Miss Austen Regrets...but did she?

This past Sunday, a new imaginative look at the final years of Jane Austen's life, Miss Austen Regrets, aired on PBS.

I've not read much about Jane's life, and so I wasn't quite sure what to expect in comparison to the 2007 movie, Becoming Jane, which was more about Jane's early romance with the Irishman, Tom Lefroy. However, in this 2008 PBS rendition, Jane is nearly forty and trying to guide her young niece Fanny in the ways of love. Jane is portrayed as feisty, loud and a bit bolder than I imagined her to be.

Now, I knew that Jane had a smart and quick mind. It is quite obvious by the vivid and lively conversations she created between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. She used sarcasm and wit well. Yet as you read her novels, she doesn't mock her characters as the voice of the narrator in the books, and she doesn't critique them. She reveals them to you in the dialogue, their actions, etc., but she doesn't judge them. She lets their lives speak for themselves, and I like that about her. And so somehow, seeing this new imagined picture of Jane as a mocking cynic was a bit of a stretch for me. In this film Jane had a slightly bitter tone to her, was always brazenly speaking her mind and even acting out a bit and putting aside the propriety of a clergyman's daughter. Somehow, it doesn't quite match the picture I had imagined of this creative authoress.

One character (the handsome young doctor) made a comment in this film to Jane that struck me. He said something to the effect that all of Jane's heroines didn't have to make a choice between marrying for love or marrying for money/security. They got both. I've been thinking about that comment ever since. Lizzie got her Mr. Darcy with his 10,000 a year, Anne got her Captain Wentworth along with his privateer money, and Emma captivated the heart of wealthy landowner, Mr. Knightley.

Now, I don't think there is quite the same pattern in the other 3 books as the 3 remaining heroines all marry clergymen, but even there, they are granted a comfortable living. Fanny Price marries the lesser of the Bertram sons in Edmund, the humble clergyman, but even Edmund has money and the security of the parish on his father's estate. Catherine Morland finds love with Mr. Henry Tilney, who has his own property and eventually reconciles to his wealthy father. Only Elinor chooses to love Edward Ferrars despite his lack of a fortune. As the first son of a wealthy widow, he is disinherited by his choice to marry beneath him, but then the wealthy Colonel Brandon swoops in and offers him the parish on his own estate.

Did Jane regret not marrying for money? Did she have regrets in choosing independence over security? I'm sure she had regrets of some kind. Who doesn't! In that era, where women were not really able to seek employment or given opportunity to earn their own bread respectfully, maybe Jane did regret her choices, and yet I don't sense any bitterness in her pen. Without her choices, maybe she wouldn't have been so equipped to write such delightful prose about love lost and found, love discovered amidst disdain or love blooming out of a friendship or brotherly-like affection. Personally, I'd regret not having her books as comforting friends beside me. Thanks, Jane!