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That's a good point that I hadn't considered - the importance of doing your duty. All the 'heroes' of the book do their duty, the girls to their mother, Brandon to his charge, Edward to Lucy; all the 'villians' refuse duty, including Elinor's brother, who didn't give the girls the inheritance he promised their father.
I think Austen is great at showing these two extremes. Willoughby is thoroughly without duty and destroys two women in the process and Edward is so full of duty that he is willing to give up his happiness AND Elinor's to keep a promise to a silly, selfish girl. I think Austen's point is that both of these extremes are flawed (although I know I like one character's flaw better than the other.)
I liked that so many of these characters were flawed, even Colonel Brandon, and I loved him. Nobody's perfect, least of all in Austen's world. Emma irritated me the most, but she meant well.
Well said! "Duty" is not a value we hold very high in our modern society. But we can be sure Austen held it high - she lived with her mother (by most accounts a very unpleasant person to live with) in whatever house, whatever city, her family decided was best. She might not have liked it, but she did her duty, aka, made the best of it and still acted with kindness and cheerfulness to her family.
I enjoyed him in the last part of the book.
For me, the worst Austen hero is Edmund Bertram. I think he is a self-righteous bore, judgmental and a hypocrite.
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Ashleigh
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Apr 25, 2011 06:28PM
That's a good point that I hadn't considered - the importance of doing your duty. All the 'heroes' of the book do their duty, the girls to their mother, Brandon to his charge, Edward to Lucy; all the 'villians' refuse duty, including Elinor's brother, who didn't give the girls the inheritance he promised their father.
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I think Austen is great at showing these two extremes. Willoughby is thoroughly without duty and destroys two women in the process and Edward is so full of duty that he is willing to give up his happiness AND Elinor's to keep a promise to a silly, selfish girl. I think Austen's point is that both of these extremes are flawed (although I know I like one character's flaw better than the other.)
I liked that so many of these characters were flawed, even Colonel Brandon, and I loved him. Nobody's perfect, least of all in Austen's world. Emma irritated me the most, but she meant well.
Well said! "Duty" is not a value we hold very high in our modern society. But we can be sure Austen held it high - she lived with her mother (by most accounts a very unpleasant person to live with) in whatever house, whatever city, her family decided was best. She might not have liked it, but she did her duty, aka, made the best of it and still acted with kindness and cheerfulness to her family.
I enjoyed him in the last part of the book.
For me, the worst Austen hero is Edmund Bertram. I think he is a self-righteous bore, judgmental and a hypocrite.
