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.”
-Beauty is square-shaped: Mrs. Croft in Persuasion “had a squareness, uprightness, and vigour of form, which gave importance to her person.”
-Beauty is stout: “Lydia was a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and good-humoured countenance.”
-But beauty is not stick thin: Miss de Bourgh is “so thin and so small” and “pale and sickly.” Similarly, Northanger Abbey’s Isabella Thorpe, when painting a picture of herself as undesirable, describes herself as “wretchedly thin.”
But Austen isn’t body-shaming thin people. Anne, after all, has a “slender form” that Captain Wentworth and Mr. Elliot both find attractive. It is the unhealthy type of underweight that Austen objects to.
Look at these beautiful Austen women! They are stout and square-shaped and plump and slender, and they are all beautiful. As Elinor Dashwood notes, “the sweetest girls in the world…[come] under every possible variation of form.” Elinor, that’s refreshingly…sensible.
2. The men don’t have to be sinfully hot to be attractive. In fact, they don’t even have to be handsome.
In almost all my rom coms, the man is wickedly, sizzlingly, skin-scorchingly hot.
Well. It is fun to read about a hot male protagonist, and Austen gives us a few of those—Darcy, Wentworth, Knightley. But she also gives us examples of men who aren’t hot, or even good looking at all, but are still desirable. Check them out:
-Colonel Brandon’s “face was not handsome, but his countenance was sensible, and his address was particularly gentlemanlike.”
-Edward Ferrars is also “not handsome…At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person can hardly be called handsome till the expression of his eyes, which are uncommonly good, and the general sweetness of his countenance is perceived.”
-Colonel Fitzwilliam is “not handsome, but in person and address most truly the gentleman.”
-Even Henry Crawford is “not handsome.” None of the women in the novel seem to notice that, though.
I often forget these characters aren’t handsome because, by the end of the novel, Austen has convinced me they are attractive. Can you imagine an honest casting call for these movies? “We’re looking for some ugly actors with uncommonly kind eyes.”
For good measure, though, I’ll add Elizabeth’s thoughts on Mr. Bingley: “He is also handsome…which a young man ought likewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete.” True, Elizabeth. We don’t hate handsome. Colin Firth, I guess you can stay.
3. The heroine is not the prettiest women in the novel—but her personality makes her beautiful.
It’s not just the man who’s beautiful in the typical rom com. The woman is also gorgeous. In movies especially, she often has a best friend or two who are pretty but nothing compared to her. Not so in Austen, where the heroine is not the best looking person in the room:
-Everyone agrees Jane is the prettiest Bennet. Even Mr. Darcy, when he first sees the two sisters, acknowledges that Jane is “the only handsome girl in the room,” whereas Elizabeth is merely “tolerable.”
-Fanny Price is “small for her age, with no glow of complexion, nor any other striking beauty.” She is outshined for many chapters by Mary Crawford, who is “remarkably pretty.”
But Elizabeth’s wit and Fanny’s morals sway their male protagonists—just like Colonel Brandon’s kindness and respectful manners win the day. It’s almost as if Austen is saying it’s our personalities that make us beautiful. What?! Not our size C cups (which, ugh, are too small) or size D (which, ugh, are too big! What guy would ever want that?).
I still enjoy a good rom com, despite their cookie cutter descriptions of beauty. And I can appreciate Colin Firth emerging dripping from the lake, Regency dress shirt clinging to his body. But I also like falling into Austen’s world, where characters can be plump. And even a little ugly. But still overwhelmingly beautiful.
What do you think? When you read books or watch movies, do you like to dive into a world of fantasy where everyone is beautiful? Or do you prefer a dose of reality with nontraditional beauty–or even no beauty? Or maybe a little of both? I’d love to hear your thoughts–and thanks for reading.
Below are some interesting articles I used to write this post:
The Truth About Beauty in Austen’s Novels
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