Re-thinking the Marriage Plot
Course Objective:
Marriage plots are rarely associated with anything beyond supposedly frivolous, Jane Austen-esque “romances”, however our society’s fixation on matrimony continues to permeate art, politics, and literature. If Austen’s views on matrimony exposed economic instability, class restrictions, and patriarchal values, what does today’s culture reveal? Despite the high pedestal marriage is placed on, American media is inundated with rhetoric that does little but force discerning viewers to question the very “values” it supposedly represents. Divorce rates have never been higher, consumeristic wedding culture has never been more exorbitant, “The Bachelor” has just been renewed for its twentieth season—where does this leave us?
I. Courting
Texts:
- Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion
- Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
- Michelle J. Hop, Courting the Victorian Woman
Suggested Viewing:
- The Millionaire Matchmaker , seasons 1-8
II. The Big Day
Texts:
- Selections from The Wedding Day in Literature and Art, ed. by C.F. Carter
- Marriage, Marianne Moore
Suggested Viewing:
- Say Yes to the Dress, seasons 1-10
III. Sharing a Life Together
- Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse
- Rita Dove: Thomas and Belulah
- Margaret Atwood: The Penelopiad
- Rachel Zucker: The Pedestrians
Suggested Viewing:
- Wife Swap, seasons 1-4
IV. Breakups are hard to do
- Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea
- Joanna Klink: Raptus
- Elena Ferrante: The Days of Abandonment
Suggested Viewing:
- Cheaters, seasons 1-14
Additional Suggested Reading:
- Adele Waldman : “Why the Marriage Plot Need Never Get Old”
- Francine Prose and Dana Stevens: “How Does the Classic Marriage Plot Stand Up in 2014” Francine Prose and Dana Stevens
- John Dugdale “Jane Austen v. Emily Brontë: Who’s the Queen of English Literature?”
- “The Victorian Wedding: Part 1 & 2”, Literary-Liaisons
- “Not Subordinate: Empowering Women in the Marriage Plot— The Novels of Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen”, Julie Shaffer
