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. Please make sure to subscribe to my
channel for more awesome Jane Austen and classic literaturea videos. And have an amazing day.
