Women are supposed to be very calm generally

when i was studying medieval female mystics, we talked a lot about how while they weren't modern day feminists, they worked within their structures to affirm women...and authors like Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte do the same things i think. to finish the quote from Jane Eyre:

"Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex." Chapter 12

so novels affirming the validity of women's feelings and actions, with a healthy dose of romance...why wouldn't i want to see every adaptation?

we all know that the 1995 A&E version of pride and prejudice with colin firth and jennifer ehle is the definitive version. can you go back after you've seen this?

that's the face of love, people.

but i watched the 1980 version anyway. some interesting character differences between mr. collins (and as many versions as i've seen, mr. collins is ALWAYS really funny), and lady catherine de bourgh, who i actually think was better in this version. she was younger, and had more of the "everytime i open my mouth you must gape in awe at the wonderful things i say." than the BBC version, where she was just kind of an old shrew. i always also feel bad for the women who have to play her daughter because your part is basically: be sickly and pale and painfully shy, all to make elizabeth look hotter and to make viewers wonder why darcy would ever even consider marrying you. i do like that this version features elizabeth prominently on the cover, not darcy, like the 1995 version. since elizabeth is, you know, the main character.

anyway, this version was very BBC-esque, that is, very stage-y, like watching a play. nowhere near the 1995 version. but entertaining.


i just re read jane eyre at the beginning of this school year, and i have to say, i always kind of related to characters like jane, who were headstrong in their own way but also moral in a way that some people might think them week. fanny from mansfield park is like this -- in my jane austen in fiction and film class i was the only one who took up for her. everyone else thought she was a goody two shoes.

the 1983 version of jane eyre was pretty good, although i think that timothy dalton was a bit too dashing for mr. rochester. he and zelah clarke balanced each other, though, she was grave and calm as she should be, and he was emotional and volatile.

jane's hairstyle annoyed me, though, mostly because it was so precarious every time rochester would touch her head (which was a lot once they got feeling all romantical), he would mess it up. i was like "tighter bun, girl! put it in a tighter bun!" you would be able to see this if the main picture was of jane, who is the main character, and not rochester, who was played by a hottie (even though he's not supposed to be handsome).



i have at least 4 more versions of jane eyre in my queue, as well as persuasion (which i've seen, but LOVE and will maybe love more that i am now an old spinster like anne)...are we all SO excited?