Geeky Mary Bennet
#################
:date: 2023-06-25T18:03:43
:category: literature
:tags: review, austeniana, blogComment, storyPrompt
I have originally commented on “`Mr. Collins, a male lead??? Is
this possible?`_” by u/JenniferRAKim on That Site, but now I
think I would just leave it here as a prompt:
.. _`Mr. Collins, a male lead??? Is this possible?`:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JaneAustenFF/comments/142qfn9/comment/jn89we8/
That’s one way, or of course if it leads to my preferred ship Mr
Collins/Mary Bennet (and religion taken seriously, not as an soon
to be discarded after thought).
Something like “`Far Above Rubies`_” by Beatrice_Otter or “`Let
Her Own Works Praise Her in the Gates`_” by ChronicBookworm.
I have in my head this scene::
INT. Netherfield dinning room, evening after the dinner,
small groups of people are talking, sound of general chatter in
the room. Camera wanders through the room looking at those
groups. MARY BENNET talks quietly with MR COLLINS.
Interrupted by
MARY BENNET
(shrieking)
Mr Collins!
MR DARCY, MR BENNET, some SOLDIERS run towards the pair
and threateningly surround them.
MR BENNET
(threateningly)
Mary, what did he do?
MARY BENNET
(looking excited, even perhaps a bit aroused,
face flushed, her bosom is heaving heavily)
Can you imagine? Mr Collins declared that he finds
interesting Luther’s concept of temporary existence of
the church rising up in the congregation of believers under
The Word being preached. How shocking!
Camera slowly shows faces of people surrounding them,
completely confused and unbelieving what they hear.
(BTW, Luther’s `concept of Church`_ is truly interesting, perhaps
not in the arousing level, but quite remarkable nevertheless).
----
I don’t have a good plot, and most of the stuff have been already
written. There are two thoughts which I have, but these were
already written couple of times:
* Elisabeth (or Mr Bennet, when Mr Collins comes for permission
to ask for her hand) suggest to Mr Collins that their marriage
is completely stupid idea, because:
1. there is absolutely no love from Elizabeth to him,
2. Elizabeth is constitutionally unfit to be a pastor’s wife
3. there is a third Bennet’s sister, Mary, for whom being a
pastor’s wife is actually a wet dream, and for whom visiting
sick parishioners would be the dream coming true.
That was written by many, for example (aside from those
stories I linked before) “`If Only`_” by DesertVixen, “`The Second
Chance`_” by violet_baudelaire, or “`This is what we’ve sown`_” by
Kissed_by_Circe.
That is however just a setup of the relationship, we could get
then to this relationship of two theology geeks (as shown in the
scene above; kind of Sheldon or Lisa Simpson meets theology), I
don’t have enough plot to make it into real story.
* Alternative would be just opposite: yes, Mr Collins is as inept
as Miss Austen suggests he is, and all Bennets sisters unite
in one thing in their life and that is they don’t want to have
anything to do with him. In the end he is kicked away (and
marries Charlotte if you want, or marries a other random girl,
later from sexual frustration starts to visit prostitutes, gets
STD, and dies as complete wreck in the ruins of his supposedly
holy life).
Fortunately, whole issue of entail is made moot by three
sisters marrying and two of them very well (Jane and Elisabeth)
as in the canon. In the end, nobody knows what to do with Mary
(and her parents are getting too old and sick to take care for
her), so she moves to live with Elisabeth and Mr Darcy at
Pemberley. There she meets some distant cousin of Mr Darcy (or
some random man) who is a theology student, and Amy Farrah
Fowler meets her Sheldon Cooper with geekiness abounding. With
“a little” help of Mr Darcy, the guy (now all done pastor) gets
a position of the pastor for the church in Lambton and they get
their HEA perhaps combined with happily observing the ruin of
Mr Collins, bankruptcy of completely incompetent Lady Catherine
de Bourgh etc.
And of course, the Regency Era was also time of `William
Wilberforce`_, `Clapham Sect`_, or for the more social work
part of the Church `Sunday School Society`_. Why they cannot
participate in that and make it slightly cross-over with those
real movements? Something like that is suggested in “Let Her Own
Works Praise Her in the Gates”, but I think one could make a lot
of fun with it more.
The End
**{update 2023-10-05}**
`@Basic_Bichette@reddit.com`_ reminded me also that this was the
time of `weird relationships between the Victorian England and
Roman Catholicism`_.
----
.. _`Far Above Rubies`:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/15181952
.. _`Let Her Own Works Praise Her in the Gates`:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/15122771
.. _`If Only`:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/20184559
.. _`The Second Chance`:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014291
.. _`This is what we’ve sown`:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/43535736
.. _`concept of Church`:
https://www.biblicaltraining.org/learn/institute/ch643-martin-luther/ch643-18-luthers-view-of-the-church
.. _`William Wilberforce`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce
.. _`Clapham Sect`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapham_Sect
.. _`Sunday School Society`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_School_Society
.. _`@Basic_Bichette@reddit.com`:
https://www.reddit.com/user/Basic_Bichette/
.. _`weird relationships between the Victorian England and Roman Catholicism`:
https://www.victorianweb.org/religion/cath1.html
