I am struck by the similarity of social situations that occur in this novel and in modern life. Different parts of this story strike me as oddly modern, seeing as the book is only a couple hundred years old.
The awkwardness of going to a party where you only know one person is still paramount, even with the cell phones and facebooks of today, with the crisis some see in this extended networking, you still run into places where you don't know anyone.
And again, the image of John Thorpe bragging about the worth of his carriage seems oddly modern, as if with the advent of the mass produced car, now not only the rich, but everyone can brag brag brag until their lungs get sore about how much they love their mode of transportation.
The image, the expectation of the parent extending a infinite line of credit to their child when they go out into the world that Austen so adeptly lampoons in the first couple chapters also does not seem quite that odd. Today, I wouldn't doubt the dissemination of that image through the media, and the expectation of the child that he will be supported into maturity, you know... "hey parents you have money saved for me for college OH WAIT," or perhaps a more adept phenomenon is the number of kids staying at home later and later.
Perhaps a part of the reason the same jokes about romanticized love and coming-of-age are still funny is because Austen shows that over 200 years ago, people realised that there was something stupid about the naivety of the romanticization of youth and love in things like 'chick flicks', but we never stopped with the same clichés. Its as if, instead of growing up as a culture, the extension and growth of the middle class has only led to a universal affliction of the vanities of the rich.
I found myself thinking things along the same lines. Many of the things that happen in this novel are classic examples of things most people go through at some point in their lives. Not only that, but I found a parallel between characters and people in my personal life.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned in class, I know a "John" and a "Isabella" as well as other prominent characters. The way Austen portrays them seems very stereotypical at times, but not entirely false. It remains me of an "everyman" scenario, except replacing "hope" with a stereotype and so forth.