Pride and Prejudice: Van Ghent

What is the writer’s thesis?

-The whole marriage concept back then was basically a business partnership. Women were seeking financially stable men to marry. Social standings by far outweighed love.

What are one or two key points the writer makes in support of the thesis?

-The Chart: These were words that continuously popped up throughout the book. These words were put into categories, which were: Money, Material Possessions, Social Integration, Trade, and Arithmetic. All of these words either dealt with social class or business.

-Pg. 301: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”… What we read in it is its opposite—a single woman must be in want of a man with a good fortune.

-Both these points as a whole showed that as people developed relationships they were more concerned with financial well being than in love and happiness.

Were you persuaded? Do you agree with the writer’s thesis? Why?

-English’s societies leisure class (don’t work and live off of daddy’s money) primary focus was how to continue their life style. They ignored all aspects of life that did not contribute to their comfort (ignore war, poverty, disease; they could care less about any of societies problems and felt that it was someone else’s job to take care of it.)

-Yes, I would agree with the writer’s thesis because this was simply how life was back then. This was considered normal. However, I would only agree from an early 19^th century viewpoint. If taken from the 21^st century viewpoint I would not agree because you should be marrying someone you love not by how much many the person has. 

In what way does the information give you new or increased understanding of the novel or of Jane Austen as a writer?

-With the scene with Lady Catharine and Elizabeth, I thought Lady Catharine was being outrageous with her reasoning and absurd with how she viewed things. But now realizing that these were societies ideals, Lady Catharine doesn’t seem to be as ridiculous as I first considered her to be.

-Jane Austen as a writer, her reputation of high English society is well deserved. She provided an excellent insight to the English leisure social class and an accurate account to what life was like back then.

Blog #8: Love

I believe that Shakespeare’s message about love is that love is a curse. First, with Orsino and Olivia; Orsino is madly in love with Olivia, but Olivia does not love him back. It must be horrible to want something so badly but you will never be able to have it. Orsino continually sends Olivia love letters only to be rejected every single time and then to hear from Olivia that she is married to his loyal servant, Cesario, whom he had trusted. Second with Cesario (Viola) and Olivia; Olivia falls madly in love with Cesario, But Cesario does not love her back because Cesario is really Viola who loves Orsino. Olivia’s love for Cesario practically makes her go mad. Before Olivia met Cesario, she was a well-respected lady, however, after she practically begs on her hands and knees for Cesario to love her back. She becomes needy and clingy and no man, let alone another person does not like that. Thirdly there is Viola and Orsino. Viola truly loves Orsino, but Orsino does not love her back because he thinks she is a guy. Viola spends numerous amounts of her time trying to convince Orsino that him and Olivia will never be an item. And the fact Viola has to send the love letters of the man she loves to the woman he loves is torturous for Viola. Viola has to sit around all day listening to the man she loves talk about another woman he is madly in love with. If I were her I would be depressed. Then there is Malvolio and Olivia. Malvolio loves Olivia and finally thinks she loves him back after what he thinks is a letter from her. When Olivia does not give any affection back, Malvolio’s love for her torments him and lands him in the nut house.

I think love can be a curse but also a boon. Love makes you second guess yourself and makes you argue with yourself a lot. For example, you want to say hi to a guy but you don’t know if you should because you think the guy might not say hi back or might just think you are weird for saying hi to him because he doesn’t even know who you are and then when you actually work up the courage to say hello to him and than you get an unexpected response like a confused look; then you spend that whole night while in bed playing back the whole scene in your head of what he might think of you or beating yourself up over that fact that you should never had said hi in the first place; then you end up getting no sleep and are very tired and grumpy the next day. However, once you find love, I think it would be the best thing in the world. Having someone to share everything with and be comfortable with and make you happy. I think finding love is the torturous part, but once you find it, it is totally worth all the torture you had to go through. Like in the play, in the end everything was resolved and the two couples got married, except for Malvolio, but he got what he deserved. (541 words)

Blog #7: CURSE

When thinking of the word “curse” I immediately think of something supernatural. One of my favorite TV shows happens to be Supernatural; and the term “curse” comes up numerous times. I usually think of an item or place being cursed. Curses are sneaky things; they can disguise themselves as good things, like a lucky charm perhaps. For example, say someone finds a cursed object but doesn’t know that it’s cursed. The object, while in the man’s possession, brings him fortune and becomes the luckiest man in the world. He’s receiving new job offerings, getting raises, winning the lottery; but as all of this is happening he somehow misplaces his so-called luck charm. Once he loses his charm everything goes downhill from there and all of the sudden he is the unluckiest man in the world. Say he was in house one day and tripped over the carpet, bumped into the table and a pen fell off in the process. He thinks nothing of it and walks away but fails to see the pen in front of him and slips on it causing him to fall and hit his head on a sharp corner instantly killing him, now that’s what I call unlucky. Curses are a bad thing and should never be tampered with, unless you are the one being cursed, then you can’t do anything about that. Items or places aren’t the only things that can be cursed people can be cursed too, for example, cursing someone to an eternity in Hell.These aren’t the only meanings of “curse.” A curse can also be an utterance of vulgar words towards someone if you dislike them or if they are just being annoying.

            I chose the word “curse” because I find it captivating; mainly for its first meaning of being a supernatural force that brings undesirable effects on certain things. For something to become cursed, it usually has a very interesting history to it. I mean no ordinary object can just become cursed; some sort of horrible event must have to have happened. So learning why something became cursed I find fascinating. (352)

Blog #6: The Pardonner's Tale

	I rede that oure Hoost heere shal bigynne,
	For he is moost envoluped in synne.
	Com forth, sire Hoost, and offre first anon,
	And thou shalt kisse my relikes everychon,
	Ye, for a grote! unbokele anon thy purs.'

Why would the Pardonner ask for contributions if he just told everybody that the relics are fake? Maybe the Pardonner will enjoy a difficult challenge of convincing/tricking the people with his enticing story and give him their money even though he just told him he is a fake/con-man. Or maybe he wasn’t expecting to receive any money from this particular audience and wanted to see just how convincing he can be even if he told the people he was corrupt.

Blog #6: Wife of Bath

The Wife of Bath is a seamstress who has been married five times. She is described as being a very talented seamstress whose clothes weigh pounds. She considered herself an expert on love and marriage. She has traveled to Jerusalem three times and other parts of Europe as well. She is gap-toothed and deaf in one ear. It was believed that being gap-toothed back then was considered very beautiful. The Wife of Bath is one of the more developed characters. This could help give insight of women's roles back then and how marriage was regarded. She is also called by the name Alyson. Bath is not her husband's name but rather the English town Bath of which she comes from.

Blog #4: Queen Modthryth and the Role of Women in Beowulf

With this reading assignment I felt blindsided and confused with the abrupt upbringing of Queen Modthryth in the middle of the description of Queen Hygd, who is Hygelac’s wife, so I decided to research some background information on her. Modthryth is the queen of King Offa in Beowulf. Before Modthryth was married to Offa she was a wicked princess who killed any man who looked her in the eye. It does not go into detail of why she is such a wicked princess, but once she is married to King Offa she immediately changes her ways and actually becomes famous for her good contributions. It is suggested that she changed her ways because of King Offa’s kind and generous nature and because she truly loved him. Queen Hygd is presented, as the epitome of what a Queen should be like back then as well as women. She was positive, polite, thoughtful, and everyone liked her. On the other hand, Queen Modthryth is the exact opposite of Queen Hygd before she became Queen. It was interesting though that Queen Modthryth was famous for being a murderous princess and a queen who did good deeds.

            In Beowulf there are six women: Queen Modthryth, Queen Hildeburgh, Grendel’s mother, Queen Hygd, Wealhtheow, and Freawaru. Wealhtheow and Hygd are described as hostesses. Their main function is to carry the cup of mead and pass it around when the king and his men have meetings in the hall. The queen will first give the cup to the king, which represents he has all power and is ranked at the top. Then the queen will slowly go around the hall giving the cup of mead to the other men in certain order based on rank.

Hildeburgh’s and Freawaru’s function was to settle peace between feuding parties by taking the opposing king or prince in marriage; however, both fail to bring peace among the men. Finally, Modthryth and Grendel’s mother act as foils against all the other women in the story. These two women were termed as monsters. They both use violence to settler their disputes. Modthryth killed any man who entered her hall or looked her in the eye and most of the time these were innocent men. Grendel’s mother similarly killed anyone who entered her hall. In the end both women were brought under control by either death or marriage. Modthryth, however, was able to be influenced by society and changed her ways. While the women in Beowulf do not serve big roles the book would not be complete without them. They serve as hostesses, peace-weavers, and monsters. The women are not powerless, the queens do hold some political power but are ultimately directed by men. (464 words)

http://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/5/porter1.html#anchor750551

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modthryth

Blog #3: Finn and Hengest

Finn and Hengest

When I read the passage about the saga of Finn it was very brief and did not give much information about how the whole battle started and how these characters were linked. So, I researched some information on Finn and Hengest. It turns out the Finn is actually the brother-in-law of Beowulf. The battle is described in Old English as Fres-wael, which means Frisian slaughter. The battle is between Finn, the ruler of the Frisians and Hnaef, the Danish prince. It mentions a person named Hildeburgh who is the sister of Hnaef and is married to Finn. The battle was a surprise attack instigated by Finn due to a long feud between the two opposing parties. Hengest comes into the picture after Hnaef is killed in battle and settles a peace treaty with Finn; however, Hengest was overcome by outrage and murdered Finn and his people. Hengest then takes Hildeburgh back to her real home.

It is said that Hildeburgh only married Finn to help settle the feud between Finn and Hnaef but her attempt failed. Hildeburgh’s life is considered a romantic tragedy because she tried to bring peace among her people but failed and in the process she lost both her brother and son in the same battle. Other than this little information that could be gathered from this short story, famous author J.R.R. Tolkien decided to do a study on this short story and wrote a book on his views of the story.

Tolkien thinks that Hengest is actually a historical figure and not a legendary figure. He thinks he is actually the Hengest mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which is the history of the Anglo-Saxons written down in the 9^th century probably during the reign of Alexander the Great. It is said that Finn’s son lived with Hnaef and that Hnaef was going to bring the now grown up son to Finn for the winter, however, many of Finn’s thanes were also Jutes. Many of the Jutes who live under Finn were exiled by Hnaef from their native land and Finn was kind enough to bring them into his land. One of the Jutes who lived under Finn was a man named Garulf who was supposed to be the next heir to the kingdom he was banished from. So, Garulf and the other Frisian-Jutes ,brought on by revenge, attack the Danes. In Beowulf it made it seem like Finn started the attack when really he was trying to stop the fighting. Then Finn separated the two parties, but the next morning Garulf constructed a surprise attack hoping to catch Hengest off guard, all the while Finn was unaware of this. After the feud, Finn was ashamed that his own people had killed his welcomed guests; so, he offered a peace-treaty. However, Hengest believed he had a stronger duty to the fallen Hnaef and de not oblige to the peace treaty and killed Finn and many Frisian-Jutes. Much like Hildeburgh, Finn’s life seems like a romantic tragedy. (507 words)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finn_and_Hengest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnesburg_Fragment