Finally, I can explain it!

Okay. Deep breath. I am going to admit something here that will upset some of, perhaps many, of my literary friends. But here goes...I struggle with "Pride and Prejudice". There, I said it. I have not spoken up about this because frankly I could never quite put my finger on just why it bothers me. Well...today I was reading a book that my mom gave me and told me I simply had to read so that we could discuss it. Now this is a difficulty in the relationship between my mother and myself, we do not read the same things and so she knows that to ask me to read something that she has read is kind of a tough thing. As many of you know, I have a list an eternity long of what I hope to read someday and I hate bumping anything off that list! But she pleaded and she had already dropped the book in the tub so it was pre-soaked, which seemed a good choice to bring to the beach, so I am reading "One True Thing" by Anna Quindlen, at my mother's request. And then, today, I came to a passage where the main character's mother is explaining why she has an issue with Jane Austen and the breath left my body. This was exactly what I had been trying to formulate in my brain for years. Here is the passage, an exchange between the main character Ellen and her mother.

Mother: "I remember this book. I was reading it when I met your father. I remember admiring it but being a little put off by it, too, because it does that cheap thing that people do, it makes the sister who is sweet and domestic and good a second fiddle to the one who is smart and outspoken. Jane and Elizabeth. I remember them now. It didn't seem fair to me, that Jane was so good and yet Elizabeth is the one who is admired."

Ellen: "I suppose that's Austen fighting back. She was that kind of woman and she knew that it was the sweet and good girl who was esteemed in society, not the one like Elizabeth who speaks out."

Mother: "But Jane Austen should have known better than to make women into that kind of either-or thing..."

Ellen: "Do you really think she does that?"

Mother: "Yes, I do. It happened in another book, too. Little Women, there was the sister who was the writer, and the one who had babies."

Ellen: "Jo and Meg."

Mother: "It's all the same. Women writers of all people should know better than to pigeonhole women, put them in little groups, the smart one, the sweet one. Women professors at the college do it too."

Ellen: "Perhaps Austen just meant them as prototypes."

Mother: "No, they're real enough, both of them, Jane and Elizabeth. Jane admires Elizabeth, and Elizabeth admires herself."

Ellen: "Not true, Elizabeth admires Jane plenty."

Mother: "Really? Where? When you are reading it this time through pay attention to that, show me where, tell me if you still believe it when the book is done. I remember liking Pride and Prejudice, only wishing that it could be told from Jane's point of view which you and your father would say would make for a very dull book."

WOW! The mother's thoughts hit it right on the head for me. The mother was saying these things because she was a "Jane" through and through, who had been dismissed by both her husband and her daughter because of her "Janeness", just as Elizabeth does dismiss Jane in the book. I am a mix of Elizabeth and Jane and I want both sides of me and all different women to be appreciated and allowed to express themselves fully and not be deemed second class, no matter their lifestyle choice. I don't want any woman to ever be second fiddle.

I realize that there are few who would agree with me, but it is nice to come out and admit how I feel and the wish I have that this book and others (not necessarily Little Women, I think more balance is offered there, though it is still slanted) would give more balanced weight to every women's choice, even if it might be the conventional choice or the choice society dictates. Jane was happy to be a sweet and domestic creature and there is nothing wrong with that happiness.