About

I am a Barbadian-British woman, from London, England who loves reading so I have decided to create this blog as a way to share my love of literature and my personal analysis of the stories.

The main inspiration for my decision was 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen, a long time favourite of mine that I have read once per year almost every year since I was 11 years old. 

Having read Pride and Prejudice over and over again like a true obsessive, I have come up with my own interpretation of the characters that does not appear to mesh with the romanticised mainstream view I have noticed in so many fans. To clarify, I think that Elizabeth Bennet was an anti-hero, whose imbecility should not be overlooked by interpreting the book with our contemporary sensibilities or by ignoring historical context.

To put it more plainly, in my opinion, if Jane Austen's most famous novel were not an oft misrepresented work of fiction, Elizabeth Bennet could easily and colloquially be described as a self centred, d*mb-*rse, b*tch and her father could be described as a psychologically abusive f**kb*y, even in their time. The same goes for a lot of the characters in classic fiction and I intend to use this blog to provide the facts to prove it. 

Suffice to say I shall be discussing the works of Jane Austen, my favourite author, as well as others. I shall also attempt to provide historical and social context that may be missing whilst casually reading the book.

My objective is not nor shall it ever be to have these works of fiction destroyed, banned, labelled offensive or anything like that. Honestly there wouldn't be anything good to read if that happened. My aim is merely to have an accessible not none-the-less serious critical analysis taking into account the social and historical context of the books that I enjoy so much.

Why specifically a blog?

I have a habit of ranting about Pride and Prejudice (and other books) all over the internet and I thought I should probably contain my rants in one place. It is much tidier and more peaceful that way.

Also as a person whose family has had a long history of involvement  with Britain, because Barbados, my family's native country, was a former colony of the British empire and every member of my family has been born either a British subject or British citizen, I believe that I can provide a non typical approach to this kind of literary analysis, which might not come across in a comment section or forum.

Whilst Jane Austen was struggling in relative poverty, writing books to supplement her income and so on, my enslaved and indentured servant ancestors were working on plantations in the West Indies that much like the lower classes in Britain, were keeping members of Austen's social class and above in their very comfortable positions. I do not see this as a problem for me personally, but neither is it something I can be wilfully ignorant of as I read these works of fiction. 

The title of this blog, "A Bajan Reads:" is a direct reference to my Barbadian heritage.