Untitled Document

On June 26th the fourth meeting of the newly formed Tampa Bay Chapter of JASNA met at Terry Hubener's home in Feather Sound, Clearwater, FL. Terry's lovely home is made even more so by the presence of her extensive collection of "Janeobelia". Terry was indeed a gracious hostess and we were a merry party of six. Terry served a variety of teas, pastries and croissants. Yummy!

The topic of discussion was "The Couples in Pride and Prejudice." The following trends of thought seemed to emerge and to meet with universal agreement.

•	All in all, Charlotte made a pretty sound decision in marrying Mr. Collins, as this allowed her to have her own home, husband and children rather than to remain "Aunt Charlotte" in the home of one of her siblings. This led to a lively discussion of how few choices were available back in Jane's day to women who did not marry or have their own fortunes (e.g. Emma and Anne de Bourgh).
•	We did not get into a deep analysis of the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet because we became quite involved in analyzing the character of Mrs. Bennet. There was universal agreement that Mrs. Bennet emerges as the pragmatist in the Bennet family. We decided that she understands only too well that if Mr. Bennet predeceases her with all five daughters unmarried still the fate of all six would be a sad one indeed! The only way she sees to protect and provide for her daughters is to see them well married. We discussed Jane's technique in using satire and a broadly drawn character in Mrs. Bennet so as to make her (and ultimately Jane's message of one of the plights of women) more palatable to 18th century critics.
•	There was some discussion of Mr. Bennet's treatment of his daughters but we agreed that this topic was far from exhausted!
•	I confess we do not know exactly how, but we were suddenly involved in a discussion of the P&P movies. We had all seen and loved A& E's P&P and given it a universal "thumb's up!" Needless to say, it was concluded that we all, from age 16 - 66, were mad in love with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy! Those who had seen the first P&P from the 1940's declared it a disaster in comparison, although we agreed that Sir Laurence Oliver made a dashing Mr. Darcy. That version disappointed chiefly in costuming, dancing, and the last scene in which Darcy seems to have sent Lady Catherine as his emissary to Lizzy! Quelle nightmare! Those who had seen the intervening BBC version declared it "wishy-washy".

At this point we were well over the two hours we had allowed for our meeting. Or, as Jane would say, "It's such happiness when good people get together - and they always do!" We concluded with the following:

•	We discussed meeting at some future date at one of the tea rooms in the Tampa Bay area. Perhaps the meeting just before the Holidays?
•	There is interest in looking into the possibility of learning some of the dances of Jane's day.
•	The annual JASNA meeting this year will be in Los Angeles in October. To date, only Terry is going. Participants have been asked by JASNA if they would be interested in hosting one of the late evening "pajama sessions". We all encouraged her to do so. That meeting will be centered on Persuasion so we agreed that our meeting just before the convention will be about Persuasion.
•	Our next meeting will be on July 31st from 2 - 4 PM at the home of Jill Henaghen in Tarpon Springs. We will continue the topic "Couples in P&P.