Today's Class

So here's a picture of our group, minus one student who was absent.

We ended our discussion of Volume 1 with the following highlights:

1. We'd love to have the Netherfield Ball as our prom theme next year: "Netherfield Branson Ball 2011" has a great ring to it.
2. Every aspiration that the Bennet family has in Volume 1 blows up in their faces by the end of the volume. Mrs. Bennet believes that Jane and Elizabeth will have husbands, only to see Bingley and the Netherfield crew fly to London and Elizabeth (rightfully) reject Mr. Collins' proposal.

We then made a transition into Volume 2.

1. Why does Charlotte's marriage to Mr. Collins so upset Elizabeth? Her relationship with Wickham fizzles, she rejects Collins, and Collins immediately proposes to her best friend.
2. We looked at Elizabeth's view of Bingley's departure. She calls him a "slave of his designing friends," a comment that took us back to Elizabeth's statement to Darcy in Chapter X of Volume 1: "To yield readily--easily-- to the persuasion of a friend is no merit to you."
3. We also looked at the narrator's description of Elizabeth's feelings regarding Wickham's transferring of this affections to Miss King in Chapter XXVI: "His apparent partiality had subsided, his attentions were over, he was the admirer of some one else." We liked how the dependent clauses fall into themselves here. Though Elizabeth's pride may prevent her from admitting that losing Wickham's attentions hurt her, her heart registers pain but quickly tries to move past that pain. Men.