Truth Assignment

Becoming Jane

The 2007 movie Becoming Jane stars Anne Hathaway as author Jane Austen. The movie details her life; more specifically the movie explores her relationship with Tom Lefroy. The movie depicts how Jane and Tom meet and how a romance develops, resulting in Tom purposing marriage and Jane accepting. Tom’s family, however, does not approve of Jane because she is penniless. Tom too comes from a poor family and must marry for money. The two eventually decide to elope to Greta Green but Jane decides she can not do this because Tom’s family depends on him too much. At the end the movie flashes ahead some fifteen years and here Jane and Tom meet again. They are friendly towards one another and Jane meets Tom’s daughter, who is also named Jane. Jane agrees to read a passage from one of her novels for Tom’s daughter and the movie ends. As Jane Austen never married, one has to wonder how much of the relationship between Jane and Tom shown in the movie is real.

There is much debate as to the actual relationship between the two. The two did meet while Tom was visiting family, nearby neighbors and friends of the Austen family. During this time she formed a friendship with Tom; she found him very agreeable and enjoyed his company. Much of the debate about Jane’s relationship with Tom stems from the three surviving letters to her sister Cassandra (Jane’s sister burned many of the letters Jane wrote to her) in which she expressly mentions Tom.

There seem to be two opinions stemming from the brief mention of Tom in the three letters. One opinion is that Tom and Jane simply had a good and flirtatious time and that there was nothing serious between the two. The other opinion is that Jane was deeply in love with Tom and those feelings are returned. Jane writes to her sister of she and Tom dancing and flirting and in the last letter writes that she will miss Tom greatly when he leaves, which he was near to doing when she wrote the letter, in the same letter she tells her sister she is crying over thoughts of him leaving even as she writes. There is some speculation that Tom’s daughter Jane is named after Jane Austen, which would lend to the theory that they were deeply in love. Tom’s mother-in-law was named Jane as well, so we can never really know if he did indeed name her after Austen.

The three letters really do not reveal much about the relationship between the two. I can see how they could be interpreted both ways. However, Tom is not the only man with which Jane has been rumored to be in love with. Jane is also rumored to have been in love with a sea captain who died before they could be married. Jane was engaged once very very briefly to the brother of some friends, she broke the engagement because their tempers did not suit. There are some who think Austen scholars and fans search for love connections where there are none; because they want Jane to have the love she gave her characters.

Jane died in July 1817 without ever marrying.

Jane Austen Bio This link details the life of Jane Austen

Becoming Jane ... This link talks about the movie

The Love Life of Jane The article here discusses the love life of Jane Austen

What Becoming Jane Got Wrong Details what about Jane's love life the movie got wrong

Other Versions of This Story

Click here to view this story on my webpage

Pecan pie with a dash of...?

Tonight while putting away dishes my father and I found a measuring cup that we had been using to measure food for our outside dogs. We (the family) had been leaving cup and a bowl on an out of the way counter. While we were wondering how the cup got in with the rest of the dishes we thought of something. Last Thursday my grandmother,who lives with us but pretty much has her own house connected to ours through the laundry room, made pecan pies. Surely she didn’t use the cup right?? WRONG! Grandma said she found the cup and used it to measure the pecans. Thankfully I didn’t burst out laughing right then (I waited till I closed the laundry room door) and I didn’t tell her what the cup had previously been used for. My brother laughed and didn’t seem to upset when Dad and I asked how his dog food flavored pecan pie was. I personally can’t wait to tell my mother. On the bright side if there was anything in the cup it was only crumbs, but still…makes me glad I don’t like pecan pie.

Battle of the Christmas tree

My mom is a nurse and works night shifts so she didn’t go with us (me and Dad) to pick out a Christmas tree this year. Before she went to bed she gave Dad very specific size limitations because we will go for the biggest tree we can find and fit through the door. Her limitations? The tree couldn’t be more than 7ft tall and could be no wider than my dad’s arm span from one elbow to the other. So we get there and get up on the hill and start to look for a tree to cut. We wander around finding trees we like, ruling out ones we know she won’t go for. We probably spent the better part of an hour looking at trees until we had it narrowed down to three. We finally just picked one, one slightly bigger than we were supposed to. Yeah, so, when the tree was up it looked a little bigger than we thought. It’s about 8 ft tall but it does fit her width measurement…only it’s that size half way up the tree. Mom was a little ticked it was so big, especially after we cut the netting off. But she agrees it’s a pretty tree. Besides we have at least a foot between the top of the tree and the ceiling, heck I could have gotten a bigger tree! Notes for next year: bring a measuring tape and a digital camera so we can compare trees easier (just kidding on the camera….sort of.)

Interesting text conversations

12/2/08 -What you need to know about this conversation… I just called Amy evil.

Amy: I know :)

Me: As long as you know

Amy: I am comfortable with the individual I have become and only hope for love and acceptance from my friends and family.

Me: Okay who are you and where is my Amy?

Amy: She is no longer with us

Me: Freak!!!!!!!

Amy: THANK YOU!

ME: Lol your crazy the seclusion has finally gotten to you …that or GC is full of pod people. (Side Note: GC stands for Grant City, which is a very small town in the middle of NOWHERE in northern MO)

Amy: hahaha

Me: Whatever the voices tell you… don’t do it!

Amy: I can’t help myself I must

Me: I’M COMING TO SAVE YOU!!!!

Amy: I’m fine, really * Crystal please…come quick they are taking over my mind*

The convo and talk of pod people continues and ends with Abby (Amy’s dog) being a badass and saving the day. Boredom, lack of sleep, and stress don’t mix.

Gingerbread houses from hell

I had to make 10 more gingerbread houses kits for Discover Club (program for home schooled kids) at work bringing the grand total to 40. Now that doesn’t sound like a lot but these gingerbread houses are a paper craft. So first I had to enlarge the pattern from the book, cut those out and make a test house to see if the kids would be able to do it. Then I had to trace all the pieces onto poster board, cut them out, and then score the tabs. Then make 10 more houses cause we thing there might be a large turn out. So that brings the grand total 240 pieces I’ve traced, cut out and scored. I’m just glad I did away with the roof tiles and traced the pattern directly on the roof panels cause that would have been 800 more pieces to deal with. Not to mention all the decorative stuff to go on the houses. I know it will be a fun project for them, I just hope they try and decorate them somewhat nicely so I don’t feel like this whole was a waste of time and unappreciated. I’ll be so glad when the project over and I don’t have to deal with gingerbread houses anymore.

Humanity lost???

What the hell? Have people lost their minds? Breaking doors off hinges and trampling a man to death just to get into Wal-Mart, have we lost all humanity? I can’t believe people acted like this just to get some Black Friday deals. Just makes me sick.

Black Friday

Amy (best friend) wanted to get up and leave at 5 am!!!!!!!! Crystal doesn’t do 5 am and I certainly didn’t see anything worth being up that early for…but I was going to. Never been so relieved as when I turned on my phone at 4:50 and had a text from her saying we go later. We finally made it to the stores around 10 and apparently we missed the hustle and bustle of the morning because most of the shops were dead by then. Even Zona Rosa wasn’t that busy. Got some shopping done but really didn’t find too much. Bummer.