Tumblr crosspost (4 February 2021)

[anghraine]

I have a longer post in drafts about it, but … one of the things I really enjoy about Austen is that she doesn’t hold back judgment of her characters or even altogether deny them agency (though her fandom sometimes does!), but she also frequently goes out of her way to highlight the experiences that have influenced their development into who they are.

Especially (though not exclusively) when it comes to her main characters, her good people aren’t good because they just had the innate moral fortitude to shrug off their upbringings or the things that have happened to them, which seems to be a lot of people’s idea of goodness. Austen main characters are good people and they’re impacted by their experiences and have qualities (often flaws) that clearly arise more out of upbringing than any essential underlying characteristic. Goodness isn’t just about super-resilience, but neither is experience wholly defining.

It’s not at all restricted to Austen, of course, but even now (…particularly now), it’s so refreshing.

Tagged: #i'm so tired of the resilience narrative or blank slate narrative #and i was thinking of how elizabeth/darcy is one of comparatively few ships i'm really into where the characters #are just about squeaky clean—and i think part of it (aside of their general magnificence lol) is it's not a magic resilience thing at all #she is extremely clear about the ways in which they have been influenced—mostly for the worse—by their experiences #they're allowed to be good AND to be affected by their lives in natural ways #shouldn't be as refreshing as it is but it's one of the things i keep going back for

[ETA 4/30/2024: I was also thinking about Mr Collins, of all people—Austen doesn't justify him in any way, obviously, but also doesn't try to pretend that his upbringing and history aren't what made him who he is. The effects of education, upbringing, and general history on people's characters and morals are a constant preoccupation of her books, IMO.]