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A phenomenon has been unfolding. It’s a best-selling novel by a best-selling novelist that has resulted in a best-selling film. And it’s all capturing headlines of bafflement and query: Is this story a story of romance? Or is it a story of abuse?
Content warning: This post discusses stories that contain intimate partner violence and abuse in romantic relationships. Please take care in reading. Resources and background are in the links below.
And the puzzlement and the skepticism is completely understandable. Because the story in question - author and executive producer Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us - is doing something that is rarely done: It’s converging a story of violence with a story of romance.
And here’s the TL;DR version of this post and of this controversy: While it’s puzzling to see a story involving intimate-partner violence and a story of romance intertwined, in fact violence and romance, abuse and fantasy, have been uncomfortably intertwined in our romances and adventures going all the way back to Shakespeare’s Petruchio, an arrogant Mr. Darcy, an oppressive Mr. Rochester, an unhinged Heathcliff, and it’s in our stories today.
So while we get this violence-romance mix in classic stories, getting it from a contemporary female writer - and in a story that deploys so much realism in the romance - makes us uncomfortable.
But women are buying it. And if women are buying it, and watching it, and debating it, that means that it matters. It’s a force that is shaping our culture. And if it’s a force shaping our culture, we want to examine it here at the Austen Connection.
But first - have you seen the film, or have you read the book? Did it resonate with you, leave you with a sense of hope and empowerment; or did you find it baffling or even troubling? Or all of the above? Dialogue needs to be front and center with this post - so please let us know here!
What It Ends With Us is, really, is an abuse story wrapped around by a YA love story. If only all of our abuse stories could be wrapped around by a YA love story.
And when it comes to stories of neglect, abandonment, non-consent, control, aggression, and yes even abuse - Jane Austen is all over all of this and it’s there in her stories.
It’s there - and we’re laughing - in the carriage with an angry, insulting Mr. Elton proposing to Emma; it’s there in John Thorpe’s refusal to let Northanger Abbey heroine Catherine Morland out of his carriage; it’s there in Mr. Collins’ presumptuous proposal to Elizabeth Bennet and all the guys who won’t take no for an answer. And it’s there but no one’s laughing including Austen in Mr. Wickham’s exploitation of 15-year-old Lydia; of John Willoughby’s manipulation and abandonment of a young Eliza and then Marianne; it’s there in the tyrannous, controlling General Tilney; it’s there in Fanny Price’s father’s violent talk of using a rope-end; and it’s maybe even there in that cringey Knightley-Emma age gap and in the insulting arrogance of Mr. Darcy. (There’s a whole book about this angle on Mr. Darcy - Rachel Feder’s The Darcy Myth.)
Scholars and readers today tend to assume that Austen was simply overlooking her own red flags within her narratives - flags we feel we can see better from the distance of two centuries.
But Austen wasn’t missing these sign posts; more likely she was delighting in them.
Scholars and readers today tend to assume that Austen was simply overlooking her own red flags within her narratives - flags we feel we can see better from the distance of two centuries. But Austen wasn’t missing these sign posts; more likely she was delighting in them.
And It Ends With Us is relevant for us to look at because it’s one of those books that can provide some powerful insights about what is going on in the deeper psychological recesses of our romances - then, from Elizabeth Bennet to Jane Eyre - and now.
Not writing the abuse story. Rewriting the abuse story.
Rewriting our stories gives us power. And this power of reworking and rewriting oppressive, patriarchal dynamics through story is something that is evident in so many of our classics, from Shakespeare and Beauty and the Beast and Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, considered to be the very first English novel, to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre circling back to help Mr. Rochester in his late-stage blindness and need.
In each story and so many more, oppression morphs into empowerment for a heroine. The oppressor turns beautiful, and apologetic, and is granted forgiveness.
Oppression, control, abuse is something felt by women taking up a pen - then and now - and in doing so they are, for some reason we’re still exploring, weaving into that revision plenty of romance, eroticism, adventure, and joy.
And this working-through and revisioning of power, oppression, and perhaps even abuse is everywhere in an Austen heroine: Anne Elliot through the force of her quiet patience against the restlessness of Capt. Wentworth; Emma through her knock-down debate tactics with an eviscerated, exasperated Knightley; Exhibit A Elizabeth Bennet’s rollicking rejection of a smug landholder of Pemberley.
So here’s where we need to give a quick download of the story that is It Ends With Us, because this story does a few things that it’s hard to think of other stories doing, except the ones that go back a couple of centuries and that we’re always reading and discussing here in this community.
This is so big and so complicated that we almost couldn’t write this post, because each thing could be a post in itself, or even a book. And it’s really emotional, difficult material for us and for many of you. And it seemed like maybe we should do a specially designated round of therapy before even attempting it. But it matters. So we’re diving in. But first let’s just make a simple list.
Some things that It Ends With Us does that we’ll unpack further in this post:
It Ends With Us is a romance, and romantic melodrama, with violence at the center of the story. It’s not a writing of the abuse story as much as a rewriting of the abuse story.
Most TV Movie of the Week abuse narratives show the abuser as Pure Evil and the survivor a Pure Victim, giving the extremes. It Ends With Us includes nuances, from a close first-person viewpoint.
This 1st-person-POV inserts an experience of confusion into the narrative, and puts the viewer inside the confusion. We’re unsure of what’s happened, a bit disbelieving, and shaken: That’s uncomfortable, but it’s what it also feels like to be inside the story.
It Ends With Us includes forgiveness and a resolution. It’s hard to think of an abuse story in contemporary culture or pop culture that presents the abuser as human, as hurting, as in need of love and forgiveness, while also rightly insisting that the only option is: Leave.
The story - through an evolving resolution that includes forgiveness, and through the romance - might allow us to hold the issue of intimate-partner violence up in a way that allows us to look at it and talk about it.
This is a very romantic story. With violence. Yes, we’re still all getting our heads around this. In both the book and the film violence is treated gently but honestly. The romance that is also very much part of this story makes people expect something gratuitous - but the abuse seems to be handled sensitively, while at the same time it’s wrapped in a huge package of light and sparkle and romance. The names are right out of Harlequin or Hallmark, the fashions and settings are delicious. The dialogue is sizzling and everything is sexy. Now let’s try to unpack all of this.
Under his skin
The story’s main character is named Lily Bloom. To be exact: Lily Blossom Bloom. Lily has first had a beautiful First-Everything YA romance with Atlas, and we catch up with her as a young adult (in the film she’s older) making her way in Boston and opening up - yep - a flower shop. A flower shop owned by Lily Blossom Bloom. This story is not exactly hiding its romantic elements; it’s boldly displaying them.
Lily’s father has died, and she is able to say not one nice thing about him at his funeral because growing up he was abusive to her mother, and violent to Atlas, her first love. And it’s in this sadness after the funeral that Lily meets Ryle Kinkaid, who is straight out of the Romance section: Ridiculously good-looking, smart, talented, a neurosurgeon. He seems to have a temper, but he clearly gives and needs a lot of love. And we’re off.
Like many of the power-dynamics in our classic stories, a table-turning is involved here. A heroine rather than being ignored is very much noticed. She might be noticed in a positive way or in a negative way, but she is having an impact on her bold, powerful protagonist, whether he be an exasperated Mr. Rochester or Mr. Knightley, or an arrogant, assuming Mr. Darcy or a seething Heathcliff. Our heroines get under the skin of these guys. And these guys come around. They fall in love. Mr. Darcy is going to get bewitched body and soul.
It’s a key thing that happens in that more erotic, romantic revisioning of the power dynamic through story, and it’s in so many of these stories: a heroine gets “under the skin” of this ultra-impressive, powerful person.
Take the classic table-turning in your favorite story - say, Elizabeth’s rejection of Mr. Darcy’s proposal and his follow-up letter, or Willoughby’s return to Marianne’s death bed. And compare it to the confession, in It Ends With Us, by wealthy neurosurgeon not-interested-in-relationships Ryle Kinkaid to Lily.
This abuser is a rich, intelligent, successful, flower-buying one that our heroine has smitten right out of the ballpark. And - he’s talking about it; he’s articulating it:
“And that night I showed up at your door? I went searching for you because no one in the history of my life has ever crawled under my skin and refused to leave like you did. I didn’t know how to handle it. And the reason I sent you flowers this week is because I am really, really, proud of you for following your dream. But if I sent you flowers every time I’ve had the urge to send you flowers, you would’ve even be able to fit inside your apartment. Because that’s how much I think about you. And yes, Lily. You’re right. I’m hurting you, but I’m hurting, too. And untill tonight ... I didn’t know why.”
Ryle Kinkaid is like Marianne Dashwood’s charming exploiter, Sense and Sensibility’s John Willoughby. An abuser you’ll never meet. He’s one we create. And we create him for a reason.
She is no bird
We’ll get back to Willoughby, but first let’s go to Thornfield Hall because possibly there is no other place in classic literature where romance and oppression and power are tied up more than in the iconic characters of Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester.
In these two characters the exploitation of rich over poor, old over young, experience over innocence, physically large and strong over physically small and weak, master over servant, all come together into an iconic, troublesome romance.
The opposing characteristics are constantly reinforced, as the narrative emphasizes Rochester as big, strong, active, controlling - swooping up a tiny, bird-like Jane onto his horse, ordering her around even for her own good, taunting and teasing her, and even withholding and then lavishing money on her. (And don’t forget that Mr. Rochester has a wife locked up in his attic.)
But possibly nowhere in classic literature is romance and power and abuse tied up more than in the iconic characters of Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. In these two characters the exploitation of rich over poor, old over young, experience over innocence, physically large and strong over physically small and weak, master over servant, all come together into an iconic, troublesome romance.
In the midst of it, Jane is fearful but nevertheless stands up to him over and over, with resistance, reason, and poetic speeches.
This dynamic is repeated so often in our romances that it needs to be explicitly said here: This is putting a dose of romance with the realism in a way that doesn’t write abuse but instead rewrites abuse. It takes the story of oppression - something known to Jane Austen, to Charlotte Bronte and yes to Colleen Hoover and to many of us - and it rewrites the story of violence. It lifts it up, puts it under a magnifying glass, and serves it back to us as something that is more manageable. Something perhaps even conquerable.
And Charlotte Bronte, and her sisters it has to be said, creates this power dynamic mixed into romance over and over in her novels with a smart, fierce, young woman who nevertheless comes into contact with someone, and possibly the Only One, more experienced and sophisticated and educated than her protagonist, often specifically for Bronte a person who is a “master” of some sort. This person is physically and also intellectually superior.
And it bears pointing out that in real life Bronte - like Austen - is likely encountering no such person. She’s writing him, not living him.
Like Austen, in Bronte’s own life such a person simply does not come forward - neither to lavish protection, education, guidance and romance nor to brandish control, domination, discipline, wealth, or anything more complicated.
No: In real life, Bronte is a caretaker in her father’s poor parsonage with an unstable future; she is unnoticed, and her only hope for financial stability - her brother Bramwell - is a struggling, unemployable alcoholic.
So when you say the way-out for Charlotte Bronte and her sisters is through writing, you mean it literally: The only literal way for Bronte to transcend her circumstances is to write her way out of it - to don a pen name, Currer Bell, and to seek publication and remuneration.
So she writes. And she rewrites: scenes of exploitation, control, oppression, and patriarchy. And she writes it all onto a man - a man swooping in on a horse and rather than leaving you unnoticed, neglected, and deprived, this difficult man on his horse swoops you up and lifts you onto it and out of it all - or tries to.
And Charlotte Bronte rewrites not only the powerful male figure but she rewrites also her heroine into someone who stands up, who makes an impact, who is seen, who is felt, who can transcend.
And who can leave. And who does leave.
Bronte rewrites not only the powerful male figure but she rewrites also her heroine into someone who stands up, who makes an impact, who is seen, who is felt, who can transcend. And who can leave. And who does leave.
Most importantly, in Bronte as in Austen and in every romance involving violence, from Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew right up to EL James or Quentin Tarantino, the dominant patriarch is transformed into someone oppressive but desirable. Bronte and Austen and those writing in their wake take the pen and take control and rewrite the oppressor into someone worthy of being on top, of being felt, of being endured.
As the brilliant podcast hosts at Hot and Bothered have illuminated, a key chapter of Jane Eyre - chapter 23 - encapsulates the story of Rochester’s oppressiveness with Jane Eyre’s resistance and revises it into something like romance.
Here’s a passage that contains the threat and the power, the romantic and the resistance, all in one conversation - as Rochester, having a smoke in his gardens, basically tricks Jane into thinking that he aims to marry the socialite Blanche Ingram and that Jane will likely need to leave Thornfield. Once he manages to get Jane very upset, which entertains him a lot, he turns the tables. But then finds them turned on him. He asks Jane where she plans to go:
"Where, Jane? To Ireland?"
"Yes--to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now."
"Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is
rending its own plumage in its desperation.""I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with
an independent will, which I now exert to leave you."Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him.
"And your will shall decide your destiny," he said: "I offer you my
hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.""You play a farce, which I merely laugh at."
"I ask you to pass through life at my side--to be my second self,
and best earthly companion.""For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by
it.""Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be
still too."A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled
through the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away--away--to an
indefinite distance--it died. The nightingale's song was then the
only voice of the hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr.
Rochester sat quiet, looking at me gently and seriously. Some time
passed before he spoke; he at last said -"Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one
another.""I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and
cannot return.""But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to
marry."I was silent: I thought he mocked me.
"Come, Jane--come hither."
"Your bride stands between us."
He rose, and with a stride reached me.
"My bride is here," he said, again drawing me to him, "because my
equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?"Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his grasp:
for I was still incredulous."Do you doubt me, Jane?"
"Entirely."
"You have no faith in me?"
"Not a whit."
Something that we do - critics do it, scholars do it, podcasters do it, readers do it - is to talk about stories like Jane Eyre, and Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, and It Ends With Us, as somehow representative of life. As a sort of guide to life. As a conduct book for how we might respond to sexism, oppression, abuse.
Mr. Rochester is a fantastic romantic hero and not at all a great person to go out with much less to marry. And again, an entire book has been written - and it’s a really good one - about how we shouldn’t date a Mr. Darcy.
And similarly looking for applicable relationship advice in the 19th century, an early reviewer insisted at the time of publication of Jane Eyre that its author “Currer Bell,” Charlotte Bronte’s pen name, could certainly not, as rumors have it, be a man - if this author is a woman, the reviewer wrote, she is a “sexual delinquent.”
And It Ends With Us has been accompanied by lots of ink and dialogue and air time on how useful it is or is not as a guide for how to leave an abusive relationship.
There might be help for us in these stories - they are very relevant - but they are not conduct books or guides to life. There is realism in these stories; they are tracking real issues. But it’s important to emphasize the revision, the rewriting, of these stories, that takes them out of reality and puts them into something else - a structure that allows a heroine to resist, to conquer, transcend: into romance.
Jane will leave, Thornfiled will burn, Rochester will be broken down, and Jane will return to rescue him; Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliot and the most abused Austen heroine Fanny Price will find their path and triumph - almost always with a clear acknowledgement of their talents, if not an outright apology, from a powerful suitor.
Jane Eyre will stand up to Thornfield and its owner and declare, “I am a bird; and no net ensnares me … I now exert to leave you.”
And the heroine of Colleen Hoover’s story will also take her leave, and it’s a fantasy in Hoover’s story as well. The reality is very different: DV advocates caution us all to realize that the most dangerous time in a violent relationship is when a partner decides to leave. Most abusive husbands will not, like Ryle Kinkaid, suddenly get a fellowship in Cambridge, England, leaving you in a massive apartment with a skyline view; and neither will they necessarily grant custody or a peaceful acquiescence when you announce that you want a divorce.
This is a fantasy revisioning of a resolution in a story that contains danger and violence.
And that may be what readers are finding empowering. It might not be the reality, but again the rewriting of it, that matters.
Violence is in our story - mine and yours
Because the reality is everywhere we turn and we cannot get away from it: Our culture - then and now - is built on a foundation of revolutionary ideals but also of violence and oppression, and story is one way we integrate it, see it, revise it and revision it.
And this examining and this embedding of the abuse story into our love story, perhaps also allows us to circle back to the origin, to illuminate its origin so that we can understand and find a path out.
For Charlotte Bronte, the origin of violence in the story of Rochester and his wife - the Madwoman in the Attic - Bertha Antoinetta Mason Rochester, is a story about the violence of colonialism. Their origin story begins in colonial Jamaica. Bronte’s horizons were limited and she unfortunately perpetuates racist mythologies and imagery in her portrayal of Bertha - painful to read. And also Bronte seems to show that Rochester has attempted to throw off his colonizing family, and Bronte also seems to make a point of portraying the Mason family as complicit in the greed. Bertha has inherited her insanity (a weird Victorian trope that doesn’t help the narrative) but the insanity also appears to be born of the violence that is created by colonialism. Bronte may be blaming Jamaica for this, wrongly of course, but she may also be blaming the greed of British colonialism for this. The blame Bronte seems to put squarely on the greed of the families: As Rochester says, “A marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was.”
It Ends With Us also is given by its creator Colleen Hoover an origin story, and it is one of violence in our times. Sympathy is created for Ryle Kinkaid out of a childhood incident that involves an accidental shooting that’s tragically disrupted his family.
This very contemporary American story is more in line with Bronte’s England than we want to think - while colonialism was a violent enterprise creating a violent legacy being handed down to everyone that came in contact with it, violence and specifically gun violence in America is creating a violent legacy that is being handed down to us and our kids. (Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children in the United States.1 Just read that sentence again.) It’s an epidemic that is not often present in our fiction, in our stories, and certainly not in our love stories.
But that violence and its legacy is going to go somewhere - and here it is.
Movie of the week melodrama
This legacy of violence in our histories and our cultures is drawn in stark lines in our cultural production - understandably.
There are plenty of TV Movie of the Week abuser plots - we grew up on them in the 1980s. And there are plenty of romances that verge into mixing romance with the possessiveness and control dynamics that are present in abusive relationships.
The stark lines of our TV Movie of the Week melodrama are blurred in Hoover’s story into something more hazy. And this is one source of the discomfort in these conversations. Because we don’t want our movies or our books or our TV and our outrageously sexy actors to glamorize the story of abuse. We don’t want to feel something - certainly not something sexy - for an abuser, even or especially one that looks like Ryle Kinkaid.
But stark lines perhaps don’t capture the reality of any relationship including one that is abusive. Those stark lines, in reality, can at times, even in something so painful, be more watercolor, like a sunset over the sea, banishing the knowledge that the sun can burn you and the sea can drown you.
The villain/abuser American TV version shows this person as villainous, right out of the gothic genre of authors like Ann Radcliffe that Austen appears to have enjoyed so well, with its beautiful, evil villains kidnapping young women - the kind of villains and highway bandits that Catherine Morland dreams of. And this is funny.
Colleen Hoover bypasses the starker lines and the “how did she miss the signs?” narrative that make the victim/survivor look so pathetic. And Hoover doesn’t shrink from showing the attraction of someone who will harm you - an uncomfortable feeling. A reminder that it could happen to you.
And this is something that can be puzzling, challenging in Colleen Hoover and in classic literature.
It's what makes not only Mr. Darcy but also Mr. Wickham, John Willoughby, Henry Crawford so confounding and challenging for readers over two centuries: They’re attractive; they’re charming; they're intelligent. We rarely see the signs.
And even when we do, we are sure we can change them, yes?
We’ll be patient. All they have to do is just get their act together one little bit and in the most basic of ways; to not attempt to put a hole in someone’s heart, Henry Crawford; to just stay, Edward Ferrars; to stop lying and pretending, Mr. Wickham and Willoughby.
It's what makes not only Mr. Darcy but also Mr. Wickham, Willoughby, Henry Crawford so confounding and challenging for readers over two centuries: They’re attractive; they’re charming; they're intelligent. We rarely see the signs. And even when we do, we are sure we can change them, yes?
We’ll be patient. All they have to do is just get their act together one little bit and in the most basic of ways; to not attempt to put a hole in someone’s heart, Henry Crawford; to just stay, Edward Ferrars; to stop lying and pretending, Mr. Wickham and Willoughby.
They’re smart enough to do that. But mostly they do not.
Instead, these capable, privileged individuals wreack destruction in their path.
And still sometimes they are the most alluring things in some of these novels: Take Henry C. and his “I am perfectly serious … as you perfectly know” to Fanny, as he insists that he can lift her out of impoverished Portsmouth, which might be still the most alluring thing said by anyone in Mansfield Park.
Willoughby in the rain
And then we have Willoughby in the rain.
Willoughby, a classic villain in Jane Austen’s first published novel. A serial exploiter who has crashed into our heroine Marianne Dashwood causing a near-fatal nervous breakdown, as she narrowly escapes death from heartbreak (and perhaps also from a birth, or a miscarriage). But Willoughby, astonishingly and unnecessarily, circles back. Pages and pages are devoted to a detailed explication of the entire story from his viewpoint, as he learns of Marianne’s illness and travels day and night to her, and to seek forgiveness, and to let her sister, the ever-reasonable Elinor, know that he has in fact fallen for Marianne and loves her and always will, even though it’s too late and he’s destined for self-inflicted misery.
So we are left, for the next two centuries, with complicated feelings about this cruel, handsome player.
Here’s the scene: Willoughby arrives in the foyer of the estate where Marianne is recovering. He admits to the ever-patient Elinor that Marianne is the love of his life. He shows that he will suffer. That he has harmed himself more than anyone. And Elinor, while not allowing him anywhere near her sister, whom she has been nursing round the clock, listens and slowly, over many pages, begins to empathize.
And in this part of the story what Austen seems to want to convey more than anything is this struggle between reason - one’s head tells one this man is not to be trusted - and romance, an acknowledgement of his powers of attraction, on behalf of a sister.
Let’s replay the beginning and end of the passage here, so you can see how in her first published novel, Austen is balancing the realism of self-protection with the romanticization of rakish, harmful behavior, and portraying it in a light that allows a way toward understanding and even forgiveness. Because in the meantime as damaging as Willoughby is, he has lost none of his allure here.
The passage goes on for a while, so we’ll replay only excerpts, separated with ellipses. Here’s Elinor, on a literal a dark and stormy night.
“She rushed forwards toward the drawing-room,— she entered it,—and saw only Willougby.
[Chapter break]
Elinor, starting back with a look of horror at the sight of him, obeyed the first impulse of her heart in turning instantly to quit the room, and her hand was already on the lock when its action was suspended by his hastily advancing, and saying, in a voice rather of command than supplication,
“Miss Dashwood, for half an hour—for ten minutes—I entreat you to stay.”
“No, sir,” she replied with firmness, “I shall not stay. Your business cannot be with me. …”
“... My business is with you, and only you.”
“With me!”—in the utmost amazement—”well, sir—be quick—and if you can—less violent.”
“Sit down, and I will be both.”
…
“Pray be quick, sir”—said Elinor impatiently— “I have no time to spare.”
He was sitting in an attitude of deep meditation, and seemed not to hear her.
“Your sister,” said he, with abruptness, a moment afterwards—”Is out of danger, I heard it from the servant. God be praised!—But is it true?—is it really true?”
Elinor would not speak. He repeated the inquiry with yet greater eagerness.
“For God’s sake tell me, is she out of danger, or is she not?”
“We hope she is.”
He rose up, and walked across the room.
Willoughby now relates a story that involves his resolving to make Marianne fall for him, out of sheer amusement; but how he in turn fell completely for her. But then through societal and financial and other pressures he left her - and while he left Marianne with cruel silence, Willoughby has managed to break his own heart as much as hers. After hearing all of this story related and hearing Willoughby’s own point of view, Elinor reflects in a famous passage that, “The world had made him extravagant and vain—Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish.”
But still, notably, Willoughby’s charms and his talents somehow work on the very rational Elinor’s reason, even as she herself realizes it, as she ends the passage with this reflection:
“She felt that his influence over her mind was heightened by circumstances which ought not in reason to have weight; by that person of uncommon attraction, that open, affectionate, and lively manner which it was no merit to possess; and by that still ardent love for Marianne, which it was not even innocent to indulge. But she felt that it was so, long, long before she could feel his influence less.”
So friends we have here a young woman who is the picture of reason, who has just nursed her sister from a near-fatal breakdown caused by this impressive creature, and yet her author wants to give her self-knowledge and reason enough to acknowledge how his talents work even on herself, and that even for this badass it will be “so, long, long” before she is out from under its influence.
If you are someone who finds yourself disturbingly drawn to Austen’s anti-heroes - like Willoughby, like Henry Crawford whom I believe Austen’s sister Cassandra admired - please know: Jane Austen Gets You.
This may be the reason Austen takes up some much time with a treatment of this backstory by an anti-hero - and it’s a gracious reason: It swerves the story from being about that classic “how did she miss the signs?” question and insists that we understand that this can happen to someone who is clever, strong, reasonable. It can happen to us.
Perhaps most abusers are not, like Willoughby, in possession of extraordinary great looks and charm. Most are not, like Ryle Kinkaid, cover-model-gorgeous neurosurgeons who are generous in bed; some might be, but most humans are not that and so most abusers are not that. If we can imagine the beast into a prince even if they will not rescue us but who will trample us, still maybe it becomes something we can look at full on. We rewrite our abuser into someone we can stop battling, someone worthy - unlike our real abuser, who is Oh So Average - of surrendering to. Someone that little bit worthier and also someone we can conquer, someone whose skin we’ll get well under, someone we can leave.
Someone we’ll survive.
Jane Austen gets under our skin.
Sure, we want, along with our heroines, our Henry Crawfords and our Willoughbys and our Wickhams to be heroic.
But alas as charming as they get, heroic they are not. And we - and our heroines - are instead taken for a helluva complicated ride.
And complications are powerful. Complications are what we have in life - the allure of a lover who is first protective if a little possessive; a person who’s become harmful but by then we know that they themselves have been seriously harmed, and we hurt for them; and we take that complexity on because we’re strong enough to endure the harm they inflict on themselves and us.
These complexities are what give story, and what gives art, its power. Story, and art, is how we see and understand and work through, sometimes, the complications.
It Ends With Us boldly mixes the romance and HEA plot to frame an abuse plot - in a way that, and this is important, allows a path to empowerment and to a clear exit and also possibly to forgiveness, integration, redemption.
Hoover allows in a vision of a family that includes forgiveness and transcendence, and connection, around and then right the way through abuse.
We will not stay; but we can circle back. We will not endure a person who is harmful; but we can allow that they hurt themselves also; we will leave and protect our loved ones, protect our kids, protect ourselves and then, perhaps in story and perhaps sometimes in life, we will find a space for forgiveness and support and love. Or we will say goodbye to all of it and still find forgiveness and love.
And always, in a late-stage swerve of the plot our heroines only just-miss tragedy, and only just manage to separate from the Abuser character - from Willoughby, Henry Crawford, Wickham (Lydia does not of course escape). Or they conquer a merely complicated hero - a Mr. Darcy, Mr. Knightley, Edward Ferrars, who will apologize, emphasize, come home or circle back, and in doing will rise to ostensible worthiness.
Yes, the heroes are rewritten by a woman with a powerful pen.
But it’s not about the Heroes. Memo from Jane Austen: It’s about you, and rewriting your story.
Finding your way through difficulty - and yes, abuse, and even violence - to power. And even, through story, to desire.
We have powerful imaginations. We have amazing endurance. And it’s our strength that enables us to justify and persist. It’s also our strength that empowers us to leave. For centuries we have been writing this story.
This story of abuse, and forgiveness, and power, and desire. It’s in our classic literature, from Shakespeare and Samuel Richardson and the very first novel to Frances Burney and Gothic horror - and it’s there with Jane Austen. It’s there with Jane Eyre and Heathcliff and Cathy on the Moors. It’s on our best-seller lists, then and now.
It’s still with us, and it’s not going away. Because it’s nothing less important and less complicated than the story of our lives.
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Let us know, friends! How do you experience the problematic heroes and their oppressions on the page? Do you find reading these stories brings empowerment, or do you find them difficult to take? What is your favorite empowered character in Jane Austen? What is your favorite problematic character in Jane Austen, and does it help you get through it all, or not? And - have you read or watched It Ends With Us? Book or film? Did you leave you feeling empowered, or just puzzled? Brilliant or baffled? All of the above?!
We would love to hear your thoughts - readers, watchers, scholars, fans. Let us know what you’re reading, watching and thinking about - and you can see more discussion on the backstory of this novel and film, in the links below
Coming up - we’ve got more fun discussions on all things connected to Austen, including a Jane’s Got Game post on game theory that is a whole lot of fun. We also have a guest post from the marvelous Elizabeth Gilliland, with her latest compilation about Jane Austen murder mysteries and more. And we’ll continue with a bit more of our outrageous takes on philosopher Adam Smith and how Austen is illustrating some of his approaches to life and society - we have a few things up our sleeve. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, have a magical week. Thank you for being here in this community. You make it what it is.
Wishing you a week of imagination and a revisioning of your story into something that is yours - a thing empowering, compelling, beautiful.
Yours truly,
Plain Jane
Cool links and community:
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger as a result of domestic violence, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or chat with an advocate via the website.
Author Colleen Hoover wrote It Ends With Us as a tribute to her mother; and it’s based on the story of her parents. The Letter from the Author at the back of the book is fascinating and emotional reading. CoHo, as her fans call her, is invested in rewriting this story into something hopeful and empowering. Hoover’s motivation for writing it is to encourage women to leave abusive intimate partners - as her mother did, when Hoover was very young. The title and the story, really, is about daughters.
Here’s the film trailer - the settings, the acting, the set and costume design - this film has a lot of pleasure and a lot of pain. One helps us handle the other.
Here’s an interview with author Colleen Hoover and actor/director Justin Baldoni, from ET. Baldoni says he worked with the DV nonprofit No More in the shaping of the film’s representations of violence on screen.
Justin Baldoni, director and lead actor playing Ryle Kinkaid has a literal TEDtalk about toxic masculinity.
For those of you who are Extremely Online or are Blake Lively fans, you already are aware: The rollout of the film It Ends With Us was controversial. The promotion of a story involving DV should not be coupled with promotions of a personal brand. Other than this one-sentence takeaway, the controversy was mainly noise that the story itself - the film and the book - were able to transcend. Nevertheless here are some links for anyone who needs more: The feud.
And: Why didn’t she just leave? Most abuse stories flatten the narrative.
The hosts of the Hot and Bothered podcast and their entire series on Jane Eyre, and its philosophical/humanist/sacred approach to classic literature is a revelation and a joy. The conversation continues here! Vanessa Zoltan’s and Lauren Sandler’s explication of all things Jane Eyre and in particular the chapters we discussed here inspired all of this dialogue on Rochester and oppressive heroes in love stories.
Pamelamania: As this article discusses, the novel that is considered to be the first English novel, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, is an epistolary retelling of an abuse narrative that ends in romance - it set off a riot of reaction, from fandom and knock-offs and parodies to censor and moral outrage against the dangers inherent in this new form of art called the novel.
Also, of course, Shakespeare: Here’s where we all unpacked the Bard’s most troublesome play. Troublesome because it overtly mixes up and remixes violence and romance: Tough Love: Shakespeare, Austen, and the ultimate battle of the sexes.
Join us for this very cool event! Everybody’s Jane Austen! It’s presented by JASNA’s New York Region - and I’ll be there interviewing JASNA director Renata Dennis and film/tv producer Tia A. Smith about their work. Hope to see you there!
“But when I tried to get out, they did me in”: Violence as fantasy - Kill Bill is no guide to life, but no one expects this from Quentin Tarantino. He combines stories of violence and romance and perhaps not helpfully but it’s a whole lot of fun.
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Taking into account all types of firearm injuries, including homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries, firearm injuries were the leading cause of death among children and teens ages one to 19 in 2020 and 2021.) CDC link here.
I haven't read It Ends With Us or seen the film, but it was really fascinating to read about it here in relationship to some of my favorite classic novels. I recently re-read Jane Eyre and have been writing a Substack essay on it, in particular Mr Rochester and the dynamic between him and Jane, so this gives me much food for thought! Definitely going to check out the Hot and Bothered podcast. Thank you for this post on such an important topic.
What a great connection to make! As always, this is a very relevant post.