Martha Bartter wrote:
>
> Le Guin's story stems (she says) from Henry(?) James --
> a philosophical question: could one be happy in a world
> that provided every perfection one could wish IF it
> depended on one person living in absolute misery.
>
Jane Austen tried to write a story asking this same question
rhetorically ("Evelyn," to be found among her juvenalia in the Oxford
volume of her "minor works"). Like most of her juvenalia, it's
hyperbolically satirical; but the interesting thing about it is that it
has a fantasy element in it that, had she not backed away from, might
have allowed her to finish the piece (though more trenchantly than she
might have wished). Instead of imagining an entire society benefitting
from the designation of a suffering scapegoat, though, Austen has a
single individual benefit from the sacrifices of an entire village.
Timmi
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:10 PDT