympathise with him in the fact that he does lose Anne and is ultimately left with Mrs Clay who is just alike him in disposition and perhaps she will also play him just as she played everyone else.

Mr Elton

Mr Elton is one of Jane Austen's villains in her novel Emma. He is a clergyman who after being rejected by Emma literally runs-off and picks up a wealthly wife as if to shove it in Emma's face. If I had to name why I sympathised with Elton it would be because of his wife, although it could be said they deserve each other, or like many other villains this is in fact his punishment, his wife is a horrible character. Mrs Augusta Elton is much worse than Mr Elton she is a social climber, annoying and utterly ridicuclous. She is rich and constantly reminding those around her of the fact, she sticks her nose into everyone business because ultimately she believes everything is her business. She believes she is the best thing to come to Highbury and is determined to control every situation, ball, party and person! The information given to us in the novel about Augusta is not much however it is enough to give us an insight into the person she is, I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like for poor Mr Elton living with Augusta as his wife :)

John Thorpe 

John is a character out of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (my favourite novel!) and although I have never really thought of him as a villain, most likely because I like him so much, he is such a great character and absolutely hilarious, he can definitely be counted as a villain. John is, I think, one of those characters you love or hate as he is quite dimwitted, rude, obnoxious and always talking about horses or carriages especially at the most inopportune times. John is the chief instigator of all the trouble the befalls Catherine Morland during the course of the novel as he lies to General Tilney about Catherine being wealthy. I find it quite easy to feel sorry for John, particularly because he is such a hilarious character but also because he did intend to marry Catherine and the lie about her wealth ultimately brought her closer to Henry Tilney, the man whom he was contending against for Catherines attentions. We never really get to know what happens to John, his character disappears after he helps the plot in the right direction, so i must admit I feel sorry for him in the fact that he is a character who unintentionally points the story in the right direction but doesn't gain the anything, and is never heard of again.

The last 3 suggestions were:

- Mr Tulkinghorn (Bleak House)

- Mr Smallweed (Bleak House)

- Bradley Headstone (Our Mutual Friend)

Unfortunatley I don't know anything about these characters so I am going to have to do a little research on them before I post up their small profile. If you know of them I would love to hear why you think people may feel sympathetic towards them despite that they are villains.

Also have you noticed all our villains are males!? I wonder if in general we sympathise more with male villains then female ones? I would love to know any female villains you sympathise with?

*UPDATE (14/05/11):
As you are most likely already aware Blogger has had some issues the past couple of days, the result for this blog was some posts being temporarily taken off. Although the posts were restored the comments were not :) so if you posted a comment on this post I have re-posted it from the notification email I received :)

My Jane Austen book collection

As you may already know from my "100 Janes Austen copies by 2011" gadget, I collect Jane Austen books, I particularly love finding copies which have different front cover designs. I mostly hunt for them in the local Opportunity Shops, because I love secondhand books! I love to read the notes and comments which people write in the books. Unfortunatley, for the past 3 years I have been collecting I havent been able to get very many copies, at the start of the year (2010) my total was at 24 so I think I am doing well so far :)

My total stands at 38 copies -

14 copies -Pride and Prejudice 

6 copies -Sense and Sensibility

5 copies -Emma

4 copies - Mansfield Park

2 copies -Northanger Abbey

2 copies -Persuasion

2 copies - 'The Complete Novels of Jane Austen'

1 copy -Lady Susan   

1 copy - Sanditon

1 copy- 4-in-1 book (Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon)

I can now increase that total to 39 after buying this beautiful copy of 'Northanger Abbey' on sale. Isn't the cover lovely :)