We all love to read about balls, tea, puffed sleeves, handsome doctors/sea-captains/landowners, and I’m no exception, but over time, I’ve become aware of a nagging little element common to all the beloved “classic” stories that really rankles, a dark underbelly which, once discovered, I can no longer ignore.
Like many women, I’m particularly drawn to woman authors, and as a woman, I expect to find common ground in their works—a space to exist in comfort and complacency. And for while, I did. Lost in the breathtaking descriptions of Anne of Green Gables, the relatable escapades of the March sisters, and Jane Austen’s sparkling dialogue, it was easy not to pick up on this aforementioned nagging element, a through-line of subtle, but unmistakeable oppression.
I know this is a big word, but it’s a big issue we’re discussing.
The through-line, whether by coincidence or nefarious design, is this demeaning, discouraging concept of personal growth.
It’s as if all the great authors feel like they haven’t done their job if the heroine (who is, let’s be clear, completely charming to begin with) doesn’t walk away with some kind of lesson learned or fear overcome or delusion exposed, and I have to tell you, as a person of flaws, it gets real obnoxious.
One expects to see this kind of thing in Tolstoy or Dickens—as members of the patriarchy, however talented or insightful, it would be pretty much unavoidable for them to impose their inherent hierarchical power-structures onto even a fictional a woman. But it stung to find that even my beloved Jane was a cog in the grinding wheel of systemic oppression—of holding people, but especially women, to an unrealistic standard of not just excellence, but autonomy itself.
Consider this iconic moment in Pride and Prejudice when Lizzy—faced with the evidence of her own rash judgements and double standards, examines and condemns her actions:
She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think, without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd. ‘How despicably have I acted!’ she cried. ‘I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! …How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly…Till this moment, I never knew myself.’
And even the lighter-hearted Maud Hart Lovelace can’t resist a similar scene of self-excoriation in Betsy and Joe, right on the heels of what she could have easily left as a simple case of mixed signals:
…[Betsy] felt forlorn and ashamed of herself.
Tony had not meant any disrespect when he kissed her. He respected her; he looked up to her. She knew it. He understood, too, that you didn’t let boys kiss you unless you were in love with them. She had let him think she was in love…or falling.
Just look at these word choices: shame, despicable, humiliation. And the judgmental context—you don’t let boys kiss you unless you’re in love with them? These are ideas that can seep into a young woman’s soul. However swiftly she skips over the scene and gets to the kissing, these words can stay with her, and the burdensome concepts of painfully achieved self-knowledge and the necessity of “improvement” can take years—even a lifetime—to escape.
Which is why I have been so relieved in recent years to see several movie and stage adaptations of my favorite books eschewing these darker aspects while preserving the critical elements for our enjoyment—heaving bosoms, hot British men, sweeping landscapes, swoon-worthy accents, and most critically of all, steamy-yet-restrained dance sequences.
Rather than bash viewers over the head with “life lessons,” these adaptations instead drive home a simple, but profound, message: life is messy, but provided you are hot and/or quirky enough, you will find true love anyway…whatever that means.
I can, happily, cite many examples of adaptations, and specifically scenes, to illustrate this claim, but I will limit myself to a few. Ripe with teachable moments was the Greta Gerwig directed Little Women, but one scene in particular came as a breath of fresh air.
In Alcott’s book, spoiled but sweet youngest sister Amy is in Europe with her wealthy aunt. While there, Laurie—the family friend with whom she has always secretly been in love—arrives, smarting from the rejection of her sister Jo. He sulks around feeling sorry for himself and soothes his wounded soul by flirting with Amy. Amy, realizing that his actions are the result of his heartbreak over Jo, rather than doing the normal thing and indulging in the offered flirtation with her childhood crush, instead hides her affection, delivers a preachy little lecture suggesting that he get his life together and act in an “honorable” manner, and in fact encourages him to renew his pursuit of her sister in a way that will be more likely to impress her. When he takes her advice and goes away to “make something of himself,” she acknowledges the bittersweet situation with a laughably mild expression of regret: “Yes, I am glad, but how I shall miss him!”
Selfless or psychotic?
Compare that to the lecture scene in Gerwig’s adaptation. The general set up is the same: Laurie mooning around Europe, being lazy and feeling bad for himself, trying to flirt with Amy, and receiving a similar lecture. But Gerwig ratchets up the tension, taking Laurie’s selfishness a step further; Amy delivers her lecture, he hints that he has feelings for her and actually tries to kiss her. In the following dialogue, see how Amy, rather than deny her feelings and desires, gives them full vent.
I have been second to Jo my whole life, in everything, and I will not be the person you settle for just because you cannot have her. I won’t do it. I won’t…Not when I’ve spent my entire life loving you.
Now, you may say that confessing your love for a gentleman on the heels of a lecture might lessen the impact of said lecture. I say, so what? There are bigger things at stake here than the “character development” of the gentleman. Character development is not the most important thing. It’s not even secondary. The most important thing is an unwavering acknowledgement of the messiness of life and the nature of our feelings in the moment.
Women’s emotions undergo many, many, many changes in one day, and it is up to them how they respond to this fluctuation, right? Wrong. That is a Western myth. You are, in fact, at the mercy of your emotions, but not in a Victorian sense, in an empowering sense.
Austen, Alcott, and so many others would have you believe that the song of your life can be a beautifully balanced, rich, orderly tune, yourself the skillful musician who has patiently practiced and developed skill, restraint, and appropriately expressed passion. But how boring is that? Have you ever been surprised by a great piece of music? I think not.
What modern writers and directors understand is that life actually resembles a herd of toddlers banging on a piano—it’s not always pretty, but now and then, the one toddler left standing will discover that they can tap out a couple notes with one finger instead of their fist, and it might produce something vaguely tuneful for a couple seconds. As soon as it ceases to be fun, the pounding will resume. And life will just always be that way. Toddlers don’t grow up and take lessons and start limiting their self-expression. They just pound and pound and then try something new now and then and then get bored of it and go back to pounding, and the result may not be pretty, but it is stunning.
Here’s another example of the thought vs. feeling models. Contrast the following excerpts. In the first, Lizzy Bennet, heroine of Pride and Prejudice, assures her prying father that she is, in fact, deeply in love with the man to whom she has become engaged (thank you for your concern, Dad!):
Elizabeth, still more affected, was earnest and solemn in her reply; and at length, by repeated assurances that Mr. Darcy was really the object of her choice, by explaining the gradual change which her estimation of him had undergone, relating her absolute certainty that his affection was not the work of a day, but had stood the test of many months suspense, and enumerating with energy all his good qualities, she did conquer her father's incredulity, and reconcile him to the match.
First of all, talk about a snooze fest! “Earnest,” “solemn,” “repeated assurances?” Is this an engagement or a business merger?
In this second excerpt—from a stage production of Pride and Prejudice adapted by Kate Hamill—consider how Lizzy, rather than try to rationally explain the development of her feelings in the pivotal moment of Darcy’s second proposal, instead allows herself to be a conduit for refreshingly relatable emotional whiplash.
Darcy: So you do not…hate me…then?
Lizzy:…No! I mean, that is not no, exactly, but…it all still feels as though it is arranged beyond my control…and, too ridiculous, and I cannot see…it’s not perfect!
Darcy: No.
Lizzy: So I don’t know if it’s the right match. How do you know?
Darcy: I do not know.
Lizzy: I do not know.
Darcy: I do not know!
Lizzy: This is all…too much.
Darcy: Then let’s make it a game.
Lizzy: It is not a game! It is serious. But not…just serious…but it is nonsense, but it isn’t…
Darcy: Then let’s make it a dance!
Confusing, yes. Maybe not as “in the moment” satisfying as the novel or the BBC adaptation, in which this scene is the culmination of all the maturing and self-examination that these two characters have been undergoing, so that by the time Darcy makes his second proposal, Lizzy is certain that he is the man with whom she can build a happy married life, a man whom she respects, admires, and finds attractive, and Darcy, who has overcome the humiliation of a resounding rejection, is even more certain that this is the woman to whom he wishes to link his lot, based on a deep understanding of her character. And sure, the words he uses to describe Lizzy in this scene certainly suggest true knowledge—he calls her “generous,” “frank,” “open.” But if you asked a man, “how do you know you want to marry me?” what would you rather hear I reply? I know that I’d pick “I do not know!…I do not know,” over “your frank, generous, open nature,” every time.
See, too, how Austen lets a subtle restraint take the place of Lizzy’s former irrepressible quipping. Rather than make a little jab about his friend Bingley, “She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin.” Already, the tendrils of “self-improvement” have taken a stifling hold on this hitherto sparkling heroine. If Jane had penned a sequel, we’d probably find Lizzie presiding over capitalist tea parties while Darcy and his friends discuss how much rent they can squeeze out of their tenants.
What Gerwig, Hamill, Joe Wright, Carrie Cracknell, and other modern writers and directors understand is that women want attractive actors in beautiful costumes making out in dewy meadows. We want sass, crackling sexual tension, and unrestrained revelation, not mannerly insights, slow-burn friendships and judicious self-restraint. Can you imagine there being anything swoony in a story where two characters keep denying themselves for the good of the other? Blech.
We like monologues, and we like for women to sound intelligent, but we’d prefer that they keep the examination of conscience out of it, and instead simply acknowledge that sometimes we are lonely, and sometimes we are sad, and sometimes life is hard, and also sometimes very attractive men are very attractive and make us feel very many butterflies, and that maybe these butterflies are good precedent for a happy marriage, and that that might be the best thing we can hope for, but we’re not sure, because that’s also an imposed structure. It is confusing, but so is life, and it gets so damn tedious when these authors try and pretend otherwise.
Austen, Alcott, Lovelace, Montgomery, Dickens, and all the rest have an undeniable knack for great scenarios and setups, and we owe them thanks for creating the scaffolding of these stories. But the greater expression of gratitude is owed to the artists that have had the courage to stand on the shoulders of these so called “giants” and take on the task of improving their stories. (Compare the supposedly “hilarious” Mrs. Bennet monologues with Hamill’s side-splitting pre-ball mantra: “Chest and bum and eyes and smiles/ catch that man with female wiles!”)
These fresh new takes allow women like myself to indulge our propensity for pompadours and fancy houses, without becoming entangled in dangerous ideas about vice, virtue, and self-improvement. Of course, other cans of worms are opened when characters change but the plot is left largely intact—why, for example, is an elopement still deemed “bad?” What’s wrong with a little dalliance? Why does everyone still get married in the end?
It’s all so terribly confusing, and there are times that I wish I had a clear answer, but who would choose to embark on a journey of clarity and self-discovery when they could instead echo the homespun wisdom of Mr Darcy when faced with a confusing situation—“I do not know! I do not know.”
—CC