Book Review: Emma

[osprey_archer]

While not quite as divisive as Fanny Price, Emma Woodhouse can also start a minor flamewar. Upon my first read, I was an unabashed Emma-lover; upon reread, I have more complicated feelings about her as a person, but something approaching awe towards Jane Austen’s work developing her character, because she’s so complicated and contradictory in a way that can be hard to portray without making a character feel simply incoherent. And yet she is entirely coherent, a fully realized creation in all her contradictions; and not only that, but she changes a great deal over the course of the book, perhaps more than any other Austen heroine.

The characteristic that struck me as forcibly unappealing this time is the fact that Emma is such a snob. Surely I noticed this upon first read, because it’s not at all subtle. A smattering of incidents, to which I could append many more: she’s convinced that the illegitimate Harriet must be a gentleman’s daughter, just because she’s pretty and Emma likes her. She twits Mr. Knightly for arriving at events on foot like a plebe, rather than properly in a carriage. Part of her dislike for Mrs. Elton arises from the fact that Mrs. Elton intends to take precedence over her, Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield.

Part of it of course also arises from the fact that Mrs. Elton sounds unbearable. Actually, I did have a bit of sympathy for Mrs. Elton this time around, simply because she’s a stranger to literally everyone in town except her husband whom she knew a mere five weeks before she married him, and she’s clearly trying to establish herself in this new situation… by being wildly interfering in everyone else’s business, by for instance forcibly arranging a governess job for Jane Fairfax who adamantly does not want one just yet.

But, of course, Emma herself has some interfering tendencies, although the velvet glove over her iron hand tends to be far more plush than Mrs. Elton’s. (People often dislike their own worst qualities when they meet them in others.) Most dramatically, she talks Harriet out of accepting Robert Martin’s offer of marriage - all the while loudly proclaiming that of course she doesn’t want to influence Harriet at all! but if a woman doubts whether she should accept a man, she shouldn’t! - largely because she considers Robert Martin beneath the notice of her own intimate friend Harriet.

I found the Emma/Harriet friendship intriguingly femslashy the first time I read it, but somewhat less so this time around: Emma is so obviously settling on the first possible replacement friend who shows up after her dear governess Miss Taylor leaves Hartfield to get married. And part of Harriet’s charm to her is her patent inferiority to Emma in all things except possibly good nature, which Emma herself is well aware of - although perhaps not fully cognizant that it doesn’t speak well of her that she prefers an inferior friend who can never make her envious to a Jane Fairfax, whose skill at music must always make Emma aware that she has not improved her raw talent with practice as she should.

So far, this all sounds pretty negative. But one of the fascinating things about Emma is that this taste for interference, which is perhaps her worst quality, in some ways arises from her best quality, which is her loving solicitude for her father. Mr. Woodhouse is an incredibly nervous man, easily alarmed by even small changes, and Emma has essentially taken charge of him since she was quite young - certainly since her elder sister Isabella married, and possibly even before that, since Isabella’s nerves are almost as weak as her father’s.

Is it any wonder, as the most sensible person in the house since the age of at least thirteen, the one who soothes her father’s anxieties and arranges his life, Emma has come to consider herself capable of arranging lives more generally? And although some of her decisions with regard to Harriet are nearly disastrous, her actions towards Harriet and toward her father are truly guided by loving solicitude.

It isn’t even that she is patient with her father, for to say she is patient suggests that she is occasionally taking a deep, aggravated breath as she bears with his infirmities. Her affection for him is so complete that she enters into all his anxieties, not in the sense that she agrees that he is correct to be anxious, but in fully feeling that the anxiety is real to him and acting always to soothe it.

And, my God, I could never. I may lack some of Emma’s faults, but I also cannot see myself, day after day after day after day, lovingly devoting my time and attention to a whittering old man who never grows used to any change and is constantly anxious about his health, everybody else’s health, the weather, etc. etc. etc. Maybe I’ve never talked a friend out of marrying her own true love; but all the same, like Gunga Din, Emma is a better man than I.

Comments

[oracne]

This is a lovely summing-up!

[osprey_archer]

Thank you!

[asakiyume]

This started me musing on character flaws that we find endearing and ones we find offputting, and also about the degree of responsibility we think of ourselves as having to guide people--like, I've never talked a friend out of marrying their true love either, but I think it's way harder to offer possibly life changing advice these days? It probably depends on the topic, too, but I feel like these days the weight is really on supporting people as they figure things out--which is good! But sometimes if the figuring seems like it's taking them in a really bad direction? IDK, I guess most people I know would try to say something at that point...

Emma is maybe firmly sure she's a good adviser because generally in life she's been right, or if she's being wrong, it's been in ways she considers inconsequential. I do think a lot of people make assumptions like that until painfully shown that they can make mistakes.

[osprey_archer]

I wonder if the reason we are less likely to offer life-changing advice of this kind is that it's easier for someone to change course now if they make a mistake? Like, if one of my friends was thinking about getting married, I don't think I'd try to talk her out of it unless I had witnessed her fiance killing a puppy or something. "If it doesn't work out, they can always get divorced," I would muse. Whereas in the Regency era, once you're married you're pretty much stuck unless your partner dies.

And yes, I think it's very common for people to think that they will never make a consequential mistake until they actually do. Which is maybe one of the reasons that Emma is a controversial heroine: that particular flaw is maybe just a little TOO relatable.

[luzula]

Oh, interesting, I've never thought about the point you make re: Emma's managing of her father from a young age, and that her managing tendencies in general might be related to that. Also, wow, yes, with all the caretaking and solicitude.

The snobbishness, yeah, that really leapt out at me at my last reread.

[osprey_archer]

I'm not sure if it's because I'm older or because I've reread the book a few times, but the caretaking of Emma's father and the snobbishness really struck me this time, as they haven't done before. IIRC the first time around I was as stunned as Emma herself when Mr. Elton turned around and proposed to her.

[ethelmay]

I really think Mr. Woodhouse is supposed to be in the early stages of dementia, masked by his always having made a fuss about himself.

[osprey_archer]

That's interesting! Never heard that theory before.

[ethelmay]

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.act2080.0048.115 is a decent overview of the evidence, I think.

[kore]

Is it any wonder, as the most sensible person in the house since the age of at least thirteen, the one who soothes her father’s anxieties and arranges his life, Emma has come to consider herself capable of arranging lives more generally? And although some of her decisions with regard to Harriet are nearly disastrous, her actions towards Harriet and toward her father are truly guided by loving solicitude.

Ooh, I like this a lot. It's almost the flip side of Persuasion, in which Anne's life is very nearly wrecked by people who do love her, and think they want the very best for her -- and she winds up being nearly managed to death. It's like Granny Weatherwax (I think) says, something like, you don't give people what you think they need, you give them what they want to get. Charity, or duty, or caretaking, can be a close thing to oppression. -- It also reminds me a bit of how Elinor basically has to take care of both her mother and Marianne, although Emma is a lot more empathic.

And, my God, I could never. I may lack some of Emma’s faults, but I also cannot see myself, day after day after day after day, lovingly devoting my time and attention to a whittering old man who never grows used to any change and is constantly anxious about his health, everybody else’s health, the weather, etc. etc. etc. Maybe I’ve never talked a friend out of marrying her own true love; but all the same, like Gunga Din, Emma is a better man than I.

LOLLLL no I would smother him and then find myself in a different kind of story altogether!

[ethelmay]

Emma has also never been anywhere outside Highbury, if I remember right. Despite her riches she has a terrifically limited life, and it's just luck she has even one decent suitor. I have much more sympathy now for Lydia and Kitty Bennet wanting to go meet ALL THE SOLDIERS when I think of the stifling alternatives.

[osprey_archer]

If that's never outright stated, it's definitely implied. It's hard to imagine Mr. Woodhouse being able to travel himself or to stay home alone while Emma traveled, even such a comparatively short and safe journey as going sixteen miles to London to visit her sister.

And yes, where else are Kitty and Lydia likely to meet suitors! There doesn't seem to be any plan (or possibly any money) to take the Bennett girls to London or Bath to meet a wider range of men.

[osprey_archer]

One of the things I find fascinating about Persuasion is that Anne remains very close to Lady Russell, even though she thinks her life is blighted by turning down Wentworth and the reason she turned him down is that Lady Russell advised it. The modern reader (or, at least, this modern reader) connects the dots and expects Anne to blame Lady Russell as The Reason Why Her Life Is Ruined, but she really never seems to do that; in her mind, it's her own fault for letting her be persuaded, which is fair enough, but also if I were in that position I imagine I would at least want to blame Lady Russell a LITTLE bit.

[kore]

Yes! One of the neat things about Persuasion is, to me, the emphasis on how people who do love you and want the best for you can be TERRIBLE for you, and there's really not much a woman in Anne's position can do at all, she's so dependent -- and she also thinks these people love her! They also just really don't understand her. It's a fascinating dynamic. Usually people who Really Do Love You just get you, intuitively, or people who Do You Wrong are assholes with all the blame. I remember feeling suffocated by S&S when I first read it as a teenage Bronte fangirl, lol, and Fanny has it bad, but Persuasion feels like a tragedy waiting just on the edge of about to happen.

I do think Austen also uses it to build Anne's character of possible martyrdom and self-sacrifice (like, how much do I love it when he comes and LITERALLY lifts the child burden right off her back. Now that's neat symbolism). Fanny's not a martyr exactly, but she's super stoic (even if she cries a lot). Anne's pain always really pierces me.

[osprey_archer]

Definitely Lady Russell loves her, and perhaps misleads her - although I've just gotten to the bit where Mrs. Croft says warmly that she thinks it very silly of any couple to get engaged when they have no definite way of knowing if they'll ever have the money to live on, which was Anne and Wentworth's situation, so perhaps we are meant to find Lady Russell's actions more understandable and sympathetic than the modern reader generally does?

I don't think Anne cherishes the illusion that her father and older sister love her, though. They are so painfully indifferent to her that I can see why it's a relief to get away to Mary's house: Mary may be annoying and complain all the time, but at least she likes and needs Anne, whereas her father and older sister consistently wish her away!

Possibly I should save these thoughts for my Persuasion post, though! I've almost finished the book, so hopefully within the next few days.

[marginaliana]

And, my God, I could never. I may lack some of Emma’s faults, but I also cannot see myself, day after day after day after day, lovingly devoting my time and attention to a whittering old man who never grows used to any change and is constantly anxious about his health, everybody else’s health, the weather, etc. etc. etc.

God, so true. I already have difficulty with the one family member who a) isn't that bad and b) lives far away.

[osprey_archer]

This is one of those cases where the contrast between Austen's mores and ours maybe doesn't make us look very good by comparison, but also damn, it would be hard to live up to Emma's example in this particular area of her life.

[skygiants]

I am, alas, a Northanger Disliker (I've tried!), but an Emma enjoyer, and I do think there's sort of a thematic link between these two as well in how very much these books are driven by Mores Of Their Time that don't translate as well to modernity as the more straightforward narratives of P&P or even Persuasion -- Fanny's strict sense of right and wrong is grounded so much in rules of propriety that no longer apply; not only is Emma a miserable snob, but the resolution of the book is that her least snobbish behavior (befriending Harriet to begin with) is a mistake that needs to be remedied by ending the intimate friendship! But Emma herself is such a vivid and complicated personality that even if you disagree with some of the book's fundamental worldview it's just so interesting to watch her set out confidently to improve people's lives and then shocked pikachu when it doesn't work out as intended AND THEN valiantly get up and try again, and getting various little glimpses into the ways she's understood and misunderstood the community around her along the way.

(I think the recent Emma movie does the best job at making the Emma/Harriet relationship convincingly romantic that I've seen, but you do have to read a bit against the text to do it. I also have respect for the Emma/Jane Fairfax contingent, though. There's something there.)

[osprey_archer]

Do you perchance mean Mansfield Park and not Northanger? I ask because later you mention Fanny, not Catherine, and also I think Mansfield Park and Emma are the two books that are Most Driven By the Mores of Their Time.

Anyway, Emma's repeated Shocked Pikachu when things don't go the way that she confidently expected them to is so funny. (Actually I think you COULD draw a line between Emma and Northanger in that Emma and Catherine are both constantly amazed that events don't go the way they expect, even though they are drawing on very different sources of expectation.) Mr. Elton is proposing to her rather than Harriet? Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill have been engaged all along?? Harriet's now in love with Mr. Knightly??? WHAT. An important lesson learned from this last that you should always say the name aloud at least ONCE before agreeing never to speak of the thing again, because otherwise you may be talking about completely different people!

The most recent Emma movie is I think more invested in the Harriet-Emma friendship than most adaptations - it goes out of its way to suggest that Emma and Harriet will remain friends, although on slightly different footing than before. (Hard to maintain the status of "intimate friend who practically lives at my house" when both of you are married and have home responsibilities.)

Jane Fairfax/Emma, though! That does have possibilities. Emma avoids Jane Fairfax because she feels weird around Jane and she Doesn't Like It?

[cleodoxa]

Last time I read Emma I was struck by Emma's patience for her father, and the contrast it makes to her impatience for Miss Bates, who is tedious in such a very similar way. I found it difficult not to wonder if Miss Bates represented a permissible outlet for the frustration she didn't allow herself to feel towards her father -- who belongs to her and is therefore excellent.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, that's such a good point. As I was writing this I was trying to draw a parallel between Emma's patience with her father and her impatience with Miss Bates and I couldn't quite untangle it so I left it out, but you've hit the nail on the head. She gets enough of this at home! Can't be expected to listen to endless prattle when she's out visiting, too.