To text or not to text… that was never the question. But what if Hamlet or Jane Eyre had got their hands on a mobile phone? Mallory Ortberg introduces her series of literary masterpieces reimagined for the 21st century
Almost everyone, I think, has at least one friend who likes to relay enormously significant, life-altering news in a careless, after-the-fact way – “Did I not mention I left him?” It’s somehow maddening and endearing, the proportion of which is dependent on your personal tolerance levels. When we text, I don’t have to see your face or hear your voice when I flake out on plans 30 minutes before I’m supposed to show up; we can be our worst and most thoughtless selves with a minimum of fallout.
It was while brooding on this that I began to imagine text exchanges from various characters in literary history. Take Jane Eyre. Mr Rochester is an impulsive, intensely brooding, by turns romantic and terrifying figure; I’m convinced he is also the type of person who would regularly text in all caps and send message after message without waiting for a reply. Daisy Buchanan would not only text while driving; she would text you to come and pick her up after she totalled her car. And you’d do it, but you’d hate yourself the entire drive over.
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