Are there any Austen characters you would've liked to see end up with someone different? > Likes and Comments

I have been listening to this podcast called What the Austen? and they explored this question a bit, so it got me thinking it would be fun to discuss on here!

Fanny Price of Mansfield Park. I never cared for her, but she deserved to better than being Edmund's second best. Not Henry, though. Perhaps if Rushworth had courted her first. Or some sensible, moral gentleman to be named later.

Lydia Bennet deserved better. Sure, she was a flirt. But Wickham was a predator! Would anyone condemn a 16 year girl today as much as they do her? If she were missing and in the news people would be far more sympathetic to her and want him prosecuted for kidnapping, child enticement, etc.

Yes, I definitely agree about Fanny! I felt like Edmund just married her because his first choice didn't want him. I don't think there was a moment in the book where he really chose Fanny over Mary. I think it is much more preferable and romantic to be chosen by the person you love.

Lydia I'm not sure about. I do think she is very naive, silly, and selfish but did she deserve to be saddled for life to such a terrible man? Probably not.

Thanks for your response!

Knightly is okay, I guess. Never my favorite, but I would have preferred someone younger, as with Marianne Dashwood and Colonel Brandon.

charlotte lucas deserves a nice companion . mr palmer mr bennet deserve cleverer wives and sir john a nicer one wentworth is self centered and i think anne deserves better i hope catherene and henry stay happy. but of course the stories are ja s so we can only imagine i have broken my arm so no capitals like ee cummings

Mrs Bennet is annoying, to be sure. However, she is the better parent. She takes a vested interest in the future of her daughters as a good marriage is their only viable option. Mr Bennet hides away in his library.

As for Charlotte, she went into the marriage with her eyes wide open. She will end up with the Bennet's estate so that is some consolation for her odious husband.

Charlotte Lucas! I mean, I know she was a "spinster" and felt she had no other options - but dull and dreary should not have been her only one. She should have ended up with a regimental officer. Her observance of "duty" would have made her an excellent officer's wife.

I don't have a problem with Fanny and Edmund. In fact, I think highly of Fanny, because she is the one Austen heroine who is defined by her virtues rather than her flaws. It might make her seem less interesting, but you do come to appreciate what a strong moral center she had in order to refuse Henry.
In the other works, there is always the romantic pairing of the principle characters that comes out of one or both of them acknowledging and attempting to correct the flaws that caused them to misjudge a situation or one another. For this reason, the one match I wonder about is Emma and Knightley - I see him as rather controlling (his brother as well - I'm not a fan of Isabella's marriage), and wonder if Emma will have the change of character that might result in a good marriage, or if it's only a temporary change of heart.
Then, of course, with minor characters there are the Palmers in S&S. Poor guy.

Lydia Bennet deserves better. Wickham is an adult grooming minors. He tried it with Georgiana and succeeded with Lydia. I know Lydia is flighty and obnoxious but she is 15 and 16 in the novel. I was never a boy chaser as I was very introverted and not very confident in my looks or charms. But I expect I was not always at my best either. People often think Amy March should be eternally punished for being the least mature in the family at 12. Imagine, an obnoxious middle schooler condemned for all time for her greatest sin. The same with Lydia. I think people need to offer them both some grace. Wickham is the villain. Lydia is not likeable but she did not deserve him. I understand the alternative at the time was far worse. It was a less disgraceful option.

Nora wrote: "Charlotte Lucas! I mean, I know she was a "spinster" and felt she had no other options - but dull and dreary should not have been her only one. She should have ended up with a regimental officer. H..."

Oh I absolutely agree with this one! What a shame Charlotte's intelligence and wit were not noticed by a nice man! I feel someone like Captain Fitzwilliam would have been a nice companion to Charlotte. Or perhaps a decent officer in the army. But indeed, not Mr. Collins. It's sad really.

Mr Collins is pretty odious, to be sure. Longbourne is the prize and a pretty good one at that. Charlotte is playing the long game and looking into the future. She is smart and capable. But yuck. She will get a nice estate, not just a house in the end.

When I first read S & S, I so much wanted Elinor to end up with Col. Brandon. He seemed like a more serious person than Edward or any of the Ferrers crowd.

I guess Edward and Brandon are likable and suitable but neither are exciting. But in real life, most of us are plain Janes with plain lives and we marry plain Joes so I guess that is okay. It is realistic, though Brandon is rich.

I think Charlotte's reasons for marrying Mr. Collins are very rational given the alternative. But I always imagined Mary Bennett as a better spouse for Mr. C. Of course, Charlotte might succumb in childbirth - at 27, she was getting on by the standards of the day - and Mary would get him in the end.

Fanny price could’ve ended up with so many other people, had she been treated properly. I think she was just so wronged.

Sophia Grey. Willoughby deserves no one. He is trash. He does not deserve any one.

I’m not one who’s troubled by the outcome of Mansfield Park. Fanny and Edmund have many shared values, and they have mutual respect. Yes, he was led astray by his attraction to Mary Crawford, but few of us have the self-awareness from the start to avoid such errors. The important thing for me is that he learned to understand what he really valued, which could only make his attachment to Fanny stronger because it is intentional, not an accident of chemistry. And Fanny, if she grows in self-confidence under the conviction of his attachment, would make an excellent clergyman’s wife.

Abigail, you seem knowledgeable on Austen history and the Regency Era. I know this book is fanfic. Have you read Jane and the Year Without a Summer? It is about the climate effects of a real volcano 🌋. I will read a nonfiction book about it I have a long TBR list. I know, not really related to the topic, but I thought you might know something about how volcano in English History. I do not remember studying this in school, but that was a long time ago.

Jan wrote: "Abigail, you seem knowledgeable on Austen history and the Regency Era. I know this book is fanfic. Have you read Jane and the Year Without a Summer? It is about the climate effects of a real volcan..."

Thanks for the kind words, Jan! I haven’t yet read Jane and the Year without a Summer—am a few books behind on Stephanie Barron’s series—but I am familiar with the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora and how it affected the weather all around the world.

One of the most famous impacts on English literature is that Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, and Lord Byron were traveling in the Alps and were kept indoors by the bad weather created by the volcanic ash in the atmosphere. They decided to have a competition to write a ghost story. Only Mary really completed the task, but she wrote one of the great classics of 19th-century literature, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text.

I haven’t read this, but I see there’s a book about the global impacts of the eruption: Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World.

Thanks, Abigail for that bit of trivia. I have read Frankenstein but I did not know its origin story.

Abigail wrote: "I’m not one who’s troubled by the outcome of Mansfield Park. Fanny and Edmund have many shared values, and they have mutual respect. Yes, he was led astray by his attraction to Mary Crawford, but f..."

I think I agree with you Abigail. I love Mansfield Park and every time I read it a I love a little bit more. There is such depth to it. A really mature book in the true meaning of the word.

Fanny Price needed safety and stability in her life and Edmund would provide that. There is nothing wrong with living a safe life and I think Fanny would gain much pleasure in the having her own home, not too big, and in being of use to her parishioners.

I agree. I think the picture of Catherine Morland's parents in "Northanger Abbey" - solid, good-humored, stable very happy in their relatively modest situation - is close to what the marriage of Fanny and Edmund would be like.