So I went on a Jane Austen kick this weekend. There's just something about Jane Austen that is so comforting when I'm upset about boys. Her novels are really the origin of all chick flicks. Everyone ends up just how you think they ought to. The sweet, traditional girl gets to marry a nice boy with a fortune; the spunky girl gets to marry a boy with an even bigger fortune; and the nasty, horrible girls either don't get married or get married to horrible fortune-seekers.
I like to think that I'm the sweet, traditional girl who is slightly misunderstood by everyone. In Pride and Prejudice she's Jane, and in Persuasion it's Anne. I admire the spirit of the other girls, but really, I'm not out to change the world. I just want a nice boy who is going to make a decent amount of money so that we can live in a nice house in the suburbs and never feel strapped for cash. I want the Mr. Bingley (although maybe slightly less ridiculous) or the Captian Wentworth... actually I really like the Captain the most. He's a man who is completely honor driven, has strong attachments to people, and works hard for what he gets.
I think I like Captain Wentworth so much because he is the first military man who end up good in one of Jane Austen's novels. I've always had a sneaking suspicion that she got jilted by a military man at some point in her life, and while doing some research on her life for a paper I found out that I was right (if you watch the movie Becoming Jane it highlights this relationship I think). Unlike all the other military men in Austen's novel, Wentworth doesn't run off with a girl or cause her to do anything stupid. Although he is in love with Anne throughout the novel, he pays attentions to another young lady in an effort to try to forget Anne (she was persuaded not to marry him eight years prior to when the novel takes place); when he finds out that other people believe him to be practically engaged to the other girl he resigns himself to her honour and would have married him had she not fell in love with his friend. Since he is such a wonderful man, Jane had the decency to give him a fortune. During the war he gained a fortune of about 20,000 pounds; Anne had been forbidden to marry him due to his lack of fortune when he first paid his regards to her, but now no one could say he was unworthy of her.
That's what I love most about Jane Austen novels. Everything works out. Everyone gets exactly what they deserve, whether that be a wonderful fortune and marriage, or spinsterhood and poverty. Which makes me wonder... if my life was a Jane Austen novel, how would I end up?
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