Flowers, Fondness, and Femininity

"But now you love a hyacinth. So much the better. You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible. Besides, a taste for flowers is always desirable in you sex, as a means of getting you out of doors and tempting you to more frequent exercise than you would otherwise take. And though though the love of a hyacinth may be rather domestic, who can tell, the sentiment once raised, but you may in time come to love a rose. (p 137)"

Since I'm assuming I'm not the only one who didn't know what a hyacinth looks like:

hyacinth vs. rose.

First of all taking this passage in context, Catherine explains that she has gained her appreciation for the hyacinth from Ms. Tilney's teaching. She also add's that Ms. Tilney's success in "teaching" her was somewhat remarkable since Mrs. Allen had failed on many accounts to teach her to appreciate flowers. So, for starters I think just considering what these flowers represent tells us something. The rose often serves as a symbol for true beauty or love, thus it is fitting that Mr. Tilney desires for Catherine to appreciate the rose in addition to the hyacinth. It seems that the hyacinth may serve as a symbol for the development of Catherine's understanding of relationships and love: Ms. Tilney has appropriately taught her to appreciate the hyacinth (perhaps a stepping stone towards the recognition of true love), while Mrs. Allen, self-centered and perhaps incapable of love herself, was never able to bring about an appreciation of flowers within Catherine. Because no one can "teach" anyone to love, it might follow that Catherine will only appreciate roses when she learns true love herself. Wow. This definitely sounds like something from a Disney movie...

Additionally I think Mr. Tilney's comment "a taste for flowers is always desirable in your sex" is relevant to Catherine's development. Her new appreciation parallels her increased femininity. It's interesting that Tilney emphasizes that flowers are valuable to women as they encourage them to go outdoors. That definitely isn't why we think of women in our 21st century society liking flowers, "hey honey, I got you these flowers so you can think about 'going out doors' and engaging in 'more frequent exercise!'" This seems pretty important to the gender overlaps: the idea that the hero may have effeminate traits while the heroine may show some masculine characteristics. In this sense, Tilney (and Austen) seem to value Catherine's (reaching back to Ned Kelly) pragmatic femininity by deemphasizing her role as a traditionally "girly" gal.