Discussion Question 3
Austen, either Pride and Prejudice OR Emma (CHOOSE ONE)
Directions: Answer the following question. Your answer is due no later than Thursday, Mar. 1.
Please answer the question as thoughtfully as possible, after reading the lecture. Then post your answer to the English 239 Message Board by the deadline.
Your responses to other students' answers are due by midnight on Saturday, Mar. 3. In order to get the full 20 points, you MUST respond thoughtfully to at least 3 or 4 other people's postings.
Click on the link below to visit the English 239 Message Board:
Remember: This discussion question is worth a possible 20 points. Late answers will receive 0 points. Points will be assigned according to the thoughtfulness of your answer, not by whether it is "right" or not, since sometimes there is no "right" answer. Just be sure your ideas are supported by the material in the reading.
Nafisi argues, in Reading Lolita in Tehran, that Austen's novels are essentially democratic: "Boundaries are constantly threatened by the women in Austen's novels...They risk ostracism and poverty to gain love and companionship, and to embrace that elusive goal at the heart of democracy: the right to choose" (307). She also says that in Austen's novels, "Evil...lies in the inability to 'see' others, hence to empathize with them...We are all capable of...imposing our visions and desires on others" (315). Obviously, her reading of Austen is influenced by the fact that she is living in an oppressive environment when she reads it. Her magician even tells her, "The Austen you know is so irretrievably linked to this place..." (338).
We are reading Austen in an entirely different country, under different conditions. Did you see the same themes Nafisi saw? Or did you experience the novel in a different way? Explain.