However if the responder were to read Fay Weldon’s Letters to Alice on first reading Jane Austen, the connections between the two would shape and then reshape the responder’s understanding of both texts. The two texts are connected most obviously through Weldon’s commentary and analysis of Austen’s writing and social and historical context. However the two texts are also connected through their didactic purpose, examination of values, use of epistles and their female author’s status and feminist messages. Whilst all of these connections do enrich each text, it is to a limited extent as both texts also work in isolation. Aunt Fay writes to her niece Alice in the hope of teaching her about Austen and her writing and what better way to do that than by direct reference to Austen’s most successful text, Pride and Prejudice?
The topic of the book is established through the comical opening phrase – ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Marriage was of great importance in the 19th century, as it gave women an establishment, a supporter and a family. Women who didn’t marry were low in society, having to be supported by other family members. Marriage for love is greatly advocated in the novel, as it is exemplified by the protagonist, Elizabeth. As she ardently states, “nothing more than the deepest love will induce me into matrimony”. Others, such as Charlotte Lucas, are far less discriminatory.
The similarities of each text comments on the universality or unchanging nature to aspects of humanity. It is looking at the modern day equivalents in each text that we see can the contrasting values of these starkly different worlds. Thus, on close examination, comparisons are revealed, making the process a truly enriching transformation. By examining heroines in both texts, we are forced to revisit familiar themes and issues. Heckerling’s characters may use the language of the 1990s and have modern-day interests and occupations, but they depict similar traits as Austen’s characters: they display self-interest, vanity and practise deception but also demonstrate personal growth and perceptive honesty.
Through the inclusion of relevant contextual information from Austen’s time and didactic assertions of the fictional character Aunt Fay, Weldon implores the responder to accept her opinions on the values and issues of Austen’s context. Weldon’s discussion of these, which include marriage, social class and the role and expectations of women within society, transforms a modern responders understanding of the themes and morals explored in Pride and Prejudice, and moreover, alters the way in which the responder perceives the events and decisions of the characters within the novel. The fundamental importance and value assigned to marriage in the context of Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice is reinforced through Weldon’s discussion of the options for women outside marriage and its purpose of providing financial security for women. In Pride and Prejudice, Austen constructs Charlotte Lucas as a character who does not think “highly of either men or matrimony”, and hence she marries Mr Collins despite not loving him, to ensure her financial security and elevate her position within society. Mrs Bennet echoes Charlotte’s sentiments, as the “business of her life was to get her daughters married,” because she knew they would not be provided for after the death of her husband.
However we also find out throughout the course of the book how marriage wasn't always about love. Charlotte Lucas claimed, "Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance". A very common view then, that Austen herself would have been very familiar with. Often marriages were more like business deals, simply a means of acquiring an establishment where habitually feelings weren't relevant. There was the mercenary marriage, brought about for financial reasons, the marriage based on passion and physical attraction, and lying somewhere in between, was the ideal.
we see him trying with a great effort the first time he talks to Roxane without cyrano. The poor man is bad with words, but he does love her dearly. The other love triangle we see is Roxane with De Guiche/valvert. Although its not the same type of love triangle since this love is not returned from roxane to anyone, it is still an example. De guiche loves roxane, but since he is married, is having Valvert marry her instead, so he can then turn around and keep her close.
Margaret Macomber’s love for her husband is debatable at best. She seems much more interested in flirting with their guide, Robert Wilson, than in encouraging her husband. In fact, she is brazen and unabashed about her sexual dalliance with Wilson and taunts her husband with it. Hemingway writes that she is “an extremely handsome and well-kept woman.” The phrase “well-kept” is particularly revealing in its multiple meanings. On one hand, Margot is fashionable and presents herself well.
She is cunning, resourceful, and brave. She definitely does not fit into the passive role that has been given to the more popular heroines. As in many fairy tales, the beautiful daughter is basically given away as if she is an object to a man who wants to marry her. Of course the girl’s father approves of the suitor because he appears rich, but the girl is not as impressed. She, “did not like him as much as a bride should like her bridegroom,” (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm).
Although, he is not in love with the Daisy’s personality, he is infatuated by her looks. One could say that he is in love with the illusion of daisy. The idea of her still being the same girl he left behind before going to war is the idea he obsesses over. He does not realize that he can not just pick up where he left off. When he returned to his beloved Daisy, she had broken her promise and married a wealthy man as well as had a child.
How central is self-control to Jane Eyre? Following a brief discussion of the importance of self-control in Victorian Women, the focus of this essay will be to argue that Jane utilises self-control to restrain her passionate nature, exhibiting behaviour that pleases those she reveres during her pursuit for a family. This is achieved with the characters she encounters and the control they exert over her. Victorian women were considered inferior to men, neither viewed as being passionate or sexual beings. During a time of patriarchal society entrenched in the catholic faith, the main ‘genteel’ occupation for an unmarried middle-class woman available was that of a governess.