奧斯丁小說中女主角特質的心得

     Good health and a healthy appetite go hand in hand in Austen's novels. Her heroines when flourishing eat in moderation and without worrying too much about what they are eating and what they are not. Catherine Morland, the youthful, zestful heroine of Northanger Abbey, is blessed with "a good appetite and eats just what she wants to, when she is hungry. 

     The heroines' good constitutions and well-regulated appetites are also conjoined with a taste for fresh air and exercise. Often, they are determined walkers, visiting friends and neighbors on foot, enjoying scenic strolls (Catherine) or traipsing, like the best of the Romantics, through the natural world (Marianne Dashwood). Elizabeth Bennet thinks nothing of walking three miles "in [] dirty weather" to see her cold-ridden sister marooned at Netherfield, "crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last within view of the house, with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise." We might go so far to claim that appetite, exercise, and mental health are the three points of a Jane Austen "well-being triangle" if any one of these is lost, the others suffer, too, and overall well-being is compromised. When out of sorts, her heroines begin to display a more problematic relationship with food. 

      For example, when Marianne in Sense and Sensibility begins to pine for Willoughby, her appetite dwindles and she becomes thin and wan, losing her youthful bloom. Catherine, too, loses her appetite when she finds she is banished from Northanger Abbey "She tried to eat [...] but she had no appetite, and could not swallow many mouthfuls"-a situation that continues back at home where she appears-from her parents' point of view to tum her nose up at their ordinary breakfast: "I am sure I do not care about the bread. It is all the same to me what I eat." 

    While both Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse-both of whom have healthy egos to match their healthy appetites flourish throughout their respective narratives, two others, Anne Elliot (in Persuasion) and Fanny Price (in Mansfield Park) - each unhappy and marginalized in her own way-have to work their way toward well-being, rediscovering their appetites (in the broadest sense) along with their sense of self as they also begin to (re-)bloom physically and emotionally.

心得：食慾、運動與心理健康是珍·奧斯汀筆下「幸福三角形」的三個要點——若失去其中之一，其他也會受影響，整體幸福便遭破壞。有心要戒色之人也是如此，情緒、作息與健康，也可稱為戒色三角形，息息相關，若作息不好，身體便會遭受傷害，而脾氣開始暴躁，情緒會影響戒色，這是一整條因果鏈。壓力或疏忽都是破戒的兩個關鍵因素。