Austen and the Brontes: A Rant
I'm preparing myself to be extremely angry in class tomorrow. We're discussing Mansfield Park. In discussions we've had before, I seem to be the only person who actually likes Mansfield Park (incidentally, it's probably my favorite), and I'm apparently, according to our secondary reading, the only person in the world who actually likes Fanny Price. So I need to prepare myself to either stand up for the novel and the character, or to sit back and take it quietly.
Actually, there's one person in the class who REALLY annoys me (and we've only met twice so far!). She doesn't have anything good to say about any of the books we're reading. While we've only done Pride and Prejudice so far, most people in the class have read most of the books on the reading list. This girl keeps talking about how much she hates: Fanny Price, Wuthering Heights, various characters in Wuthering Heights, various characters in Pride and Prejudice, etc. She talks about how all of Jane Austen's books are the same and how only girls read them, "because there's too little action for boys." Um, okay. Depends on why you're reading them. She was in my small group last class, and one of the topics we were to discuss was, "Is there a stereotypical Jane Austen reader? Who is it? Is this true?" When I brought up the topic, she said, "girls" and left it. No discussion of what this made people think of said girl when she says she's a fan of Jane Austen, no inquiry into whether or not this may be true (and I don't believe it is), nothing. If I have to be in her group again...she just kills discussion. I don't know why she's doing Lit. It isn't difficult, but for crying out loud, you have to be prepared to actually THINK! and analyze and critique. It isn't easy, either, and you can't get away with that.