The Unsatisfied Literary Circle

THELMA & LOUISE

Synopsis : Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon play Thelma and Louise, two working-class friends who together have planned a weekend getaway from the men in their lives. Thelma's husband, Darryl is an overbearing oaf, and Louise's boyfriend, Jimmy simply will not commit. Though the road trip starts out as a good time, the pair eventually wind up at a bar. A tipsy Thelma ends up in the parking lot of the bar with a would-be rapist. Louise shoots the man dead. The two decide that they have no choice but to go on the run.

They eventually meet up with a young criminal named J.D. (Brad Pitt), whose cowboy spirit rubs off on the timid Thelma. The pair is pursued by a police officer sympathetic toward their plight. He chases them to the Grand Canyon, where the women make a fateful decision about their lives.

Directed by the famous director Ridley Scott, this iconic and feminist road trip movie claims the freedom of the woman by the different types of men that Thelma and Louise have to handle, and how Thelma and Louise get hurt because of them. Funny, heartbreaking it is a well-acted road movie who celebrate the female empowerment.

 I really recommend this movie, because even if it was release in 1991, the vintage feeling is really comfortable. I really like this movie because anybody can feel close to the 2 mains characters Thelma and Louise. Watch it and enjoy if you like american road trip and freedom !!! 

There is a lot of films adapting the story of Pride and Prejudice in the whole world.

 The first adaptation is an american one, in 1940 calling (obviously) Pride and Prejudice. It was produce by Robert Z. Leonard. It is a big success.

The second and last really interpratation of the story is the one of Joe Wright, in 2005. Faithful with the novel title this americano-french-english film is a success too.

Bride and Prejudice, is diffrent from the book but respecting also the story, it is a Bollywood adaptation. This Americano-english film is produce in 2004 by Gurinder Chadha and it is a real success.

Another adaptation less known which the name is also Pride and Prejudice make in 2003 by Andrew Black. But he did have a real success.

A Modern Pride and Prejudice is an independant movie made in the Colorado by Bonny Mae, in 2011. But he is not really easy to find.

Some movies have also little links with Jane Austen’s novel.

The most known is Bridget Jones’s Diary. Film americano-english, made from the novel of Helen Fielding, and produced by Sharon Maguire in 2001. The novel is already an adaptation from Pride and Prejudice, as we can see with for example the character of Mark Darcy and a lot of other little wink.

Finally, Becoming Jane is the story of Jane Austen, based on Pride and Prejudice. It is about her supposed love story with Tom Lefroy. Realised in 2007, by Julian Jarrod.

Between 1938 and 1995 we can count eleven real adaptations of Pride and Prejudice. But only one is really important.

It is the one of the BBC in 1995, it is a really big success, for a mini-series with six episodes. It is also the most loyal one

 We can also talk about another series nammed Lost in Auten, made by the english channel ITV, in 2008. A young woman finds a passage between her world and the one of Pride and Prejudice.

There is three plays two named Pride and Prejudice, one wrote in 1922 by Mary Steele MacKaye and another by Helen Jerome in 1935. And the third is Wedding at Pemberley wrote by Anne and Arthur Russel we do not know when it was written.

A musical is made for Broadway in 1959 under the name of First Impressions. And another is made by Bernard J. Taylor in Illinois, in 1995 named Pride and Prejudice.

Numerous novel are written during the XXth and XXIth century in different countries.

Nogami Yaeko, japanes writer, wrote Machiko inspired by Pride and Prejudice in 1931.

Bridget Jones’s Diary is an adaptaion too wrot by Helen Fielding in 1995.

Amanda Grange had published in 2012 Mr Darcy’s Diary.

In 2006 and today Elizabeth Ashton wrote around ten books about Pride and Prejudice.

Charlotte Collins, is wrote by Jennifer Becton in 2013 and she also wrote Caroline Bingley in the same year.

P.D. James, wrote Death comes to Pemberley in 2012

Seth Grahame-Smith in 2009 publish Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. There is also an adaptation in comic.

Marvel had also publish a comic in 2009, the dialogue are written by Nancy Butler and Hugo Petrus had drew the drawing.

Hi !! today I am going to talk about a famous feminine writer... JANE AUSTEN

So to begin Jane Austen was born the 16^th of December 1775 in Stevenson, Hampshire were she will spend her twenty five first years of life. Her parents were the reverent Goerges Austen and his wife Cassandra Leigh of whom she is the seventh child, she had six brother and one sister. She is from the little bourgeoisie, the one she likes to talk about in her books.

Her family was modestly living but they were really cultivated, and they give their child a traditional education. And from her early childhood Jane was going in her father library to read. She starts writing at the age of eleven. But even if she had a good education she liked to do outdoors activities that were not really suitable for a young woman. However her education told her how to talk in French and in Italian, she was able to sing, draw, sew, embroider, play piano or dance, even if her favorite activity was obviously the reading. With her sister Cassandra, from whom she was really close, they went to two different schools.

At the age of eighteen she wrote Elianor and Marianne and two years later, we thing that she had a “love adventure” with a man named Tom Lefroy that she could have met during the Christmas Holiday of 1795, but if this append that was not really long because we suppose that this had ended in 1798. But that changed her and her way of writing, during that time she wrote Pride and Prejudice, rewrote Elianor and Marianne under the name of Sense and Sensibility, and then Northanger Abbey in 1799.

After those years, she stopped writing for a moment probably because of her love deception or because of her move to Bath in 1801 because that was a place that she hated. After the death of her dad in 1805 her mother, her sister, and she moved to Southampton until 1809, and then to Chawton in Hampshire where Jane decide to launch a writer career, so all her sentimental parody have been published. And finally in 1817 she wrote her last novel Persuasion, but sadly she died one year later.

This amazing woman did not reach celebrity during her life but now everybody can admire her talent, and everybody does.

A brief recap of her work:

• Sense and Sensibility (1811)

• Pride and Prejudice (1813)

• Mansfield Park (1814)

• Emma (1815)

• Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous)

• Persuasion (1818, posthumous)

• Pride and Prejudice (If you read until the end you will know this and of the story!)

Longbourn is a little town of Hertfortshire, in England, where lives the Bennet family. Mrs. Bennet wants to see her daughters married, and she is ready to do anything for it, to assure their selves a good future. So when a rich man, Mr. Bingley, let Netherfield Park a propriety near Longbourn, she hope that he is going to choose one of her five daughters. But that gentleman did came alone, he is with his two sisters, Miss Caroline Bingley and Mrs. Louisa Hurst both really pretentious, and his best friend Mr. Darcy who seems to be really proud and despising.

Elizabeth or Lizzie, is the second Bennet’s daughter, she does not support the presence of Mr. Darcy, because they had a bad first meeting at the ball, he had refused to dance with her and after that she heard him said that she was not beautiful enough to charm him. But to make her forget about that, she met an officer named Wickham, who just arrived in Meryton, the nearest town, and who apparently knows Mr. Darcy and who also have a bad relation with him.

Though, Elizabeth who is really insolent with Mr. Darcy makes him more interested by her, because he loves her intelligence and vivacity. But poor Elizabeth, her mother wants her to marry a cousin of the family, Mrs. Collins a clergyman under the protection of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, because he could take their home if he does not marry one of the Bennet’s girls, and unfortunately Lizzie is, at the same time, getting closer to Wickham. During that time Jane the first of the Bennet sorority is fowling in love with Mr. Charles Bingley. Finally Lizzie does accepted to take Mr. Collins for husband so he asked to the neighbors the hand of their daughter Charlotte Lukas who is also Elizabeth best friend.

During a dance at Netherfield, when Darcy and Elizabeth finally dance together, he understand that for everybody his best friend and Jane are almost married and he is not agree with that. So after that they all went back to London, even Mr. Bingley living Jane who was fool of hope.

Mr. Wickham tells a lot of bad things about Darcy to Lizzie. After that Jane goes to London with her uncle and her ante, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner and Lizzie goes to Charlotte and Mr. Collins’s house for a couple of weeks, near Rosings Park the domain of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. During a visit to the Lady castle she meets Mr. Darcy who is actually Lady Catherine’s nephew, as he could not hold his feelings for her anymore, he asks her her hand, but she hardly refused, because he destroyed her sister’s happiness and betrayed Wickham. To respond to all those accusations he wrote her a letter, explaining that, for Jane he was thinking that her family lack of politeness and that he was feelings that Jane did not love Charles as much as he loves her. And for Wickham he account that he is a dishonest, deprave man who as only interest in money, he tried to persuade his sister, Georgiana, to run away this him at only fifteen. After those revelations Lizzie understand that her family is at the origin of her sister’s sadness.

During the summer she decides to go visit the Derbyshire with her uncle and her ante. They went visit Pemberley, Mr. Darcy’s domain. He is not supposed to be here, but she comes across him in the property, and he appears to have a really different way to be, he is very nice with the Gardiner and he introduces Lizzie to his sister. Though this trip is interrupt by a letter from the Bennet, Lydia has run away with Mr. Wickham during a journey to Brighton. She has to go back immediately to Longbourn, sure that Darcy is never going to feel anything for her anymore, and will push her away after this story, while she is begin to fall in love with him.

In fact he is the one who find the fugitives and pay for their marriage. And the also persuade Charles Bingley that he was wrong about Jane and that he should marry her. Lizzie after all this understands that she really loves Darcy, and during an interview with Lady de Bourgh, she does not accept to promise to not marry the Lady’s nephew. When Darcy hears about that conversation, he comes to see Elizabeth and ask her hand, and that time she says yes immediately.

• Why do we talk about feminine voices?

This is a question that you could ask to yourself when you are reading that blog! So I’m going to give you a global explanation about it!

It really begins during the 19^th century with writers as Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë, they decide to give women a chance to express their feelings about everything, like their statues in the society or just their emotions. They were giving a simple evaluation of their society sometimes using irony but also using tragic history like the one of Kate Chopin The Story of an Hour. They were expressing the difference and inequality between the women and the men in their century, that was a hard time for them. Most of the time they were not accepted by the society because when they were writing they couldn’t do things to “accomplish” theirs selves, like painting, or learn how to play piano like good women or more specifically, good wives.

Another really important point about feminine voices is that the women could easily understand what the writer is trying to tell, because the can identified themselves to one of the characters or even to the author. 

What is feminism ?

The radical definition of feminism is : The belief that women are and should be treated as potential intellectual equals and social equals to men. These people can be either male or female human beings, although the ideology is commonly (and perhaps falsely) associated mainly with women.

The basic idea of Feminism revolves around the principle that just because human bodies are designed to perform certain procreative functions, biological elements need not dictate intellectual and social functions, capabilities, and rights.

Feminists--and all persons interested in civil equality and intellectuality--are dedicated to fighting the ignorance that says people are controlled by and limited to their biology.

It is seems logical that men and woman are equals because they are human beings even they are different. The feminists fight against discrimination at work, or in society generally (the disrespect of men with them), the slut-shaming for example : it is a neologism used by Canadian feminists to describe the act of making any person feel guilty or inferior for certain sexual behaviors or desires that deviate from traditional or orthodox gender expectations so the slut-shaming is used against woman by both men and woman, it’s become a bullying phenomena and it is a perpetual fight for feminists. Of course, there are progressions but a lot of details have to be solve, too (ex: In politics) and it is thanks to authors, and women fighters that women are considers as free and independent woman and change the face of the feminists, who are just fighting for equality, who can be girly and classy and fight for their rights.

If we back in time feminists win a lot of fights: the voting right, the abortion… like it was not logical, and that’s the problem of our society, it is not logical to be a free and independent person as a woman, even in advertising we see the difference between men and woman, advertising devellop sexists notions, and the image of the ideal woman: woman are more stupid than men, woman represent the sexuality, but being a woman don’t mean that : a woman should be naked, or represent like that, it is a false idea. Men should be at the place of the woman, for understand that’s not our roles.

Woman are not objects, they can be what they want to be, they can do what they want to do or become like a men, a woman is not : a daughter, a wife, it’s someone who like a men can have desires, dress like she want, and being herself and don’t be ashame of that.

Today I will speak about a French feminist book.

The independent woman is a book written by Simone de Beauvoir in 2008 and edited by Gallimard. This book is the Chapter XIV of his book The second sex.

It’s a good critic about the feminine condition. The new thing presented by this book is that a girl doesn’t born woman… She became a woman.

She says that being a woman is an evolution it’s a fight with the life. And this metamorphosis takes place between 18 and 30 years old.

Who’s Simone de Beauvoir? 

She’s a French author born Simone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand the 9^th of Januray 1908 et died the 14^th april 1986. She was considered as a very important philosopher because she had create a new notion : The notion of his book the second sex…

Hi everybody! Today I will show you what the literature brought to women.

The answer is very easy to found.

=> The historical goal of literature is distraction

or denouncing something.

Here the interesting point of the literature for women is another. The very important goal of literature is to show ideas to women.

It’s through the “feminine voices”, for example, that the women had integrated the new ideas. The literature gives to women the tools to be free and have rights

hi ! today article is on a book i just discovered few week ago when i was looking for fan made stories about pride and prejudice.

Sum up

Of course she's obsessed with Jane Austen...

Surrounded by appalling exes and fawning students, the only thing keeping professor Katherine Roberts sane is Jane Austen and her personal secret love for racy Regency romance novels. She thinks the Jane Austen Addicts conference in the English countryside is the perfect opportunity to escape her chaotic life and finally relax...

But then she encounters a devilishly handsome man at the conference who seems determined to sweep her off her feet. Is he more fiction than fact? Or could he be the hero she didn't know she was looking for?

Review:

A Weekend With Mr. Darcy by Victoria Connelly appealed to me because 1) the title. Who wouldn't want to spend a weekend with Mr. Darcy? 2)It's a Jane Austen variation. I'm a huge fan of all things Jane.  I love reading about people who love her as much as I do.
A Weekend With Mr. Darcy  is set in modern day during a weekend with a bunch of Jane Austen addicts. There are two story-lines that mingle quite often. The first storyline centers around Dr. Katherine Roberts. She is unlucky in-love and has some trust issues. She's developed a pen-pal relationship/friendship with her favorite author, Lorna Warwick. However Katherine doesn't know that Lorna Warwick is really a man named Warwick Lawton. Warwick has fallen in love with Katherine's letter and decides to attend the Jane Austen weekend in order to finally meet her.
The second story-line focuses on Robyn and Dan. Robyn's life is a routine of sorts. She's been with the same man since high school. Robyn doesn't love Jace and is trying to find the courage to break up with him. He follows her to Hampshire and makes a bit of a pest out of himself. Robyn's life gets even more complicated when she meets Dan. Dan is a breath of fresh air that makes Robyn begin to believe in happily ever after.
This is a great book to read. I loved it from beginning to end. There are several laugh out loud moments. The characters are well developed and fun to read. The supporting characters are really great also. I loved reading both story-lines. I couldn't get enough. There is a perfect quote on the cover that fits this novel to a T. It says "The course of true love never does run smooth when Jane Austen makes the rules.." Victoria Connelly has a witty sense of humor that translates well onto paper.  This book is a total win for me and if you love Jane Austen variations you should check it out. Other reasons to read this book include:

Virginia Woolf (1992-1941)

Together, Virginia and Leonard Woolf was a part of the famous Bloomsbury Group, which included E.M. Forster, Duncan Grant, Virginia's sister, Vanessa Bell, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot.

Virginia Woolf died on March 28, 1941 near Rodmell, Sussex, England. She left a note for her husband, Leonard, and for her sister, Vanessa. Then, Virginia walked to the River Ouse, put a large stone in her pocket, and drowned herself. Children found her body 18 days later.

Some Virginia Woolf's Quotes:

More Details of Virginia Woolf's Life:

In class we studied one of her most famous novel Lappin and Lappinova (LAPPIN_AND_LAPINOVA__Virginia_Woolf) wrote in 1944, It was really an interesting story, a bit weird at first.

Sum up

The newly married couple Rosalind and Ernest Thorburn. Although in love, there is always a discomfort between them, a divide. She craves affection but his stiff upper lip seems to block warmth and spontaneity. Rosalind realises he has a way wriggling his nose that makes him rabbit-esque. Thus she nicknames him Lappin and creates a female counterpart for herself, Lapinova. They imagine a secret forest together where they can throw off their awkwardness and unite as their rabbit alter egos. She feeds him lettuce and says he is a King Rabbit - a "rabbit that makes rules for all the other rabbits". This unites them as a couple and she becomes dependent on it to communicate with her husband. 
Until one day, Ernest decides he's had enough. Rosalind tries to entice him into being Lappin and coming into their make believe forest and he tells her Lapinova - her rabbit self - has been "caught in a trap, killed". 

Reviews

I found Lappin and Lappinova novel really entertaining. I actually think I enjoyed reading this work more than other short stories we have read this semester.

In Lappin and Lappinova, it seemed as if Rosalind created a fantasy world to live in to escape the constraints placed on her by marriage to Ernest. Woolf repeatedly mentions Rosalind’s mother-in-law and the dining room at Porchester Terrace as a way to show the pressure placed on Rosalind to conform to the standards of the Thorburn family.  Rosalind chooses to pull her husband into a fantasy world where they can both exist peacefully. We learn about the inner thoughts of a woman who does not find her marriage or husband entirely fulfilling.

In addition, Rosalind seems to become completely removed from the reality that is her marriage. The repeated imagery of Ernest’s ‘nose twitching’ is something I found particularly interesting. By the end of the story, I concluded that the nose twitching was a voluntary rather than involuntary reaction. It was almost like a little game Ernest played with Rosalind to make her happy. Once time passed, however, the game got old and he stopped playing so their marriage ended. He finally get bored and considered it as stupid. If thinking of the nose twitching as an involuntary action, the reader can see the man as the controlling force within the relationship. Rosalind and Queen Lapinova were subject to Ernest’s moods and his ability to actually engage in the marriage. When he stopped engaging was when the marriage ended; therefore, he seemed to be in control the entire time. I think it would have been entertaining to see Rosalind walk away from the marriage on her own accord realizing that she was not happy. However, having the man in control is a reoccurring theme in Woolf’s work with the statut of women in her her society.

I also found the repeated mention of the color ‘yellow’ to be somewhat significant. The color is mostly used when Rosalind and Ernest are visiting his home. Woolf also uses the color gold to describe the lavish qualities of the home. I think these two colors are used as a tool for making Rosalind feel inferior. Yellow and gold seem to give an aura of happiness and richness, two things that Rosalind does not possess.

Overall I really enjoyed reading Lappin and Lapinova and am interested to see what the rest of the class thought of the work. And I really wish to read more about virginia woolf others stories.

Hi !! today article is about Women writer over the century, women have always been rare and the minority in the literature world. they were supposed to stay at home and take care of their children not read and learn. However women writer have always existed like :  

XVI Century

Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549) who wrote the famous L'Heptaméron still study and read nowadays

XVII CENTURY

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) considered as the first professional woman writer she was really famous and prolific, she was a drama writer.

A part of Her works

The Forced Marriage (1670)

The Amorous Prince (1671)

The Dutch Lover (1673)

Rachel Speght wrote A Mouzell for Melastomus in 1617 and Mortalities Memorandum, both religious defenses of women's rights based on interpretation of scripture. Although there were a few other feminist writings of the time, Rachel Speght was the first feminist to write in English under her own name.

XVIII CENTURY

Elizabeth Carter(1717-1806) known for her translations, poetry, essays, and letter writing, was fortunate enough to be educated by her father, the Perpetual Curate in Deal, England. Learning alongside her brothers, she received a well-rounded education, which included knowledge of several languages. She was skilled in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, Spanish, and German. As an adult, she taught herself Portuguese and Arabic. According to tradition, Carter lost her health by studying long nights as a child, and did in fact suffer from severe headaches as an adult. Her father was a friend of Gentleman’s Magazine editor, Edward Cave, who began to publish Carter in his periodical. She became active in England’s literary circles and developed friendships with Samuel Johnson, Catherine Talbot, Elizabeth Montagu, Samuel Richardson, Edmund Burke, Horace Walpole, and Hannah More.

Hannah More (1745-1833) was one of the most prolific and widely read writers of her time. Educated as a schoolmistress, she soon began publishing plays for the instruction of children and, later, religious writings, including several chapbooks for youths. She also became a part of Samuel Johnson’s illustrious circle. Besides being a writer, she was a committed religious and social reformer, establishing Sunday schools for the poor. She encouraged other women to volunteer their time to helping the poor and, as a result, increased women’s influence in social work. However, although she advocated female education, she did so only in the context of an educated domesticity.

Her works

Sir Eldred of the Bower and the Bleeding Rock: Two Legendary Tales (1776)

Hints toward Forming the Moral Character of a Young Princess (1819)

XIX CENTURY was the climax for women rights and feminines voices in literature with famous and well known writers as

Kate Chopin, (1851-1904) was born in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1870, she married Oscar Chopin and moved to Louisiana, living in both New Orleans and Natchitoches. She began to write after her husband died of swamp fever in 1883, and she was forced to support herself and her children. Bayou Folk (1894), a collection of stories about life in Louisiana, gave her national recognition. Her popularity soon ended with the publication of her controversial, but now critically aclaimed novel, The Awakening(1898), which deals with female independence through a suicidal female heroine who leaves her husband and children in an attempt to discover her personal freedom.

Bayou Folk (1894) 

A story of an hour (1894)

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism, biting irony and social commentary have gained her historical importance among scholars and critics.

A part of her works 

Sense and Sensibility (1811)

Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Mansfield Park (1814)

Emma (1815)

Northanger Abbey (1818)

Persuasion (1818)

Lady Susan (1794-1805)

Virginia Woolf, (1882-1941) is now considered one of the preeminant modern novelists. She, along with her husband Leonard, was a member of the Bloomsbury group, a handful of writers and artists who originally met at Cambridge. In 1917, she and Leonard bought a small handpress with the intent to publish their own writings as well as those of their writer friends. Under the name The Hogarth Press, the Woolf’s published works by Sigmund Freud, Katherine Mansfied, and T.S. Eliot. The press gave Virginia the freedom to write what she wanted. 

Her works 

Mrs Dalloway (1925)

To the Lighthouse (1927)

Orlando (1928)

The Waves (1931)

The Years (1937)

Between the Acts (1941)

Monday or Tuesday (1921)

A Haunted House and Other Short Stories (1944)

Mrs Dalloway's Party (1973)

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels are English literature standards. She wrote Jane Eyre under the pen name Currer Bell.

Her works 

Jane Eyre (1847)

Shirley (1849)

Villetten (1853)

The Professor (1857)

Emma (1860)