JANE EYRE — Chapter XIV & XXXVII

Just opened my online shop with some new goodies! I have two new engraving prints, a handful of "patch-pins" (AKA linocut patches turned into pins!), and a few printed greeting cards! I also have a ton of other stuff available, from other linocut prints to some printed sweatshirts.

Take a look!

pomegranate pngs ! credit not necessary for pngs! like or reblog to use, don't repost as your own please.

That Hamlet post reminds me, people blame Romeo and Juliet for "getting everyone killed", but the text itself very specifically blames the lords Capulet and Montague. If you want to get to the nitty gritty:

Mercutio got himself killed. Romeo was very specifically trying to not have a swordfight, and Mercutio decided to start one because he thought Romeo was being a pussy. Tybalt actually killed him, but if you're talking about who "got him killed," that was Mercutio fucking around and finding out.

Romeo killed Tybalt. This is the one death that I think you can reasonably lay at Romeo's feet. If he had run off with Benvolio and got the Prince's men, Tybalt would have been arrested. That said, if my best friend (no matter how stupid) was killed right in front of me and the killer told me that friend sucked and so did I, I cannot guarantee I would do differently.

Lady Capulet said she hired people to kill Romeo. He beat them to the punch on that, but I think it should be pointed out.

Romeo killed Paris in self-defense. There's a lot of different ways you can play this, and Paris did think he'd broken in to vandalize the tomb of his girlfriend, but once again Romeo specifically begged someone not to fight him and that wasn't enough.

Romeo killed himself because he thought Juliet was dead. Friar Lawrence had a stupid idea and Juliet followed through on it because her father was going to force her into bigamy (and arguably marital rape), so if anyone "got" this to happen it was Lord Capulet.

Juliet killed herself because her husband was dead, her cousin was dead, her parents had turned on her, the woman who she thought of as a second mother abandoned her, and she was in a room with one guy stabbed and another guy poisoned right as the law was about to break in. Once again, I don't know what I'd do in her situation.

My Shakespeare professor said that Romeo and Juliet is the only Shakespeare tragedy not caused because of anyone being evil- Lord Capulet and Tybalt (and Mercutio) are dicks, but they're not Iago or Richard III. None of them wanted the play to end in a pile of bodies. You can't even point to one specific act and say 'that was the specific action that caused all of this.' It's a surprisingly modern (as opposed to mythic) play in that regard.

Yes Jane should have married Rochester:

1. Even at the beginning of the book, Jane talks about needing something to take care of. This is something fundamentally intrinsic to her. She believes human beings are literally wired to take care of others. By the end of the book, who do you think takes care of who?

2. During her initial engagement to Rochester, she actually fights back against him when he calls her “elfin” and ethereal. She wants to be seen as a woman, not a vision. It’s very telling that she actually marries him at the end when he changes his view and learns his lesson. It’s very telling she marries him when she is a woman of her own means and discovers her family. She only marries him when she herself realizes she is her own independent person. It is not a “girl no,” moment. It’s a marriage where she actually has the upper hand.

3. Girl doesn’t marry him immediately when she finds him. They talk first. They talk for a long time. They tease each other. I would argue this is where she truly falls in love with the man at this point. (Same thing with him)

4. I am tired of the narrative that true female empowerment is to be single. True empowerment differs from woman to woman, and as we established at point one, Jane’s character is literally someone who wants to take care of others. Furthermore, being in an equal partnership, being in love, is empowering and I’m tired of people saying it isn’t.

5. It’s not that she “should.” She wanted to. She likes him. They have fun conversations. The end.

I watched the movie “Secretary” for the first time last week and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. So obviously, I’m now searching for books recs that are similar to the movie’s themes and all I’m getting are smut novels 😭 Like the bdsm relationship is a big part of it but that’s not what fascinates me about the movie y’know? Basically what I’m saying is I need recs please.

Sorry, still not over Darcy critical-failing that proposal! Not that sorry, though. I have no idea why Pride and Prejudice hits so hard when most of Austen's other novels are like "They're fine! I like them! Anyway..." for me.

But, here's the thing. Darcy is being an asshole. Darcy isn't an asshole, generally, but he's really being one about his whole Regency Era situationship with Lizzie. Like, he rolls in on day one with this giant fucking chip on his shoulder, acts like he's too good for everyone, and why? Well, he's rich, and he's got lofty connections.

Except who's he rolling with right then? His spineless dustmop of a bestie and his bestie's godawful sisters. Bingley's the sort of guy who can be peer-pressured out of being in love!

Like, you know that thing where you have a friend, and they introduce you to another friend, and that friend is such a wet sock that you find yourself reevaluating your friend because they're hanging around with this guy? Like, okay, Darcy, do you have friends, or do you have toadies? Is this your bestie, or did you find a gentleman's companion that you didn't have to pay?

Later on we meet his aunt, who's the goddamned worst.

Like, we all hate Mr. Collins, right? This woman has Mr. Collins over twice a week for a quiet evening of performative dickriding. That's the kind of taste Darcy's family has. Voluntarily spending hours with Mr. Collins on a regular basis.

There's no talking about Mrs. Bennet's lack of decorum or matrimonial grasping or entitlement without talking about Lady Catherine flying in on her broom to scream at her nephew's fiancee, right? Especially considering that her basis for doing so is a cradle engagement that she seems to have never spoken to her nephew about as an adult and a fucking rumor that she assumes pertains to Lizzie.

She doesn't even talk to her fucking nephew before spending half a day in a carriage to make a blazing spectacle of herself in front of the entire Bennet household! He finds out she did that afterwards when she tries to make him break off the nonexistent engagement that she's announced to half the fucking kingdom by that point.

I mean, unexpected point to Mrs. B, who notably did not even walk down the road to Netherfield to act disappointed at anyone.

Also hard to get on too high a horse after Georgiana's near-elopement with the country's biggest asshole! Like, oh, the Bennet sisters are embarrassing? The Bennets lack propriety?

Buddy, you hired a sex trafficker to look after your sister and then your sister almost fucked the one-man-crime-wave son of your late property-manager. And you didn't even manage to hush it all up properly! Sure, he's keeping your sister's name out of his mouth, but he's running you down like a dog in every other respect to the whole county!

Like, "Oh, look at me, I'm Fitzwilliam Darcy! I'm not going to lower myself to correcting any of The Plebes who now think I deliberately misadministered a will to fuck over The Help out of cheapness and spite, especially when all it would take is one conversation with That Fucker's commanding officer, but god forbid I ever have to go out in public with a Bennet! I might die of shame and secondhand cringe!"

So he's got all of that going on, and then he busts in on Lizzie with a proposal that's got huge "I don't consent to being attracted to you" energy and runs her entire family into the ground. This is after Lizzie's spent approximately three centuries being negged by his mannerless nightmare of an aunt, so that's at least one extra level of "Really, bruh?" in there.

And then he fucking claps back at her rejection! Instead of going "Oh. Huh. Whoops. Guess I'll just have to go marry one of the other ten thousand women lined up waiting to marry me!" he's like "What the fuuuuck did I ever do to you, you fucking menace?". At which point she checks him so hard he spends the next three months bluescreening and looking up how to be polite to people you haven't already known for five years.

So like I said, he is being an asshole here. He knows how to act right, he just hasn't bothered to do so once since posting up in Netherfield because idk, he's on vacation or some shit.

Critically! However upsetting Lizzie finds The Proposal Incident (half-hour crying jag, spends the rest of the day hiding in her room), she is at no point worried about Darcy's subsequent behavior.

This is while she still thinks he genuinely did Wickham dirty and before she's had a chance to get character references from the 500 people working at Pemberley. This is the guy about whom her dad later says "Kidding-not kidding I can hardly say no to this rich fuck, can I?" when asked for his blessing. This is after Mr. Collins literally said "I've heard no means yes these days" to her fucking face and then her mother tried to make her marry him anyway.

She preached a full on sermon about the man's shortcomings to his face immediately after saying she wouldn't bounce on his dick if it was the last one on earth and after the adrenaline crash wasn't like, "Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuuuck my entire life, he's going to burn down the vicarage and frame my father for tax fraud."

Everything that she's seen with her own eyes about this snobby bastard tells her he's not going to go crying to his aunt and get her cousin's patronage revoked. He's not going to go out of his way to fuck her or her family over. He's pissed, and he was definitely playing the ass with that proposal, but he's not going to lash out over it.

So this is Lizzie seeing Darcy at Peak Asshole, with extra assholery that he didn't even do but he couldn't be bothered to tell anyone he didn't do, and Lizzie's still like "omg you're such a fucking prick, how do you even get out of bed in the morning" instead of "Well, RIP to my prospects, there's no way that man doesn't have the lot of us consigned to a convent by parliamentary decree now."

When Jane says she’s cold while Rochester is holding her hand… and he replies in question, “Cold?”. He can feel she is not, quite the opposite, her hands were very warm (so warm home girl felt feverish and couldn’t sleep all night bc of that stirring passion awakening). The text doesn’t explicitly say this but I think it’s implied. We are reading from Jane’s POV who in this moment is just trying to leave his room bc the feeling of desire is unfamiliar to her at the moment and she wants to avoid it in the present. But the clue lies with Rochester’s reply when he questions her “Cold?”. To Rochester’s silly lil brain Jane saying “I’m cold” translates to “Get away from me you unlovable beast I want to leave now and you’re ugly” in Rochesterian. So he plays along and is like “oh yes yes and standing in a pool! go Jane😐 ( 10/10 acting) obviously Rochester being Rochester does the totally rational thing any normal person would do and leave immediately, go get Blanche and execute plan make Jane jealous. Because waiting until morning to find to your surprise Jane is absolutely down bad simping for you is too long of a wait. Clearly spending roughly a month on this plan is way faster (Rochester math).

I think the real appeal of Mr Darcy isn't that he's handsome, rich and has the whole "redeemable jerk" vibe to him.

I think the real appeal is that he sees the worst in Lizzy and still loves her. He thinks so little of her, feels genuine contempt and still comes out the other side wanting to be with her. It doesn't matter that what he perceives as "flaws" is basically classist bullshit, just the fact that he sees flaws in her and still wants her is enough.

Personally, I won't believe anyone who tells me I'm perfect. I know I'm not and even if I believe they think that of me, I will spend my time dreading the time they figure out the truth and possibly reject me.

But what if someone showed up and already thought ill of me? Even better, someone who believes about me the worst of the things I believe about myself? Someone who thinks I'm lazy and awkward and I talk too much and I spend too much money and I eat more than I should and I can't properly take care of myself? And what if that person also loved me and chose to be with me, because I am so kind, honest, intelligent, funny and artistic that they figure I'm worth their love?

THAT is where the appeal lies. And this aspect of it is perfectly encapsulated in that line from Pride & Prejudice's quasi-adaptation, Bridget Jones's Diary:

so, it's not that we like ill-mannered jerks. We just like the idea that someone would go to such lengths and overcome their own selves to date trashcans like us. What a compliment.

The biggest consistent lie that Pride and Prejudice adaptations tell (yes, even the one you like) is that Mr. Darcy is stiff, diffident, joyless, whatever.

That is not the personality of the character in the book. The dude is consistently described as smiling in the first half of the novel. In fact, I would guess he's the smiliest of Austen's heroes, or a close second to Knightley or Edmund Bertram. He's not "chatty", but when he engages Elizabeth he's usually described as doing so with a smile on his face. Combine that with the arch exchanges they have, his proposal becomes way less shocking.

Him actively resisting the attraction he feels is what makes his behavior obscure to the characters in the novel who suspect his partiality (so, Charlotte.) Caroline Bingley can see his interest immediately and actively try to sabotage it by fanning the flames of disapproval. The fact that Elizabeth doesn't see his growing feelings for her is meant to be proof of her prejudicial attitude in regards to him, not...evidence that he's a socially awkward weirdo.

I guess this is one of those adaptational choices that people just decided to make to en masse because we no longer live in a culture where there's so much formality, politeness and reserve in manners that it's plausible for a woman to hate a man who loves her and them both to be so restrained they misinterpret one another.

The 1967 TV serial might be the only one where he actually smiles for the first half of the story (as he does in the novel!)