#also kind of reflected in that (apart from elizabeth herself) the most detailed description in the novel is of pemberley

[anghraine]

For some reason, I woke up thinking about Elizabeth and the sort of physical dimension of the novel.

To back up a bit, Elizabeth's physicality as a character is pretty widely acknowledged. We know more about her appearance than that of any other character in the book, to begin with. She's the only character in P&P whose coloring we know anything about (she has beautiful dark eyes with fine eyelashes), while we repeatedly hear about her light figure, her summer tan, and her general attractiveness—she's not stunning, but pretty.

There's also a sense of physicality in terms of her actions and reactions. She habitually walks and runs. She blushes frequently; at Pemberley, before Darcy shows up, she blushes as she admits to knowing him, concedes that he's very handsome, and shortly thereafter blushes deeply again upon encountering Darcy himself. Her impression of Pemberley is powerfully affected by the physical features and aesthetic of it, more than by its grandeur. Upon meeting Georgiana, Elizabeth likes her but also can't seem to help noticing that Georgiana isn't as good-looking as Darcy. Later, when Darcy shows up in Hertfordshire with Bingley, Elizabeth blushes again, smiles with delight, and her eyes shine.

But something else I find interesting is that Elizabeth is also linked to physical things to some extent. There are the infamous muddy skirts that she drops her overskirt down to conceal. There's her book at Netherfield. She preserves Darcy's letter until their engagement and only destroys it for his peace of mind. She rushes to find her parasol for her confrontation with Lady Catherine. She wears a watch.

IDK, this isn't going anywhere in particular, but I find it interesting that we get this paraphernalia alongside a comparatively distinct sense of Elizabeth's physicality and how she interacts with the outside world. At the very least, I think the paraphernalia reinforces the sense of Elizabeth as a very physical presence in the world.

[lowbrowanthro]

Maud Wood Park: Forgotten Feminist, Proto-Anthropologist, Bad Bitch

In the summer of 2018, I spent three weeks in the Library of Congress researching twentieth-century women political leaders (think suffragettes, early legislators, etc).

Mostly I skimmed workshop pamphlets and stared, unblinking, at indecipherable handwritten correspondence. But one woman in particular had me rapt.

[Extremely Stefon voice] Maud Wood Park’s story has everything - suffragette drama, a trip around the world, and a secret (second! Post divorce! That scandalous queen!) marriage that *definitely* disappointed her dad.

(Photo from: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collection/papers-maud-wood-park-in-womans-rights-collection)

Born in 1871 in Boston, Maud Wood Park was a no-nonsense activist ahead of her time. I call her “forgotten” even though she’s well-known to scholars of women’s suffrage (NERRRDS), because she’s largely left out of public school lessons featuring big names like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Yet her work as a lobbyist with the National American Woman Suffrage Association and as the first president of the League of Women Voters made her a centrally important figure in the struggle for American women’s suffrage.

(Maud pictured 4th from the right. Photo from: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collection/papers-maud-wood-park-in-womans-rights-collection)

Even more interesting than her activism (lol sorry, women’s rights) was her personal life.

Maud did her own damn thing - she chose not to have children, eschewed religion, traveled around the world without a male escort, and never stopped fighting for women’s rights. She married her first husband after meeting him in college (she went to Radcliffe, A.K.A. ~Lady Harvard~ because She Smart And She Fancy), and then divorced his ass when she was 35. Two years later, she ~secretly~ married Robert “Bob” Hunter Freeman.

(Above: Bob and his bowler hat. Photos from the LoC collections)

Bob was ~an actor~ and theatrical agent (yes Maud, I feel you, who among us has not pined for a sensitive artistic type). They both traveled so often for work that they were never able to officially, publicly settle down and cohabitate. Instead, their marriage remained secret to all but a few close friends, and they met clandestinely in hotel rooms during Maud’s lecture circuits. They also shared a robust (there are SO MANY LETTERS, you guys) correspondence. Many of their letters focus on their interpersonal drama and semi-tempestuous but deeply-loving relationship, and you bet I read all that shit. 

They had serious differences and disagreed constantly. Bob gave Maud shit about her temperament and lack of religion, and she gave him shit about his lack of logic.

In the 1915 letter to Bob below, Maud openly and unrepentantly admits to being a stone-cold bitch (my heroine..!), describing herself as “a cold, hard, self-contained, self-centred, ambitious and extremely critical woman.”

(Maud’s a Slytherin. Obvs.)

Maud knows herself. Maud accepts herself. Maud does not care about your feelings.

Bob, on the other hand, was a total Hufflepuff. In the funny 1915 letter below, Maud writes to him about how much her “man-hating” spinster friends love him, seeing him as more of a womanly kindred spirit than a man. Their high praise even inspires her to (grudgingly, poorly... Maud is all of us) embroider Bob’s initials onto some handkerchiefs, even though she “hadn’t done anything of that sort for over 20 years.”

Ah, ~True Love~ :’)

(Above: Maud and Bob, basically)

Maud was an independent thinker, and her lack of religious belief troubled Bob at first. She explained her outlook on life to him in a 1908 letter: 

“I feel a sort of responsibility to myself and to others, irrespective of God’s existence or non existence. I think it is the effect of my keen perception of the rights of all other living creatures, black, white or brown, animal as well as human. It explains my passionate democracy and my sense of outrage at the injustices that women have to bear. It does not rest on love of God or recognition of Him; not even on love of men, but rather on the craving of my whole nature for justice. It’s the best thing in me, my only effective weapon against my egoism.”

Clearly, humanist ideals fueled her activism at a time when many involved in social reform movements held beliefs rooted in Christianity.

(Above: the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, for example! Photo from: https://sites.google.com/site/orangewomenstemperanceunion/background-on-women-s-christian-temperance-union)

Maud was also kind of an amateur anthropologist - she traveled around the world to study the conditions of women in various cultures. 

Funded by a wealthy sponsor who supported her work for women’s rights, she struck out on a two year journey in 1909 to investigate women’s lives in far-flung locales including Singapore, China, India, Australia and New Zealand, New Guinea, Bhutan, and elsewhere.

(Above, postcard of Chefoo, China, circa 1908, from: https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/street-in-chefoo-china-postcard-c1908/16726374)

Her views reflect the times and an understanding of universal womanhood that’s been deconstructed by postcolonial feminist scholars, but she recognized the importance of cultural differences.

Before women could even vote in the U.S., Maud was going around stressing the need to understand the various ways women lived around the world.

Rather than just exoticizing foreign tropical locales, she described their complexities. Maud talked about the widespread poverty in Chinese villages in the wake of nineteenth-century British imperialism and described India as “huge and enormously complicated” in a February 9th, 1920 letter written on a train from Darjeeling to Calcutta, for example.

She exhibited an anthropological curiosity (even if she lacked a little tact), writing this detailed description to Bob on June 18th, 1909:

“This afternoon I did get off by myself in a rickshaw in a town I never heard of and poked around for an hour in unimaginably dirty and crowded streets. The Yang-tse-Kiang is a beautiful broad river, but almost deserted on the banks except for occasional cities of large towns where the foreign “Concession” is nearly opposite the landing. If we can we get away from the Concession in these places and into the Chinese town, usually enclosed by a wall. There indeed everything is different: muddy, smelly, narrow streets, swarms of men, some children and fewer women, (those who are well-to-do stay in the “Inner Apartment”) endless little dingy restaurants half on the street where the cooking is all in plain sight, ramshackle one-story houses leaning against each other in order to stay up at all. Most foreigners are disgusted and flee as soon as possible, but I enjoy it all and want to go poking up every lane and into every courtyard.” 

Maud also recognized the pervasiveness of Western culture way before scholars started theorizing about “globalization.” In 1909, she wrote:

“Fate seems always to pull at my skirts and drag me back to the surroundings of the inescapable West. It’s marvelous how pervasive that is out here in the Orient – the trace of the West. –I begin to believe that there isn’t a village in Asia where you can’t buy bottled waters and find at least one Englishman. I may have to go to central Africa to get the unadulterated East; and even there I suppose I’d find T. Roosevelt or his remains.”

I choose to believe that she would have made a good intersectional feminist activist and anthropologist had she been born a few decades later.

Maud stressed that women deserved freedom above all in both her personal and professional life. She lobbied for women’s rights tirelessly both to legislators and to Bob, who started out skeptical but was eventually won over. 

In the 1915 letter below, Bob wishes Maud success and writes that he’s come around in favor of women’s suffrage once and for all, finally convinced “of something which perhaps should always have been obvious, but wasn’t.”

(That’s f***ing right Bob, get it together)

Maud Wood Park - world traveler, legislative expert, and even playwright - was a fierce feminist. She seemed to foreshadow the third-wavers of the future. In a 1912 letter (one of her many extended arguments with Bob), she considered the future of the women’s movement and women’s ultimate place in society:

“I resent so bitterly the arrogance of men who attempt to say that what men want is the measure of what women should be – or the added insult of attempting to interpret Nature or the Creator for women. Certainly if there is any record of what nature intended it is to be found in the powers that she has given women. If a woman has a beautiful voice it seems likely that nature meant her to sing, etc., etc.

The moral of all this is – don’t spend any more time or words or ink in trying to show what women were meant to do. Spend your energy in giving women themselves a chance to show what they were meant to be.”

Amen.

[inkslingerharry]

Reindeer on the Roof?

Description: Y/N lives above Harry and loves to blast Christmas music. What happens when Harry marches upstairs to confront her, but finds himself highly intrigued?

Word count: 2,145

This is technically Day 6 of the 25 Days of Christmas.

Thank you so much to @alwaysjacked-up for doing this Christmas writing event!!  Thank you for letting me be a part of it!! Check out the rest of the authors and the 25 Days of Christmas masterlist here and my other writing here. I hope you guys enjoy it!!

(I also wrote this in a little over an hour with very little editing so please be kind lol)

Six days. Six days in a row that the person living above Harry has been blasting Christmas music. He’s listened to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” about a million times in the past week alone. He was already on edge because he wouldn’t be able to make it home for Christmas this year with flights being cancelled and plans just not working out.

He wasn’t fully against Christmas music; in fact, he loved Christmas music. Just not blasting loud enough to hear above his apartment. Someone was a little too into their Christmas cheer. Harry groaned when “Let It Snow” started again. The person didn’t even have the decency to switch playlists, a crime Harry could not forgive.

As he tried finishing another last-minute email, Harry typed away, closing his eyes in frustration when all he could focus on was the laughter and tunes coming from above.

“That’s it,” he grumbled to himself, closing his laptop with too much force, slipping on some tennis shoes and grabbing his phone and keys. He stepped out of his apartment, locking his place briskly before walking to the staircase.

Just as he was about to ascend, he stopped with one foot on the first stair. Silence. The only sound was his breathing and a door faintly closing in the distance. He cherished the moment, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes for a few seconds before hearing a cough behind him.

“Oh, sorry,” he muttered, stepping out of the way of an older man carrying a few grocery bags.

Harry waited a few more quick seconds before continuing on his journey. He started a script of what he was going to say to the noisy neighbor. As he walked a little ways down the hallway, he hesitated in front of the door where the music was coming from. “Frosty the Snowman” was heard throughout the entire hallway.

Harry could also hear people singing inside. He instantly felt guilt swarm through him. These people were having fun and enjoying themselves and he was about to ruin that because he needed to write a few emails.

Important emails, Harry thought to himself. He raised his hand and brought a knuckle to the door, hitting it a few times. The music didn’t falter, and the laughter didn’t die down. After waiting a few seconds, Harry rolled his eyes and brought his fist up, giving a few harder knocks. Again, nothing seemed to change.

Just as he was about to bring his fist up again, anger evident in his actions, the door swung open, revealing a woman in one of the ugliest sweaters Harry has ever seen. With lights and bells, the horrendous green and red sweater hung around the body of the woman standing in front of him. She hesitated, eyeing Harry.

“Hey, I don’t mean to be rude, but-” Harry started, but was soon interrupted by the woman’s face lighting up, a smile wide on her face and her eyebrows raised.

“You must be the judge! Come in, come in!” she reached forward, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him inside her apartment. “We’ve been waiting for you. I thought Marco told you to be here at six? Ah, whatever, we’ve busied ourselves. You’re not very festive are you?”

“What?” Harry exclaimed.

“It’s an ugly sweater party!” She laughed, looking at his attire. “Oh well. We have white wine, which is almost gone, some red wine, and I might have a few beers in the fridge. What do you want?”

Harry couldn’t speak. How could he? He was just about to scold this woman for playing Christmas music loud enough for the entire apartment complex to hear, now he’s in her apartment and she’s offering him a drink? What went wrong?

She noticed Harry’s hesitance. “I’ll get you a water. Everyone else is in the living room, so find a place to sit!” she ordered, leaving his side to head to the kitchen.

Harry watched as she left, his feet carrying him throughout her apartment. Every surface seemed to be covered in pictures of, what he assumed, her friends and family. There were a couple frames filled with her holding dogs, children, or other people. She was smiling or making a funny face in every single one.

By the time he made it to the living room, Harry had skimmed over every wall in sight. He looked at the four other people in the living room. Their faces were flushed with laughter and wine. Two people sat on the floor in front of a coffee table, and the other two sat on a couch. Everyone clearly drank their fair share of wine.

“Oh, the judge is here! What’s your name again?” a woman sitting on the couch asked, lifting her wine glass to her lips.

“Uh, Harry,” he responded.

“Great! Take a seat in this chair! We’re going to start soon, once Y/N gets back.”

“Y/N?”

“You know, the girl who owns the place?” she laughed.

Harry raised his eyebrows and nodded. He made his way to the recliner, having to step over a bottle of wine and a few hand-made, paper snowflakes on the way. Harry sat, glancing around the room. More pictures of Y/N crowded their way into the space around him. He noticed that a lot of the pictures held the faces of the same people who sat in front of him.

“You don’t look familiar,” a guy sitting on the floor giggled. He was very clearly the most drunk.

“Marco! He’s the judge you picked out.”

“Hm, don’t think so. I wouldn’t pick him out, not for the judge anyway. Maybe for something else,” Marco winked at Harry, causing a deep red to creep up his neck and onto his cheeks. He also gave a small smile.

“Marco, stop flirting, now hand out the paints,” Y/N playfully snapped, handing the glass of water in her hand to Harry. He graciously accepted it, taking a big gulp right away to soothe his dry throat.

“What am I judging, exactly?” Harry asked, wiping the condensation from the water onto his pants.

“We’re following a Bob Ross painting tutorial,” Y/N answered, accepting a basket of paint tubes from Marco. “He really didn’t tell you anything, huh?”

Harry shook his head and took a deep breath. He watched as each person readied their canvas and paint brushes. The television next to him started up, a Bob Ross episode already waiting on Netflix.

The episode started, each person suddenly extremely focused, their paint brushes swishing to and fro. Harry watched intently, his attention specifically focusing on Y/N. She furrowed her eyebrows and flicked her wrist just right as her eyes stayed on the television. The faint lights from her sweater gave her chin and cheeks a light red tint, her double chin showing up once in a while when she was confused.

By the end of the episode, Harry had memorized her face. He felt like he could recognize her just by her eyes. Her face was like a map, and Harry could mark every contour. He can’t believe he’s never seen her around before, despite her living directly above him.

“Alright, judge, your time to shine,” she smiled, giving light blows to her painting so it would dry faster.

Harry coughed, leaving his trance. He sat up straighter and took another sip of water before setting it down on the coffee table. As he looked at each painting and compared them to Bob Ross’s, he took his job very seriously. Even though he wasn’t the actual judge, he knew that the people in front of him were competitive, and winning this painting contest means winning the world.

His eyes landed on Y/N’s, admiring the little details she was able to squeeze in, like a dusty layer of snow on trees and a reflection of light on the frozen lake. He wasn’t sure if he was hyperaware of how good her painting was because she was actually an amazing painter or because of his undeniable developing crush on her.

“So, boss, who’s the winner?” Marco asked, his words slurred together.

Harry pretended to think about it before shaking his head. “It’s hard, but I think I have to go with Y/N.”

Marco rolled his eyes and started laughing. Two girls started clapping and another guy, who seemed to be the quietest out of everyone, finished his glass of wine with a single chug. Y/N smugly grinned as she pretended to flip her hair over her shoulder dramatically.

“Should’ve known,” Elizabeth, the other person sitting on floor, chuckled.

“What?” Harry asked.

“Y/N is a fucking artist,” the other guy in the room answered. “See these paintings and drawings all over her walls? She did them herself.”

Harry scanned the room, taking in each and every piece of art. He noticed them before, and did admire them; however, now that he knew they were done by Y/N, he let his eyes linger longer.

“Oh, hush, stop embarrassing me,” Y/N said, casting her eyes to the ground as she shyly smiled. A blush was evident on her face.

“They’re really good. I didn’t know,” Harry complimented, making eye contact with Y/N. “Are you a professional?”

She scoffed and waved her hand. “Hell no. I mean, I do some commissions, but I’m just a receptionist at a gym. Art doesn’t pay the bills unless you have a big name.”

Harry nodded, completely understanding. Just as he was about to make another comment, people started gathering their items, mentioning stuff about heading home and sleeping. Harry didn’t realize how dark the sky had gotten since he arrived.

Marco was the last to leave, pecking Y/N’s cheek and hugging her goodbye. He quickly waved to Harry before slipping on his coat and closing Y/N’s door behind him. Harry was left alone with Y/N.

“You weren’t the judge, were you?” Y/N asked after a few seconds of silence.

Harry laughed, rubbing his eyes with his fingers. “No.”

“Why did you come to my place, then?”

“I came up here to complain about your loud Christmas music. You do realize it’s been six days of nonstop Christmas music you’ve been playing? Six bloody days,” he smiled.

Y/N crossed her arms. “Well, damn, you really aren’t festive. Wait, do you live here?”

“Right below you,” Harry tapped his foot on the floor.

“Oh. Well, I’m only slightly sorry. Shouldn’t you be home for Christmas anyway? Or does your family live near here?”

“Nah, plans didn’t work out so I’m stuck here. My, myself, and I on Christmas this year,” he said, making his way to her door.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Y/N said, her voice genuine.

Harry shrugged. “It sucks, but not much I can do about it.”

Y/N agreed, making more small talk with Harry before he reached for the door handle, mentioning how he should be leaving. He thanked her for an amazing night, despite him originally showing up to complain.

“I will say that you have the most disgusting sweater I’ve seen in a long time, though,” Harry snickered.

Y/N gasped, reaching forward and giving a quick slap to Harry’s arm as she laughed. “How dare you! I had to dig through two tubs of clothes before I found this, thank you very much.”

Harry laughed, crinkling his eyes and throwing his head back. “I’ll see you around, Y/N,” he said before leaving her apartment. As he walked down the hallway, he waited for the sound of her door closing, but it never came.

“Hey,” he heard a soft yell come from down the hall. Harry turned back around.

Y/N was standing in front of him, her arms crossed again. “I’m going to be here for Christmas, too. It’s just going to be me, myself, and probably my vibrator.”

Harry’s eyes widened as he opened his mouth in surprise.

Y/N shook her head and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, that was crude, but I’m a little drunk. Anyway, you’re welcome to join me. I promise I won’t use my vibrator in front of you. Just bring a nice bottle of wine and like, something to eat, yeah?”

“I’d love that,” Harry smiled, licking his lips.

Y/N nodded and started to turn. “I’ll see you around, Harry.”

Harry nodded and turned again, descending the stairs. A smile was plastered on his face the entire way back to his own apartment. As he arrived to his door, unlocking it and stepping inside, he grinned even wider when he heard Mariah Carey’s voice coming from above. He was more optimistic and couldn’t wait for the upcoming holiday, ready to spend Christmas with his new friend.