actongloves

[actongloves]

no thoughts, just "where is duty, where is sacrifice" and the way that alicent clings to abstract constructs like religion, honor, duty and sacrifice because her material life is so concretely terrible and empty. to have loved someone so dearly, and watch them be what you perceive as free while your entire personhood is reduced to a womb and made to serve the realm, a vessel for the rotting king to use and abuse. to not exist as a person for yourself but in only in service to others as you are ordered by your father under a patriarchal structure..........and then the contrast of that quote, which summarizes all of alicent's anguish and agony, to the classic, "what is honor compared to a woman's love? what is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms...we are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love.".................but alicent doesn't have love, not anymore. duty, honor, these concepts - they're all she's got, and the lack of the very elements that make them meaningful has corroded her inside and out. so: honor, duty, sacrifice, all without love. and here we are.

[actongloves]

"It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs." - Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

#far from the madding crowd #farfromthemaddingcrowd #thomashardy #englishliterature #englishlit #books #victorian

[actongloves]

"There is such a thing as looking through a person's eyes into the heart, and learning more of the height, and breadth, and depth of another's soul in one hour than it might take you a lifetime to discover, if he or she were not disposed to reveal it, or if you had not the sense to understand it" - Anne Bronte

[actongloves]

[actongloves]

"If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love--I love--I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on."

🌿 Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice .

[actongloves]

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” — Jane Austen, Emma