'A Woman Especially, If She Have the Misfortune of Knowing Anything, Should Conceal It As Well As She Can'

Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey" (1817)
Identification seems to be a recurrent theme in my life at the moment. Due to a newly found sensitivity, I appear to have developed a greater sense of empathy not only with given circumstances and people I know, but also with historical characters, movie protagonists and intellectual personalities.I am a girl, right? And, as every educated Western young lady, I have been brought up to love Jane Austen's writings,to be besotted with the perfectionist ideal of a prospective Mr Darcy and to be contineously inspired by the fictional characters and groundbreaking life of miss Austen. All this gives me the irresistable impulse to read up about her, watch movies about her, identify with Jane Austin. Last night I went to see "Becoming Jane" which, as an allegedly stereotypical female rom-com, substancially exceded all of my expectations. Casting the incredibly talented James McAvoy. The 28 year old Scotsman is winning me over time and again: after playing the quarkie faun in "The Chronicles of Narnia" and the idealistic doctor in "The Last King of Scotland", his performance as Tom Lefroy, the Irish bohemian city bachellor who is willing to forsake it all for love's sake, was an intense exploit of passion,pathos and raw talent. On the other hand, Anne Hathaway was beautiful and adequately impressive in the clothes of a witty and intelligent young Jane Austin. Cherry on the cake was a rather "quiet" hunky brother Henry, Joe Anderson. The film is based on the early life of author Jane Austen and her possible flirtations with Thomas Langlois Lefroy.I wouldn't want to spoil the story line for you, but the alleged romance between this two is portrayed to go way beyond mere youthful infatuation, but is a real exchange of passionate besottment and livid desire which widens the spectrum of the author's scriptorial inspiration and shapes her views and characterization of her fictionary entourage (all,remarkably,with no explecit sex scenes!!!). My sister often teases me to be a lesser-postmodern version of miss Austin. Who knows, maybe if Jane was born in 1983, she would have been a blogger!!! I can only dream of being like her; however, I can yet again identify with another young woman's struggles. 200 years later I still often fear that a well educated woman is surreptitiously regarded as a threat to masculine pride and male dominance. I am convinced that even confident,erudite,enterprising knights in shiny armour fear, deep within, to be confronted by a woman who 'knows what she's talking about'..(I am dying to hear your views on this one!)Jane Austin eventually ended up never to marry - regardless of her pleasant apparence,wit,sensitivity and potential persuiters. I am not saying that her singleness was exclusively motivated by male perceived inadequacy; Jane fought the self-distructive battle between her undying romanticism and idealism contrasting with unclement rules and regualtions of a money-driven society.
And there was me thinking I had something new to say....
Lying on the sofa on a cold Sunday afternoon reading "Pride and Prejudice" for the fourth time over and waiting that one day unyelding love may be able to look beyond fear of inadequacy, tollerate virtual insanity and be willing to do anything for love's sake. Sweet, ah?!