Austenland Chapter 2 Summary

How It All Goes Down

6 months ago

  • Mom calls with good news for Jane: Great-Aunt Carolyn put her in the will. Score. Taking advantage of dying family members pays off.
  • The attorney tells Jane that what she's received is a little… unconventional. "An all-inclusive, three-week vacation in England [where] you dress up and pretend to be someone in the year 1816" (2.17). Um, whatever happened to cold, hard cash?
  • All day at work, Jane frets about whether or not she should go on the trip. She's worried that she'll be single forever, and this might be her last shot at love.
  • That night, she tells her friend Molly about the trip. Molly sets Jane straight: Jane's obsessed with the 19th century and all of her relationships have been failures because she expects "every romance […] to lead to marriage" (2.64), Lizzie Bennet.
  • Jane continues to flip-flop, but ultimately decides to go on the trip as a last hurrah before embracing spinsterhood.