them Christians and their masturbation!

This is kinda long. Again. Writing all of this out conversationally helps me to better understand the readings and my opinions.

Before I begin, how many of you went lolz when Sedgwick called Tony Tanner (Mr. Vagina-Cabinet Man) the most normative critic out there? No? Just me, then.

The first outside reading for this week establishes the binary of sense and sensibility and praises Austen's novel for following the Horatian formula, by delighting and instructing her readers. I particularly appreciate how this 1812 review discusses the female as if women were an alien species. Over 150 years later, Marilyn Butler differs very little from the review. To her, S&S is a didactic novel which pits the morally wrong sensibility against the superior, Christian sense, and the wall between them is pushed but not broken down. This had me huffing and puffing. Jane Austen as a Christian. Marianne's sinful heart. Austen's techniques may be similar to Butler's definition of anti-Jacobin novels in that she deals with civility, but I've always thought that she criticizes and satirizes based on social sins or evils instead of religious ones (much like the pro-Jacobin-cause author Fanny Burney). Her narrator is never preachy when it comes to religion or politics and she satirizes those who are. I also think Butler misses out on a lot of the positive aspects of sensibility and merely focuses on false sensibility. Marianne is true to herself. She can be selfish, not unlike every other 16-17 year old. Also, I disagree with Butler's use of the default 'himself' in reference to 'the reader', because, you know, women can't read!!! "The moral case remains unmade," concludes Butler. Is S&S "limited in achievement" because it does not make Butler's point for her? So because readers often sympathize with Marianne, Jane Austen must have failed in "ethical detachment"? This is obviously a very faulty essay that discusses authorial intention and wrong ideology. But I will say that I did enjoy Butler's comparison of the parallels between Elinor and Marianne's courtship plots. I don't always agree with her reasoning, but I appreciate her making her argument accessible.

I found myself agreeing with Kristin Flueger Samuelian's essay in Jane Austen in Hollywood about the post-feminism of the film adaptation of S&S. I hope this doesn't mean that I have to stop liking the movie! I've been watching Austen adaptations for a very long time and I have noticed that the leading men are often made hunky and that scenes are written in to satisfy contemporary audiences' desires of twue wove between the hero and heroine. As much as I love these movies, I am somewhat disappointed because they perpetuate this misconception that Austen is a sentimental writer, when in actuality, her novels end quite cynically (with awkwardly fit marriages and often the prospect of social discord on the horizon--Mr. and Mrs. Bennet plague Mr. Darcy and Lizzy even after the much needed move to Pemberley ). This does not mean her characters won't be happy or that they ended up in unhappy marriages, but like Samuelian suggests, the partnerships aren't quite adequate for the heroine's needs, which demonstrates Austen’s commentary on women’s limited choices and overall powerlessness in the courtship plot (women can love and love first, but they cannot properly act on their feelings until their chosen partner reciprocates). I would love to see more faithful adaptation of Austen’s novels, dull, hypocritical heroes and heroines, awkward marriages and all! I’m not sure why character and plot imperfections are glossed over to such a great extent in the films. I also love the discussion of the erotic tension between Elinor, Marianne, and the three male leads, which Samuelian states that Thompson has her Elinor direct towards her future husband (I wonder if this is entirely true when it comes to Colonel Brandon and Elinor in the film–some of the scenes between them seemed pretty intense to me!).

Oh, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick! Unlike Catherine, Sedgwick can speak well enough to be unintelligible, with her excessive gender studies vernacular. While I love that someone wrote an essay entitled “Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl,” I definitely think that Sedgwick did it just to push buttons and do some “mental masturbation” herself. I think she makes some wonderfully fascinating points, but I get the feeling that she’s less concerned with Jane Austen and the text than she is with shocking conservative literary critics. I like the idea of “the masturbator” as pre-dating gay/straight sexual identity, that it stands on its own as an identity, and it’s exciting that “nonprocreative forms of creativity and pleasure” are being explored in literature. Some words she uses to describe autoeroticism which could also describe Marianne: trembling self-absorption, energies for independence, the power of the masturbator to guarantee a Truth from which she is herself excluded. I’m also glad she addresses the possibly anachronistic quality of her topic and yet sticks to her guns about the “nonprocreative” eroticism of the bedroom scene. And it is true that “female homosocial” relationships are more visible and narratable in Austen’s works, as Austen never veers from what she knows, at least in the sense that she very rarely writes a scene without female presence. Just think about Emma’s “sexually fraught” thoughts about Harriet! The 1881 faux-case history of the “Two Little Girls” was fascinating, and X’s actions strangely mirror Marianne’s absent-minded restlessness, but I do agree with others in the class that this seemed tacked on to suit Sedgwick’s point.

I thought it was really interesting when Katy and others commented on how the marriage endings in Austen’s novels often feel rushed or forced. It seems that Austen plays with the comedy genre, which requires marriage, birth, or reconciliation in the end, to comment on how marriage and birth “must and will” be thrown in a heroine’s way, despite the awkwardness of the match or the inadequacies of the partner, because the heroine (or the 18th/19th century woman) doesn’t have power to stop the force of the institution of marriage. Marianne is sadly broken (like one of Willoughby’s horses) to conform to patriarchal conventions; to me, there is something devastating in her speech to Elinor when she admits her wrongs, because her spirit has been extinguished. I can see how critics like to latch on to “the girl being taught a lesson” plot because Marianne has been taught a lesson, but that doesn’t mean the lesson was a good one. In order to survive in a patriarchal society, the hegemony tells us that women can’t be, though they inherently are, silly or hysterical or open, and so Marianne learns (the hard way) how to survive in her society (meaning, not ruining her reputation and marrying into economic security which eventually turns into love, mostly because of Marianne’s nature). Likewise, when Catherine is tormented and taught a lesson by Henry, we as historically informed readers know that Henry is in the wrong, despite all of his sense, and that often the hegemony speaks through him when he chastizes the silly imaginings of a young girl.

I don’t understand how people can view Austen’s novels as purely didactic tales of right and wrong ideologies, especially when she gives Marianne and Elinor attributes of both sense and sensibility. The binary is broken down and the characters are no longer stereotypes. If Marilyn Butler is right in equating Sensibility with Jacobism and Sense with anti-Jacobism or conservative Christian interests, then I think Austen is condemning the conservative, patriarchal system and its expectations of the women it does not trouble to educate or value (outside the marriage market), leaving them to scheme their way into marriages, to be broken like animals, and to feel powerless and inferior (to the point of doubting themselves and their worth–like Elinor). Jane Austen does not condemn the women that must conform to this system, which is why Lucy Steele’s change of heart at the novel’s end is treated with some sympathy and why Marianne is so loveable. Hah, so maybe I agree with Butler more than I thought, because we both agree that Austen condemns the system and not the people that must operate within it, but we disagree on which system Austen is condemning.