A Jane Austen Education

William Deresiewicz is a Jane Austen scholar and has written a book on how Austen's novels have effected his life.  One interesting insight that he gives is how a male reader interprets novels that have a mainly female audience.  He said that he was resistant to reading the books because the main characters were women and he believed that the novels did not necessarily pertain to him.  When he finally did read them, he found out just how much they had to do with him.  He came to the books with fresh eyes and did not feel like a typical Jane Austen reader might with one of the main messages of all the books being about marriage.  He was able to see the things that were separate from marriage - how to grow up, how to have a good friendship.  The books helped him mature in life and in his own relationships.  Deresiewicz then discusses the differences between lovers of Pride and Prejudice and lovers of Jane Eyre.  He says that it could be possible for readers to love both completely different novels and that books bring out different aspects of the reader.  I think that it is important for students to see different aspects of novels and to understand different views of how readers perceive them.  I want students to be open to explain their interpretation of a character or a scene or an entire book.