What was Jane Austin trying to accomplish when she developed strong heroines, spineless men, and dashing heroes? It seems without fail, Austin's women must first suffer from superficial love, followed by something greater--beyond explanation. But Austin's means are much more interesting than her ends. The complication of love--and its game, begs the question, are we all just waiting for the realization that what comes easiest and simplest is in fact our greatest desire?
There we were, sitting side-by-side on his couch, barely touching and all I could think was how strange it was to be sitting on the couch and in the room where so much had passed: passion, disappointment, maybe even love... And while we sat there, those elements were somewhere in the distance. Was it truly the past? I am not sure.
Two night later, I woke-up after falling asleep, tightly curled-up in my bed, with my computer in front of me. I hadn't physically moved from that position in two hours--but my mind had been racing. I dreamt we were in bed together and we kept changing positions. If we were having sex, then it was just the movement of sex: bodies wrapped-up in one another, at times sideways, upside down, parallel, backwards... it was if I was dreaming of a metaphor of our tumultuous but always respectful relationship. What stuck in my mind was the fact that he acknowledged his inability to decide if I was what he really wanted. Like our lazy Sunday on the couch, I waited patiently and uneasily.
Every time I've either decided to let him go or that I would no longer wait for him, suddenly he reapears opening himself up a little more to me. But it has never been about adding to any sort of foundation, rather he would give me some insight to one of his many layers--his complicatedness, his self.
While the heroes of Austin's novels who distilled honor, virtue, respect, and duty always displayed their deepest layer--love-- last, I wonder if it is possible to expect the same from men today. Or perhaps, Austin's world has not really changed today; we continue to anticipate the reply to a text message or email in the same vain the women of the 19th-century waited upon the arrival of a letter. Of course, they did not have sex to complicate the matter but they displayed their affections more strongly. Even desperately at times.
And where Austin's heroines wait desperately for love to find and validate them, today we put up barriers to delay it. We work, have increasingly demanding social lives, and are expected to accomplish something great for ourselves. Will our accomplishments be weighted in the final decision of life? Or will they be simply counted as means to pass the time? What exactly is it that we are waiting for? Perhaps we chose to create a movement because we can and we should-- but what exactly that movement is, I am not sure if it is any different from those heroines of a time we somewhat mockingly read about.
There we were, sitting side-by-side on his couch, barely touching and all I could think was how strange it was to be sitting on the couch and in the room where so much had passed: passion, disappointment, maybe even love... And while we sat there, those elements were somewhere in the distance. Was it truly the past? I am not sure.
Two night later, I woke-up after falling asleep, tightly curled-up in my bed, with my computer in front of me. I hadn't physically moved from that position in two hours--but my mind had been racing. I dreamt we were in bed together and we kept changing positions. If we were having sex, then it was just the movement of sex: bodies wrapped-up in one another, at times sideways, upside down, parallel, backwards... it was if I was dreaming of a metaphor of our tumultuous but always respectful relationship. What stuck in my mind was the fact that he acknowledged his inability to decide if I was what he really wanted. Like our lazy Sunday on the couch, I waited patiently and uneasily.
Every time I've either decided to let him go or that I would no longer wait for him, suddenly he reapears opening himself up a little more to me. But it has never been about adding to any sort of foundation, rather he would give me some insight to one of his many layers--his complicatedness, his self.
While the heroes of Austin's novels who distilled honor, virtue, respect, and duty always displayed their deepest layer--love-- last, I wonder if it is possible to expect the same from men today. Or perhaps, Austin's world has not really changed today; we continue to anticipate the reply to a text message or email in the same vain the women of the 19th-century waited upon the arrival of a letter. Of course, they did not have sex to complicate the matter but they displayed their affections more strongly. Even desperately at times.
And where Austin's heroines wait desperately for love to find and validate them, today we put up barriers to delay it. We work, have increasingly demanding social lives, and are expected to accomplish something great for ourselves. Will our accomplishments be weighted in the final decision of life? Or will they be simply counted as means to pass the time? What exactly is it that we are waiting for? Perhaps we chose to create a movement because we can and we should-- but what exactly that movement is, I am not sure if it is any different from those heroines of a time we somewhat mockingly read about.
