Proper Lady: Difference between revisions

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* Agnes from ''[[David Copperfield]]'' is beautiful and good enough to get [[Purity Sue]] accusations.

* Fanny Price subverts this in [[Jane Austen]]'s ''[[Mansfield Park]]''. She is extremely gentle, passive and the doormat of pretty much everybody around her until they try to force her into marrying the man she doesn't love. Her firmness on this point makes her not quite a true lady, as her uncle spells out:

{{quote| '''Sire Thomas:''' I had thought you peculiarly free from wilfulness of temper, self-conceit, and every tendency to that independence of spirit which prevails so much in modern days, [[Plucky Girl|even in young women]], and which in young women is offensive and disgusting beyond all common offence. But you have now shewn me that you can be wilful and perverse; that you can and will decide for yourself, without any consideration or deference for those who have surely some right to guide you, without even asking their advice. [[Hidden Depths|You have shewn yourself very, very different from anything that I had imagined.]]}}

{{quote|'''Sire Thomas:''' I had thought you peculiarly free from wilfulness of temper, self-conceit, and every tendency to that independence of spirit which prevails so much in modern days, [[Plucky Girl|even in young women]], and which in young women is offensive and disgusting beyond all common offence. But you have now shewn me that you can be wilful and perverse; that you can and will decide for yourself, without any consideration or deference for those who have surely some right to guide you, without even asking their advice. [[Hidden Depths|You have shewn yourself very, very different from anything that I had imagined.]]}}

* Also in the Austenverse, ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]'''s Jane Bennet. She stubbornly believes the best of everyone, everyone loves her for her sweetness, and she's the only one with enough patience to put up with her perpetually querulous mother. But, like Fanny, in addition to being beautiful and kind, she's also intelligent, rational, and sensible.

* Elizabeth "Beth" March evolves from a [[Fragile Flower]] into this in the second part of ''[[Little Women]]'' {{spoiler|before dying.}} May have taken it after her mother, Margaret aka Marmee, who is this too after having been more [[Hot-Blooded]] in her youth - but with more emphasis in wisdom and strong will than humility and kindness.