"The Other Bennet Sister" is Closer to Jane Eyre than Jane Austen

Once upon a time there was a girl born without the gift of beauty, grace, the pleasing manners of extroverts, or the prospect of a fortune. Always criticized and compared unfavorably to her counterparts -- when she got any notice at all -- she grew up lonely with little hope for finding happiness. Once she was grown up, she determined to leave what she had known and comes to find a true home, self-acceptance, and the love she deserved,  despite never blossoming into a beauty. After turning down a proposal from a handsome suitor, she finally got to marry the man she had been in love with who was unattainable for a time.

Coaster in The Other Bennet Sister collection 

That's a summary of Janice Hadlow's 2020 novel, The Other Bennet Sister. Add in a bit about taking on the role of governess, and you have the 2026 adaption's version of the story. Of course, it's also the summary of Jane Eyre's story. Without the inspiration and model set by Charlotte Brontë to apply Romanticism to the novel form and give voice to the type of women never before cast as heroines, this kind of coming-of-age story would not have been possible.  

Romantic aspirations meet everyday reality

While Jane Austen lived during the Romantic movement, she is not generally counted among the Romantics. She may have heard of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron, and Shelley, but she definitely does not quote them. Her references to the picturesque or sensibility should not be mistaken for Romanticism, as she draws on artistic movement from the 18th century.  

In The Other Bennet Sister, Wordsworth's poetry is central to Tom Hayward's character. He shares it with Mary who comes to appreciate experiencing landscapes as a poet does, not just reciting lines, but feeling them. Like him, she internalizes that Romantic quality, and it becomes part of her self-discovery that make it possible for her to feel the happiness she has not experienced when she turned to books for direction and identity at Longbourn.  

It is a very compelling story that resonates well with readers and audiences in the 2020s.  But it deviates from Jane Austen's heroines' stories in a number of ways.

1.All of  Austen's heroines are -- if not beautiful -- handsome enough to be tempting. That holds true even of Anne Elliot who had felt herself aged and faded at 27 but blooms back into good looks, as well as of Fanny Price who becomes decidedly attractive when she grows up. 

2.  Austen's heroines do tend to take some kind of journey and sometimes enjoy being outside to admire the view or for a picnic, but their form of nature is typically very much contained.

3. Austen maintains that men always make the first move as far as declarations of feeling.

4. None of Austen's heroines ever have to earn a living. 

A different take on what's interesting

“[Charlotte Brontë] once told her sisters that they were wrong - even morally wrong - in making their heroines beautiful as a matter of course. They replied that it was impossible to make a heroine interesting on any other terms. Her answer was, 'I will prove to you that you are wrong; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.”

― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

It wasn't just Charlotte's sister, Emily and Anne, who believed in the general rule of beautiful heroines. It had been a tradition reinforced by the author that George Lewes (the man that George Eliot lived with because he already had a wife)  told  Charlotte to take as her model, Jane Austen. Brontë began here response with an indication she would try to take his advice to heart and be "more subdued," but she quickly proves she has no intention of doing so as preserved Gaskell's biography:

"Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. What induced you to say that you would have rather written Pride and Prejudice, or Tom Jones, than any of the Waverley Novels?

"I had not seen Pride and Prejudice till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find ? An accurate, daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face a carefully-fenced, highly-cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.

If you think about it, you realize that Austen's landscapes are very much as Brontë  describes them. They are tamed and circumscribed and utterly devoid of the sublime quality that the Romantics attempted to capture through their art. But that's not the case in The Other Bennet Sister in which Mary Bennet travels to the Lake District and ventures on a climb to experience the sublime for herself. She even refuses to listen to reason when the guide warns of a storm brewing, going along with Ryder's suggestion that they experience it instead of escape it. (In the book the consequences are just a miserably wet descent, though the adaption has Mary fall deathly ill as a result to allow for some elements from  Sense and Sensibility.)  

Can a heroine speak freely? 

In Austen's universe, the answer is no. The heroines have to hold back to maintain decorum and their dignity. That is central to the story of Elinor Dashwood, Fanny Price, and Anne Elliot. But what of Mary Bennet? In the novel devoted to her, this is the crux of the matter. Her path was already paved by Jane Austen who expresses herself passionately and freely to Rochester:

"Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?--a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!--I have as much soul as you,--and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;--it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,--as we are!"
-Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (chapter 23)

Jane knows she doesn't look like a heroine, being "poor, obscure, plain, and little," though that doesn't mean she doesn't have the soul and heart of one.  Romantic that she is, she insist on not confining herself to "the medium of custom, conventionalities" that are the very fabric of the Austenian universe to be able to address Rochester (who was her employer and social superior) as her equal.

All or bust

As all readers of Pride and Prejudice know, Charlotte Lucas  she determines to win the attention of Mr. Collins and marry him to assure herself of a secure future -- if not a very happy one. She appears to be an older version of Mary -- plain and penniless --just without spectacles. At 27, she realizes she may never get another opportunity for matrimony. Someone like her would never attract someone like Mr. Darcy and so she takes what she can get. 

Mary Bennet finds herself with the unexpected opportunity to make a far more brilliant match than Charlotte does  when the handsome, charming, and rich Mr. Ryder  proposes to her. Of course, he doesn't propose at first. He just suggests she accompany him to Italy. Before it has quite dawned on her what that would mean without marriage, Mary already tells him she cannot accept because she doesn't love him.   

In the very next chapter he does propose.  and then even offers to tell Mary what his motivation is on p. 425: 

"There are all the usual reasons of course. I enjoy your company. I find you kind, unaffected, modest, and charming... But I must tell you, there is a more selfish dimension to my preference. I think you would improve me. You are serious where I am flighty. You work hard where I am lazy. You think deeply where I am shallow. Thing what a good deed you would do in marrying me. Imagine how your influence would change me for the betters. Perhaps, for those reasons, if for no other, you are obliged to accept me?"

coaster from this collection

Though he is not as insistent as St. John Reed is in pressing Jane Eyre to marry him because it is her duty to support him in his mission to India, he still is making the argument that a woman is obligated to marry a man she does not love out of duty.

Thinking about why she had no choice other than to reject Ryder's proposal in chapter 91 on p. 434, Mary muses: "If she had known nothing else -- if she had never had a hint of what real love looked like, she might have been content with the pale facsimile of happiness a pragmatic marriage offered. but now that she had known Mr. Hayward, it would not do. Now that she had met a man she truly loved, she could not marry another." 

That is very similar to what Jane put in more defiant terms in resisting St. John. In chapter 34, when she tells him: "I scorn your idea of love," and continues, "I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer."  

Even as her own will starts to weaken, she knows this is not the love she has experienced, as she says in chapter 35: "He pressed his hand firmer on my head, as if he claimed me: he surrounded me with his arm, almost as if he loved me (I say almost — I knew the difference — for I had felt what it was to be loved; but, like him, I had now put love out of the question, and thought only of duty)." Jane nearly succumbs to St. John and only gains the strength to break away when she hears a voice call her name.

Mary doesn't have any such supernatural inspiration but her own resolve to continue to wait for Tom Hayward rather than settle for anything else because, as she tells him when he finally does return in chapter 92 p. 452: "I have loved you for a very long time and know I will never love anyone as much as I love you. You are the only man who could ever make me happy, and I have missed you -- oh, I have missed you so very, very much." 

Even before this confession, Mary repeatedly thinks about her happiness depending completely on a future with Tom Hayward and chafes at being banned from seeking him out to tell him so by the conventionalities of society. There is a lot of pent-up frustration behind this moment in which she rebels against  social norms that in confessing her love to him before he makes his own declaration. Austen would not endorse that, but Brontë.

A nod to Villette

The adaption takes on a somewhat different direction about how Mary defines her life direction that I'm not even certain audiences who get carried away by seeing their "ships" come together would notice. While Tom was absent, she pursued her plan to be what she calls a governess but is really a tutor, something she intends to continue after her marriage. 

This runs completely counter to the book in which Lady Catherine's suggestion that Mary become a governess fills her with horror and prompts her to escape that fate by staying with the Gardiners indefinitely.  The way Mary regards the prospect of being a governess in the book is much more consistent with Austen's view, which she gives voice to in Emma the character of Jane Fairfax. 

But to a modern audience, it makes sense that a woman who has devoted much of her love to acquiring learning may wish to share that with other in order to feel fulfilled. The Sanditon adaption also showed its heroine working as a governess and even continuing to teach after marriage when she didn't need to make a living. In reality, that would not have been socially accepted. Only spinsters could have continued working.

The adaption is really upholding 21st century views that women are entitled to a career that makes them feel fulfilled. But there was some precedent to this in another Brontë heroine: Lucy Snowe. Like Jane Eyre, Lucy has no fortune or looks to recommend her and must make her own way in the world. She does this by teaching and even works her way up to establishing her own school. The narrator suggests that the school was not going to be abandoned upon marriage, which was a pretty bold take for that time. 

"I write..." mousepad

To read more about the Romantic movement's deep influence on  Brontë's writing, read my dissertation: "Engendering Romanticism: A Study of Charlotte Brontë's Novels"

Related:

How "The Other Bennet Sister" subverts narrative convention

Mary and Marylin: the Girl in the Glasses Finds Love

Jane Austen and Autism

Jane Austen: Love and Money
Jane Austen at the Morgan
Love and Limerence in Jane Austen
Observations on Jane Austen's Emma
Pride, Prejudice and Persuasion: Obstacles to Happiness in Jane Austen's Novels
Three Janes, Two Governesses, and the Abolitionist Movement
The Big Bow-wow & Bit of Ivory
Jane Austen's Heroines
Jane Austen and Capability Brown
Pride and Prejudice in Job Applications

Jane Austen at 250

Many Happy Returns, Jane Austen

Mary and Marylin: the girl in the glasses finds love

Marilyn Monroe in How to Marry a Millionaire

Mary flanked by Mr. and Mrs. Bennet in The Other Bennet Sister

Having finished reading The Other Bennet Sister after having seen the adaption,* I have a number of observations that I intend to write up. But for today, I'll keep it lighter with something that just struck me, a surprising parallel that the director may have alluded to. 

 In both the book and the adaption, Mary's glasses are made into a big deal. Her mother declares she'll never attract a man if she wears them. It's not just Mrs. Bennet's silliness. The assumption that women in glasses were less attractive persisted well over century later and is very central to the character that Marylin Monroe plays in How to Marry a Millionaire who wanders around unable to recognize people and bumping into things because she has internalized that a woman in glasses would never attract a man.

As depicted in the clip above, Marilyn's character describes herself as "blind as a bat" without glasses, which is why she holds her books upside down while pretending to read. 

I wonder if the director of The Other Bennet Sister adaption had that in mind in setting up a scene in
which Ryder holds a book upside down while pretending to read. This is not in the book, so I can't help thinking the director thought of some other films in which the upside down book proves the character is not reading. 

tom_handing_mary_out_of_a_carriage_keychain

Much more on the adaption to follow. Watch for my argument that Mary Bennet is closer to a Charlotte Bronte heroine -- with striking parallels to Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe -- than a Jane Austen one, especially in the adaption. If you are a fan of the adaption, check out The Other Bennet Sister: Celebrating Mary Bennet  collection from Totally Jane Austen. 

*That's the order I'd recommend for others to follow to enjoy both experiences and appreciate the differences without getting bothered about deviations from the book while watching. 

Related

Many Happy Returns, Jane Austen                       

Jane Austen at 250

Jane Austen: Love and Money
Jane Austen at the Morgan
Love and Limerence in Jane Austen
Observations on Jane Austen's Emma
Pride, Prejudice and Persuasion: Obstacles to Happiness in Jane Austen's Novels
Three Janes, Two Governesses, and the Abolitionist Movement   


The Big Bow-wow & Bit of Ivory
Jane Austen's Heroines
Jane Austen and Capability Brown
Pride and Prejudice in Job Applications

Charlotte Brontë's Juvenilia and Fanfiction

What was the original fanfiction? If you look this up, as I did, you'd find that most date it to the 1960s when Star Trek fans  penned their own tales about the characters onboard the Enterprise.  This was, of course, pre-internet, so these stories were shared via actual publication. 

A few article on fanfiction claim that the genre (yes, many would count it as that) predates the world of television. They would claim that references and reimaginings of pre-existing stories can fall under that umbrella term and so count works of  literature like Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost as fanfiction for the Bible. Some even contend that Shakespeare's plays are fanfiction because they rework stories that were invented earlier. 

I don't quite buy that broad definition of the term. I'd possibly grant that Sherlock Holmes stories by authors other than Arthur Conan Doyle could rank as fanfiction in depicting a recognized character that someone else had invented in new stories, though I wouldn't say that any work of literature that is infulenced by common stories and myths can be considered fanfiction. 

What's the key differentiator here? I think it may really need to start on the basis of  deep interest in a character they did not first create. But would that character have to originated in fiction for fanfiction? I think not. 

On that basis, I'd content that Brontë's juvenilia constitutes fanfiction -- a term I wasn't familiar with back in the day when I wrote my dissertation. Her depictions of the Duke of Wellington that evolved into the Duke of Zamorna and then the king of Angria really was a Victorian forerunner of modern fanfiction. 

Much in the way fanfiction writers take their inspiration from television characters, Brontë looked to the celebrity figure of her day and cast him in new adventures and then her own world. Whereas Louisa May Alcott was able to profit from her overwrought tales that did sell, Brontë's were not meant for publication. 

 

Three Janes, Two Governesses, and the Abolition Movement

 from the Studying with Jane Austen Collection

_Jane_Austen keychain collection

With Juneteenth just two days away, I thought it a good time to mention something many people miss in Emma -- an allusion to slavery that was still in practice at the time. 

In Emma, Jane Austen created a perfect little village where the worst people achieve no more than mean girl tricks and putdowns. The Eltons feel superior when putting down Harriet Smith, and Emma proves her worth by feeling bad about her witticism at Miss Bates' expense. While a threateningly powerful figure looms large in the novel -- Mrs. Churchill -- she remains off-stage, where she also conveniently died.

Outside polite society

One thing that is even further off-stage in the novel is slavery, both the kind that was illegal in England and the kind that was legal with low wages thrown in. Mansfield Park is the novel that critics have identified as linked to slavery because the master of the estate in the title relies on income generated by slave labor in Antigua and  leaves his home for an extended time to tend to his plantations.

But it is in Emma that it comes up more explicitly to illustrate a character's proof grasp on imagery. This happens in chapter 17 when Mrs. Elton insists on pushing Jane into a governess position sooner rather than later. (Note how close to Dickensian Austen gets in naming the person referred to Suckling.) Jane tries to politely decline Mrs. Elton's interference and tells her:

   "When I am quite determined as to the time, I am not at all afraid of being long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry would soon produce something—Offices for the sale—not quite of human flesh—but of human intellect.”

Jane Austen Stickers, Seals, and Gift Tags
by Totally_Jane_Austen

Mrs. Elton mistake of Jane Fairfax's meaning, as is clear from her response:

“Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at the slave-trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to the abolition.”

“I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade,” replied Jane; “governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies. But I only mean to say that there are advertising offices, and that by applying to them I should have no doubt of very soon meeting with something that would do.”

Mrs. Elton only hears of slavery and immediately makes a point of establishing the family she had in mind as allied with the abolitionist movement. However, what Jane was thinking about was what in Marxist terms would be called "wage-slavery." 

A governess would not be working for free, though she'd be working for very little. The main thing, though is that she'd have a master/mistress who is in control of her time.

Like a servant, the governess has to live with the household and move with them or stay behind as they bid. Unlike the other servants, though, she is hired for what we would call white-collar (or perhaps pink-collar) work rather than manual labor. As a result, the governess is neither fish nor fowl as she occupies a shadowy space between the gentry who employ her and the rest of the staff.

This is the uncomfortable position that Jane Fairfax is loath to accept. She is, at this point, secretly engaged to Frank Churchill and so can become a gentleman's wife instead of a paid laborer, so long as the timing works out (which it does, as this is a novel with a happy ending for all).

From Jane Fairfax to Jane Eyre

It's clear that Charlotte Bronte read Jane Austen. After all, George Lewes was constantly advising her to follow in her literary footsteps. Bronte had her own ideas, however. She declared, "I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses" yet one wonders if she somehow absorbed the character of Jane Fairfax and gave her first name to her most famous heroine -- Jane Eyre -- and her last name to the housekeeper at Thornton Hall. 

I will have to restrain myself back from going on about Jane Eyre whose book makes up a whole chapter in my dissertation. Feel free to download it and read at your leisure. Like Jane Fairfax, Jane Eyre was born into the gentry class but was orphaned and impoverished and then sent to live with a wealthier family. From that point, though, their histories diverge.

Fairfax got on very well with the rich daughter of the house and remained her companion until she married. In contrast, Eyre, was bullied and even abused by her rich relatives and sent away to a charity school that also abused her. Coming out of that, a governess position was a step up, and still got her happily ever after.  

But for Fairfax, who had already met the man she loves and was just waiting to become Mrs. Churchill once the tyrannical woman who currently holds the title dies, a governess position was a serious step down. That is why she only accepts the position after a fallout with Churchill and is quite happy to let it go. She has no need to reach financial independence to feel equal to him. 

But Bronte's heroine takes pride in holding her position. She admits to being subject to the master's orders because he pays her but still insists that they are equals. Bronte saw dignity in a woman using her education for her work, and that is something that informs her heroine's character and her deciding that a woman like that -- rather than the beautiful and rich Emma -- deserves to tell her own story. 

Keep calm and read Jane Austen bear 
in the Jane Austen Lullaby collection

Related posts:

Jane Austen: Love and Money

Love and Limerence in Jane Austen

Jane Austen at the Morgan
Some observations on Jane Austen's Emma
Jane Austen and Autism

Jane Austen's Heroines

Pride, Prejudice and Persuasion: Obstacles to Happiness in Jane Austen's Novels
The Big Bow-wow & Bit of Ivory

The Marriage Plot: Expectations for Novel Ending Must Be Met

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the Austenian literary paradigm demands that the heroine get her man.

Pride and Prejudice Tote Bag
by Totally_Jane_Austen

Bronte's bestseller 
"Reader, I married him," is among the most memorable lines in English literature. It's also one of the reasons why a lot more people reads Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre --  a story that has successfully been translated to the screen time and time again -- than her more mature novel, Villette. Ever see an adaptation of Villette? I haven't either.

Granted, Jane Eyre is a more likable heroine than Lucy Snowe. But the difference in endings and romantic resolutions are a key difference.  While Jane does get to decline a proposal, she also does get to marry her man on her own terms. In contrast, in Villette, the heroine only can picture her own reunion with her beloved professor that will not be realized.

I do recall one professor in graduate school considering that a triumph because she thought that actually having to live with M. Paul Emanuel would prove irritating. However, the tone is not one of "I dodged a bullet there," so much as "I'll have to make it on my own now. I will endure despite the loneliness."  That's not really what readers tend to expect in novels built on the framework of classic comedies.

Rooted in Shakespeare
If you've ever taken a Shakespeare class, you should already know that the definitive trait of comedy is not humor but a happy ending in which all the problems and threats are smoothed away, and society can function smoothly. As it says near the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream:  "Jack shall have Jill/ Nought shall go ill."

 Shakespeare always included a marriage or two on the horizon to point out that social harmony is indeed restored. In that way, it echoes the stereotypical fairy tale structure that ends with the prince and the princess marrying and assurance that they "lived happily ever after."

While there are novels that follow the plot  lines of classical tragedy, as we see in the works of Thomas Hardy, as well as novels that declare themselves free of heroes, as is the case of Vanity Fair,  the novels that fit the chick lit mold set by Jane Austen work out very much like Shakespeare's comedies. Stability is restored at the end, and the heroine is happily married.

The expectation was built up by the paradigm of novel forms that supplanted many others: the books written by Jane Austen. That was the model of women's writing pushed on Bronte. Though she rebelled in her own way by insisting on an vividly outspoken though plain-looking governess rather than a lady who never had to earn her living as her heroine, she did, ultimately conform to the marriage plot in Jane Eyre. 

Bronte's other two complete novels, The Professor and Shirley do have  marriages, though they are rarely included in  English literature courses. (Loads more than you probably wish to know about the complete Charlotte Bronte oeuvre in (En)gendering Romanticism: A Study of Charlotte Bronte's Novels ) By the time she got to Villette, she e felt confident enough to deviate from the formula, though the result is that a very fine novel gets far less name recognition and rates no box office appeal.

Little Women as Chick Lit
Now let's cross the Atlantic and jump ahead a bit in history to consider Louisa May Alcott's masterpiece, Little Women.  My alternative title for this blog was  "Why Louisa May Alcott's Heroine Could Not Remain a Literary Spinster."

As the latest adaption of the classic beloved by generations of girls sought to  highlight in its framing of the ending, the author did not intend to marry Jo off at all. (Read about that here: https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/history-little-women-louisa-may-alcott-writer-who-when-how-much-inspired-by-life/)  Despite reader pressure, she declared, “I won’t marry Jo to Laurie to please anyone.”

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons
/thumb/9/9c/Little_Women_-_frontispiece.png/

But her idea to leave her heroine as a "literary spinster" would not go over, and so she took perverse pleasure in marrying Jo off to “a funny match," the much older, somewhat stodgy Professor Friedrich Bhaer. (Though I haven't done real research into Alcott's reading, I find it hard to believe that the German Bhaer was not somewhat inspired by the professor figure in Bronte's works. )

Whatever you feel about the Laurie ship veering off course from Jo to Amy, which does come off as contrived, indeed, the potential resolution of leaving Jo as the solitary artist figure scribbling alone would have disappointed readers, likely made the book sell fewer copies, and certainly resulted in far fewer film adaptations.

Think of another heroine beloved by generations of young girls, Anne Shirley. While readers enjoy her continued adventures as a young single women, working as a teacher and earning her university degree, the expectation that she will end up with Gilbert Blythe is built in from the moment he says, "Carrots!' It can be delayed through several books, but it is, ultimately, inescapable for the books and the screen adaptions that have multiplied in recent years.

Exceptions do not disprove the general rule
That is not to say that no novels without marriage resolutions are adapted. Certainly some are, though not nearly with the same frequency as those that do feature the conventional happy ending.
Having the heroine remain single is not nearly as satisfying in terms of mass appeal.


The reader now may be bristling at the thought that we retain the same kind of conventional expectations even in modern times. Aren't we now enlightened enough to appreciate a story that does not end like a child's fairy tale? Yes, certainly, some of us are. But when success is measured in terms of pleasing the most possible people, you do need to stick to certain conventions.

Austen fans in a tizzy
This becomes clear in the reactions to the ending of the Sanditon series. If you look on IMDB, you'll see that while most episodes rate about an 8, some even close to 9. But the final episode only rates a 6.9 and includes some individual ratings as low as one from viewers who were bitterly disappointed in the ending. Here's a typical one star review:

If you are going to finish a Jane Austen story, please give it a Jane Austen ending! I have really enjoyed this series but the ending completely ruined it all. All I can think is they wanted to leave it open for series two? But why wreck a whole series in the hope to hook people to a second. The ending this story deserved would have made me watch a second, but this? Doubtful!

The argument is if you're going to bank on the Austen name to lure us in, you better deliver on the promised happy ending we've grown to expect from the completed six novels. Obviously, the producers of the series intended to not end the first season with the happily ever after for the heroine because there had been hopes of a second series, but that is not enough to assuage the outrage born of expectations unmet.

The pull of the marriage plot in a Jane Austen work  is simply too strong to be disregarded. Working against type here would leave your readership or audience is disconcerting as they feel cheated out of the social resolution  established in for the genre of comedy and the novel about women.


Related: 

Jane Austen: Love and Money
Love and Limerence in Jane Austen

Three Janes, Two Governesses, and the Abolitionist Movement
Some observations on Jane Austen's Emma
Jane Austen and Autism
Jane Austen's Heroines
Pride and Prejudice in Job Applications
Pride, Prejudice and Persuasion: Obstacles to Happiness in Jane Austen's Novels
The Big Bow-wow & Bit of Ivory
Jane Austen and Capability Brown
Pride and Prejudice in Job Applications

Dissertation on Charlotte Bronte

I completed my dissertation so long ago that the file format was saved on the 3.5" disc. Even my computer can't read that any more. Happily, I do have a paper copy on hand and a husband who has access to a scanner that could handle more than a single page at a time. I've uploaded the PDF here to make it easily accessible in an online format.

Related posts:  http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2021/06/some-observations-on-jane-austens-emma.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2021/06/three-janes-two-governesses-and.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2021/06/jane-austen-and-autism-consideration.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2013/06/jane-austens-heroines-from-extroverted.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-big-bow-wow-bit-of-ivory.html