Kris Brown

Story Statement (First Assignment): Sure of herself as a privileged, newlywed Englishwoman transplanted in Ireland, Kate must wrestle both with old love and her unquestioned judgement to decide how to go forward in her married life. Antagonist (Second Assignment): Edwin Hawke, master, under the direction of his mother, of an extensive Anglo-Irish estate, anticipates his rapid acceptance by the Dixons, neighboring aristocrats, most particularly by Mary, Kate’s sister-in-law. Edwin, an obvious best marriage choice in Ascendancy Ireland, holds and upholds both the subtle and brutal prejudices of the Anglo-Irish. A firm advocate for British empire and domination, Edwin, as a probable husband for Mary, requires Kate to see and consider what she would rather not see. As she relives her own recent courtship in Mary’s, Kate must face directly the problem of being inextricably caught up in empire, in political and social structures that depend upon rigid hierarchy, injustice, and determined force. Title Assignment (Third Assignment): The Other Side Genre/ Comparables Assignment (Fourth Assignment): Emma, Jane Austen The Wide Sargosso Sea, Jean Rhys Genre: literary fiction, historical fiction Core Wound/ Logline (Fifth Assignment): As she uncovers deep rifts in her new marriage and country, Kate, sure of her judgement, of her place in the world, and of the facts determining her own story, must re-see herself in context in order to decide how to, even whether she can, remain married. Other Matters of Conflict (Sixth Assignment): Obvious pressures upon Kate, away from her beloved parents and sister, transplanted to a new country, recently married into a prominent Anglo-Irish family, exacerbate her disorienting sense of loss. She has not married Will, the man she most loves who broke an engagement with her, but instead John, a kind, well meaning, competent second choice. In the midst of understanding better where she is and among whom, Kate meets Will again. While he intends only to safely convey his sister, Kate’s dear friend, for a visit, Will is forced, as a result of an accident, to remain at Ballycraig, the Dixon estate. Setting (Seventh Assignment): Much of the action of The Other Side occurs at or near the Ballycraig Estate in Ascendancy Ireland during the summer of 1808. Political movements and social repression, most particularly the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the Act of Union, as well as British anti-slave trade legislation of 1807 inform the immediate histories and recent choices of the novel’s principal characters. The Napoleonic wars present themselves in the distance as well. The actual history on the novel’s edges works to catch characters up in structures they do not immediately consider but which are in fact working against their happiness and well being. Jane Austen, in throwing her never-to-be-met newly married Mrs. Dixon away in Ireland, has given The Other Side the gift of one of the most cinematic physical settings on earth. Ballycraig, with its own considerable land and tenant farms, situated along the southeast coast near the imaginary village of Kilann and and small town of Carrickclar, not far from Waterford, combines all the formal glory of an 18th century Anglo-Irish estate with the wilds of cliffs and beaches, forests and waterfalls; in short, with all the beauty and possibility of the southeast Irish countryside. Jane Austen novels themselves (each one of them offers to the plot at least a momentary touchpoint) provide a kind ideological starting point and setting for The Other Side. If, in Jane Austen, marriage is an end which bests most other concerns, what happens on the other side of marriage, on the other side of privileged relationship, across the Irish Sea is also very much worth considering.