A sparkle vs. a warm glow

*Disclaimer* Please read this post with a grain of salt.  I've never thought of myself as a feminist (or neo-feminist or anything else) and yet I find myself posting nothing but feminist articles over here.  What's up with that?

The Sparkly.  What is the sparkly, you ask?  Put simply, the sparkly is that girl that the main guy always falls for first, before the one we all know he's supposed to fall in love with.  You know...the pretty one.  

There are three main characters I will be referring to in this post.  Edward Ferrars from Sense and Sensibility, Edmund Bertram of Mansfield Park, and Roger Hamley of Wives and Daughters.  While I'm sure this plot line exists in other stories, these three exemplify it perfectly and are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head.  

Allow me to quickly summarize what I'm talking about.  You have your main girl.  She is witty, resourceful, pretty (but in an understated sort of way), intelligent, loving, and kind.  She is just the kind of girl that you know would make a really good wife.  She's also steady, dependable, and generous.  She doesn't demand your attention.  She's like a candle—warm, glowing, useful, and beautiful, but utterly unassuming.  If you don't make a point of looking, your eyes will slide right over her.  And that is the kiss of death for our heroine.  She doesn't catch your eye.  Enter her sister/friend/completely random acquaintance.  This girl is flighty, changeable, and even a bit dodgy on her moral grounds.  But this is the most important part.  She's beautiful.  She has the captivating eyes, the luscious figure, the shining soft hair.  She flirts and teases and otherwise bewitches our hero.  She is a sparkly.  And he, being a man, simply can't resist.  You see, he's always wanted a sparkly...of his very own! 

We’ll start with Sense and Sensibility.  Edward is perhaps the most excusable of the three.  He meets the delightful Lucy Steele years before he ever comes into contact with Eleanor.  What is it he says?  “It was foolish, idle inclination on my side, the consequence of ignorance of the world—and want of employment”  It is true that from the moment he comes into contact with Eleanor he clearly values her virtues far above the charms of Miss Steele (indeed, he implies dissatisfaction with his fiancé dating long before his visit to Norland Park).  Also to be considered are the social forms in which he lived; having engaged himself to Lucy and finding himself disillusioned, he was yet unable, in good honor, to disengage himself.  And yet I cannot completely excuse him of blame.  Other men have managed to keep themselves detached long enough to meet Eleanor.  Other men have seen through the pretty-faced façade of Lucy Steele.  But I I’m not going to hold that too much against him.  As he says, he was only 18.

I am not so indulgent of either Edmund or Roger.  Let us begin with Roger, we’ll get to Edmund soon enough.  Roger quickly forms a deep bond with Molly.  He often asserts that he loves her like a sister.  If you were to ask him to tell you about Molly he would readily run off an impressive list of virtues and good qualities.  And yet he never really sees her.  Knowing her for quite some time, he is none the less instantly captivated by her step-sister, the beautiful Cynthia.  Cynthia openly admits to faults of changeableness and insensibility.  And yet Roger is blind to all but her lovely face and winning mannerisms.  Mr. Preston puts it best, I think, when says “One often misses what Miss. Kirkpatrick is in the halo that surrounds her.”  I think the blackest mark against Roger is the fact that, had Cynthia remained faithful, he would have gone all the way and married her.  It was her decision to break off the engagement, not Roger’s.  And then, having regained his freedom, Roger remains blind to Molly’s superior merits.  It is not until he sees her at the Hollingford event, all done up in the latest fashion, that it finally occurs to him that she might, perhaps, be worth more to him if she were not quite such a sister.  What an idiot.

And finally for Edmund.  We’re not going to address the creepiness of courting cousins; that is beside the point and a relic of a past culture.  The point is that of all three, Edmund has the deepest understanding of his heroine, the truest appreciation of her character, and the longest acquaintance with her.  And yet he, too, is distracted by the beautiful eyes and pert nature of Mary Crawford.  He is described by far as the most refined of Austen’s suitors—he is moral and upright and always proper.  And yet…and yet even Edmund is not immune to the sparkly.  In what might spitefully be referred to as a poetically just twist of fate, Edmund is the only who really suffers any pain in detachment from his sparkly.  Edward greets his freedom with unadulterated joy, Roger with a resigned stoicism.  Edmund, however, is forcibly disillusioned at the peak of his passion and must disengage himself on moral grounds without the benefit of any real change of feelings.  “Gladly would I submit to all the increased pain of losing her, rather than have to think of her as I do.”

What is it these men are guilty of?  As my childhood friend Jeremy so perfectly demonstrates, the sparkly has a hypnotic effect (Jeremy is the crow, in case you missed that).  It is a beautiful image, entrancing the viewer and blinding him to anything else.  The sparkly is enticing and seductive and rich.  Other men will see it and envy you your sparkly.  It stands out and demands attention.  It is a prize to be shown off, wordlessly shouting out the prowess of the man who was able to capture such a treasure.  These are real and understandable attractions, and so, really, can you blame these men so much for succumbing to something so many men before them have also fallen for?  I am going to argue yes. 

You see, it is not in the fallibility of Man that I take issue.  That is a fact of life.  It is the fact that these men are granted a place in the halls of great literature as adored male protagonists that I become irritated.  We watch the movies and read the books and we handily ignore their inconstancy and poor judgment and still fall in love with them.  Yes Roger proposed to Cynthia first, but he eventually realized his mistake, and much more importantly…he’s just so sweet!  Sure Edmund never thought a second about Fanny’s feelings as he confided in her all his passion for Miss Crawford—but through the whole thing he never lost his respect for her opinion, and that’s what really matters, right? 

Wrong!  I hereby excise Roger Hamley and Edmund Bertram from the pantheon of literary heart-throbs!  Edward Ferrars is to be relegated to the annex next door.  No more should these weak-minded men be allowed to walk the same hallowed halls as such true-hearts as Colonel Brandon, Mr. Thornton, Mr. Knightly, or even the wild Heathcliff.  Mr. Darcy showed more fortitude in the midst of his crippling pride than any of these three.  And what is it that these men appreciated and the others overlooked?

Ah yes, let us consider the candle.  The woman in the background, through whom, none the less, is the entire room lit up.  Fanny, Eleanor, and Molly.   These women exemplify womanly virtue.  Like a candle, there is beauty in them, but it is the simple beauty of a flame.  And yet, as anyone who has stared into a campfire knows, there is nothing simple about an ever-changing flame.  While it may stand innocuously in the corner, if ever you stop to look at it, you will find a dancing complexity of light, color and shape.  And even more, it is a generous being.  A candle fills the room, casting light on everything surrounding it, bringing all into being, chasing away obscurity.  A candle is mundane precisely because it highlights everything else around it (and yet it never diminishes).  So with a Molly or an Eleanor.  As good women, they shed light on those around them, bringing out the best in others while losing nothing of their own appeal. 

A sparkly, on the other hand, draws all attention to itself.  Adding more candles to a room makes it brighter, while adding sparklies to a pile merely strips them of that much of their “unique” appeal.  A sparkly is a selfish being.  It must be the only one in the room for its full impact to be realized.  Interestingly, put a sparkly in the presence of a candle and you will find it even more beautiful than it was on its own. 

I think I’m getting carried away with my metaphor and starting to ramble.  And the more I think about it, I suppose I don’t really even have a point to which this is all coming.  I suppose, in the end, I simply wanted to vent my frustrations at these three men.  A friend of mine once admitted to me that he was searching for his own Marry Poppins—“practically perfect in every way”.  He honestly thought she existed.  And I’ve met so many men in real life who spend their lives chasing one sparkly after another, wondering, each time they catch one, why they’re standing in the dark with a rock in their hand.  The greatest frustration of all, I think, lies in the denouement.  In the end these three idiots finally realize how blind they’ve been and mend their ways.  Despite the fact that they deserve nothing more than a useless rock, they all three end up with the better woman.  When does this happen?  When does the inconspicuous candle get the recognition she deserves? 

I’ll tell you when.  When it is Colonel Branden doing the proposing.