My Story

How did I get started on this project? Like many church-raised girls, I was also raised on Austen. I began watching Sense and Sensibility when I was 5 years old. I was thrilled to discover Pride and Prejudice when I was 12. I quickly added Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion to my list of favorites. Part of this is my personality - I fall into the "hopeless romantic" category. One of my friends describes me as somone who could "live off love." As proof - my sister grew up watching the same movies I did and has a negative reaction to any victorian-romantic movies and would much prefer to watch a crime-scene show.

How did this effect me?  I believe that growing up watching these movies (alongside other period-dramas, and reading Chrstian romancs novels) created a discontent that was most easily filled by watching more romantic dramas. Watching these movies can cause a sort of circular spiral.

Watching movies like these -> Discontent -> Watching movies.

Wrapped up in this discontent is the desire for a romantic relationship such as the ones that every Austen-heroine achieves by the end of the movies. Another element involved in this discontent was my desire for every male that I admired to live up to the expectations created in the Austen movies. I have discovered that I am not alone in having a false-mindset created by these movies. In the films, almost every attractive man turns out to be morally good. Growing up witnessing these movies, led me to project that upstanding character onto boys that I didn't even know.

As a Christian, this discontenment should have the easy answer of finding that satisfaction in God. I don't believe that I am the only female who has trouble discovering how God can satisfy our female desires for romantic emotional-intimacy despite the Bible telling us that he is our "lover."

My point is that MANY Christian women are addicted to Austen, especially the movies that are modeled after her work. This project aims to discover why.

Through this Project:


1. I have come to understand why I do what I do. I believe that I was filling some of my emotional needs that are part of my identity as a woman, in part, with these Jane Austen film adaptations (and I discovered that I'm not alone!).

2. I realized that I need to pursue God as the one who satisfies these needs. I think this will be difficult, but definitely worth the struggle.