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In Britlit, we have started reading Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, who is reluctantly changing some of my opinions of women writers. (To be fair, my earliest introduction was Charlotte Bronte, an authoress I continue to loathe with a hatred previously unheard of outside the deepest recesses of Dante's inferno.)
My professor amuses us by relating the story into modern measurements and expanding upon it thusly. We read a brief ( excerpt from Wollstonecraft's Vindication of Women's Rights ), which protests that men complain women are shallow, but themselves keep women from being anything else. She then points out that the "traditional" values women are taught are morally shady. Women were taught by their mothers to be superficial and manipulative.
"Now we have sororities to do that," my teacher concluded.
We then turned to Catherine and her break from the gothic heroine mould.
"Typical gothic heroines are accomplished at everything, beautiful, with a tragic history..."
With a sudden flash of insight, my mind screamed, "Mary Sues! Gothic heroines were Mary Sues!" and I had to fight not to laugh in the middle of class.
We then were further entertained with an excerpt from a gothic novel, which I present here for your reading entertainment. Sporks at the ready, friends:
Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood to be Montoni's; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint, which spread deeper and deeper, as the thin vapour crept up the mountain, while the battlements above were still tipped with splendour. From those too, the rays soon faded, and the whole edifice was invested with the solemn duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely and sublime, it seemed to stand the sovereign of the scene, and to frown defiance on all, who dared to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight deepened, its features became more awful in obscurity, and Emily continued to gaze, till its clustering towers were alone seen, rising over the tops of the woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began to ascend.
I laughed along with everyone at it until the irony of the Clive Cussler novel residing in my backpack forced me to shut up.
All in all? A highly successful day.
Addendum: I have rediscovered a love for a band called Lordi. They're like if Def Leppard and Iron Maiden carried on a torrid affair that resulted in the birth of an illegitimate band.
My professor amuses us by relating the story into modern measurements and expanding upon it thusly. We read a brief ( excerpt from Wollstonecraft's Vindication of Women's Rights ), which protests that men complain women are shallow, but themselves keep women from being anything else. She then points out that the "traditional" values women are taught are morally shady. Women were taught by their mothers to be superficial and manipulative.
"Now we have sororities to do that," my teacher concluded.
We then turned to Catherine and her break from the gothic heroine mould.
"Typical gothic heroines are accomplished at everything, beautiful, with a tragic history..."
With a sudden flash of insight, my mind screamed, "Mary Sues! Gothic heroines were Mary Sues!" and I had to fight not to laugh in the middle of class.
We then were further entertained with an excerpt from a gothic novel, which I present here for your reading entertainment. Sporks at the ready, friends:
Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood to be Montoni's; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint, which spread deeper and deeper, as the thin vapour crept up the mountain, while the battlements above were still tipped with splendour. From those too, the rays soon faded, and the whole edifice was invested with the solemn duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely and sublime, it seemed to stand the sovereign of the scene, and to frown defiance on all, who dared to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight deepened, its features became more awful in obscurity, and Emily continued to gaze, till its clustering towers were alone seen, rising over the tops of the woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began to ascend.
I laughed along with everyone at it until the irony of the Clive Cussler novel residing in my backpack forced me to shut up.
All in all? A highly successful day.
Addendum: I have rediscovered a love for a band called Lordi. They're like if Def Leppard and Iron Maiden carried on a torrid affair that resulted in the birth of an illegitimate band.
