Women in Society
Volume 1, Spring 2011
ISSN 2042-7220 (Print)
ISSN 2042-7239 (Online)
STUDENT ARTICLE
“I AM NOT ROMANTIC YOU KNOW”: THE
LOSS OF FEMINISM IN ADAPTATIONS OF
JANE AUSTEN
Lauren Hitchman, University of Exeter
Keywords: Jane Austen, Film and Television Adaptations, Feminism,
Introduction
It seems a year cannot go by without a new television or film dramatisation of a
Jane Austen novel appearing on our screens. These films can be extremely
successful in Hollywood, for example, the 1995 Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee)
won Emma Thompson an Oscar for the screenplay and was nominated in six other
categories at the 1996 Oscars. Translating written texts to film often arouses
criticism, as directors and screenplay writers seek to capture the essence of a
favourite author in addition to incorporating their own artistic interpretation of the
work. Characters on a screen are forced to behave differently to characters in a
book, as the loss of the omniscient narrator means characters have to display what
is usually kept between the narrator and the reader. Even when a screenwriter or
director is committed to producing an adaptation as true to Austen, as the medium
of film or TV allows, they are faced with audiences that cannot be expected to
understand the precise historical context of what they are viewing, leading to
messages being altered and over looked.
This paper will evaluate selected direct and indirect adaptations of Austen’s works;
exploring how Austen’s texts and life have been interpreted for the screen. The
paper will consider if Austen’s feminist viewpoints are diluted or entirely eradicated
by the film / TV medium. It is important to note that, when evaluating Austen’s
feminism, it will be in reference to the society in which she lived; an understanding
of how women lived at that time and appreciating that Austen’s feminism must be
restricted to her historical context and not compared to a modern day idea of
feminism, is at the crux of this evaluation. As Kelly (1995) states ”if Austen were
considered a feminist, it would be by her participating in a feminism conditioned by
the circumstances of what has come to be called the Romantic period” (pg.17). In
essence, this paper seeks to demonstrate that in the transference of Austen from
written text to film what is often lost is the sense of a clever, single woman
commenting on the position of women in her society.
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Austen and Hollywood
An issue when evaluating film interpretations of Austen is the sheer volume and
variety of works available for discussion. Austen stories have been modernised and
altered as with Bridget Jones Diary (Fielding, 1996), but even direct interpretations
of her books can vary greatly from the original text. A major difference is the
medium for which the adaptation is made for, film or television, with television
adaptations generally having a longer running time. For example, when the BBC
(Davies,1995) produced an almost word for word adaptation of Pride and Prejudice,
it was split into six parts and lasted approximately 300 minutes; whereas, the 2005
film (Wright) lasted only 129 minutes, less than half the running time of the series.
Inevitably, film directors and screenplay writers are faced with the problem of what
parts of the text to lose in order to stay within the time constraints of a feature film.
That is not to say that lengthier screen adaptations will undoubtedly succeed more
in delivering Austen’s message, watching the characters on screen cannot always
show the sarcasm and social comment Austen inserts between her dialogues.
Furthermore, if the film production is for Hollywood then there are even more
constraints on these adaptations, other than time, that can lead to Austen’s
message being lost. For one, there is a wider audience to appeal to; it can be
expected that those watching a television dramatisation over six weeks would have
a greater interest in Austen, whereas those visiting the cinema are more likely to be
looking for entertainment. Indeed, the advertisement of these Hollywood feature
films suggests that they are marketed as romantic comedies set in a period setting.
The tagline for the 1996 Emma (Mcgrath) is “Cupid is armed and dangerous”,
suggesting that the main feature of this film will be Emma’s attempts at
matchmaking but, as will later be discussed; this is not the main focus of the original
story, but has been made so for comedic value and marketing purposes. Similarly,
the poster for the Sense and Sensibility (1995) film shows Kate Winslet and Emma
Thompson, the reincarnations of the Dashwood sisters, in an outdoor setting.
Marianne’s (Winslet) handgrips onto a male hand, suggesting romance will be a
part of this motion picture and the tagline “lose your heart and come to your senses”
only reiterates this. Already, by the advertisement of these films it can be seen that
delivering a feminist message is not their main objective and indeed the taglines
could be seen as a barrier to any such message being incorporated.
Austen’s own life has also been the subject of a film, Becoming Jane (Jarrold, 2007)
in which, as with her texts, Austen’s life undergoes the Hollywood treatment. The
film depicts Austen enjoying her own thwarted love and although there are
references to Austen’s struggle to become a writer, the film is ultimately a love
story. When reading Austen’s letters it is difficult to imagine that her own romances
were of so great an importance that they should take centre stage in the film of her
life. That is not to say that Austen was not concerned with romance and marriage,
just not her own. Jones (2004) in the introduction she wrote for Austen’s Selected
Letters argues that Austen in letters to her sister “uses gossip about family and
others to mediate and define their shared role as single women” (pg. XXVI). Indeed,
in letters to her relatives Austen discusses the position of women and the choices
they faced in her time frequently. She wrote to her niece Fanny Knight “anything is
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to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without affection” whilst in her
letters and novels she demonstrates the inevitability of this occurrence, as with Mr
and Mrs Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, for example. It can be seen that Austen
commented shrewdly on the evils in her society for women and did not focus on her
own “heartache” as depicted in the film.
The Sexualisation of Austen
Despotopoulou (2006) claims that some modern Austen adaptations “merely lift a
loosely accurate plot and embellish it with pleasing-to-the-eye outdoor scenes or
sexual liaisons which have no purpose other than to attract the mass audience” (
p120). Sex and the outdoors are indeed made a focus of many adaptations, with
sex being the most obviously damaging to Austen’s feminist cause. For example,
Irvine (2005) comments that the 1995 adaptation of Persuasion (Jon Jones) “ends
with a public kiss that, in its very impossibility for the period, draws our attention to
film as 'a fantastic sort of spectacle'” (pg. 150). Films produced for entertainment
value in Hollywood will often not pay heed to historical accuracy when revenue is at
stake. While these films will employ historians to attempt to ensure that costume
and setting is vaguely appropriate for the Regency period, the social mores of the
time are sometimes forgotten to create drama and sexualise the film for the modern
audience.
Even the longer, made for television adaptations use this device to attract
audiences; Andrew Davies’ Pride and Prejudice shows Mr Darcy stripping to his
shirt and diving into a lake and then accidentally meeting Elizabeth Bennett. This
scene shows a man of high social standing disregarding social decorum in a place
he is likely to be seen. His running into Elizabeth creates a sexually charged scene
but, remembering that Pemberley is open to visitors, it is impossible that the owner
of the house would be caught wandering the grounds in a damp shirt. A similar
scene occurs when the camera shows Darcy bathing and then watching Elizabeth
out of the window, thus sexualising Darcy and objectifying Elizabeth. Austen may
use a third person narrator in Pride and Prejudice but it is not an omniscient one,
Elizabeth is undoubtedly the protagonist and any events that take place outside of
Lizzy’s knowledge are only learnt by the reader when Lizzy learns of them. Darcy’s
watching of Elizabeth could not have taken place in the book and aside from
heightening the romance it could also impact upon the feminist aspect - Lizzy
framed by the window makes her similar to a piece of art, dehumanising her and
subjecting her to the male gaze. In all Austen’s books the narrator follows only the
female protagonist but these films allow the masculine objectification of women into
the story, hence losing female control.
However, as has already been noted, the males in these films are sometimes
depicted as sexual objects too. Even though, Irvine (2005) points out these sexual
scenes would have been an impossibility in Austen’s era, he believes that “these
films thus take a certain kind of feminine freedom with which we are now familiar,
represent it as at least possible in Austen’s time, and use it to symbolise the social
freedoms that Austen, it is implied, imagined as potential for her women characters”
(pg. 150-1). However, the interpretation, that these sexual scenes are placed in
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films by directors and screenwriters in order to suggest that Austen in her writing
imagined her characters would be able to participate in what was then considered
highly inappropriate behaviour, has its flaws. When Austen discusses the position of
women in her texts and letters, there is no evidence that she bemoans a lack of
sexual freedom and indeed her treatment of characters such as the adulterous
Maria Bertram, in Mansfield Park, is certainly not a sympathetic one. Therefore,
there is a strong argument that these sexual scenes cannot be interpreted as
Austen imagining a freedom that her characters did not have, but that they are there
to attract today’s women who generally have that freedom.
Emotions, class and marriage
The need to demonstrate emotions in film is a necessity that has long plagued the
translation from word to screen. The replacement of the third person narrator in
Austen with a camera “demands that all characters become physically and
transparently expressive in a way that only ‘problem cases’ such as Marianne
Dashwood indulge in the novels” (Irvine 2005, pg. 151). Marianne Dashwood’s
intensity causes her to be frowned upon by her society, whereas her sister Elinor’s
reserve is portrayed as admirable in the text with her “strength of understanding,
and coolness of judgement” (Austen, 1811, pg. 4) being utilised to support her
family. Indeed, Sense and Sensibility could be considered Austen’s most feminist
novel with the absence of a male figure in the immediate family. Four women are
forced to make their own way in the world, managing their own money without a
patriarch. Although each Austen adaptation must suffer from the loss of character
interiority, it could be argued that Sense and Sensibility suffers from the largest loss
of feminism due to it. Elinor Dashwood is a contradiction of the popular opinions of
the day, that is of women being ruled by emotions. Elinor having to demonstrate her
emotions on screen means she ceases to be a stereotype-challenging feminist
character.
Within Austen’s feminist discourse also comes the discourse of class, there is an
awareness amongst Austen’s heroines of how their class affects their positions in
society. Jane Austen wrote to her niece Fanny that “single women have a dreadful
propensity for being poor – which is one very strong argument in favour of
Matrimony”. This candid analysis of the situation of women can best be seen in the
novel Emma with Miss Bates as the poor single woman. When Harriet Smith asks
Emma whether she fears to be similar to Miss Bates, Emma answers that “a single
woman with a very narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid [...]
but a single woman of good fortune is always respectable” (p 80). Through Emma’s
criticisms of the situation of poor, unmarried women Austen censures the views of
society as a whole, Emma claims that “a very narrow income has the tendency to
contract the mind” (pg. 80), making a link between social class and quality of
education and emphasising the importance of education for women. However,
Emma claims that Miss Bates has not fallen into this category, she is only “too
good-natured and too silly” (pg. 80) to suit Emma’s taste in acquaintances.
Conversely, Miss Bates in Mcgrath’s 1996 film is depicted as a character of
comedy, a caricature - she is not the character that Emma, in the text, learns to be
kind to and is not portrayed sympathetically. Actually, it could be argued that in
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Mcgrath’s film Miss Bates seems so ridiculous that it is hard to see how an
audience could understand that Emma was unjust in her comments towards her.
Hudson (1995) states that Austen’s “novels unquestionably reflect her justified
frustration with women’s economic dependence, the neglect of their education and
the unfair inheritance laws of the day” (pg. 106).
Certainly, a prevailing theme in Pride and Prejudice is that of female inheritance.
Mrs Bennett opens the novel by fretting over the fate of her five daughters, whom
her husband’s estate is entailed away from. Aside from Pride and Prejudice being
perhaps Austen’s most famous love story with Lizzy and Darcy’s hate-at-first-sight
relationship being repeated in films and books again and again, it is a novel that
closely looks at how women could deal with a society and laws heavily steeped
against them. Austen’s mocking opening line of the book is also famed; “it is a truth
universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must
be in want of a wife” (pg.1). This sarcastic line directs the reader’s attention to the
position of women as commodities that men can acquire; a theme that continues
throughout the text. It must be remembered that three of the five daughters in Pride
and Prejudice marry and before her sisters’ happy marriages to rich, worthy men,
Lydia Bennet marries George Wickham in a small ceremony in London. It is Lydia’s
marriage that most directly displays women as a commodity, when Mr Bennet says
of Lydia “Wickham’s a fool, if he takes her for less than ten thousand pounds” (pg.
202) it shows how women, when compared to modern standards, were effectively
bought and sold.
This theme continues with Charlotte Lucas, daughter of the Bennet’s family friends,
who is older than Lizzy and Jane. At twenty-seven years old she is considered a
spinster by her society. When Charlotte is proposed to by Mr Collins she accepts
and her brothers “were relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte’s dying an old
maid” (pg. 84), thus illustrating that women faced pressure from within their own
families as well as from society in general. Charlotte “accepted him solely from the
pure and disinterested desire of an establishment, cared not how soon that
establishment were gained” (pg. 84). The 2005 film does acknowledge Charlotte’s
difficult situation as the character delivers an impassioned speech to her friend
Elizabeth, declaring tearfully “don’t you dare judge me”. While the topic is raised,
Charlotte’s fate is portrayed more as a miserable parallel of Lizzy’s happiness,
rather than to help modern audiences understand the difficulty of Charlotte’s
situation and decision. It is important to note that Austen’s representation of
Charlotte’s behaviour is different entirely. It shows a measured woman evaluating
her situation and making a logical decision. Austen writes of Charlotte that “without
thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object;
it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small
fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest
preservative from want” (pg. 84). This one sentence summarises the lack of choice
women in Charlotte’s situation faced and without it Austen’s feminist discussion of
the options available to women in her society is lost.
Austen’s love stories were revolutionary in the way they depicted relationships
between men and women. In Austen’s time, since women were treated as
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commodities, it would seem logical that men, the consumers, would have the power
within the relationships. Hudson (1995) suggests that “instead of creating marriages
in which power is associated with sex, Austen offers sibling-like unions that highlight
moral and spiritual values. These unions profoundly alter the balance of power
between men and women in her novels” (pg. 101). Perhaps the best example of this
is Emma Woodhouse and Mr Knightly; he is a friend and the brother of her sister’s
husband. Their relationship is built upon intellect and companionship and not sexual
desire and has resonance in today’s society. The building blocks of their
relationship are masked in the 1996 Emma, where Emma and Mr Knightly enjoy a
film full of sexual tension in order to, perhaps, crudely display to the audience that
they are the intended couple. At a party Emma and Knightly are sat together before
Mr Elton, who is in love with Emma, awkwardly sits between them. This awkward
exchange immediately sets Emma and Knightly up as intended lovers; losing the
sibling-like, more equal, bond they share in the book in exchange for sexual tension
to entertain the audience.
Austen and Education
Northanger Abbey is perhaps Austen’s most overtly satirical novel. Through
Catherine Norland, Austen mocks the gothic novels popular in her day and with
them their heroines, who conformed to particular ideas of femininity and had
particular types of relationships with men. Hoeveler (1995) suggests that in
Northanger Abbey Austen moves away from the traditional gothic heroine to imply
that “all women [...] are born the heroines of their own inconspicuous lives, whether
they look the part or not” (pg. 123). Austen uses the character of Catherine Morland
to show how every woman can succeed. Catherine’s gothic dreams are all proved
to be unfounded, suggesting that Austen disliked the damsel-in-distress, overly
fantastical world of the gothic.
As well as criticising the gothic, Austen also discusses the issues of female
education and the effects that a lack of education can have on women.
Despotopoulou (2006) states that “Jane Austen’s novels satirised the superficiality
with which some women approached those media of culture (music, reading,
languages, etc) which had only one purpose: to ensure their marketability in a
marriage-orientated society” (pg. 117) and Northanger Abbey is no exception, with
the mocking of Catherine as she tries to understand the picturesque under Henry’s
influence. Austen’s phrase “a woman, especially if she has the misfortune of
knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can” (pg. 330) fully demonstrates
the power of her wit. Austen emphasises the hardships women faced as they were
expected to be “accomplished” but also uneducated and expected to remain that
way when it came to more important issues. Hoeveler (1995) actually goes as far as
to compare Northanger Abbey to Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication Upon the
Rights of Woman (1792), stating that “in many ways, Northanger Abbey fictionalises
the major points in Wollstonecraft’s treatise, showing that women who are given
inadequate educations will be victims of their own folly as well of masculine hubris,
lust and greed” (pg. 120),
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However, as with other dramatisations already discussed, the ITV adaptation of
Northanger Abbey (2007) takes more liberties with the plot than small details such
as the tumble-into-the-roses kiss between Catherine and Henry. The shortening of
Catherine and Henry’s courtship in and around the Abbey itself loses Catherine’s
embarrassment at her vivid imagination and her reflections upon the silliness of her
behaviour and the dangers of being influenced by others. Similarly, Catherine’s
friend Isabella Thorpe abandons Catherine’s brother but in the film Catherine’s
anger upon this subject is lost. In the text, Catherine’s attitude towards Isabella’s
actions demonstrates how Catherine has grown as a woman and begins to
understand that superficiality is not a trait women should possess, but in the TV
adaption, Catherine’s growth is overshadowed by romance.
Conclusion
It can be seen that some modern adaptations of Austen misplace Austen’s satirical
comment on the society in which she lived. The adaptations become romantic
comedies designed to appeal to mass audiences. Austen’s own brand of feminism
seems to disappear more in film adaptations due to both the time factor and the
need to appeal to a mass audience; although even longer adaptations that succeed
in the never-ending struggle to be “true” to the original texts can lose their feminist
messages merely by a twenty-first century audience not understanding the precise
historical context of what they are viewing. It could be said that at times Austen’s
views on women in society are deliberately edited out to leave only the frothy,
romantic essence of her stories or perhaps the simple fact of the matter is that “no
one writes Jane Austen so well as Jane Austen”? (Wright, 1975, pg. 423).
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