Eng 117 - Blog 4

Young Elizabeth in Peril.

This was a very interesting essay to read. The author first explained Elizabeth's real history, and then compared it to how it is shown in the media, both of her time and today. 

It is interesting that the author points out how Elizabeth is never portrayed as both a great queen and an emotional person with a love life. She is always depicted as one or the other. The authors of her day, the ones who wrote about her either in her life-time or just after she died, showed her as the great queen. Since the advent of film, directors have chosen Elizabeth as a great character for love stories. In these movies, she is shown as weak and blinded by love.

The one that is perhaps the most ridiculous, is the 1953 Young Bess movie. This one is probably the most historically incorrect. It tells of a time in history when Elizabeth is 13 years old. The movie shows her as a young adult instead, in love with her stepmothers husband. 

It is pretty ridiculous how Hollywood twists history to make their good story. But this essay doesn't cover a book like The Virgin's Lover, which did exactly the same thing. Gregory goes far enough to describe the sex scenes between Elizabeth and Sir Robert, when we do not know if that ever actually happened. 

In our day and age, stories and love and sex are what sell. It's a good thing Elizabeth isn't alive today to see it, because I don't think she would approve of this image of her!

Eng 117 - Blog 3

I found the first poem interesting. It is Elizabeth reflecting on when she was young and how she would turn away suitors. 

She says that when she was young, she had so many suitors and she turned them all away. She had told them to go look somewhere else. So cupid came, and he told her that since she is so unresponsive (a synonym to coy on the Apple dictionary), he ripped out her feathers, her beauty, and she now never has to turn her suitors away. Now she regrets that she turned them all away.

They reason I found this interesting is for how she viewed herself as turning suitors away, but as we talked about in class, it seems like she never actually turned anyone away. She kept each suitor close. Close enough to hold on to their strings, but far enough that she never promised marriage.

Maybe she meant that she turned them away in the simple sense of never marrying them. Maybe she wrote this poem because she felt like she missed good chances. Maybe she wrote it to make it look like she turned them away, and not look like she took advantage of them. Or maybe she really felt exactly what she said, although its hard to believe that she didn't know what she was doing when she was playing her games on these men... she knew.

Eng 117 - Blog 2

Today I will write about Amy in The Virgin's Lover.

I just feel terrible for her position. In class we talked about her and some people mentioned they were annoyed at her character because she will not do anything to defend her situation, but I just feel bad for her. 

She is a woman who lived at a time where she could not have done anything. She was at her husbands bid. That is just how it was. She could not choose to go visit him at court unless he summoned her. She could not go against his orders. It was just not done. I think Gregory's Amy was already too bold for her time to say all the things she had said to Robert. She yelled at him, she spoke ill of the queen, and she told him of her true religion. Robert was shocked when she said these things because it was not a normal thing for a woman to say. 

Amy was also blinded with her love for him. I think we've seen our friends do stupid things and done them ourselves because we could not control our logic over our emotions. This woman is in love with Robert stronger than any other love described in this book. She even starts to go crazy in the end, when after Robert tells her he wants a divorce to marry the Queen, she tells William Hyde that Robert is a great husband and everything is hunky-dory. She is physically ill from her mental ache, and its been proven that great stress can make a person physically ill. 

Basically, I feel sorry for her. I honestly don't think there is anything she could have done to make her situation good. Robert was unstoppable in his quest for the top, and upon getting up there, she had no way to bring him back down. The only thing she could have done to make her life better was a divorce and settlement so that she could live in peace from his mistreatment and one day get over him. But she could not do that, of course, because of her religion and her pride. 

Over and Out

117 – Post 1

Q: What is up with Sir Roberts ego!?

I am just halfway through the book, and the character that provokes my thoughts is Robert. His inability to choose one woman is fascinating, (in a he’s kind of a pig kind of way.)

Robert had married Amy for love. He loved her when he was 16. Now it is 10 years later, and it is obvious he does not love her anymore. He is falling in love with Elizabeth, with at first just being a strong infatuation, but it now seems like he is really in love with her. He knows he will not have her as his wife, so he holds on to her, but will not let go of his wife either.

With Amy, it seems to me that he just cannot let go of the attention he gets from her. I know divorce was not an easy thing to do back then like today, but I think he likes women being completely devoted to him. I think he takes pleasure in knowing that she would do anything for him, so he keeps her by a thin thread so that she keeps attached, without him putting in much effort, and does not make the moves to leave him.

Oh Robert, silly Robert. He knows too, that he is creating so many enemies, but he does not care, because his ego is bigger than his fear of enemies.

174- Post 1

- Why does Anne not want people to know about her previous familiarity/experience with Fredrick? Why is she so concerned with keeping it a secret?

Well, Andy, I honestly did not really feel that was really covered much in the book. I am about 2/3 through the book and I don't think Anne is concerned about people knowing about the engagement. She is definitely nervous to meet Fredrick and tries to prolong seeing him as long as she can. When she does see him again, she is awkward and nervous around him. She cannot stop thinking about what he must feel about her and about how she can avoid him. 

The only time I felt she was concerned with talking of the engagement was when she told Lady Russell about him, but even then, this is someone who already knew, and once she told her, she felt much more comfortable saying his name again. 

Now, further in the book, she has still not mentioned the engagement to anyone. All her thoughts of his comments and compliments of her are safe in her own mind. 

Fredrick seems to be acting the same way as well. He has not brought up their engagement at all, even between themselves. But we know he does care because of the many signals he's shown: being interested in Anne's declining Charles, admiring her when noticing that Mr. Elliot was admiring her, being in awe of her skills of taking care of Louisa, and more.