Dear Jane Austen, Mr Darcy Ruined Everything.

When writing something like this, there is always a point where the writer simply has no idea where to start. Am I to give an entire life story or just fill you in on the good bits? I am still undecided.

            Perhaps I should start with an introduction. My name is Hannah. I am twenty-five years old, something I feel is an important fact to state from the very beginning, as I am aware that I can be a bit of an old woman. Not am I only a bit of an old woman who can think of nothing better than to come home to a glass of wine and a good book after a long day at work I am also a crazy cat lady. I have two cats, Misty (Moo) and Olly (Wally). Both are rescue cats and they are my world. I refer to them as my babies, which some people find quite unsettling, but I quite frankly couldn’t give a dam, I love them and I miss them like crazy when I am not at home.

            ‘Jane Austen ruined my life’ is a title of a book that could quite possibly describe my life, well love life to be more exact. I am officially ruined by the fictional expectations that were forced upon my subconscious mind by that woman when she put pen to paper over 200 years ago and created the wonderful Mr. Darcy. I wonder if she had any concept of the profound effect she has caused upon the minds of women all over the world, could she have known the damage Darcy could have created to the love lives of thousands of women? Why cant life be like a Jane Austen novel? What happened to the manners, the dancing, the balls and gowns? I am fully aware that times have changed but I feel there is something very important within these texts, that have been lost to our society resulting in women, like myself holding onto their Mr. Darcy, Captain Wentworth, Cornel Brandon, Henry Tilney, Mr. Knightley and the list goes on. The books give an impression of a time when men were gentlemen and women were ladies allowing the reader to escape from the sad reality of the drunken nights out, being groped by a man that thinks that’s acceptable behavior just because you’re wearing a skirt or worse thinks you’ll be going back to his for a quick shag just because he bought you a drink.

            As I have been writing this I have become aware that it has slowly turned into what could be considered to be a feminist rant and it wasn’t meant to be. Not all men are like the examples I just stated and truth be known those men would not behave as such if we had no allowed it to happen in the first place.

            So…the reason I am to die an old crazy cat lady with a house full of recuse cats all named after my favorite boybands is because of Jane Austen. Shame on you Miss Austen, look what you did.