Guest Post & Giveaway: Our Heroine Elizabeth Bennet by Ann Galvia
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Welcome to the What's Past Is Prologue blog tour! We're the first stop on the blog tour, and I'm very excited to welcome Ann Galvia to talk about her version of Elizabeth Bennet. Stay tuned for the giveaway details at the end of the post, and don't forget to comment. First, I wanted to share a bit about the book with you. I hope to find time to read this one someday soon. It sounds wonderful.
About the Book:
Elizabeth Darcy has her eye on the future. Before her marriage, she saw herself making the best possible choice. Her husband saved her family from ruin. All he asked in return was her hand. Secure in his good opinion, Elizabeth married him. Only with hindsight and his cryptic warnings that passion is not immutable does Elizabeth question her decision. Her solution? Give him a son as soon as possible. Once his lust for her has been slaked, this service she has rendered him will ensure her value. The newlyweds are summoned to Rosings Park almost the moment they are married. Though the estate can boast of beautiful grounds, Elizabeth and Darcy arrive to find devastation. A flood has swept away Lady Catherine’s last hopes of hiding debt and years of mismanagement. She expects Darcy to shoulder the recovery efforts. The effort to save Rosings strains the already tense relationship between Elizabeth and her husband. To make matters worse, her presence is met with disdain and disinterest from the family. As the days in the besieged estate drag on, Elizabeth slowly untangles the histories and secrets of her new relations. Like Elizabeth’s marriage, the crisis at Rosings is the culmination of past events. Disaster need not be the result of only bad choices; good principles have led them astray as well. As for Elizabeth, she barely knows her husband, and loving him might be impossible. Yet, she is determined to save all that she can—her marriage and the estate—and somehow, create the future she longs for.
Please welcome Ann Galvia: I want to thank Serena for kicking off the “What’s Past Is Prologue” blog tour here at Savvy Verse and Wit! This is a particularly auspicious place to start because I want to focus today on WPIP’s heroine and central character, the witty Elizabeth. And by talk, I mean….break out your pen and paper, folks, it’s time for a pop quiz! It’s not for a grade. You don’t even have to turn it in (but I think the comments section will be more fun if you do) because no one is taking attendance. It’s all essay questions (boo!), but you can use the book (yay!), Jane Austen’s incomparable “Pride and Prejudice!” 1. What do you consider Elizabeth Bennet’s greatest virtue, and why? 2. What do you consider Elizabeth Bennet’s largest flaw, and why? 3. How does growing up with such role models--wait, that is too respectful--with such “ “ “role models” ” ” as Mr and Mrs Bennet affect the perspective of someone who grew up with them and a questionable amount of experience beyond their neighborhood? Now, your answers may vary (and really, that’s what makes this an interesting exercise) but when you go playing with someone else’s toys, first we have to look at how they set up the shelf. Gotta put ‘em back when we’re done. Me, I think Elizabeth’s greatest virtue is her compassion. She has an incredible ability to just not care about her own problems. The entail? She feels no urgency to try and secure her future through a marriage. Losing Wickham to Mary King? She doesn’t feel too bad, decides that means she never loved him and breezes forward. Elizabeth doesn’t start losing any sleep until she’s lost Darcy and Lydia both in the span of an afternoon. Now, other people’s problems? Other people’s problems hurt. She made herself sick over Jane’s heartbreak.
"The agitation and tears which the subject occasioned brought on a headache; and it grew so much worse towards the evening that, added to her unwillingness to see Mr. Darcy, it determined her not to attend her cousins to Rosings, where they were engaged to drink tea. Mrs. Collins, seeing that she was really unwell, did not press her to go, and as much as possible prevented her husband from pressing her; but Mr. Collins could not conceal his apprehension of Lady Catherine's being rather displeased by her staying at home."
Charlotte cautioned her to not make an enemy out of Darcy over Wickham, but damn if her righteous indignation on Wickham’s behalf didn’t lead her to try!
He made no answer, and they were again silent till they had gone down the dance, when he asked her if she and her sisters did not very often walk to Meryton? She answered in the affirmative; and, unable to resist the temptation, added, "When you met us there the other day, we had just been forming a new acquaintance." The effect was immediate. A deeper shade of hauteur overspread his features, but he said not a word, and Elizabeth, though blaming herself for her own weakness, could not go on. At length Darcy spoke, and in a constrained manner said, "Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friends -- whether he may be equally capable of retaining them, is less certain." "He has been so unlucky as to lose your friendship," replied Elizabeth with emphasis, "and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all his life."
Refusing Darcy wreaks havoc on her.
The tumult of her mind was now painfully great. She knew not how to support herself, and from actual weakness sat down and cried for half an hour.
And, of course, we know she’s someone who doesn’t think twice about walking through three miles of mud because her sister has a cold. Now, what leads her astray? Well, she tends to do this Thing where she formulates a snap judgement and refuses to re-evaluate after learning new information or hearing the opinions of other people. Consider, for example, the clues that Darcy liked her that she simply never picked up on...
Elizabeth could not help observing, as she turned over some music books that lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy's eyes were fixed on her. She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man; and yet that he should look at her because he disliked her was still more strange. She could only imagine, however, at last, that she drew his notice because there was a something about her more wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in any other person present.
Yes, Elizabeth, men stare at women because they are reprehensible.
More than once did Elizabeth, in her ramble within the Park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought, and, to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first that it was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time, therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like wilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal enquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her. He never said a great deal, nor did she give herself the trouble of talking or of listening much; but it struck her in the course of their third rencontre that he was asking some odd unconnected questions -- about her pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins's happiness; and that in speaking of Rosings, and her not perfectly understanding the house, he seemed to expect that whenever she came into Kent again she would be staying there too. His words seemed to imply it. Could he have Colonel Fitzwilliam in his thoughts? She supposed, if he meant anything, he must mean an allusion to what might arise in that quarter. It distressed her a little, and she was quite glad to find herself at the gate in the pales opposite the Parsonage.
Sure, Elizabeth, he wants to hang out at your favorite places and talk about you and the things you like -- and also let’s rate how happy your married friends are and fyi, next time you visit, you’ll stay with his family, probably -- because someone else wants to marry you.
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Which leads me to the Elizabeth we find in What’s Past Is Prologue. She made a choice rooted in compassion -- marry Darcy instead of turn him away a second time. She knows her ideas of who he is were wrong, but has not had much opportunity to replace with it with something better. She has only his own account to go by. How does he describe himself to Elizabeth?
"No," said Darcy, "I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding -- certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost is lost for ever."
So she’s compassionate; he’s resentful, and once you’ve lost him, you’re not gonna get him back. Not that he has anything to resent her over --
His sense of her inferiority -- of its being a degradation -- of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.
Oh. Oh, right. And she jumps to inaccurate conclusions without folding new information into her ideas until really forced to do so. And she comes from a family where the husband regretted his choice.
Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father's behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible.
What is a girl to do when her future happiness and respectability lies in the hands of husband who owns he is resentful, and has been verbose in the past about some reasons why you might incite his ire? Elizabeth loves to ignore a problem, but this is a big one and she’s gonna have to solve it... About the Author: Ann Galvia started writing sometime before she knew how letters functioned. Her first books were drawings of circus poodles heavily annotated with scribbles meant to tell a story. Upon learning how letters were combined to represent words, she started doing that instead. This has proven to be much more successful. Sometime after that, she decided she wanted to study Anthropology and sometime after that, she decided she liked cats more than dogs. And sometime after that, she decided to become an educator and teach a new generation of kids how to combine letters to represent words, and use those words express ideas. And sometime after that, she realized all she really wanted to do was write, which probably should have been evident from the beginning. Connect with Ann at the following places Ann: Twitter | Facebook | Blog
GIVEAWAY:
Meryton Press is offering eight eBooks of What’s Past is Prologue a Rafflecopter giveaway Terms and Conditions: Readers may enter the drawing by tweeting once a day and daily commenting on a blog post or a review that has a giveaway attached for the tour. Entrants must provide the name of the blog where they commented. If an entrant does not do so, that entry will be disqualified. One winner will be selected per contest. Each winner will be randomly selected by Rafflecopter and the giveaway is international. Good LUCK! Rest of the Blog Tour Schedule: August 1 / Savvy Verse & Wit / Guest Post & Giveaway August 2 / Of Pens & Pages / Book Review & Giveaway August 3 / Babblings of a Bookworm / Book Review & Giveaway August 4 / Just Jane 1813 / Book Excerpt & Giveaway August 5 / Liz’s Reading Life / Author Interview & Giveaway August 6 / From Pemberley to Milton / Book Review & Giveaway August 7 / More Agreeably Engaged / Guest Post & Giveaway August 8 / My Vices and Weaknesses / Book Review & Giveaway August 9 / Diary of an Eccentric / Book Review & Giveaway August 10 / Austenesque Reviews / Book Excerpt & Giveaway August 11 / Margie’s Must Reads / Book Review & Giveaway August 12 / My Love for Jane Austen / Book Excerpt & Giveaway August 13 / So Little Time… / Guest Post & Giveaway