True for Anne, but......
Posted by Shannon on October 22, 1997 at 23:29:53:
In response to Like Anne Shirley, written by Emily Anne on October 22, 1997 at 17:55:49
] ] To be frank, I now look at the end of S&S quite differently- I feel sad for Marianne and Brandon.
] ] Marianne has lost a part of her (that), I find tragic........
] ] I now leave the question open???????????????
]
] Well, Marianne's feelings about dramatic, romantic, passionate love seemed similarly misguided to those of Anne Shirley in the Anne of Green Gables books. If any of you have read them, you'll hopefully remember that in college, Anne wants a 'brooding' man, kind of sad and poetic and dramatic. And she meets him, and they 'fall in love.' However, just in time -- actually as he is proposing -- Anne realizes that he is just what she _had thought she wanted_ not what she actually wanted. At that moment she grew up from the girl who'd had her head and heart far too deeply in 'romances' for her own good. I believe that Austin is showing us something similar with Marianne. She only believed she wanted someone like Willoughby, who exactly matched her romances and passions, instead of what she truly wanted, which was someone slightly more mature in his loves and passions, like Col. Brandon.
First, I have to say, I love Anne of Green Gables. I totally agree that that man was not right for her. Gilbert, who was there all along, was perfect for her. But the man she fell in love with didn't break her heart. She came to a realization that that wasn't the love she wanted or needed. She had never experienced love before that. Marianne is different. She more than believed she wanted a man like Willoughby. She felt it. All those months of weeping and saddness over her denied love. I have always thought that she truly loved him with everything she was, that she felt passionate love for Willoughby. When she married Brandon(a great, loving, devoted man), she had altered. I found that aspect sad. She was not the same Marianne. I agree with Rita. She lost a (huge) part of herself.
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