Let the creepiness of the General begin! "the way that General Tilney ploughs right over Eleanor and extends the invitation to Catherine is mildly offensive" Okay, in hindsight, I know what he's doing and why, but when reading this the first time, I really thought that he was looking for a young new wife for himself and possibly inviting her over so that he could watch how she'd behave with his own daughter, since she's her age.
Austen, Wrench-Thrower extraordinaire! Reading your chapter by chapter summary makes me all the more aware of how brilliant she was at plotting. Which makes me ask: How much do you think she was a plunger, and how much a planner?
Nobody can say definitively, since if the materials that would allow us to form that sort of conclusion ever existed, they are long lost to time and/or the fire (her sister Cassandra burned quite a lot of her things several years before her own death, to prevent them falling into other people's hands). I rather suspect that she thought through the general plot for a while before she began writing. I base that on comments made prior to commencing work on some of her novels. With respect to Emma, family legend has it that she said she was going to take a heroine whom nobody but herself would much like, meaning (I suppose) one who is mistaken and headstrong and, to a certain extent, uninterested in marrying - she was well-off, and said right up front that she had no need to marry, being the mistress already of her father's house and having money. Prior to Mansfield Park, however, she had said she was writing a novel about ordination; while MP does address it a bit (as well as what a proper minister ought to
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Very interesting! It's been a long while since I read the Letters, but that was the sense I had from them, too -- that she thought things out a fair amount before setting pen to paper.
I believe she did. I also think that she borrowed from her own journals, notes and letters, as well as from her family's history in places. Not that she borrowed directly, of course, but still . . .
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"the way that General Tilney ploughs right over Eleanor and extends the invitation to Catherine is mildly offensive" Okay, in hindsight, I know what he's doing and why, but when reading this the first time, I really thought that he was looking for a young new wife for himself and possibly inviting her over so that he could watch how she'd behave with his own daughter, since she's her age.
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Austen, Wrench-Thrower extraordinaire! Reading your chapter by chapter summary makes me all the more aware of how brilliant she was at plotting. Which makes me ask: How much do you think she was a plunger, and how much a planner?
Reply
Nobody can say definitively, since if the materials that would allow us to form that sort of conclusion ever existed, they are long lost to time and/or the fire (her sister Cassandra burned quite a lot of her things several years before her own death, to prevent them falling into other people's hands). I rather suspect that she thought through the general plot for a while before she began writing. I base that on comments made prior to commencing work on some of her novels. With respect to Emma, family legend has it that she said she was going to take a heroine whom nobody but herself would much like, meaning (I suppose) one who is mistaken and headstrong and, to a certain extent, uninterested in marrying - she was well-off, and said right up front that she had no need to marry, being the mistress already of her father's house and having money. Prior to Mansfield Park, however, she had said she was writing a novel about ordination; while MP does address it a bit (as well as what a proper minister ought to ( ... )
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