Jane Austen Addict Blog

Emma; or How Jane Austen Revealed My Inner Know-it-All

by Laurie Viera Rigler, author of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (http://janeaustenaddict.com)

[This post continues my series of guest posts on About.com's Classic Literature Blog.]

Yes; I'll admit it. There have been times when I've acted a bit like Emma, the eponymous heroine of Jane Austen's novel. There have been times when I have, shall I say, ventured into the unsolicited advice department. Times when I've been so convinced of what I knew about others that no one could convince me my assumptions were absolutely wrong.

I haven't always seen myself in Emma. In fact, there was a time when I would have been offended at the very suggestion. After all, Emma is the heroine that Jane Austen said "no one but myself will much like." But the older I get and the more I re-read Austen's works, the more I begin to see myself not only as Elizabeth Bennet (and who doesn't want to see herself as "dearest, loveliest Elizabeth"?), but also as some of Austen's more flawed characters.

These "a-ha" experiences are high on the list of reasons why I love Austen. I have this theory that if you read her works enough times and really contemplate the life lessons therein, you can pretty much give up your psychotherapist. You can even reduce your library of self-help books to Austen's six novels. They are so much fun to read, so satisfying, so full of dramatic tension and hilarious commentary, that you hardly know you're getting a life lesson at all. Which is exactly how I like my life lessons delivered.

When we first meet Austen's heroine Emma Woodhouse, she is enjoying the "triumph" of what her truth-telling friend (and only critic) Mr. Knightley dismisses as Emma's "lucky guess." Said "lucky guess" is the marriage of Emma's dearest friend (and former governess) Miss Taylor.  Emma, however, gives herself more credit for the match than Mr. Knightley chooses to do. Emboldened by the success of her first foray into matchmaking, and lonely for the newly married Miss Taylor, Emma takes on a new project, Miss Harriet Smith. Determined to make over the trusting and subservient Harriet into Emma's own idea of perfection, Emma decides that Harriet's current romantic interest is too low on the social scale for her new friend. Emma, in all her social consequence and omniscience, will elevate Harriet on the social scale. Emma, in all her generous solicitude for the well-being of others, will bestow upon the vicar, Mr. Elton, the perfect wife. For he would be just the right man for Harriet.

Never mind that Mr. Elton has plans of his own and that the worshipping Harriet would follow wherever Emma leads. For Emma, those around her are pawns, and she their queen. Emma, of course, fancies herself a benevolent ruler. And thus she embarks on a series of misguided adventures into high-stakes meddling in the lives of others while having not the slightest doubt of her own sagacity. Challenged by no one but Mr. Knightley,  she willfully misreads and misinterprets everyone's actions. She is, in short, a character we might heartily dislike, were it not for the genius of her creator.

Austen's brilliance is about making us see the  universal humanity of all of her characters. Even if we cannot see ourselves in a particular character, we most certainly have known someone like that character. From the very beginning, we cannot truly dislike the high-handed, I-know-better-than-you Emma, for she has sacrificed her own domestic comfort to her best friend Miss Taylor's interests. Mr. Knightley may call the marriage of Miss Taylor to Mr. Weston a "lucky guess," but it was Emma who encouraged Mr. Weston to visit her friend, in hopes that he would eventually propose—and take that best friend away. Thus we see that under her meddling is a warm, affectionate heart. And we cannot truly dislike Emma because she patiently and without complaint—even to herself—ministers to the comfort of her hypochondriacal, self-centered, childlike father.

Most of all, we cannot truly dislike Emma because she becomes ensnared in her own machinations. And thus Mr. Knightley's wish that he "should like to see Emma in love, and in some doubt of a return " comes to pass.

(Be careful about what you wish on others, Mr. Knightley. It may just come back to kick you in the hindquarters.)

And that is all I shall say. If you have not read the book, I urge you to do so. You might just recognize that you, like Emma, find the idea of arranging someone else's life to be so much more appealing than looking at your own.

By the way, all of you who are jonesing for Austen since Masterpiece Theatre cruelly took a hiatus from its Complete Jane Austen extravaganza are in for a treat: the 1995 adaptation of Emma starring Kate Beckinsale. It airs on PBS in two parts, beginning Sunday, March 23. The Kate Beckinsale Emma is also available on DVD, as is its worthy companions, the splendid adaptation starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Amy Heckerling's contemporary take on Emma, the delightful Clueless.

Jane in '08

by Laurie Viera Rigler, author of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

[This is how I started off my talk at the Whittier Public Library's Jane Austen series on March 5, 2008:]

In all the excitement of the recent releases of The Jane Austen Book Club movie and Becoming Jane, and now that we are well into Masterpiece Theatre's Complete Jane Austen, one might be tempted to say that 2008 is turning out to be the year of Jane Austen, perhaps even more so than 2007. But let's not forget that 2008 is also an election year. And with all the hoopla and fuss over should it be Obama, Clinton, or McCain, I submit that it should be Jane.

 

Sure, she's been dead for almost 200 years, but that doesn't seem to stop Masterpiece Theatre, Hollywood, Bollywood, authors like me who are inspired to write books because of how much we love her, and readers like me who continue to read and re-read her six novels incessantly.

And most important, who is better qualified to run the country than she?

Let's talk about character:

If we go by the assumption that there is a little bit of the author in each of her characters—well, at least in each of the characters she likes—than who can lead the country better than someone who has the wit and intelligence of Elizabeth Bennet, the diplomacy of Anne Eliot, the prudence and strength of Elinor Dashwood, and the stay-the-course steadfastness of Fanny Price?

Let's talk about experience: People like to say that Austen never left the south of England, that she led a circumscribed, uneventful life. But in all fairness, it would be pretty hard for her to take a Grand Tour of Europe—supposing she were able to afford it—during the Napoleonic Wars.

Just because one doesn't write about war doesn't mean one is ill-informed about war. Aside from being very well read herself, Jane Austen had two brothers who served in the Navy and fought in those wars, and a cousin, Eliza de Feuillide, who married a French count who got guillotined during the Reign of Terror.

As for that uneventful, quiet life, it's not like Jane Austen was a recluse. She loved to socialize, to dance, to be in company. She traveled many times to London and lived in Bath.

And she may not have married, but she was hardly sheltered. Just read Lady Susan, one of her minor works, and see how sheltered you think she was. For Jane Austen, staying single was a choice. She had at least one proposal that we definitely know about, and very likely more. Being a single woman was a brave choice for a woman of Austen's time, especially for a woman like Jane Austen, who was not exactly flush with money. 

So, we've got character. We've got experience. We've got courage.

Let's talk about special interests.

Some people think that Jane Austen panders to special interests—in particular, the special interests of women. After all, her stories are all about bonnets, pretty dresses, balls, and who gets to marry the rich guy.

Right?

Wrong.

But are not these stories rife with handsome men in knee breeches and women in beautiful gowns? Does that not pander to the special interests of the fairer sex?

Well yes, I suppose, if you are to take the movies to be the same as Jane Austen's novels, which they are not. The novels were actually quite spare of period detail, as Jane Austen wrote them for her contemporaries, who already knew what a barouche-landau was and what type of waistline the latest gowns had. Of course, we women love the eye candy the movies provide, but so should the men, considering all those heaving bosoms in all those low-cut empire waisted dresses.

Just to illustrate for you the difference between the movies and the books, let's take Sense and Sensibilty as an example. In the book, Edward Ferrars is plain. In the movie, he is Hugh Grant.

In the book, Colonel Brandon is grave and solemn and singularly un-dashing. In the movie, he is Alan Rickman.

Am I complaining about any of this? Absolutely not.

Willoughby, granted, is a beauty in both book and film, but then again, he is the villain of the piece.

As for Jane Austen's allegedly overly zealous interest in female finery, I beg to differ, for she relegated such pursuits to her silly, superficial female characters, such as Mrs. Elton with her overly trimmed dresses and her fishing for compliments, ditzy Mrs. Allen whose main joy in life was dress and shopping, and the vacant Lady Bertram, whose main purpose was to sit on a sopha all day nicely dressed.

How many discerning men might have laughed knowingly had they read this passage in Northanger Abbey:

"It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire…Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it."

Even the empty-headed Mrs. Allen in Northanger Abbey acknowledges that "Men commonly take so little notice of those things." Said she; "I can never get Mr. Allen to know one of my gowns from another."

Indeed.

If Jane Austen were indeed pandering to the special interests of women, then how come
T.C. Boyle, Michael Chabon, Paul Auster, Gregory Peck, and Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat all love Jane Austen?

Apparently they know something other men may not know, which is that Jane Austen's genius speaks to all of us, not just women. Her stories have universal resonance, because they are stories of self-knowledge and self-discovery. They are witty social satires, and they are commentaries on the follies and flaws and majesty of human nature.

And yes, each of her books is all wrapped up in a love story—not an overly sentimental one—but one with a happy ending.

And who, male or female, can resist a happy ending? Doesn't this country need a happy ending? Doesn't this country need a lesson on how to become a better human being, especially when that lesson is wrapped up in such an agreeable, amusing package?

I submit that it does.

(Image courtesy of Laurel Ann Nattress, Austenprose)

[The Whittier Public Library in Whittier, California, is hosting two more events in its Jane Austen series:

Wednesday, March 12th, at 7:00 PM:
Jane Austen, Love & Friendship:
Come and listen as Jane Austen, as portrayed by Mary Burkin, shares family and neighborhood gossip.
Free.

Wednesday, March 19th at 7:00 PM:
Tea and Tasteful Conversation:
Enjoy tea while learning about the culinary world of Jane Austen's England.
Presented by Anne Kiley, Ph.D., Professor at Whittier College and WPL Foundation Board Member
RSVP $25.00 per person; limited seating. 562-464-3450; 562-464-3470.

All events are at the Whittier Central Library
7344 S. Washington Avenue, Whittier, CA
562-464-3450]