In my post
Re-Reading Jane I talked about the new book I was reading and how much I loved it... well I just finished it and I still love it. I have learned Austen's novels are not just love stories they are life lessons. William Deresiewics talks about how in each book we learn life lessons. In Emma the life lesson was not to take the small moments for granted, in Pride & Prejudice we learn that we will make mistakes it is a part of growing up but we have to admit we make mistakes and learn from them.
Then he goes further how in Northanger Abbey we learn how to learn, not just to answer questions but to experience life and he challenged us that we can still learn to love things. I will admit Northanger Abbey is not my favorite book so that chapter didn't really resonate with me as the chapters on Emma and Pride & Prejudice did. But at the end he captured me with this sentence
We can never reach the end of what's inside us, never know the limit of our own potential. I am still mulling it over what that means for me. But I remember in high school my guidance counselor always telling me I had great potential. I wanted to laugh in her face because I could not see much potential in me. But I like this line because we don't know what potential we have, we can stop our potential if we stop trying to be better selves or just think we are only good at one thing and that's it. But I think we all have more potential in us if we are willing just to risk a bit more. I don't know if Jane Austen wants us to risk things but I know she wanted us to keep learning. William wrote that in Northanger Abbey, the heroine Catherine learned to love a food, and we can learn to love something too we just have to try.
The next chapter was on Mansfield Park. When I first read Mansfield Park I didn't like it because the heroine was too mousy, she was quiet for most of the book the only time she got attention was when her cousins went away and Henry Crawford is only paying attention to her as a game for himself. Then there is Mary Crawford who is opinionated, passionate, and attractive. But we aren't really suppose to like her because she seems to care little for the people around her (if they aren't doing things her way) and she is unwilling to marry the man she loves because he wants to be a simple clergy man. But you also don't like her because she and most of the characters in the book are only out to seek their amusement. Fanny Price is different she is always serving her aunts, even when no one notices and holds on to her values even when it is not popular. Austen makes her the heroine of the story because she is good to all those around her even when no one notices.
Choosing Fanny-ness over Mary-ness does not come naturally and is not particularly pleasant, but, Austen was telling us, it is what we deed to do.
Then he discussed Persuasion, a novel I have always thought was one of Austen's darker novels. The novel's heroine Anne, is at the end of her bloom at the age of 27, she is basically an out cast from her family as she does not think like them, and she seems to miss the chance of her love when she rejected Captain Wentworth eight years earlier. Of course when she rejected Captain Wentworth she was was persuaded wrongly because her family and family friends thought she could do better than him. But in the novel Anne discovers that family might be the people we are born into but friends are the family we choose. While in some ways I feel myself as an outcast from my family as I have chosen to live in Boston while most of my family lives still in the mid-west, I sometimes feel I don't fit in to that world... but I am luckier Anne, as while I might feel like I don't fit into my family I still feel their love and I don't think Anne felt the love of her family. I am also lucky that I have made a great group of friends out here in Boston, some I call my second family. I have a great friend who is not that much older than me, but I call her my Boston mom, as she is protective of me and when I need to cry I go to her and she is there with open arms but also there to give advice. But Anne is the heroine of the story because she learns not listen to her family's negativity and because close friends with Mrs. Smith, a woman who needs Anne but her family doesn't understand her friendship.
William reading Persuasion learns that being a true friend means not just making sure your friends are happy all the time. To be a true friend it
means admitting when you're wrong, but more importantly it means being willing to tell your friend when they are.True friendship to in our world is described by William as being about
unconditional acceptance and support. The true friend validates your feelings,, takes your side at all times, helps you feel good about yourself at all times, and never judges you. But that is not the idea of true happiness to Austen
for her, being happy means becoming a better person, and becoming a better person means having your mistakes pointed out to you in a way that you can't ignore. In that way it seems that a friend is like a mentor or in the Christian world we call that an accountability partner. In way a good friend is not only there to point out your mistakes but they are to help you through your errors and trials, looking back on the story of Northanger Abbey, I can see Anne sticking by her friends and family even when they are not perfect (and in reality who is ever perfect?)
The last chapter is about Sense and Sensibility and falling in love. In Sense and Sensibility there are two love stories the one between Elinor and Edward Ferras and Marianne and Mr. Willoughby. Elinor's love story is very modest and quiet but Marianne's is passionate and kind of in your face. I think if Marianne and Mr. Willoughby lived today you would be disgusted by their PDA. Marianne wants a passionate love story and doesn't think there is any other kind of love to have than the ones that exist in novels or plays (she sites Romeo and Juliet) but Austen points out that those passionate loves also die out quickly. Marianne was quick to believe that Willoughby was her soul mate (sometimes an idea I think I put too much hope in) but
Austen had no use for things like fate or soul mats, second selves or other halves...or any other mythical idea which we try to turn love into something cosmic. A relationship is dependent, at least in it inception, not on destiny but on it very opposite--chance. But it William also notes for Austen
love is not something that happens to you suddenly or otherwise; it's something you have to prepare yourself for... For Austen, before you fall in love with someone else, you have to know yourself.
I am ready to say I want to be a Jane Austen heroine, I know a lot of girls say that and they mean they want to have a Jane Austen love story... well that might be true but I want to be is an Austen heroine who spends some of her life living in an ideal world with big dreams but then learns through mistakes and errors the life she really wants. I want to be a little bit of all the heroines serving generously and loving softly like Fanny Price, being a hopeful romantic who is not afraid to speak her mind and dream big like Emma Woodhouse and Marianne Dashwood but also know when to hold my tongue like Elinor Dashwood. I want to stick up for what I see is right like Anne Elliot but admit when I have made an error like Elizabeth Bennett. But over all I think I want to keep a little idealistic side to me, one that will always see the good in people like Catherine Morland.
There are two more quotes I want to share that really struck me near the end of the book, they fall in the chapter on Sense and Sensibility but I thought they were good over all lessons.
The key to happiness is letting life surprise you. I love to plain out my life and have an idea where I am going to be in the next five years but I look back at the moments and the ones I hold closest to my heart are the ones that catch me off guard and shake up my life. The last quote I loved was
true love takes you by surprise, and if it is really worth something, it continues to take you by surprise. I can't wait to feel that.
