Lesser Austen Heroine Unite!

    By Charlotte

    Part I:

    Posted on Tuesday, 5 November 2002

    Emma Woodhouse lay in bed, contemplating her tumultuous feelings regarding Harriet and Mr. Knightley. Mr. Knightley, hmm.

    She was getting very tired of lying there, thinking the same thoughts over and over, but there was nothing she could do about it. The authors of the DWG had been neglecting her terribly, tending to favor the characters, especially the *main* characters of another Jane Austen Novel, which will remain nameless. The *main* characters, however, had many names, including Lizzy, Elle, Beth, Eliza, Belle, Liz, and Will, William, Fitz, Darce, and Fitzie-pie... to name a few.

    Emma sighed. Then she resumed her thoughts about Harriet and Mr. Knightley. Why was this bothering her so? She could not figure it out.

    Unfortunately, because no kind author or authoress chose to interrupt her thoughts and weave them into a story worthy of the Epilogue Alley or even the Fantasia Gallery, she was doomed to think the same thoughts, about how something about Harriet liking Mr. Knightley bothered her, without ever knowing why. Mr. Knightley, hmm...

    Part II:

    Marianne Dashwood and her younger sister Margaret walked along the rise of the hill near Barton Cottage. "Is there a felicity in the world," said Marianne, "superior to this? Margaret we will walk here at least two hours." Margaret nodded but said nothing. Moments later, Marianne tripped, but nothing happened. The two girls then continued to walk on together, and a few minutes later, Marianne repeated, "Is there a felicity in the world, superior to this? Margaret, we will walk here at least two hours." She then proceeded to almost trip, moments later,

    Margaret was beginning to tire, since it had been far more than two hours since Marianne had first declared that they would walk two hours, and the weather had been steadily worsening, or at least, appearing to worsen, with every moment. She was getting a headache from hearing the same two sentences over and over, and was quite tired of Marianne's repeated almost tripping. However, she said nothing, and they continued walking. It was not long before Marianne spoke again, and, yet again, repeated herself.

    Margaret sincerely wished to speak and make her elder sister say something different, but since no authors or authoresses ever chose to write complete stories based on the lives of herself or her sisters, except in occasional cameo roles in Fantasia Gallery stories where one Elizabeth Bennet goes to college and needs a variety of interesting roommates, she knew she was doomed to remain in this loop forever. Or at least until someone decided to give the Dashwood sisters a story to pilot on their own.

    Margaret was sure that Marianne felt the same way she did, surely she was growing weary of repeating herself, and of almost tripping, but of course, the two sisters could not converse about it.

    The continued to walk, and Marianne began again. "Is there a felicity in the world..."

    Part III:

    Fanny Price was devastated. She sniffled into her handkerchief and tried to turn her attention to the letter she was writing to her sister Susan. Her uncle, Sir Thomas, and, indeed, the rest of the family, was insistent that she accept Henry Crawford's proposal of marriage. Even her beloved, hmm, beloved, cousin Edmund, seemed to prefer Mr. Crawford's sister Mary's company to her own, and seemed to agree with the match.

    However, Fanny felt that there was something amiss with Henry's character. She was a very serious girl, and a great studier of character, perhaps not as great as one Elizabeth Bennet, no, she would not pretend to be, but certainly growing up in a home such as Mansfield Park, with all its interesting inhabitants, had taught her about various personalities. She knew that Mr. Crawford was not a man she could fully trust. No, there were few men that could be fully trusted, perhaps only one, Edmund, whom Fanny could ever feel that way towards.

    There she went thinking about Edmund again. She had to put him out of her mind. Indeed she had to, for she knew nothing of what was to happen in the future, and at the moment, Edmund clearly favored Mary Crawford. And Henry Crawford clearly favored herself. And her family wanted her to marry him.

    Since she was so rarely the heroine of any stories on the DWG, and, indeed, was even less frequently used in crossover stories than even the Dashwood sisters. And more than half of the stories that did involve her were unfinished.

    She sniffled again, and turned her attention back to the letter to Susan.

    Part IV:

    Anne Elliot paced the floor in her room at Kellynch. It was her last night in the home she loved. Tomorrow she would be on her way to live with relatives who she viewed as little better than strangers.

    Anne was frustrated, upset, and exhausted. She was so very tired of being the "serious" Austen heroine, the model citizen who was looked up to by so many other Austen heroines, yet pitied because well, she was pitiable. She had been weak ten years earlier, and let Frederick Wentworth get away from her, just because she listened to her family. She now realized that her family did not really care for her or her feelings. They just didn't want her to make an unwise - i.e. a fortuneless - match while she was so young.

    Well, now she wasn't so young anymore, and it didn't take a genius, no it took only the eyes of a somewhat serious, twenty-eight-year-old woman who was beginning to be described as "spinsterish" to realize that she had been a total and complete fool ten years earlier.

    Unfortunately, the DWG writers were far more concerned with another late-twenty-something character from that more popular novel, Charlotte Lucas, also known in various versions as Charlotte Collins, Lotte, Lottie, Char, or Charlie. She inwardly pleaded with DWG writers as a whole, that if Charlotte Lucas could be repeatedly matched with William Collins, aka the Toad, Weasel, Rat, Slimeball, Grease-Monkey, etc., or once-in-a-while with Colonel Fitzwilliam, Hot-Pants, Studmuffin, etc, or other, similarly handsome and somewhat (but not totally) eligible bachelors, that once, just once a writer would have pity on her and let her realize ten years earlier how much she needed Frederick Wentworth.

    Of course, until that happened, she was doomed to pace the floor at Kellynch, regretting her past mistake, anticipating leaving her beloved home, and waiting endlessly for morning.

    Part V:

    Catherine Moreland was torn. Isabella Thorpe was a good friend, to be sure, but she was not so sure that her intentions were always pure, or in the right place. Isabella was always trying to throw Catherine in the way of her brother, James, who was, well, to put it mildly, irresponsible, but Catherine herself, while she liked James Thorpe, was far more interested in investigating Henry Tilney and his fantastically Gothic home, Northanger Abbey.

    Since Isabella had just met Henry Tilney's brother Captain Tilney, and fallen head-over-heels in love with him, and broken her engagement with Catherine's own very dear brother James, Catherine was well, reluctant to take any part in Isabella's schemes. Still, she was her friend, and since the bonds of female friendship are supposed to be strong - at least, is that not what is stressed in all of Jane Austen's novels, not to mention the novels which Catherine herself preferred reading - then perhaps she ought to pay more attention to her friend's wishes.

    Of course, since none of the fantastic authors or authoresses at the DWG ever chose to encorporate her in a story, or, if they did even focus on her novel, it was to extol the many virtues and pleasantries of Henry Tilney (really, she couldn't blame them...), she was stuck to ponder Isabella's behavior and wishes, as well as her own, for quite some time.

    Part VI:

    All of Austen's "Lesser Heroines" at this point became enraged. If Elizabeth Bennet from that silly Pride and Prejudice (there, I wrote it!), is so tired of being in such a multitude of stories, having to change from one era to another, repeatedly dying her hair, curling it, straightening it, gaining or losing ten pounds, changing her colored contact lenses, growing two inches or shrinking three, then why don't any of the DWG authors or authoresses write about US!? We are stuck at one point in our lives, early in our stories, and dearly wish to see what is to become of us all.

    THE END

    © 2002 Copyright held by the author.