| This blog explores social attitudes in Jane Austen's time, discusses her novels, reviews forgotten 18th century novels, and throws some occasional shade at the modern academy. The introductory post is here. My "six simple questions for academics" post is here. |
CMP#130 Plots and Plausibility, or, Illegitimate Ideas
Sir Felix adjusting himself after dallying with Ruby in the woods. My book club is reading The Way We Live Now (1875) by Anthony Trollope, so I was in the mood to re-watch the 2001 BBC mini-series with Matthew Macfadyen playing the irredeemably useless and selfish Sir Felix Carbury. In the novel, Sir Felix invests a lot of time into trying to seduce working-class girl Ruby Ruggles, who deludes herself that he will marry her. Sir Felix and Ruby meet secretly in the woods. He “got his arm around her waist,” he “talked of love,” but he dared not "ask her to be his mistress.” In the mini-series, however, Sir Felix and Ruby (played by Maxime Peake) do more than chat and kiss and cuddle.
In terms of real-world behavior, the mini-series version seemed more probable to me. Of course Sir Felix wouldn’t waste his time travelling down to the country to see Ruby, or take her out to the music hall in London, if she didn’t put out. And I wonder whether Trollope’s readers would have assumed the same.
Yet Trollope, perhaps for the sake of propriety, leaves Ruby undefiled. When push comes literally to shove in the novel, Ruby screams for help. She goes on to marry respectably. Her complacent fiancé asserts that she is a good girl. I think if she wasn't, she would have been fated to die by the end of the story, as is the fate of most fallen women in literature.
In Emma, Jane Austen references Goldsmith's short poem: "When lovely woman stoops to folly." I think Austen mentioned the "dying from shame" trope in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Recently, however, I’ve come across some examples of readers and critics arguing that there are some artfully hidden clues about sexual liaisons and love children in Jane Austen’s novels. If so, these are fallen women whose offences go undetected and unpunished.
In terms of real-world behavior, the mini-series version seemed more probable to me. Of course Sir Felix wouldn’t waste his time travelling down to the country to see Ruby, or take her out to the music hall in London, if she didn’t put out. And I wonder whether Trollope’s readers would have assumed the same.
Yet Trollope, perhaps for the sake of propriety, leaves Ruby undefiled. When push comes literally to shove in the novel, Ruby screams for help. She goes on to marry respectably. Her complacent fiancé asserts that she is a good girl. I think if she wasn't, she would have been fated to die by the end of the story, as is the fate of most fallen women in literature.
In Emma, Jane Austen references Goldsmith's short poem: "When lovely woman stoops to folly." I think Austen mentioned the "dying from shame" trope in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Recently, however, I’ve come across some examples of readers and critics arguing that there are some artfully hidden clues about sexual liaisons and love children in Jane Austen’s novels. If so, these are fallen women whose offences go undetected and unpunished.
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