I am completing and re-reading a lot of Jane Austen this year. I already read her “Juvenalia” as they call a young writer’s materials and odds and ends. I read Sense and Sensibility for the first time earlier. Now I return to Pride and Prejudice for one more go.
So what more can I say? One, do you think Jay-Z has read this book? I can’t think of why not.
Two, my roommate last year got a super fat kitten and named him Fitz, after Darcy.
Three, for a book that is clearly a cornerstone of many a young woman’s literary upbringing, the slut-shaming (not even sluts) of this book is so heavy and strong, it might as well be a Thomas Hardy novel.
I tend to allow the ethos and ethical framework of a novel I like work it’s way through me. That way, when whatever scandal or slight is committed I am game to feel it and think through it. It really helps with society novels, but sometimes backfires with satires. I am also a reader who never ever gets it when two characters are hooking up unless told directly.
But when Lydia disappears, the harshness of the judgment she and her family face is so so so strong. Not even mentioning that Wickham’s behaviors are not exactly excused, but there’s an almost infinite amount of opportunity for him to redeem himself, but the sixteen year old girl? Nah, screw her. Well, don’t, but yeah. It’s such a strange set of lessons to learn from such a beloved source. The difference I guess from reading this at 18 versus 35.
I think the portion that gets missed in assigning this to high school students (which is when I read it for the first of many times) is that it clearly depicts the “slut shaming” of its time. Too often historical literature isn’t placed within a context separate from our own time, which allows for the processing of the ideas that we are no longer satisfied with putting all blame on women for crimes against them (and yes, I am satisfied with a reading of Wickham as a crime doer) even if our language in discussing these issues hasn’t changed enough.
I would hesitate to describe it as the slut shaming of its time, though. Lydia’s indiscretion had a serious economic component to it that slut shaming does not. It had a palpable impact on her sisters’s economic value on the marriage mart, which makes it sufficiently distinct to nullify putting them in the same category. However, I agree that it would be useful to contrast the two.
That’s fair, but doesn’t distinguish it away from slut-shaming. The economic perils she creates are still entirely within a context of a woman’s virtue, value as tied to her propriety and chastity. It’s a transgression in the sense that she knows all this and still makes her choices, but that doesn’t make the wider system of values beyond reproach. She knew she was breaking the rules, but it’s still worthwhile to interrogate those rules.