Hello, my name is Ellie Dashwood and today we'll be talking about the top
10 villainesses in Jane Austen's works.
There are a lot of Jane Austen heroines, Elizabeth Bennett,
Marianne Dashwood Fanny Price.
There's a lot of not so nice women in Jane Austen's works too.
And we will be counting them down from the least worst to the worst worst.
And so let us start.
Number 10 is Mrs.
Elton from Emma.
So Mrs.
Elton is not very nice.
Mrs.
Elton drives pretty much everyone crazy.
She's extremely self-centered.
She wants to run Jane's life and she's just extremely frustrating
and irritating, you know.
She's the female version of Mr.
Collins, I think in a lot of ways.
And that's why she is only number 10 on our list.
She doesn't do anything super dramatically horrible, other than run around and try
to insult Emma, as much as possible.
But still not a nice girl.
Number nine is Elizabeth Elliot from Persuasion who is
Anne Elliot's oldest sister.
She is also extremely self-centered.
Which is something very interesting.
A lot of Jane Austen's villains that are guys they're self-centered and they're
trying to get people to sleep with them.
A lot of Austen's villains that are girls, there's just like super self-centered
and they don't care about anyone else.
And they're going to insult you and be mean girls.
There's a lot of mean girls in Jane Austen's works and
Elizabeth Elliot is one of them.
When she realized that Mr.
Elliott, who's their cousin, which that's a whole other topic there,
is hitting on her sister, Anne, when she really wants him to be
hitting on her she gets quite upset.
And it's like, "Oh, whatever.
You're not as cool as I am.
I don't know why he's hitting on you."
Number eight is Aunt Norris in Mansfield Park.
Okay.
Aunt Norris, you're so mean.
Aunt Norris is the sister of Lady and Lord Bertram.
And she tries to run their whole life and she tries to run Fanny's life.
And she's constantly reminding Fanny of her low birth.
And the fact that everyone around her is so much better than her.
And she should be thankful that she even gets to be there at all.
And that is why she's on this list.
Number seven is Mrs.
Clay, who is also in Persuasion.
Mrs.
Clay is Sir Elliot's girlfriend.
And at first it looks like she's just a gold digger
trying to hit on a old widower.
But it turns out that she's really in with Mr.
Elliott on this plan to become his mistress and leave, Sir Elliot.
And that's just not okay.
You shouldn't be two timing on your old boyfriend with his nephew, who
wants you to be his mistress in London.
Don't be doing that, Mrs.
Clay.
Number six is a very, very famous Austen villainess, Lady Catherine
de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice.
I think we all know her.
I think we probably know why she's on this list.
She wants Darcy to marry her daughter.
So she does everything she possibly can to run Elizabeth off.
And she's also very self-centered and is like, "If I ever
did that, I'd be the best.
I have inherent style."
Also, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, you put up with Mr.
Collins.
Whats with that?
Ain't nobody got time for that.
Also we know that Lady Catherine de Bourgh, even went so far as to come
out, and tell Lizzie that, "You are not good enough for my nephew and
he's going to marry my daughter.
And there's nothing you can do about it."
Well, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, you're wrong.
He married her.
Deal with it.
Number five is Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park.
Now what I was making this list, it's really hard to quantify Mary Crawford.
The Crawfords are just very hard, I think, to understand in general.
And well, I think she has a lot of great qualities.
I think she once again has that self-centeredness that we
often see in Austen villains.
And she also breaks Edmund's heart really bad because she's so
concerned with money and position.
And she was raised with a very warped sense of morality.
She could have never been a good match for Edmund, but she tries to
change him through the whole thing.
And at the very end she breaks his heart.
And I remember one of the best lines from this book is when he's like,
"You know what, for the first time I'm seeing who you really are as this
person who doesn't have a really good sense of morality and you are just
extremely shallow in a lot of ways.
And that breaks my heart even more because I thought more of you."
And that's one of like the best scenes, I think Mansfield Park.
When you finally see someone for who they really are versus
who you imagine they are.
And that is why she is on this list.
She just broke Edmund's heart.
Of course, we're all happy she broke Edmund's heart.
Otherwise he would've never ended up with who else he ended up with.
And you need to read that book if you don't know who I'm talking about.
Number four is Miss Bingley and Mrs.
Hurst from Pride and Prejudice.
And yes, I know those are two separate people, but in the book and the movie
they're so closely linked together, I have them in this video as one person.
In fact, In the newer version of Pride and Prejudice, they don't even have Mrs.
Hurst in there at all.
Of course, Mrs Hurst is Ms.
Bingley's married sister.
I mean, if you're familiar at all a Pride and Prejudice, you
know why they're on this list.
They're arrogant, self-centered and they're trying to run Elizabeth
and Jane off of Bingley and Mr.
Darcy.
And they're just all around rather.
I mean, there are the mean girls of high school.
Let's just face this.
Ain't nobody got time for that.
Number three is Isabella Thorpe from Northanger Abbey.
Isabella.
Oy.
So Isabella is Catherine Morland's friend that she meets in Bath.
And she's just like, "Oh, we're just best friends.
We're going to get along so great.
And I just love my friends so much."
When in reality she's a social climbing user who's just trying
to get to her brother because she thinks that they're secretly rich.
And not only that, but when she finds out that the brother who she
got herself engaged to isn't really rich, she goes and leaves him and
has an affair with somebody else.
Yeah, I know she's not nice.
So one of the funny thing about Austen villainesses, and we see it
with Isabella Thrope from Northanger Abbey is they've supplied us with
some interesting Jane Austen quote that I see a lot online places.
And I'm like, "You have no clue what character said that in that book,
otherwise you would not be quoting this."
Isabella's quote is along this line: "There is nothing I would not do
for those who are really my friends.
I have no notion of loving people by halves.
It's not in my nature."
Which is like this really, you know, beautiful sentiment on friendship.
However, it's coming from one of the most hypocritical friend
in all of Jane Austen's works.
And in fact, that quote is highlighting the fact that she's a horrible friend.
Because, isabella's modus operandi is to say one thing in an extreme like
that, and then do the exact opposite.
So number two is Lucy Steele from Sense and Sensibility.
Even the name sort of makes me shutter.
So this girl not only manages to get Edward Ferrars engaged to her.
Who is a really nice guy and she totally doesn't deserve.
But then she goes and finds the girl he really loves, which is Elinor Dashwood
and makes her life horrible and like torments her with pretending to be her
friend at the same time, always using like these backhanded remarks to make
it be like, "I got the guy you love and there's nothing you can do about it."
Not only that, but after ruining Elinor's happiness.
She leaves Edward and goes marries his brother.
What was with that Lucy?
You need to get life or better manners or who knows what's happening there.
And number one is also from Sense and Sensibility.
Who can be worse than Lucy Steele, Fannie Dashwood.
Okay.
Fanny Dashwood.
Fanny Dashwood not only encourages the Dashwood sisters brother to
not help them out financially, but she also is determined to ruin
Elior's happiness with Edward.
And she's just determined to be mean to everyone.
She's pretty much horrible.
So if you want to see a horrible woman go watch Sense and
Sensibility, find Fanny Dashwood.
Now we've counted down the 10 Austen villainesses, but I wanted to have
a special mention of the Lady Susan Vernon, who a lot of people have seen
in the recent movie Love and Friendship.
That is actually based on an unfinished novel of Jane Austen's.
And she's fascinating because she's really a different sort of villainess
then you've seen Austen's other works.
She is much more Mary Crawford, I believe.
Only she also goes around seducing guys and breaking up marriages.
And she is literally doesn't care about anyone.
I didn't include her in the other 10 lists because it's not from
one of Jane's complete six novels.
But I would definitely suggest checking out the novel Lady Susan, over the movie.
I mean, the movie was okay, but I really liked the novel.
It's somewhat different.
It's much more serious.
I just think it's interesting.
Cause it's a little bit different from what Jane Austen normally
writes, but at the same time, it has her deep insight into humanity that
you see a lot in Austen's novels.
Anyway, thank you so much for counting down the Austen
villainesses with me today.
I've hoped you'd really enjoyed it.
And please comment below which one do you think should be number one
on the Austen villainess worst list.
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and classic literaturea videos.
And have an amazing day.