Friday 13 September 2013

literary couples with healthy relationships

After the drama and depression of my last three posts, I felt a nice epilogue would be to celebrate the couples in literature who it would actually be super to have a relationship like.





Claire's Guide to Awesome Fictional Relationships which Get It Right


 Jane Bennet and Mr Bingley (Pride and Prejudice)



Okay, so Elizabeth and Mr Darcy are of course my OTP4EVA, and also not too bad in the healthly relationship stakes really, but Bingley and Jane get it so right all the time and are just about the loveliest and fluffiest of all couples ever that they need to be appreciated.

In that gif right there, see that? See the size of Mr Bingley's grin? How it even makes grumpy Mr Darcy smile a bit? That is because Bingley is the HAPPIEST MAN ON THE PLANET. He has so much love and joy in him that he is basically the closest a human being will ever come to being a puppy. And he falls in love, from the very beginning, with Jane, because she is sweet and beautiful and ladylike, and he falls even more in love with her because she is so kind and gentle. And she falls in love with him because he's kind and generous and enthusiastic and happy and gentlemanly, and all those good things.


And rather than trying to force things or rush things so she can 'trap' a rich man into marriage, Jane instead lets things progress naturally, doesn't fake anything, and Bingley isn't discouraged at all - not even having met her disaster of a family. Until everyone else tells him she obviously doesn't like him. But does he kill himself? Does he lollop about the place? Nope, he continues to be very much as he is, polite and lovely. He even manages to still be polite and happy to see Jane again, even though he's hurt. 

And the same for Jane - all she does is wish him well, and all she does is look for good in the people around her.


The thing that makes them even happier as well, is how much happiness their relationship gives other people. It's like a feedback loop of love and happiness, and it's wonderful. Look at them sneaking peeks at each other during their wedding. It's the cutest thing ever. (And yes we are only considering gifs from the BBC adaptation because the 2005 movie is so many kinds of wrong I can't even start)

See also: Elinor and Edward, from Sense and Sensibility.

See also also: this gif is making me laugh so much.




Noddy and Henrietta Boffin (Our Mutual Friend)

Ah the Boffins. Noddy and Henrietta. When we meet them, they've been married for many years. They were poor, worked on the dust heaps - piles of poo and rubbish, to you and I - as servants to a miser who dies at the start of the book. When his son, John Harmon, is found dead, they inherit all his money. And it's a fair amount of money. But their ambitions?

"...a good house in a good neighbourhood, good things about us, good living, and good society. I say, live like our means, without extravagance, and be happy."

And a desire to adopt an orphan boy to raise as their own, to benefit from their new wealth and to care for, as they have no children. And to make amends to Bella Wilfer - John Harmon's bethrothed, who they have never met, but whose money they now have. These are good people, starkly aware of their good fortune and wishing to share it with others, and begrudge nothing.

They move out of the dust heap. The night before they leave, Henrietta becomes scared by visions she's having of Ex-Mr Harmon, and his son who they cared for as a boy. Noddy comforts her, takes her around the whole place with a lantern until she is satisfied. But even though she can still see the ghosts, she takes comfort from her husband.

"Opening her eyes again, and seeing her husband's face across the table, she leaned forward to give it a pat on the cheek, and sat down to supper, declaring it to be the best face in the world."

The whole story is filled with relationships built on deception, disapproval and violence. It's easy, particularly when watching adaptations, to become cynical about romance and anyone living happily ever after when, in Dickens' trademark style, all the characters are so flawed! But, as a constant through the whole novel, the Boffins are there to remind you that happy marriages do exist, and are so generous and happy and giving in every way that it's a relief when they appear.


See also: Mr and Mrs Micawber in David Copperfield.



Benedick and Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing)

If we must go Shakespearean, how about a couple that have a relationship that lasts more than a total of 96 hours, and who have both completed puberty?

Beatrice and Benedick have known each other for years, we're given to understand, and match wits every chance they get in their "merry war". Both eschew marriage and love, but despite professing to hate each other seem to seek each other out to bicker with whenever they get the chance. They're friends in their own funny little way.

It takes their friends manufacturing situations where they each hear the other is in love with them to get them to realise their feelings, but when they do it's clear they've been building for a while.

Benedick tells her, "I love nothing in the world so much as you, is that not strange?", and Beatrice replies "I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest." Compare that to Tristan, who even under a love potion still had space in him to complain about loving Isolde. And much like Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, once all confusions are cleared up they leap right in there.


To me this story is perfect - ignoring the ridiculous sexism and mistrust which come from the Hero-Claudio aspect of the play, Benedick and Beatrice to me are a wonderful romance. Matched in belief and wit, and knowing each other as well as they do. Just looking for gifs from various productions of this play has given me all sorts of warm, squirmy, fuzzy feelings inside. It's wonderful.




See also: I don't know, Shakespeare didn't have many un-messed up relationships. I'm a sucker for The Taming of the Shrew, but even I know that that's not particularly healthy.



So there you go, every time someone mentions a stupid literary relationship, you can now counter with a ready-prepared selection of wonderful literary relationships.


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