my students are really harshing on the romance in jane eyre and yeah whatever age gap but something is just not clicking for them that jane eyre is a sexual power fantasy FOR THE YOUNG WOMAN in the relationship. jane eyre shows us this young woman who has an older man so wrapped around her finger that he SOBS for hours when she rejects his love, that raises up a panicked storm when she chooses to leave him. and while you shouldn't get me and my crip studies self started on the ableism of the ending, i.e. that jane's mastering of rochester is complete only when he becomes disabled, the fact remains that jane eyre is about a young woman mastering an older man in every sense of the word. it is a sexual power fantasy in which a young woman is so desirable and so loved by an older man that he drives himself into (emotional) ruin when (for a while) he cannot have her—that the young woman has the upper hand to choose when and how and on what terms their relationship happens. so whatever, age gap blah blah blah (it's literally a victorian novel, come on), but they're truly just missing that the novel is not endorsing an older man preying on a young woman—jane always has some degree of agency (and eventually total control) over rochester. the sexual power fantasy is about and for (and told by) the young woman!!!

For centuries, Fanny Price had been considered the weakest character that had ever written by Jane Austen but I think it’s only because she is the most misunderstood character of her. In my humble opinion, she is the strongest character that exists in Jane Austen’s work. She might be a little scared mouse, living her life in the attic while she is frightened of Sir Thomas Bertram and generally afraid of her own shadow, but she has courage and independence that are admirable. When Henry Crawford proposes to her, she declines him. When nobody understands her refusal and insists that it is a considerable mistake of her and tries to open her eyes - she insists on refusing him, keeps the real main reason to herself and mentions her other reasons so very bravely. She does not believe that Mr Crawford loves her and she does not love him back anyway. She does not believe that he can change his flirtatious character for her and she insists on not having him, no matter how much pressure her family puts on her. This is courage, to live to yourself and by your own way while neglecting the fact that the man who has been paying for your living and education just called you ungrateful to your face. Fanny cries a lot, she feels a lot, she saddens a lot but she does not give up, she does not yield to anyone, not even to Sir Thomas or to Mrs Norris. Back at her parents’ home, she uses her own money to register for a local library, she picks and borrows books on her own and she is so courageous and independent that she does not do it for herself alone; she does it for the eduction of somebody else, her sister Susan who never reads since at their father’s home there are no books. Fanny is bold enough to take responsibility not only on her own eduction but also on the education of Susan and it takes courage and self worth to try to shape someone in your own image. Fanny, who is usually considered a quiet, timid, shy and physically limited, has a mind of her own and a strong mind. She is timid but courageous and this complex makes her the strongest character of Jane Austen, since she is strong and weak at the same time , which makes her so intense and powerful.

friend sent me an Instagram reel yesterday with 1000s of likes that was basically like "pride and prejudice is timeless actually because it's about an autism4autism romance 🥰" and then the creator proceeded to cite moments in the book and film where Lizzie and Darcy are "socially awkward" and....listen. I'm far from an Austen scholar, but I have taught Austen novels as an educator and this kind of psycho-pop analysis that views characters as individuals with autonomy over their actions, rather than tools in a story written at a particular time to say something about that time, pisses me off more than I can say without sounding like an asshole. I'm sorry but Darcy isn't rude and awkward and even cruel to Lizzie because he has autism, he says and does those things because he's a wealthy upper class land owning man raised to see a middle class woman from a large family with no male heirs like Elizabeth as inherently beneath him which he expresses to her multiple times because it is socially acceptable for him to do so in a society where someone like him is privileged above almost all others. He is "socially awkward" around her because of misogyny and classism (PREJUDICE) and she is "socially awkward" around him because a woman of her standing at that time simply wouldn't have had much to do with the gentry but to actually push back against the shit that Darcy says would be social suicide for her whole family so she protests the only way she can which is refusing his advances (PRIDE). not to be the "context collapse is the death of media literacy" guy. But this is the problem with the kind of head empty, let people enjoy things, if I can't relate to it what's the point type crowd. Youse think you're being so quirky justifying incoherent and anachronistic interpretations with your rampant individualism, ensuring that other people never confront anything that challenges them in these stories like patriarchal misogyny and classism. Pride and Prejudice becomes an "autism4autism romance", completely undermining the historical context of its status as one of the great social satires about the class and gender politics that Austen so expertly observed around her. This attitude is why we have nonsensical historical dramas that actively hate history like fucking edgy bdsm "Wuthering Heights", Bridgerton, The Buccaneers, and even a 2025 Frankenstein movie where the monster is just misunderstood and does no wrong uwu etc. because individual relatability and catharsis is king over anything actually saying anything about anything now. Everything is relatable and nothing is meaningful.

On the one hand, I totally agree, as far as you've gone: Anne indeed very likely is legitimately sickly from some disease that was at the time unpreventable and barely treatable, Lady Catherine is not to blame, and blaming her is sexist and regressive. On the other hand, Lady Catherine is overbearing to literally everyone she meets - even to Darcy on occasion, and certainly to the Collinses, to Elizabeth and Maria Lucas, and to the Bennets when she visits. It would be unusual if she were not overbearing to Anne. Why is she overbearing? Maybe it's this situation. Maybe she has had a string of miscarriages, stillbirths, and dead babies, and is experiencing constant and overwhelming grief - and the one child who survived to adulthood is really sickly, which makes Lady Catherine constantly anxious. Maybe she actually loved Sir Lewis de Burgh - which I think the fandom probably can't imagine, but there is nothing against it in the text - and she misses him terribly. She very likely loved Lady Anne, Darcy's mother, and misses her terribly, too. Maybe she just has a ton of grief over things she could not control. And maybe she feels guilty about the string of the dead children, which people have been putting on mothers for centuries, millennia even, despite the fact that it could easily have been Sir Lewis's fault - or "fault," since he would also not consciously produce unviable children. It was beyond the control of both of them, but hey - somebody must take the blame, right? "Let's blame mom" is a common and long-standing custom, so she internalizes this cultural message. So from that painful mix of grief, guilt, and anxiety, she tries to use her very high social position to exert as much control as she can over her world. Personalities are different; maybe this is how her particular personality dealt with these life-reverses. Someone else would respond differently. She goes with overbearing and controlling. Fandoms trend young, and often haven't had adverse, adult-only experiences (like losing several family members), so they often don't have the compassion required to avoid a sexist and regressive blame-the-mom stance. Also, Austen herself set up Lady Catherine as a figure of fun: "Elizabeth soon perceived, that though this great lady was not in the commission of the peace for the county, she was a most active magistrate in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her by Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to be quarrelsome, discontented, or too poor, she sallied forth into the village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony and plenty." Scolding someone into plenty is obviously satire, so unthinking fans will just go with it and take it too far. Even if it takes some of the fun out of reading Austen, understanding Lady C's point of view (even speculatively, as I did above) might help fans avoid this nasty blame-mom tendency.

I hate when I see people say "all might should have died" because. ew no that would be such a bad story. you're telling me you saw the narrative ask the question "can someone who is accustomed to providing for people in a certain way live in a world where they can no longer do that?" and you wanted the answer to be "no they should all die" like that's crazy. you're crazy. do you realize you sound crazy. did "you can live. you can be here" and "promise me you'll live" mean Nothing to you people!?!