I love my romantic comedies, but if I read another book where the woman complains about having large breasts and an hourglass body, I’m going to throw it across the room. (A problem, since I like e-books.) There is such a sameness to our description of beauty—thin, shapely, lush—that after too many reads, the perfection gets boring.
There’s some sameness to Austen’s characters too, of course, since they are all British and upper/ middle class. She wrote what she knew. Beyond those constraints, however, Austen bends the traditional standards of beauty. Her characters do not have to be thin—or even pretty!—to be beautiful. There’s something refreshingly healthy about Austen’s stance on beauty that I think we could all learn from. Here are a few of her gems:
- Women aren’t beautiful in spite of their extra weight. They’re beautiful because of it.
-In Austen, beauty means plump: Harriet Smith is “short, plump, and fair,” and “her beauty happened to be of a sort which Emma particularly admired.”
This site is ending, so I moved this post. Read the rest here & find out about more Austen characters who are beautiful without being thin…and the whole club of leading men who are “not handsome.”
6 responses to “Plump is Beautiful: Austen’s Take on the Many Sides of Beauty”
Excellent article, and it’s always important to remind ourself (and especially if we’re around young growing girls with body image issues) that beauty doesn’t just come in one size.
Even Darcy, handsome as he might be, takes second place to bad-boy Wickham in terms of physical beauty. It’s really NOT about being the prettiest or handsomest in the room. It’s about so much more, and that’s where real beauty lies.
Good point–the hero isn’t always the best looking male in Austen’s novels. I notice all of this stuff much more after having kids. This is maybe tangential, but so many of children’s cartoons and books are populated predominantly with male characters (why?). Now that I’ve started noticing it, I can’t stop, and I marvel that I accepted it so easily without question before.
I like a little reality. Not every character has to be perfect or thin. They all have beauty in their own way! Alan Rankin is !t favorite Co!onel Brandon!Sigh! Great post!
I like a little reality too! Makes it more relatable.
Jane Austen was spot on in her notions of beauty. I’ve found from personal experience that people do indeed become more attractive the more I know and like them. The opposite is also true. Nasty Bagginses are ugly, no matter what they look like.
I like the previous comment about teaching children to accept their bodies. It’s sad to hear how social media beats up young girls.
I agree. My thoughts on people’s beauty changes as I get to know them better.
I also hate thinking about how much society teaches women and girls that their looks are their greatest asset–and encourages them to conform to such a narrow definition of beauty.