Tumblr crosspost (7 February 2021)
May. 2nd, 2024 08:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineAn anon asked:
Love what you write about Darcy/Elizabeth! Just curious, what do you think of Jane/Bingley? Do you think they would be a good couple?
I replied:
Thank you very much!
For Jane/Bingley, I think it depends on what you mean by “good.” They’ll be … fine, I think? There’s no real reason for them not to be.
But—well, I’m pretty resistant to the versions/interpretations of Jane/Bingley that I see now and then that are like, “well, actually, they’re very compelling as written and it’s suggested they would have a complex, ultra-passionate relationship!” Different people find different things interesting, of course, and have different headcanons, but … we never really see them interact and IIRC they don’t exchange a single line of dialogue. It’s hard for me to latch onto that as anything but plot and characterization device.
(This isn’t to say that they never speak to each other or don’t genuinely care about each other in-story, just that Austen didn’t consider it worth showing. I don’t think she found the relationship very interesting.)
I also have some reservations about Bingley—not that he’d cheat on Jane or anything, or that she would stop loving him, I just think he’s rather bland and a little shallow. So, personally, I’m not convinced by the grand passion reading. He’s a good, reasonably intelligent person, to be clear, Jane is more than that, and I think they’ll be happy enough. Still, I don’t see much substance to the ship as Austen wrote it.
Tagged: #jane (bennet) has substance in herself #but the relationship with bingley not so much imo
Love what you write about Darcy/Elizabeth! Just curious, what do you think of Jane/Bingley? Do you think they would be a good couple?
I replied:
Thank you very much!
For Jane/Bingley, I think it depends on what you mean by “good.” They’ll be … fine, I think? There’s no real reason for them not to be.
But—well, I’m pretty resistant to the versions/interpretations of Jane/Bingley that I see now and then that are like, “well, actually, they’re very compelling as written and it’s suggested they would have a complex, ultra-passionate relationship!” Different people find different things interesting, of course, and have different headcanons, but … we never really see them interact and IIRC they don’t exchange a single line of dialogue. It’s hard for me to latch onto that as anything but plot and characterization device.
(This isn’t to say that they never speak to each other or don’t genuinely care about each other in-story, just that Austen didn’t consider it worth showing. I don’t think she found the relationship very interesting.)
I also have some reservations about Bingley—not that he’d cheat on Jane or anything, or that she would stop loving him, I just think he’s rather bland and a little shallow. So, personally, I’m not convinced by the grand passion reading. He’s a good, reasonably intelligent person, to be clear, Jane is more than that, and I think they’ll be happy enough. Still, I don’t see much substance to the ship as Austen wrote it.
Tagged: #jane (bennet) has substance in herself #but the relationship with bingley not so much imo