by Lissa Staley
The websites call me the Wailing Woman. They think I was mad and died at the asylum. I was mad, that much is true. In some ways, I still am. The former inmates regard me with distrust and keep their distance. But I didn’t die at the asylum. Most of me died at the house down the street. The last of me, in a tunnel underground.
Love and Friendship
Lissa Staley
Login successful 4/14/2026 Discussion Board Population=2
ENGLISH LIT 499-SELF-GUIDED DISCUSSION BOARD
TOPIC: EMMA BY JANE AUSTEN, BRITISH LITERATURE
ThomasG: I did not find this story of youthful hubris and the perils of misconstrued romance to be my particular cup of tea.
KateM: DUDE. If you copy and paste from Wikipedia, use quotation marks and a citation.
KateM: Also referring to tea doesn’t make your answer more British.
KateM: How am I supposed to receive the benefits of a quality public secondary education online if my peer group is completely lacking?
KateM: Are you even going to reply?
ThomasG: Pardon me. The book is an archaic 211 years old. The concerns and difficulties of genteel women in 1815 Britain are no longer relevant in Kansas in 2026.
ThomasG: And in case you haven’t figured it out, the anti-plagiarism software only checks whole sentences, not phrases.
KateM: Again with the Wikipedia. Did you even read this book?
KateM: Seriously. Did you?
KateM: Did you casually swipe through the pages on the ebook for the completion credit while actually watching a vid?
ThomasG: I read it. Duh. Although it was weeks ago and no one has ever posted in this discussion board before.
ThomasG: And the Kate Beckinsale film isn’t bad.
ThomasG: These English credits fulfill my graduation requirements with less hassle than any course with a virtual lab or—heaven forbid—groupwork.
ThomasG: The reading and quizzes are no trouble, but requiring 20 posts on a discussion board that no human will ever read is already trying my patience.
ThomasG: Are you still there?
KateM: I’m human. YOU are trying MY patience.
KateM: You quote from Wikipedia and you don’t like people.
KateM: And yet here we are discussing British literature in our limited free time.
KateM: It’s quite odd.
ThomasG: “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” Was Jane Austen describing you here? Or would even Austen deign to find you likeable?
KateM: Quoting the author isn’t proof of anything resembling comprehension. And personal attack is unnecessary.
KateM: I’m sure Jane Austen would find me to be a delight.
ThomasG: Austen liked EMMA. She’s baseless and tasteless.
ThomasG: Okay, pop quiz time. Which of these characteristics best describes you:
a.handsome b. clever c. rich d. spoiled e. headstrong f. self-satisfied
ThomasG: Just seethe silently if your answer is “all of the above.”
KateM: …
KateM: That wasn’t silent seething. I was just speechless. Didn’t you learn anything from this book?
ThomasG: This book is irrelevant in our modern world. It tells me that career-wise a man can be a lawyer, doctor, businessman, or vicar.
ThomasG: We both know that our illustrious online public school isn’t the path to any of those professions, not any more.
KateM: At least a private tutor isn’t such an anachronism in 2026. Plenty of rich kids have them.
ThomasG: What idiot put this book on the assigned reading list?
ThomasG: This book firmly reminds us that we are in the working classes, the people who are almost invisible in Austen’s world.
KateM: Some “idiot” with enough money and influence to buy a cozy seat in an air conditioned office instead of spending the day on hands and knees in the dirt, turning a field of pumpkins.
ThomasG: Our lives don’t matter in the narrative, except in how we support the privileged elite.
ThomasG: So why do you or I even need to complete secondary education to take our place among the laboring class?
KateM: Rant much? I can barely keep up.
KateM: And you know even the entry level jobs require a diploma now.
ThomasG: Honest discussion isn’t ranting. And the truth about the dismantled public education system hurts.
ThomasG: The diploma isn’t an accomplishment or a rite of passage, it’s just one more way to oppress and control us.
KateM: Harsh!
ThomasG: What community service did you do during daylight today?
KateM: Point taken. At least the screen on my school issued tablet looks great in the dark, since that’s the only time I log in.
ThomasG: Are you avoiding the question? Or are you too rich and spoiled to have a service assignment?
KateM: Ouch! I didn’t realize we had moved into true confession time.
KateM: And, no, I pay for public school technology fees with my community service hours just like everyone else.
ThomasG: And did you improve yourself and become a better person?
KateM: Only by listening to 5 hours of podcasts while I harvested mixed greens and lettuce.
ThomasG: Good thing you’re young, since that sounds backbreaking.
KateM: What about you?
ThomasG: I pollinated apples by hand, 2 hours on foot and 3 hours off a bucket truck.
KateM: Ha! You’re quite the sex machine. And such stamina!
ThomasG: I prefer “fertilization specialist”.
ThomasG: And not to redirect you away from flirting with me too much, but back to the book we are supposedly discussing here. What about relationships?
ThomasG: The romantic take-away of Emma is that your true love is most likely twice your age and already your brother-in-law.
ThomasG: How was anyone supposed to meet anyone else in Austen’s novels if they didn’t already know them?
KateM: Much like my life, where the only people my age that I see are down the agriculture row from me, or across the aisle of the transport bus.
KateM: And conversation is discouraged, always. How is anyone supposed to meet anyone else in Topeka if they don’t already know them?
ThomasG: You can meet people at dances. Austen is all about first impressions at country assemblies, you know.
KateM: That’s Pride and Prejudice, not Emma. How many Austen books have you read?
ThomasG: All of them. You can check the discussion boards.
ThomasG: I believe that you and I are the only students in public online school in Kansas to read a book by Jane Austen in the last 5 years.
KateM: What makes us so special?
ThomasG: With hundreds of public domain books to choose from, students choose shorter books and more modern language. They take the easy way out.
KateM: I like that we’re both eschewing easy with Austen.
ThomasG: Nice. The readability score of this conversation just skyrocketed. A few more astonishing word choices and we could earn bonus points.
KateM: Demonstrating a proficient vocabulary is the least of my personal concerns.
ThomasG: So, what character deficiency are you trying to remedy by choosing Emma? Do you look like her AND act like her?
KateM: I call phishing on that question. If you’re going to compare me to Emma, then let me ask a personal question.
KateM: Are you actually 37 years old like George Knightly?
ThomasG: As poorly-monitored as this educational discussion board is, I assume they still screen for that.
ThomasG: They may not appear to hold us responsible for what we type here, but I’m betting they don’t want to be held responsible for what we type here either.
ThomasG: The great migration to self-directed online-only education is all about the plausible deniability of everyone involved. Emma isn’t the only intentionally clueless one.
KateM: This is the best literatur
e discussion I’ve ever had.
KateM: I can’t believe I’m going to type this, but I wish we could meet in person.
ThomasG: You need to get out more.
ThomasG: You assume I’m not willing to meet?
ThomasG: Or you assume we aren’t in the same town?
KateM: What?!? Yes, I assumed both.
KateM: Sorry?!?! I just clicked your profile and see we are both in Topeka.
KateM: Can you get to the downtown farmer’s market on Saturday?
ThomasG: 8 am at the cider press?
ThomasG: How will I know it’s you?
ThomasG: Will you be attractively posed like Harriet in Emma’s watercolor painting?
KateM: I’ll be the clever, headstrong girl with the obvious character deficiencies.
ThomasG: Obviously.
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Login successful 4/28/2026 Discussion Board Population=2
ENGLISH LIT 499-SELF-GUIDED DISCUSSION BOARD
TOPIC: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE BY JANE AUSTEN, BRITISH LITERATURE
ThomasG: I appreciate that the status-conscious friend, Mr. Darcy, is disdainful of local society, as he reflects my own views.
KateM: Let me counter your generic pasted text from Wikipedia with this relevant quote from the novel: “I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”
ThomasG: If we lived in Austen’s time we probably would never have met. And I can’t imagine you mortified.
KateM: We still haven’t met, in real life, so you only get to imagine me.
KateM: Not that you care, obviously, but I waited for you that day.
KateM: …
KateM: Did I speak the unspeakable??
ThomasG: “You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged.”
KateM: Deflection using Darcy. Well played.
KateM: Although the wound to my pride still smarts a bit. Being stood up is the worse cliché from old teen movies.
KateM: I see now that I was caught up in the fantasy of human connection.
KateM: I lost myself to the romantic fictions and the stories of the past.
KateM: For me, the far better educational outcome is to focus on my reality. I should stop trying to exceed the low expectations set for me.
KateM: Wanting more than a diploma and endless hours of manual labor is a waste of energy because it’s not my fate.
KateM: So thank you for disappointing me, it’s just what I needed.
KateM: Are you there?
ThomasG: One sec.
ThomasG: “This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed!”
KateM: AAANND I set you up to throw that Darcy quote in my face. Great.
KateM: Your faults aren’t heavy. My future feels extra bleak today.
KateM: I’m not sure I could withstand Darcy’s pride and insolence.
ThomasG: Darcy would pen a lengthy letter explaining his motives and actions.
ThomasG: I’ll stick with typing out the words “I’m sorry.”
ThomasG: “Further apology would be absurd.”
KateM: Stop quoting Darcy!
KateM: Moving on….
ThomasG: I’ve been thinking…If we lived 10 years ago we might not have met then either.
ThomasG: Did you know that Topeka High used to have two thousand students?
KateM: Yeah. And now it sits empty, with a very public legal battle, hallways full of bats, and an aura of despair.
ThomasG: The bats are just a rumor. Or they might be roosting above the lockers. I don’t think anyone knows for sure.
ThomasG: My cousin went there. He told me that before it shut down, everyone already had computers issued by the school, just like now, but they showed up at the school building every day and used their laptops all together in class.
KateM: My mom dropped out of T-High her junior year to help her family. She finished later, online at night.
KateM: She doesn’t understand how what we are forced to do now is any different than what she felt forced to do 20 years ago.
ThomasG: My grandad is always reminiscing about his own high school years. He knows how bad this is.
ThomasG: It’s strange how it changed so fast. From the one-room schoolhouse of his grandparents to the no-room schoolhouse of his grandchildren. I think public education jumped the shark and this is all we’re left with here at the end.
KateM: What do we really miss though? I’ve read books and seen vids from the early 2000’s. What do they have in those physical buildings that you want?
ThomasG: Crowded hallways. Passing periods. Parking lots.
KateM: You’re nostalgic for loitering?
KateM: Really?
KateM: What do you think is the biggest drawback with online virtual public school? That’s what I struggle with when I talk to my mom. She hated high school. She thinks I have it better now.
ThomasG: My grandad talks about prom as a rite of passage.
ThomasG: But online school is one symptom of a bigger issue. The American Dream got all jacked up.
ThomasG: Grandad wants me to have milestones I can look forward to instead of what he calls a “bleak and meaningless future of underemployment doing mind numbing labor.”
KateM: So you want to go to prom?
ThomasG: No! Even my dad only went to prom to make a political statement, with his gay friend as his date.
KateM: So, nobody really cares about dancing?
ThomasG: My grandad wants me to...well he wants an alternate universe where I look forward to prom as a culmination of my years of schooling, where we’ve loiter around all day together with our high school friends, without community service assignments or the overuse of technology, before embarking on our successful futures.
ThomasG: Grandad phrases it more nicely when he’s ranting about it.
KateM: This is perfect! Let’s go to prom together, okay?
KateM: I’m asking you, because of course I’m a feminist, and because I don’t want to assume you’ll ask me. Promposals went out of style long before the current economic depression.
ThomasG: What prom?
ThomasG: Online virtual schools don’t have dances.
KateM: But that patio in front of Topeka High doesn’t look too scary.
KateM: I wouldn’t go inside the old high school, of course. That building should clearly be condemned.
ThomasG: You want to meet someone you met online while trespassing alone at a condemned building?
ThomasG: This seems unwise.
KateM: No, we won’t be alone.
KateM: I want a lot of people I’ve only met online to meet on the courtyard for our senior prom.
KateM: I want to see them at their best. We’ll all get dressed up a bit. Maybe stay out all night.
KateM: Your grandad is right. We need something to look forward to.
ThomasG: You might be crazy.
KateM: Is that a yes? I’d feel better if I knew I had a date to the prom before I go to all of the bother to create it out of thin air.
ThomasG: My hesitation is this: I don’t know the etiquette for this situation, but it seems that a gentleman wouldn’t let a lady plan and execute her own prom alone.
KateM: Excellent! If you’ll help, then we can be the Kansas Virtual School student government prom committee, Topeka Chapter.
KateM: I’ve been reading the school handbook and the legislature left the structure of extracurricular activities intact even though they stripped the funding. That’s how the football teams are still sanctioned.
ThomasG: Why would you read the school handbook?
ThomasG: Dare I ask?
KateM: I was researching the possibility of a book club.
KateM: This prom idea is so much more fun!
ThomasG: Are you sure I can’t talk you into a book club?
KateM: :P
KateM: That’s just a bit of extra emoticon nostalgia for you and your grandad.
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Login successful 5/20/2026 Discussion Board Population=2
ENGLISH LIT 499-SELF-GUIDED DISCUSSION BOARD
TOPIC: PERSUASION BY JANE AUSTEN, BRITISH LITERATURE
ThomasG: Much like our modern situation, Persuasion marks a break with Austen’s previous works, both in the more biting, even irritable satire directed at some of the novel’s characters and in the regretful, resigned outlook of its otherwise admirable heroine, Anne Elliot, who gives me, as the reader, much to ponder in regards to my own romantic endeavors.
KateM: I’ve missed your Wikipedia quotes.
ThomasG: The energy and appeal of the Royal Navy symbolizes for Anne the possibility of a more outgoing, engaged, and fulfilling life, so please don’t tell me your next big idea is for us to join the military.
KateM: My current community service hours are fulfilling enough. How are you holding up?
ThomasG: I hold in my mind the memory of your bright blue skirt, of spinning you around and catching you in my arms.
KateM: That skirt is very twirly and gauzy. Completely impractical for agricultural work. I love it.
ThomasG: I’m sorry we got arrested before I had a chance to kiss you.
KateM: Me too.
KateM: In other news, I wrote your name in as the cosponsor of our new book club.
KateM: They may call repeating our senior year a punishment, but at least we have literature discussions to look forward to together, since we aren’t graduating this summer after all.
ThomasG: And after that?
KateM: I’m assuming you aren’t phishing for information about my feelings, and instead want to discuss our unique position within society to lead our generation to greatness. I think the answers are obvious, though.
ThomasG: Second annual prom?
KateM: You betcha. But next time with less misdemeanor citations and more parents and guardians as chaperones.
KateM: It turns out the online virtual school handbook has some provisions for events, which I found while I was filling out the forms for book club.
ThomasG: Information which would have been useful a month ago, back when we were naïve, and trespassing seemed like an innocent endeavor.
ThomasG: What are we going to discuss in book club after Austen? We are halfway through her six novels already.
KateM: The form required a community volunteer adult to sponsor the club or we can’t hold in person meetings. He might want some input into selections also.
