FALL 2024

FALL 2024

Synopsis

Jane Austen, after having an argument with her parents about never getting married and wanting to be a writer and a pep talk from her sister Cassandra, has a “meeting of the minds” with the characters from her novels. Jane and her heroines discuss how important Jane’s writing would be as there are few female writers representing women and girls as they truly are, or what they dream of and hope for. Her heroines encourage her by saying she will have an impact on literature and readers and influence the hearts and minds of girls and women for centuries.

While Jane, Cassandra, and their mother stay with Jane’s brother Frank and sister-in-law, Mary, Jane ponders what is “the happiest delineation of life and its many varieties,” by asking her family what makes them happy aside from love, romance, family, and children. Using the ideas expressed by her family, Jane creates two scenes, one with Fanny Price and the characters from Mansfield Park and one with Catherine Morland and the characters from Northanger Abbey, exploring drama, books, and other varieties of life that make her characters happy. 

Visiting with her other brothers, Edward then James, co-editors of a literary magazine, Jane uses Edward’s extensive library to gain “the most thorough knowledge of human nature,” and they discuss if one can learn about love through books. She puts her knowledge about love to the test in a scene involving Elizabeth and Jane Bennet and various other characters from Pride & Prejudice. Then after a spot o’ tea with James, and a conversation about what constitutes ladylike behavior, she creates a scene with Emma Woodhouse and other characters from her novel Emma. In both scenes she exposes some ideas and behavior that other authors, especially male authors creating female characters, would not think girls and women of good families would possess. Thus, she gives a glimpse of her thorough knowledge of human behavior when it comes to the female sex. But her female characters become upset by this behavior even though Jane reminds them that they asked for her to portray girls and women as they really are ... “warts and all.”  Jane issues a 10-minute intermission in the hopes that everyone will regain their collective composures.

As Jane tells her brother Henry and sister-in-law Eliza of her characters’ uprising against her at the Austen home in Bath, Jane imagines a scene where all her leading men use the best language to woo her heroines. The scene is stolen by Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth from Persuasion.Followed by a scene with Elinor and Marianne Dashwood and other characters from Sense & Sensibility, “the greatest powers of the mind [are] displayed” by her female characters. As Jane finishes reading her manuscript of the novel to Eliza, Cassandra, and their niece Fanny, they discuss the importance of female friendships and sisterhood. Later as Jane drifts off sleep at her desk, her heroines demand she write a ball scene for them.

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