posted
I will concentrate on Emma, Austen's blackest and most political novel, least understood because people assume wrongly her personages are white. Why this should continue is a mystery to me. It's a different Austen, who does not hide her true opinions anymore. This book I found the most explicit about Black Superiority. I have been talking about my research, hoping somebody who has read more would chime in. But alas, Blacks still are afraid to read and comment on Jane Austen, and encourage my research.
Aisha (2010)/ Emma: De Indiase verfilming van Austen's roman door Egmond Codfried » di aug 10, 2010 14:39
[Sonam Kapoor and Abhay Deol as Emma Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley]
AISHA
The timing could not have been better for me as I’m presently surrounded by scholarly books about author Jane Austen (1775-1817). I’m writing a research ‘Was Jane Austen Black?’ based on her personages who all are Blacks, and her own personal description as a dark brown woman, with African facial traits. All of these works are seriously flawed and ideological racist, as they never touch on the insistent skin colour schematics Austen offers. But they have an analysis of Emma (1816), which is Austen’s final novel, and is credited as her most accomplished and cynical; but the hardest to analyse. Aisha (2010) is an Indian, movie adaptation of Emma and there is no colour subtext. To me Emma seems to resist analysis because it should not be read as a straight romantic story, but as an allegory about Black History, the causes of The French Revolution and the new political realities the classes must accept. It’s a novel about self-knowledge, self-improvement and a warning to Blacks to pay attention and not to be afraid of change.
The movie treats the book as a straight romantic story, without any attempt at historification. (is this not an English word?) There are a few faint references to her other novels and scholarly approaches. It’s in a sense a picaresque story, with things just happening to the protagonist; Aisha/Emma. A rich, and wilful girl who takes up the business of matchmaking with disastrous results. Hurting the ones she sets out to help. It takes a long time before she discovers how wrong she is. Finally at the brink of self-annihilation her instincts kick in. Throughout she is questioned and scolded by her livelong friend Arjun, the Mr. Knightley of the novel. The film writers carefully preserved the basic storyline, asking themselves; what makes Emma, Emma? A true cinematographic tour de force! Any adaptation is a new reading, an experiment and a comment on the original. Emma is much about class and rank, which does not translate well to the merotocratic and cosmopolitan world in which we live today. So the makers omitted these two major forces, which in the novel work on Emma. Aisha now only belongs to metropolis of Delhi, hardly a country village, and the moneyed higher classes. There is no threat to her social position, which is really the greatest driving force and the danger in Emma. Aisha is not, like Emma, the dominating presence, nor is she a queen about to be dethroned. Just someone who manages to be the centre of attention. And this she does most beautifully in a stunning Dior wardrobe.
The white Miss Harriet Smith, Shevaly in the movie, is a middle class girl from the village who, even worse in light of the original, does not accept being perceived as socially inferior. Miss Smith from the novel is acutely aware of her inferiority to Emma, which makes Emma’s attention to her so remarkable. Gear is of great importance, also cars and houses which today only scream ‘money’ and not ‘class and breeding.’ The trips to Donwell and Box-Hill are represented by a trip to a white water rafting resort, where the company also indulges in some weed smoking. It’s a nice touch to be alerted to the fact that Emma and her set would today be knocking about in Dior, Chanel, Ferragamo and Louis Vuitton, but I ‘am not prepared to have them smoking pot! Perhaps this shows too much realism, even to the point of showing them sitting on toilets; as a device of verisimilitude. The unity of place is however less enforced as it is in Emma because we actually get to see the places outside Highbury/Delhi, where Emma as a novel is situated.
It’s hard. How would the movie have satisfied me if I did not know the story beforehand? What about the folks who don’t know Jane Austen? The look is very modern and contemporary. The main characters are dressed in European stile. Stylish, elegant but very skimpy. Only Shefaly wears some traditional sjalwaar chamise, off and on. In the hospital where Aisha visits her sister who gave birth, we notice how short a dress Aisha wears, as the camera catches her panties. The women are young but at times appear disturbingly like pre-teenagers, children really, even sitting in a dollhouse. Perhaps this is a pointed reference to Austen’s fierce feminist criticism of how society looks at women? We also see Aisha standing outside the hospital in her short dress with two fully dressed Indian ladies in the background. As if Aisha escaped the movie set, to symbolise how detached she has become from reality.
The personal struggle Aisha has to face when she realises how lost she is, is symbolised by her binging on desserts and Häagen-Dazs ice cream. She then applies for a job which means quitting Delhi, like Aarti/ Jane Fairfax, but is saved from this somehow wretched fate by Arjun who finally states his love for her. They had loved each other for a long time but did not think themselves worthy. She was distracted by her projects and was not really thinking. He because he watched her mainly to find fault and keep her from harm.
The question is: does the movie convince on its own merits? Perhaps the story needed to be watered down, because we live in more complicated but less trying times. There is less a climate of change and uncertainty, then when Emma was written. We are however never more in need of a global revolution, to eradicate the last vestiges of colonialism. India has fully outgrown its status as a former British colony and matches or even exceeds anything perceived as western and forward. An Indian producer can even do a better Emma adaptation then a western filmmaker and sets a hard act to follow. The choice was made to take the major incidents from Emma out of context and give them another, less dire meaning. The ill-judged, untimely and unforeseen marriage proposal by Mr. Elton is an error of manners and high comedy, but becomes in Aisha an ironical joke about sexual harassment. Without understanding of the underlying story about revolution and change, a full strength presentation would have been too long, complicated and bewildering with the many twists, to a movie audience. Austen’s contemporary readers would readily understand her references to the outside world, while we would first need a long history lesson.
It’s a very satisfying movie because of the visual spectacle it offers, as we may expect from any Indian movie. There is some alluring, but functional dancing and singing, that don’t put the plot on hold. All in keeping with the novel, too. The characters have the unusual appearance of purpose, although we have no clue where all this leads. So this movie version is a string of unrelated incidents, which yet give some measure of gravity to the characters; but only the final denouement is what really ties them together. This can also be said of the book version, which keeps us guessing with its many false leads. Aisha has given clues of little jealousies toward Arjun and Aatri, Knightley and Jane Fairfax, but nothing major. And towards the end she agonises because she thinks that Arjun and Shewaly are united, while they are not. All the while Arjun is like a big brother, all about solicitude and criticism. Yet from these disparate feelings, intensified by the incidents; love grows. It’s because of this strange story, told with great and unfaltering authority, we are forced to ask; what is the story Miss Austen really wants to tell us?
How would I go about making a movie adaptation of Emma? It would have to be a two-tiered affair; two stories, simultaneously told. An overpoweringly, romantic one with magnified bucolic charms and a fairy tale like air, commenting on itself. And a totally newly created, relentless and harsh story of civil war and terror, set around the French revolution, with the same players, doubling. The themes would be the corruption, inherent to class and rank without true personal merit. Upsetting the natural order by elevating a conquered people. And imposing equality on two disparate nations, which goes against historical truth. Both storylines singing the praise of decency and benevolence, a true love of humanity under pressure. These war-like themes would find their counterpart in her indolence and the race-mixing practises Emma indulges in. It has to be historical because of the central role of rank and class, which are alien to us today. The players would have to be as Austen decreed. Mr. Elton, spruce, black and smiling. Jane Fairfax would be a light skinned Black and Jane Fairfax; a blue eyed blond. While Emma and Frank, who used to tease her for her paleness would indeed be extremely dark skinned, like all the characters from Paradise by Toni Morrison. As would Mr. Weston and his wife. Mr. Knightley; and Mrs. Augusta Elton are Blacks, for she soon dethrones Emma to become a vigorous surrogate but vulgar replacement. Gentleman farmer Martin, the proper partner for Miss Smith who really loves her, is off course white.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
^ Blacks are not afraid of a nobody like Jane Austen. Rather, blacks understand that she offers little of value. No one cares about a few European 1/32nd black boogie Negroes. If anything, they serve as testimony of mulattoes assimilating with Albinos. Nothing more. Except in the eyes of weak Negro European wannabes, European mulattoes are meaningless and irrelevant. They are only another possible source of compromise for real blacks.
Where is the European loving Homo amongst this group?
Posts: 4693 | From: Saturn | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged |
posted
Any civilised person will read Jane Austen, as a matter of course. The more so as I tell them she was Black. There are many scholarly books written about Jane Austen, mainly by men, I have as a first black researcher added to the list, but next also woman. Her books are constantly turned into movies. Next I'm working on a plan to film Emma with Black actors, as described in her books. How can any sane person find fault with what I'm saying? Blacks are clearly not taking care of business if they do not move themselfs to the middle instead of standing by and watching whitey parading about in our stuff. They need to educate themselfs about everything that is current.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
^ Naw, had I to make a guess of the most likely suspect, it would the guy to the left upper corner, sitting alone and on top of a spiked fence pole.
Apologize and thank me, you European ingrate! You know what's up!
Posts: 4693 | From: Saturn | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged |
posted
Egmond was isn't there a whole lot of writing at the time of Jane Austin saying she was a "moor" or was "black" or was "dark skinned" ?? You think these pale English people didn't notice her deep chocolate complexion, big lips and afro?
Egmond you're in a vacuum, why aren't yopu pursuing her father and mother's, grandamother , grandfather etc complexion ?? You think these her parents popped out a black baby?
Posts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
The Blacks-only-as-slaves lobby presents Blacks as if they only made their entrance on the worldstage in the past 500 years. Can one imagine a grander entrance then building pyramids, 8000 years ago? So the indoctrinated Blacks will not take Black researchers seriously, because they are Black, and do the Massa bidding, by showing Blacks as pitiful. See and marvel at how Blacks have developed as they are only goddam slaves. That's the message. Coming from Surinam I see how Blacks are turned away from history because the traumatic way its presented. Whites go to museums and see wonderfull images off themselves, for Blacks it's images of torture.
My museum will not ignore slavery, growing up I was steeped in slavery traditions, but approach it today as a researcher in a more cultured way...
Miniature portrait of a Surinam woman (1810) Around the time Jane Austen was alive and planning her first publication. In Mansfield Park (1814?) she wrote about slavery. We can discuss slavery in a more dignified manner instead of terrorising Blacks with horror images.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
[Queen Charlotte-Sophie of Mecklenburg, wife of George III]
During Jane austen's life time whites were shoe leather trash, they did not write anything. The change Austen wrote against was brought on by blacks much like herself, educated and enlightened. She herself writes nasty things about Black aristocrats.
Like Charlotte Sophie of Mecklenburgs blackness comes from her parents, the same with Jane Austen. black people make black babies. Whites do not make children who are described as 'a brunette complexion, a brown not a pink colour. austen did not issue a portrait in 1811with her debute, because her black looks would attract unfavourable attention. and she was not going to issue a portrait looking white, she was too much of a race -woman. Of Mecklenburg was Queen while Austen was alive.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Egmond Codfried: [QB] The Blacks-only-as-slaves lobby presents Blacks as if they only made their entrance on the worldstage in the past 500 years. Can one imagine a grander entrance then building pyramids, 8000 years ago? So the indoctrinated Blacks will not take Black researchers seriously, because they are Black, and do the Massa bidding, by showing Blacks as pitiful. See and marvel at how Blacks have developed as they are only goddam slaves. That's the message. Coming from Surinam I see how Blacks are turned away from history because the traumatic way its presented. Whites go to museums and see wonderfull images off themselves, for Blacks it's images of torture.
My museum will not ignore slavery, growing up I was steeped in slavery traditions, but approach it today as a researcher in a more cultured way...
But Egmond what about the Jews who remind themsleves "Never Forget" isn't that important to our survival as well? Also I hope your museum will not skimp on African culture.
And I think it might be informative to write a piece on what it is like to be Black and homosexual in Europ, or homosexual in general also, like what your first feelings of it were. Maybe people could gain more understanding about it even though on the surface they like to ridicule. People like Narmerthot, for example assume all homosexuals were raped as children and other propaganda
And you're bumping too many of your threads at once, this is a public forum not your personal self promotions
Posts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Egmond Codfried: [QB] The Blacks-only-as-slaves lobby presents Blacks as if they only made their entrance on the worldstage in the past 500 years. Can one imagine a grander entrance then building pyramids, 8000 years ago? So the indoctrinated Blacks will not take Black researchers seriously, because they are Black, and do the Massa bidding, by showing Blacks as pitiful. See and marvel at how Blacks have developed as they are only goddam slaves. That's the message. Coming from Surinam I see how Blacks are turned away from history because the traumatic way its presented. Whites go to museums and see wonderfull images off themselves, for Blacks it's images of torture.
My museum will not ignore slavery, growing up I was steeped in slavery traditions, but approach it today as a researcher in a more cultured way...
But Egmond what about the Jews who remind themsleves "Never Forget" isn't that important to our survival as well? Also I hope your museum will not skimp on African culture.
And I think it might be informative to write a piece on what it is like to be Black and homosexual in Europ, or homosexual in general also, like what your first feelings of it were. Maybe people could gain more understanding about it even though on the surface they like to ridicule. People like Narmerthot, for example assume all homosexuals were raped as children and other propaganda
And you're bumping too many of your threads at once, this is a public forum not your personal self promotions
LOL, look at IT pretending that IT really cares. LIAR, you are one big trip, but at least you are consistent. My mother/Father raised 4 boys. Today, we are all MEN. I remember once my 3 year old brother was playing and put his feet into my mother's shoes, walking around laughing. Just then my mother entered the room and saw him with her shoes on.
Like lightning, she snatched my little brother up and whipped his ass, yelling that in all her life she never wanted to see his feet in women's shoes again. He never did and today he is a minister/Pastor administering rehabilitation to Homos, Drug addicts and drunks. His success rate is about 80%. The black church is one of the most negative influences in the black community. It breeds homosexuality, Apathy, Fear and complacence. The reason: 80% average female participation and control.
My mother did not play about such things. She and my father raised their boys into men.
Egmond, and many other black Homo boys had parents who let them down leaving them prey to pedophiles and perverts.
Posts: 4693 | From: Saturn | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged |
I remember once my 3 year old brother was playing and put his feet into my mother's shoes, walking around laughing. Just then my mother entered the room and saw him with her shoes on.
Like lightning, she snatched my little brother up and whipped his ass, yelling that in all her life she never wanted to see his feet in women's shoes again.
1) why did your brother put his feet into women's shoes? -and what would have happened if he was allowed to do it whenever he wanted? what causes this?
2) what about the non-effeminate macho leather type fags? are you down with them?
[Young lady with a hat, Mrs. Alting (?) by Simon Maris]
WAS JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817) BLACK? UPDATE ON THE ‘WAS JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817) BLACK’ RESEARCH
Today, the 17th of December we celebrate Jane Austen’s two hundred thirty-fifth birthday. A great writer who is celebrated for having done for the novel what Shakespeare did for playwriting. Her wit and her innovative, ‘realistic’ dealings with lifelike situations and a psychological insight in the workings and failings of the human mind; with believable characterisation, has stood the test of time and we can still readily understand her personages and their true and political motives. But what has been truly missing in all the many analyses by eurocentric scholars, the TV series and movies of her books as well as her biographical films and documentaries, is any reverence to her deep brown complexion and the ‘light brown, brown, very brown and black complexions’ of her central characters. This innovative research has already bloomed into about sixty pages, coming from the initial article, and is still growing, as there are still new insights to be found. The brochure, awaiting publishing, offers a foreword, introduction, definitions, methodology, conclusion, notes, many illustrations and a bibliography. My own reading of Jane Austen, based on who I am and what I know from years of research after native Black Europeans, compared to the general and scholarly portrayal of Jane Austen, her personages, political views and motives; has thrown up some serious problems that need solving. Amazingly, the many great scholars who analysed the lady’s life and her works to the hilt; choose as one body to disregard all the insistent and ample descriptions of complexion in her novels. Even when they are discussing her own looks, they often do not quote the ten or so detailed pen portraits by her family and friends, which speak of a pretty, rich brown complexioned woman. They sometimes print these quotes and her pen portraits but let the brownness remain unanswered. Why is Henry Austen quoting poet John Donne (1572-1634) when he speaks of his own sisters ‘pure and eloquent’ blood. Which pureness is he speaking of; to what distinctive nation did Jane Austen belong to? When they discuss her so called portrait by Cassandra Austen, which shows a nasty looking white woman, there is never any comparison made with how her own good, separate features and pleasant looks were described in real life. Or that Henry insisted to a publisher that ‘the family was not aware’ of any portrait, when this unlikely portrait later surfaced. That Austen herself did not issue a portrait when she debuted in 1811, and her insistence on secrecy about her authorship; adds to this mystery. So the big question is: why is there no authenticated portrait of Jane Austen? And why do white scholars disregard the abundance of colour. But first we need a rationale and workable definition of Black, which in my understanding of blackness; is a quality best discussed and analysed in terms of a person’s identity and history then actual skin colour or facial features. Or scull measurements or DNA. A Black person should next be considered as a functional part of a social and political group. A group who has experienced a common history, made certain geographical movements around the globe, has certain common cultural elements as in the general way of doing things, that creates a bond between the Blacks across oceans and across time. A Black identified writer, like Jane Austen will mainly talk about issues regarding Blacks, like how we expect a Jewish identified writer to write mostly about Jewish things, from a Jewish viewpoint. The shape of his nose does not inform us of his identity. And Blacks come in many shapes and nuances of colour, as Austen herself painstakingly points out with her novelistic pen portraits and letters. The idea of human races, as a predictable biological and a psychological phenomenon has long ago been discredited, yet is today still in full swing. Especially when it comes to identifying Blacks, in order to exclude Blacks from history. Like how pharaohs, Africans, are improbably turned into blue eyed, white potentates ruling over Blacks and overseeing the building of the pyramids! This makes one wonder why they did not built pyramids in Amsterdam, London or Paris; but in Africa? All studies and exhibitions about WWII routinely omit any discussion of Hitler’s Black victims. Like the so-called ‘Rhineland Bastards,’ the off-spring of French-Senegalese soldiers, part of the occupational army after WWI, and white German women. And other Blacks who were native German. Or the Black American soldiers who helped to fight fascism, ethnic cleansing and mass murder during WWII. All are curiously missing from the numerous and most recent studies about the Holocaust. These are some of the facts and questions that inform my approach. Can we disregard the colour of Hitler’s 50.000 Black victims, even when we know he had a special hatred for the Black, mixed-race Germans. He accused the Allies that they had deliberately brought in Africans to defile the German race with inferior blood. And do we agree when Black blood is spoken of as inferior? The Nazi’s sterilized, did medical experiments or simply murdered these Blacks and used some as camp overseers before all were gassed themselves. Now can we still disregard colour when Jane Austen herself dwells on and amplifies this quality in all her writings? When her godfather, mr. Nibbs was a plantation owner on Antigua, and she discusses slavery in Mansfield Park. And even her circle of family and friends cared to point out that she was not pink but brown. Her deliberate descriptions of her personages as Black or brown are necessary to make any sense of her Black oriented themes, and they must be taken into account to understand her identity and her intentions for writing her layered stories: when she did, and in the way that she did. The novel Emma (1816), in a Dutch translation falsely presents the key-line: ‘Mr. Elton, black, spruce, and smiling.’ as ‘Ds. Elton, keurig in het zwart, kwam glimlachend te voorschijn.’ (Reverend Elton, neat in black clothes, appeared smiling). Mr. Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park is definitely not a minister but is ‘absolutely plain, black and plain; but still the gentleman.’ His sophisticated, lovely sister Mary is brown, with a lively black eye. By not accepting the fact that Mr. Crawford and Mr. Elton are Blacks, we totally miss the true depth of Emma’s folly when she tries to marry Elton off to her friend Harriet Smith who is a blue-eyed blond. Or when Emma, as a Black woman, so deprecatingly and foolishly compares the white gentleman farmer who loves Miss Smith to the Black, Mr. Elton. Then we truly understand why the immensely wise Mr. Knightly is so upset with Emma, and why broad faced Mr. Elton was so offended by Emma’s wish. And why he, and the vigorous and malicious wife he eventually married, went out of their way to insult poor, white Miss Smith. Who eventually marries the more suitable white gentleman farmer. Yet all these persons symbolise historical events, emerging social groups and institutions under siege. And suddenly Emma as a novel does not resist analyses, as is usually claimed. Jane Austen is actually talking about the emerging, Regency Era race relations and about race-mixing, which she was against, derived from her letters. Broad faced Mrs Blount with ‘her pink husband & fat neck,’ from her letter to Cassandra, should be understood in this context. As should Mrs. Price in Mansfield Park who deeply offended her family, by probably marrying a white Mr. Price who had ‘no education, no means and no prospects.’ Making Fanny Price, like Miss Lamb from Sanditon, a mulatto. A sensitive fact pounced on by her cruel aunt, Mrs. Norris. In Sense and Sensibility ‘Golden Mohrs’ are mentioned, pointing to the role of blackness in the founding of the European civilisation. But the novel Emma is all about 10.000 years of Black Civilisation, the history about Blacks who brought civilisation to Europe and became a noble and royal elite at the end of the Medieval period. So Austen’s deeper reasons only emerge after a colour-conceptual reading of Emma; that by elevating whites to their high level of civilisation, and to actually dilute their pure blood with whites; European Blacks have lost their power and were even losing more power if they did not change their ways. If they do, they could still prevent to be at the total mercy of whites. This would be the total annihilation of Blacks. People who are able to understand this have, according to Henry Austen: ‘true abilities.’ Austen satirises the then current Hanoverian, German-British royal family with the sickly George III’s fear of his daughters marrying and his hysterical hatred of new ideas and social change, represented as catching dangerous ‘colds.’ In this way Austen’s cautions Blacks not to be afraid of change. The novel ends on a shaky new constellation with Emma dethroned by Mrs. Elton. Emma herself is probably named after the then popular adviser and paramour of Horatio Nelson: Emma Hamilton, a nut-brown beauty. And presents an amalgam of the ‘lovely and elegant’ Queen Mary of Scots as well as her niece, the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I. Emma’s preference for Miss Smith’s blond looks reminds us of King James I Stuart too, who had an equal weakness for young, blond men. So I also agree with a ‘queer reading’ of Jane Austen, based on her many, mischievous but empowering reverences to gayness. James was Queen Mary’s son and the grandfather of Charles II Stuart who was called The Black Boy. These were all native Black, British and Scottish royals and Jane Austen was very aware of these rapidly disappearing historical facts due to revisionism. The beheading of her niece’s husband, the Comte the Feuillides during the French Revolution (1789-1795) gave the horrified Austen’s their personal experience with the revolutionary hatred against the Black nobility. That is why she took to writing these allegorical novels. Jane Austen was an activist to the cause of European Blacks based on her knowledge of Black History and her own experiences as a native Black Britton. By following this reconstruction of the past we can now easily understand that her famous line about a preference for ‘four or five families in a country town to work with’ only refers to the four or five gentle Black families, who socialise, help each other to advance economically and intermarry. We can also see that she includes all types of Blacks in her group, the fair ones she describes as sallow and the black ones. But the fair ones seem to flock towards the truly black skinned ones, if we notice in Northanger Abbey the preference of the sallow Catherine Morland to Mr. Tilney who was brown, and of the fair Bertram siblings of Mansfield Park towards the very dark Crawfords. Austen proposes blackness as an expression of health and beauty. Churchill teased Jane Fairfax for her pale skin, but afterwards he concludes that she had ‘just enough colour for beauty’ and had a ‘distinguished’ complexion. Her Classical African features made her looks ‘peculiar’ in Austen’s parlance. And unlike what we were told; part of the elite enjoyed ‘heightening the native brown of my Complexion’ with a tan, as her niece, Eliza Comtesse de Feuillide proudly describes her own looks. Yet another part bleached and painted their faces white, which practices Austen deplored in Persuasion and her letters. Eliza Bennet’s unspoken but inferred advantage over her rival, Miss Caroline Bingley; is her brown and tanned complexion, which is much admired by the rich Mr. Darcy. Yet to some in The Watsons, Emma Watson’s very brown complexion was ‘the annihilation of every grace.’ Racism? With the Black History approach and giving due attention to the abundance of blackness in Austen’s life and her novels; we can now evaluate the rich subtext and understand Jane Austen’s dedication to the plight of her Black nation. And why the early dead of ‘the purple flowerette of the vale’ was so sincerely bemoaned by her clan. As they were fiercely protective of her image. Her books are in fact comical, self-help books, allegories that present an idealised black gentry, in order to empower and urge improvement of Blacks. To better themselves at a personal level. But also reminding them as a group of their history and to warn about the changing times. And that they should start paying attention, stop the foolish race mixing and assisting whites to advance and encroach upon their own positions; for they will face total annihilation as a culture and a people. They will be completely rewritten and whitewashed out of history. Her visionary fears for her Blacks are proven real today if we view the eurocentric reading of Jane Austen, after 235 years, by the total exclusion of Blacks we have already descended to.
Egmond Codfried Paramaribo-Suriname, 17 December 2010
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
Mr. Weston was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering with what self-denying, generous friendship she had always wished and promoted the match; but it was a black morning's work for her.
______________________________
"Well, he is coming, you see; good news, I think. Well, what do you say to it?--I always told you he would be here again soon, did not I?--Anne, my dear, did not I always tell you so, and you would not believe me?--In town next week, you see--at the latest, I dare say; for _she_ is as impatient as the black gentleman when any thing is to be done; most likely they will be there to-morrow or Saturday.
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic