Accomplished

“Then,” observed Elizabeth, “you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman.”

“Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it.”

“Oh! certainly,” cried his faithful assistant, “no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.”

“All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”

“I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women.
I rather wonder now at your knowing any.”

I’m not really sure what brought this on. Maybe I was bored. Maybe it was the “big word” contest from Monday night. The above passage from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice haunted me during a morning which by all rights should be slow, mundane, and mindless. In the middle of turning the heel of my radioactive-colored sock, I turned the question over and over in my head.

Am I an accomplished woman?

Certainly, I would have been a failure in Miss Catherine Bingley’s eyes. I can hardly claim to have a thorough knowledge of music (unless you count knowing the lyrics of Air Supply’s All Out of Love). I cannot own up to any superior grasp of modern languages. Aside from being able to spit out a “merde” every now and then, my certifications in the French language mean absolutely nothing. My watercolors are barely passable, and only a loving mother would hang them up on her walls. I am not a graceful dancer, and I don’t know how to net purses (what is this, exactly?).

In Austen-speak, “I play the pianoforte very ill.”

Darcy adds his own stipulation. An accomplished woman must have a brain, and she improves her mind through extensive reading. I wonder if he meant to include the pile of US Weekly magazines in our living room...oh, excuse me...our drawing room.

Austen’s world seemed to demand a lot from their women. And for what? So that they could be married off to the first rich bastard that comes along? Because “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

I believe that my parents wanted me to be “accomplished”. Doing less than brilliantly in school was unacceptable. My sisters and I were encouraged to take music lessons. Reading good books was a must. I used to smuggle into the house the Sweet Valley books my classmates lent me because Mother would disapprove. We were writing poetry and fiction. Movies were carefully monitored. Both parents prepped us for oratorical contests. I remember my mother insisting that I memorize Brutus’ speech from Julius Caesar, instead of Antony’s, and I always wondered why. Wasn’t Brutus the bad guy? Twenty years later, I got my answer. In the HBO series Rome, Antony tells Brutus that his (Brutus’) speech was good, only it was too cerebral for the mob.

Any excuse to put Tobias Menzies on my page.

So at thirty years of age, can I look back at my life and tell myself, “That will do, Pig?”

And if I considered myself accomplished, what with my taste in trivia, my joy in cooking, my unfinished knitting projects, my ability to say “bullshit” in French, my god-awful Ipod playlists, my knack of picking out offensive fragrances, and my two-year losing battle with my dissertation, what will all my accomplishments bring me? Respect? Fulfillment? Pleasure?

A husband?

My air and my manner of walking? I got them all from my dad...