The Role of Parents in Jane Austen's Novels

JASNA CWNY

February Meeting

Event: Book Discussion

Topic: Parenting in Jane Austen's Novels

When: Saturday, February 15, 2025, 1 pm

Where:   Zoom to register click HERE

At our next meeting, Susan Harris-Gamard will lead us in a discussion of parents and the concept of
parentage in Jane Austen's novels.

Throughout Jane Austen's novels, parents play a key role not only in the lives of her characters, but
within the narrative itself. Susan will start out our discussion by exploring the variety of parents in the
novels, while focusing on the consequences of those parents’ actions. She will also be examining the
concept of parentage and the family tree and what these mean to the many parents in the novels. Her
specific focus will be on the “fallen women” in her novels, and the role of parents in their “falling”.
A lively discussion will ensue immediately afterwards. 

Please feel free to bring your own ideas about
parents and parentage to the table.

Here are three available references that Susan has provided for the meeting:
General Tilney and Tyranny: Northanger Abbey untitled

Father Figures in the Novels of Jane Austen
The Transformative “Fall”: A Structural Metaphor in Jane Austen’s Persuasion

And two more references from older issues of Persuasions if you have them:
Parental Relationships in Jane Austen’s Novels: New Perceptions on Rereading » JASNA
Breeding and Inbreeding in Mansfield Park

The meeting will be on Zoom since it is winter in Rochester. Here is the link to register for the Zoom

meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/zLJ6CqdKQeitC_bz-MtDYQ

When you register, Zoom will send you a link for the meeting.

See you on Zoom!

Orphans in Jane Austen's Novels: A Discussion

Event: A discussion led by Susan Harris-Gamard, a JASNA-CWNY member

Topic: Orphans in Jane Austen's Novels

When: Saturday, January 18, 2025, 1 pm

Where:   Zoom

Many of Jane Austen's novels have characters who have lost at least one parent. In Emma, Jane Fairfax is an orphan, and Emma Woodhouse and Frank Churchill have each lost one parent. In Persuasion, Anne Elliot has lost her mother and has a father who has, for all practical purposes, abandoned her. These characters have suffered loss yet they manage. Jane Fairfax must depend on her father's friends, Frank and Emma remain in wealthy families, and Anne Elliot is still an Elliot.

At our next meeting, Susan Harris-Gamard will lead us in a discussion of orphans in 18th century literature and Jane Austen's works. Here are two references that Susan has provided for the meeting:

https://content.e-bookshelf.de/media/reading/L-2846089-54482e95ca.pdf

https://janeausten.co.uk/blogs/extended-reading/she-was-only-anne-elliot

The meeting will be on Zoom since it is winter in Rochester. Here is the link to register for the Zoom meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Q-DJvgCfSRyd6l-BRDidiw

When you register, Zoom will send you a link for the meeting.

See you on Zoom!

Celebrate Jane Austen's Birthday

Happy Birthday Jane Austen!

🎂🎂🎂

Celebrate Jane Austen's Birthday

Saturday, December 14

1:00 - 3:00 pm

The Highlands at Pittsford

100 Hahnemann Trail, Pittsford, NY 14534

Learn how to make puzzle purses with local JASNA member Aniela Wolkonowski.

All supplies provided.

_____________

Growing Older with Jane Austen

C.E.Brock
https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/jabrokil.html#senssens

 

Event: JASNA CWNY November Meeting

Topic: "Growing Older with Jane Austen"

Discussion led by Marie Sprayberry, JASNA-CWNY member

When: Saturday November 16 23, 2024 at 1 pm EST: Note this event is postponed to November 23

Where:   In Person at Pittsford Barnes & Noble, Community Room

Marie Sprayberry writes: At our Sat., Nov. 16 meeting at the Pittsford Barnes & Noble, I will lead a discussion inspired by Maggie Lane’s 2014 book Growing Older with Jane Austen (published in the UK by Robert Hale, London). Unfortunately, this book is not currently available in the US except at outrageous prices from online booksellers. 

However, coming to our rescue are two guest posts by Brenda S. Cox on Vic Sanborn’s blog “Jane Austen’s World.” In these posts, Cox (the author of the book Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England) summarizes Lane’s chapters; provides (at the end of the first post) a list of characters Lane discusses in her book; and gives us much food for thought. I thank both Brenda Cox herself for these posts, and our own Celia Easton for bringing them to my attention. Here are the links:

https://janeaustensworld.com/2023/03/27/growing-older-with-jane-austen-part-1/

https://janeaustensworld.com/2023/04/24/growing-older-with-jane-austen-part-2/

To get things going on the 16th, here are some discussion questions to consider. Let’s definitely discuss this first set:

(1) Here are Cox’s own questions at the end of her first post: Who is your favorite older character (let’s say over 35; lifetimes were shorter then) in Austen’s novels? Who is your least favorite older character? Why? Do they show you anything particular about aging in Austen’s England?

And then let’s pick a few of these others:

(2) In her consideration of characters growing older, Lane also includes some characters under 35 who are encountering the limits of marriageability in Ch. 1, “The Loss of Youth and Beauty.”  Whose loss of “bloom” and “approach to the years of danger” may become a problem for them, and how do they overcome this problem (or not)?

(3) One topic Lane discusses in Ch. 2, “My Time of Life,” is that of older characters who have arrived at a certain “time of life” and use this perspective (sometimes explicitly) to give advice to younger characters. Which pairs of characters do you see as falling into the advisor/advisee pattern, and how successful is the advice-giving in each case?

(4) In Ch. 3, “Parent Against Child,” Lane considers several characters in parental roles who get into tense situations with their children or wards. Who are some of these parents/guardians and children/wards, and how are the tensions eventually resolved?

(5) In Ch. 4, “Old Wives,” Lane discusses the characters who have “been married long enough to come to some accommodation with the choices they had made in youth and to live with whatever idiosyncrasies they may have discovered in their husbands” (p. 72). Who are some of these characters, and what do you think of their ways of adapting?

(6) In four chapters, Lane considers the fates of “Old Maids” (Ch. 5) and various types of widows (Chs. 7-9). Among the various spinsters and widows, how do money (as also discussed in Ch. 10, “Age and Money”) and the professions or social status of fathers or deceased husbands influence their situations? And whose adaptations to their situations do you admire most and least? 

(7) In her final two chapters, Lane discusses “The Dangerous Indulgence of Illness” (Ch. 11) and “Nothing to Do but to Die” (Ch. 12). In which of Austen’s works do the illnesses or deaths of characters play roles in the plots?

Review of the Cleveland AGM

JASNA AGM
Cleveland

 Intriguing? Come and find out what really happened at JASNA's Annual General Meeting in Cleveland. Meet the folks who attended and find out what they learned. See you there!

Event: JASNA CWNY October Meeting

Topic: AGM Reports

When: Saturday October 26, 2024 at 11:00 AM Note change of date and time!!!!

Where:   In Person at Pittsford Barnes & Noble, Community Room

September Double Header

September features an exciting double header for our region

First up is an event in the Buffalo region on September 12:

Event: Jane Austen: The Origins of a True Original

Where: Clarence Library

When: September 12, 6 pm

Next up is an event in the Rochester area on September 21.

President James A. Garfield
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield

Event:  A Preview of Dr. Alice Villaseñor's talk at the AGM in October

Where: Pittsford Barnes and Noble Community Room

When:  September 21, 1 pm

Political Satire - Austen Style

This session will focus on “Austen style” political satire in two contexts. First, the session will highlight examples of the author’s satirical allusions to local Hampshire political campaigns. In consideration of the conference location’s proximity to the Garfield National Historic Site, the session will also discuss President Garfield’s use of Austen’s satire to describe a book about a political figure of his own time.

Dr. Alice Villaseñor is the Associate Director of Civic and Community Engagement at SUNY Buffalo State University. She has published on Jane Austen and has a forthcoming book chapter about teaching Elizabeth Gaskell. A lifetime JASNA member, she has served JASNA as the 2006 International Visitor, member of the IVP Committee, board member of JASNA and JASNA-SW, and current member of the JASNA EDI Committee. This will be her ninth AGM presentation.

LinkedIn profile for Dr. Villaseñor: www.linkedin.com/in/alice-villaseñor

Join the Navy See the World

The Spirit of Buffalo - Sail Ho!

"A little beauty, and a few smiles, and a few compliments to the navy, and I am a lost man."

Persuasion chapter 7

A quick reminder about our Buffalo area events:

Film Night

We have our Film Night at Clarence Library on June 27th at 6:30 pm. Susan will bring popcorn! If anyone wishes to bring additional treats, it would be greatly appreciated. We will be viewing the 2007 Persuasion.  

Sailing Adventure

Also, if anyone is interested in the Spirit of Buffalo sail, there are tickets left for that day. It’s Saturday, July 20th, at 6 pm. 

To register contact Susan Harris-Gamard at: sharrisgamard@gmail.com

What a wonderful combination of events! You can watch a great movie adaptation of Jane Austen's most naval novel and, a few weeks later take to the high seas (or at least Lake Erie) on the Spirit of Buffalo.

Hope you can join in!