Rescuing Austen: a Stern Evaluation of Twenty-First Century Fanfiction
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Rescuing Austen: A Stern Evaluation of Twenty-First Century Fanfiction by Caroline Williams A Senior Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Major in English and the Bachelor of Arts Degree Stetson University, DeLand, Florida Advisor: Prof. Grady Ballenger April 22, 2016 Williams 1 Introduction “What separates the casual Austen fan from the aficionado? Is it her admiration for the style and manners of the Regency era? The number of times she’s read Austen’s novels? Or her consuming love for Mr. Darcy?,” Mrs. Wattlebrook asks as the camera pans over a lavishly decorated, though slightly anachronistic Regency era home. She raises good questions, and the answers are explored in the rest of Jerusha Hess’s Austenland (2013). This film is not a spinoff of a particular novel, but it is fascinating in that it explores, through the eyes of a devoted reader, the twenty-first century obsession with Austen. There is no denying that Austen’s novels are popular. They have faced much criticism over the years, but the 21st century has seen the popularity of Austen’s novels explode partly due to this idea of an idealized past—one that we perceive to be simpler, more romantic, more happy endings, and no anxieties about life after college. However, it is also partly due to the more recent phenomenon of fanfiction. Fanfiction is fiction written by fans of a TV series, movie, or book, using characters and situations from the original work to develop new plots. There are entire websites devoted to these types of creations, written largely by amateurs. However, some of these online fan creations have later turned into professionally produced legitimate books, movies or series, and the Janeites especially have taken to fanfiction with zeal. These contemporary adaptations are not just limited to online websites such as dwiggie.com (the Derbyshire Writer’s Guild), meryton.com (another fanfiction site), and jaffindex.com (the Jane Austen fanfiction index). We now have legitimate, published book series dedicated to imagining what Lizzy and Darcy’s life must have been like after their marriage, cringeworthy Lizzy and Darcy erotica, video blog web Williams 2 series that place Lizzy and Darcy in the 21st century, zombies at Pemberley, to name a few. The academic world tends to shy away from the fanfiction of the Janeites, choosing instead to analyze the texts themselves, i.e. the brilliance of Austen’s style, approach to character, dialogue, plot structure, and technical elements. Academic critics today talk about her characters’ motives, the agency of women during the Regency period, the importance of social functions, marriage, or social and economic class, etc. Some critics have even attempted to sit Jane Austen on the couch and psychoanalyze her. But scholars, for the most part, try to dissociate themselves from the Jane Austen fandom, perhaps wanting to distance themselves from the enthusiastic fangirls (and perhaps a few fanboys, although the Austen fandom seems to be largely female). To be such a fanatic is considered unprofessional, and Austen spin-offs are not worthy of scholarly attention. This paper will analyze the appeal that Austen’s works have for 21st century readers, what our fascination is with Austen fanfiction, and why poor Jane ought to be rescued from her own fandom. Pride and Prejudice seems to be the most famous of Austen’s novels. It has a catchy title, a classic story, and a happy ending, and a great deal of the spinoffs or parodies are about this book. Movies such as Clueless (1995), Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001) and Bride and Prejudice (2004) are the first ones that come to mind when thinking about Pride and Prejudice retellings. I instead would like to venture a bit father into the Austen fandom, looking at will two movies: Austenland and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, two series: Death Comes to Pemberley and the web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and two novels, each from a series: Mr. Darcy’s Daughters and An Assembly Such as This. I hope to show why these works draw on or exploit Austen, separating works that have some merit of their own from those simply trying to cash in on Jane’s fame. In the end, I will argue that Jane has Williams 3 nothing to fear from any of these contemporary reworkings. After all, these works do send viewers back to the real thing: Austen’s novels themselves. Literary critic Ian Watt talks about the relationship between the reader and the reading, saying that the “reader’s direct relation to the novel or poem is what really matters, and anything that intrudes upon this relation, or, worse, because a substitute for it, has much to answer for” (1). In Watt’s eyes, it is the responsibility of the writers to make their works matter to the reader. It is their responsibility to make readers care, and in caring, we might learn more about ourselves as readers, or see scenes from our own lives reflected in what we read. Jane Austen was able to do that. Watt suggests that “our conversations to and about other people are actually unveilings of a more consequential reality, the self” (1). Austen’s use of irony as a social and moral judge is perhaps what she is best known for. The dialogue between her characters was based on her own experience as a young woman living in the English countryside in the 1790s and the turn of the century. A nineteenth century audience would have certainly read her books and experienced an “unveiling of a more consequential reality,” but what makes her work extraordinary is that readers still experience that today. She created characters that we still see in literature today, (i.e. the overbearing mother and passive snarky father) and even in our own lives. Virginia Woolf writes on Austen’s characters, saying that she “encircles them with the lash of a whip-like phrase, which, as it runs around them, cuts out their silhouettes forever” (20). Austen was fantastic at capturing character, and commenting on the ridiculousness of their behavior in witty ways, often so subtle that one might not even realize they are being insulted at first. In his essay “A Note on Jane Austen,” C.S. Lewis writes that contrasted with the world of modern fiction, “Jane Austen’s is at once less soft Williams 4 and less cruel” (Watt 28). This is to say that Austen does not create a fairytale world where everything is good and perfect, but a real one, in which the characters’ experiences closely mimic real life. The historical period in which Austen writes is also a significant factor in her novels. Though she is not particularly detailed in describing her character’s clothes, the history of the time, or the geography of the land, we know exactly when and where it takes place. We can picture it in our mind’s eye. (Of course, multiple film adaptations have helped us in that regard, as have her letters to her sister Cassandra, but Austen’s words create a picture of English country life in the early 19th century—a very specific and very condensed period of history. The Regency period style lasts a little longer than the actual historical period, but it became known as the Regency era because King George III went mad during the last years of his reign. His son, the Prince of Wales, ruled in his stead as Prince Regent until the king’s death in 1820. Published posthumously, her novels take place in the Romantic period of literature, a time when the sentimental, flowery literature contrasted sharply with the sharp clean lines of Neoclassical architecture, which was all the rage due to the grand tours of Italy and Greece. This is the tail end of the age of Enlightenment, but certainly not the end of European expansion. Trade flourished throughout the English colonies, bringing goods to the English world from parts of North America, Africa and Asia. Napoleon Bonaparte was a major threat to European safety, but none of this is present in Austen’s novels. The presence of redcoats is perhaps the only indication that the world around her is in uproar, but even so, the redcoats serve merely as dancing partners in her novels. Though Austen may not be everyone’s favorite, (Mark Twain once commented that if a library only consisted of one Austen novel, the library would be significantly improved Williams 5 by its removal), we cannot deny the great impact she has had on literature, both in her time and in our time. We like Austen because she is witty, because of the realness of her characters (who act like people in our own lives), because we think the English countryside is quaint—there are many reasons. A large part of her appeal is in part due to this psychological reality. The plots of her stories offered (and still offer) to many women a romance of freeing them from an unhappy fate (whether it be marriage to Mr. Collins or taking a job we dislike just for security), and giving them love and a happy ending. We see her works as brimming with wisdom and sophistication, which is why we are still obsessed with her today. Countless movies and books and other forms of media draw on Austen’s works for inspiration. We are so obsessed with inhabiting Jane Austen’s world that we create alternate universes for it, and think of new ideas to add to her stories. In this way, we make sure that her stories never end, but that is not always a good thing.