Emma 11-15: “Mentally (Un)Stable”

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An extremely stable episode... up to a point. Join Emily and Lauren for conversations about consequences for actions, stubborn streaks, and more of what passes for Regency healthcare.

Transcript

Reclaiming Jane Season 4 Episode 3 | Emma 11-15: “Mentally (Un)Stable”

Emily: [00:00:00] This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.

Lauren: I'm Lauren Wethers,

Emily: and I'm Emily Davis-Hale.

And today,

Lauren: we're reading chapters 11 through 15 of Emma through the of stability.

Emily: This was a very fun theme for this section. I feel like.

Lauren: It was interesting. I feel like if I really sit down and think about it, I could think of a lot of different ways that stability shows up in the, in these chapters. But as I was reading, I remember thinking, what on earth am I going to say?

Emily: Really? Because I had it like right out the gate of things to talk about.

Lauren: I just, I guess, because we've had so many themes that are so obvious where my brain is firing on all cylinders immediately, where I'm already making connections between characters and actions and theme, and this one. I think it just came a little bit slower where I was like, I mean, okay. I guess I actually had to work at it.

Emily: Honestly, that happened for me last time with tradition.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: So yeah, it's hit or miss sometimes.

Lauren: Yeah. It makes it more interesting. I think when we have to actually sit down and think like, wait a second, how can we make this theme work with the events that we have in these five?

Emily: Definitely. And then one of us always comes up with stuff that the other never would've considered.

Lauren: Which is so perfect. And also entertaining given the fact that nine times out of 10, we share the same brain. So it's nice that we. On that one time out of 10, where we come up with something different.

Emily: We're just, you know, two halves of the same brain.

Lauren: And they [00:02:00] only sometimes communicate.

Emily: Only sometimes.

Lauren: Oh goodness. Speaking of sometimes communicating, whose turn is it to recap first?

Emily: Yours.

Lauren: I had a feeling that's what you were gonna say.

Emily: Well, are you ready to make your attempt?

Lauren: I am ready.

Emily: All right. 3, 2, 1 go.

Lauren: Okay. Emma's older sister has arrived. She and the older, not older, the other Mr. Knightley have arrived at Hartfield. They are back for the holidays, it's gonna be a good time. Mr. Why am I blanking on names? and Mr. Woodhouse is having a great time. Anyway. Mr. Knightley also comes to dine. He joins them for dinner. They discuss health, which is convenient because Harriet gets super sick right after that. They go to the Westons for Christmas Eve dinner and Mr. Elton proposes to Emma and she hates it. It's horrifying. The end.

Emily: That was a little chaotic. I'm not gonna lie.

Lauren: It was supposed to be so strong!

Emily: The fact that you, the fact that you forgot Mr. Woodhouse's name.

Lauren: I had like Wentworth in my brain and I was like, that's not right.

Emily: Wrong book.

Lauren: That's-- wrong book. I wanted to say Mr. Wentworth. I was like, that's not even the right title.

Emily: All right. Before we rag too hard on Lauren. Let's see how I do.

Lauren: Ah, okay. This is all for your entertainment, listeners. Three, two, one. Go.

Emily: It is Christmas approaching. And so Emma's sister who is married to Knightley's brother, both come to Hartfield with their five children. Emma decides this is a perfect opportunity to pretend that she and Knightley were never fighting about anything ever. Everything is good. They're all invited to go and have dinner with the Westons, and there's a lot of talk about Mr. Weston's son of Frank Churchill. Harriet gets sick though, and she can't go. And Emma thinks that Elton is like, really not sufficiently upset about this. And then after dinner, he declares his love for her and she's mad.

Lauren: Beautiful.

Emily: Definitely got a little aggressive at the end there.

Lauren: But it was necessary.

Emily: It was necessary. Oh my God.

Lauren: There was deceptively a lot to cram in.

Emily: There really was.

Lauren: I was like, oh, this was a calm couple chapters.

Emily: No.

Lauren: Really all it is is like, oh, Isabella shows up. [00:04:00] They have dinner, Mr. Elton proposes. But there's so much that actually happens in between that.

Emily: There really is.

Lauren: Where shall we start?

Emily: At the very beginning?

Lauren: I knew it. I knew it. I was like--

Emily: a very good place to start. I'm sorry. I've seen sound of music too many times not to go for that.

Lauren: I set myself up. It's fine.

Emily: Yeah, you did. Well, at the very opening of this section, we get a little introduction to Mr and Mrs. John Knightley, who are the siblings of the two who have been clashing most recently. Mr. John Knightley is our Mr. Knightley's younger brother.

Lauren: Mm.

Emily: So John is married to Emma's older sister, Isabella, and they live in London where Mr. John Knightley is a lawyer. I think?

Lauren: Something, some genteel profession.

Emily: They, I think they also talk about it in the section, but yeah.

Lauren: Clearly we did a great job. Very close readers.

Emily: Oh yes. Anyway, we get introduced to them and they come with their gaggle of five children. And immediately we can see some similarities between, especially Mr. Woodhouse and his eldest daughter, Isabella. They have the same concerns about health.

Lauren: Yeah. Isabella is very... conscious, we'll say, of her health, of her children's health. Just has the same nervous flutters as her father. We can see where she gets it from. She's also a far more obliging person than Emma is, which makes her a much better match for Mr. John Knightley, who is extremely opinionated almost to a fault. And doesn't always have the tact to match that opinion that he gives.

So he is usually going to be the person who is saying things very decisively and Isabella is going to be the person who says yes, dear. Unless it happens to be a matter of health, in which case she will argue with him and say why things should not happen because, oh my goodness. Can you imagine the possible consequences?

Emily: Yeah. So the first evening together, Mr. Knightley also comes over from Donwell, to join them for dinner, which Mr. [00:06:00] Woodhouse isn't very happy about because he wants Isabella all to himself on their first night of the visit. But the entire time Emma and Knightley are just playing mediators between, especially Mr. Woodhouse and John Knightley.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: Who both have opinions. And don't really agree with each other.

Lauren: Nope.

Emily: So the whole time, they're just trying to steer the conversation away from topics of contention.

Lauren: What I wrote down actually was that Mr. John Knightley reminds me of Darcy with no character development. Darcy if he hadn't met Elizabeth and leaned into the worst parts of his character, because I think at his core, Darcy is a more kind and thoughtful person than Mr. John Knightley is.

But if you, like, threw a couple extra curve balls at Darcy. And he became somebody who leaned into his worst impulses and didn't have somebody like Elizabeth to temper him.

I could see him becoming someone like Mr. John Knightley. And then it's like, if you put Jane with the worst of Darcy, that's what Isabella and Mr. John Knightley are like.

Emily: Oh, no.

Lauren: They're, not very well suited to one another.

Emily: See, I did not feel that strongly negative about John in the early chapters. It was only when they got to the dinner party at the Westons', where he's just complaining the entire time about having to leave the house where also I noted that he's a little more similar to Mr. Woodhouse there than he realizes.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. I don't necessarily feel negatively about him. Just the, the stubbornness strikes me as similar.

Emily: That's fair.

Lauren: That and the occasional lack of tact.

Emily: Yeah. As we are getting into Emma and Knightley repairing their friendship, or rather just kind of trying to turn it back so that nothing ever happened. This is where I really started to get the sense of the theme of stability, because Emma seems to have just a terrible fear of any kind of instability in her personal relationships.

Lauren: Mm.

Emily: She doesn't want to have any conflict with Knightley. [00:08:00] As happy as she is for Mrs. Weston. I also get the idea that Emma didn't want her to leave, partly because it would throw the house into a little bit of chaos.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: Just from that small change. She's always trying to be the peacemaker between groups, even in her matchmaking. Emma just wants everything to be steady and stable around her. And also she wants to be in charge of it.

Lauren: Yeah, no, you're so right. I think the comparison we made with her kind of wanting to be the director of everything around her, almost like a puppet master, is really apt, especially with this, where it's like, I want everything to be as I want it, and for things to say the same and unchanging, unless I am the impetus of that change, and then it's fine. But even then it's still a little bit nervewracking.

Emily: Yeah. And we also see the power of her own imagination in convincing herself that things are the way she wants them to be. Because Mr. John Knightley spots right away, the fact that Mr. Elton is actually interested in Emma. And she basically tells him, oh no, you don't know the full story. And we get this beautiful, beautiful piece of irony as they are leaving the company of Mr. Elton, where "Emma is amusing herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a partial knowledge of circumstances and of the mistakes which people of high pretensions to judgment are forever falling into."

Lauren: the call is coming from inside the house.

Emily: truly, it is. Emma. Look at yourself.

Lauren: What are you doing? What, what, what are you doing?

Emily: An ounce of introspection?

Lauren: Just a tiny bit, you're so, you're right there. You are so close.

Emily: It's, it's very Lizzy Bennet.

Lauren: Yeah. I would love to see the inner monologue of Mr. John Knightley as he has this conversation as he very clearly sees what's going on, especially with the attention that Mr. Elton pays to Emma over the course of this visit, as she's willfully misunderstanding every signal that he throws to her. I can imagine him just saying, [00:10:00] 'all right, if you say so,' and just sitting back and watching as Mr. Elton plops himself down in between Emma and Mrs. Weston later on in the night without being invited, just making himself right at home in between them on the sofa.

You know how he's constantly paying attention to Emma and imploring her? No, no, don't go see your sick friend because you could get sick and whatever are you're going to do then? Like, you cannot go, let Perry go and visit her. You could not possibly go and see Harriet. Who cares about-- anyway, we've moved on from that. Who cares about Harriet? What-- let's talk about you!

Emily: Even in the circumstance where they first run into him, Emma has been to visit Harriet who is sick. She has a sore throat, a cold, something, which is, you know, probably horribly dire back in the Regency period.

And as she is leaving, they run into Mr. Elton, who has been coming to see Harriet, but he says he's only coming to see Harriet and check on her so that he could bring news of her to Emma at Hartfield.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: And this continues on that he, he's pretty explicit about the fact that he's invested in Harriet only so far as she is Emma's friend, which he actually says on the page at the end of the section, when he's declaring his violent love for Emma.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: Which, what a description.

Lauren: He is being very clear. Emma is just choosing to misunderstand him at every turn. Until-- because even though she denies to John Knightley that no, no, no, there's no way that he can be in love with me, he still planted that seed in her brain and then each interaction that they have now, she's starting to look at it a little bit differently and is saying, oh, no, maybe he's right.

This can't do. Like this, this absolutely. This can't be. And--

Emily: she's that woman in the meme with the math floating in front of her face.

Lauren: Yes!

Emily: Recalculating like, wait a minute. Oh my God. Hang on.

Lauren: The pieces are falling into place and I don't like where they're going.

Emily: Reevaluating every interaction they've had over the last month and a half.

Lauren: 100%. And with that, instead of [00:12:00] thinking maybe he's been after me all this time. She thinks, how could someone be so inconstant to be addressing Harriet and then change to address me instead?

Emily: He was never actually after Harriet, it was always about you.

Lauren: Honey, baby, sweetheart. No.

Emily: She's just so determined that everything in the world must be the way she sees it.

Lauren: Yep.

Emily: Which I think is going to get her into trouble.

Lauren: Whaaat?

Emily: Because, well, in general, yes, but also in this particular instance where Mr. Frank Churchill comes up, this is Mr. Weston's son,

Lauren: mm-hmm.

Emily: Who lost his mother when he was very young and was, I guess, adopted as the heir of this other family, which I think maybe first section went into that.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: He's, he's now basically the heir of the Churchills, which was his mother's family. And in the conversation about him coming to visit the Westons, Emma is sitting there and thinking to herself that, well, she kind of has a claim on him. She doesn't wanna get married, but she's very gratified by the idea that certainly because of her standing and his standing, everyone around her must also think that, well, they kind of belong together.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: She's got an entitlement to him, even though they've never met. She knows nothing about him, but that fits into her social equations. That they're of presumably equivalent standing and they already have a connection, you know, her former governess is married to his father, so that's totally solid.

100% nothing could go wrong.

Lauren: It's perfect. He's only about two years older than her, he's 23. She has decided that it would be perfect. It fits into her idea of a stable life. And so it must be so. Doesn't matter that she's never actually met the man in her entire life. [00:14:00]

Emily: inconsequential.

Lauren: And they're also not even sure if he's going to be there anytime soon, Mr. Weston thinks he's going to be there within the next two weeks. He's counting on that visit. And he admits to Emma, you know, it depends on what these other families are going to do. You know, if they're going to send some other family away, in which case Frank Churchill is now free to come to visit the Westons.

Mrs. Weston, who's Emma's former governess is not so convinced that that's going to happen. She's saying, you know, my husband is very convinced that this is going to take place and he's being very cavalier about the whole thing, but I'm actually really stressed about it because I'm not sure he's even going to show up because there might be other obligations that cause him to stay away again.

And then I still won't be able to meet this person who's a key member of the family. Very unstable over there.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: I, and I think that is maybe one of the places where Emma shows her immaturity, because that reminds me of something that you would do in middle school or high school, where maybe you lay eyes on someone and you don't know anything about them, other than the fact that, you know, 100%, that that person is perfect for you.

Emily: That's your soulmate.

Lauren: That's your soulmate. You're going to grow up and you're gonna get married and have lots of babies because I don't know, you locked eyes in algebra class. And that's it, you're done.

Emily: I completely agree. That is very telling of Emma's immaturity in her expectations about the world.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. With more mature and nuanced worldview, she would know this is not how the world works. Just because you think that you might be really good together or because your acquaintances must see, oh, the two of them would go so well together, doesn't mean that once you decide, 'actually, marriage is okay,' he's going to make you an offer of marriage and you're going to write off happily into the sunset. That'd be nice, but life doesn't really work that way.

Emily: It's both immature and extremely self-centered.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: Which of course, we talked last time about how self-centered Emma is.

Lauren: We did. Yeah. When I sat and thought about it, there's other ways in which stability shows up that relate to that. It's like stability of mind as, as in [00:16:00] like stubbornness of mind, stability in like, resistance to change, but also stability in like, personal role or station.

So Mr. Elton, when he's professing his love for Emma in this carriage ride, where they conveniently accidentally have time alone because they have two carriages to go back to Hartfield and Mr. Elton and Emma end up in a lone carriage, as he's trying to explain to Emma, why he's never paid attention to Harriet because Emma is telling him, how could you be so inconstant, you've been going after Harriet all this time, which he almost laughs at.

And it's like, this is ridiculous. Like, I would think that I'm well settled enough that I don't need to settle for someone like Harriet. I can find someone of equal or greater importance to myself because he's very stable in his social role and his position in life. He knows who he is and what he has to offer.

And as he tells Emma, he's like, I can get someone with better standing than Harriet. I don't really feel like I'm in a position where I need to condescend to make her an offer of marriage. No offense to your friend, but no.

Emily: Yeah, this is once again, very harsh on Harriet.

Lauren: Yeah!

Emily: Which, you know, I, I understand that's external social values and everything, but he says, "everybody has their level. But as for myself, I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance as to be addressing myself to Ms. Smith."

Lauren: They did say that he had had a bit of wine. However.

Emily: True. he's a little bit in his cups.

Lauren: He's a little tipsy. But hey, drunk words are sober thoughts. He would've said this perhaps less eloquently, but he's, he would've said the same thing sober.

Once again, poor Harriet. She doesn't even know. She's laid up with like strep throat or something. She's gonna find out about this later.

Emily: Poor thing. Just let her and Mr. Martin be happy and adorable together.

Lauren: Can the two of them ride off into the sunset?

Emily: They deserve it.

Lauren: They really do.

Emily: They've been so disparaged by everyone. We're only 15 chapters in.

Lauren: We literally still have 40 more [00:18:00] chapters. Buckle up. it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Emily: This is like the opposite of me nearing the end of Mansfield Park and not having any idea how everything's gonna resolve in five chapters or four chapters. And now I'm like so much has happened already. How much more are we gonna go through?

Lauren: So much. So much more.

Emily: I'm looking forward to it because again, I'm still having so much more fun with this.

Lauren: Because there's humor in every page. This book is hilarious.

Emily: Yes. And not just in the commentary, but among the characters too.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: You know, the people who have a little bit of self awareness are j-- absolutely the best.

Lauren: 100%. Yeah. I'm enjoying all these interactions. And I do love that we get to see, after hearing about Emma's sister off page, that we get to see her interact with Emma and interact with her father and see what their family dynamic might have looked like before her marriage to Mr. John Knightley. It's entertaining getting a little bit of insight into what their home life might have looked like before it was just Emma and Mr. Woodhouse and their unique balance of stability, what it was like when it was the triad of them and the more obliging and perhaps similar temperament, Isabella was still in the house.

But Lord knows. I hope she doesn't have any more kids because those five are running her ragged.

Emily: Five. Sheesh.

Lauren: And she has help.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: And she's a lady she's got staff and she's still just like, oh my goodness. I can't, I can't deal. I may perish.

Emily: I mean, part of her distress is because she does take after her father,

Lauren: mm-hmm.

Emily: In that. What was it? Valitudinarian.

Lauren: Such an excellent word.

Emily: So good. She has her own version of Mr. Perry in town. This Mr. Wingfield who advises her on what to do for her children's health. Unfortunately, his opinions don't agree with Mr. Perry's. And so that's, that's one of the main points of contention between her and her father is that he thinks Mr. [00:20:00] Perry is always right about everything. 100%. And Isabella thinks that Mr. Wingfield is always right about everything 100%. They have chosen their fighters.

Lauren: So what now? You both can't be right.

Emily: Although there, there is a comment at some point. That Mr. Woodhouse's staunch defense of Mr. Perry's opinion seems to be a little more projection than actually listening to what his apothecary says.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. I do wanna also pull out-- there's a quote from Emma that we used in our 6 Degrees of Jane Austen video with The Thing About Austen that Diane had in her connection to gruel and Beyonce, which-- well done. If you haven't watched that YouTube video that we created for Virtual Jane Con 2022, you know, only a little bit biased, but would recommend.

But Mr. Woodhouse and Isabella are catching up and the narrator says that "Mr. Woodhouse was enjoying a full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter. And he says, 'my poor dear Isabella,' said he, finally taking her hand and interrupting, for a few moments her busy labors, for someone of her five children, 'how long it is, how terribly long since you were here. And how tired you must be after your journey, you must go to bed early, my dear. And I recommend a little gruel to you before you go. You and I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel.' Emma could not suppose any such thing."

Emily: I just love that Emma could not suppose any such thing. She's like, absolutely not. I'm not eating gruel for you. I love you. But not that much.

Lauren: We've had the cook prepare us this whole spread. You're saying let's eat gruel? Are you outta your mind?

Emily: I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that.

Lauren: I won't do that. where's Meatloaf?

Emily: Dead.

Lauren: Stop, no!

Rest in peace, Meatloaf. You'll forever be known in my heart for appearing in the Spice Girls movie.

Emily: iconic.

Lauren: Have we basically covered all of the, all the main high points of this section?[00:22:00]

Emily: I think we have.

Lauren: I think so. I know you were having more difficulty coming up with a historical topic. We probably would have done well to save health for this one, but how were we supposed to know.

So I'm interested to know.

Emily: Well, I did kind of go back to health.

Lauren: Oh, good. Okay.

Emily: A little bit in a particular topic, because the major contention between Isabella and Mr. Woodhouse is about the sea bathing that they have taken their children to do. Sea bathing is exactly what it sounds like. You go and you swim in the sea.

It was first sort of popularized in the 1750s by a Dr. Richard Russell, when he published, this is a big, long title. Heads up.

Lauren: Okay.

Emily: A dissertation on the use of seawater in the diseases of the glands, particularly the scurvy jaundice, King's evil, leprosy, and the glandular consumption.

Lauren: I think he needed to be more specific.

Emily: I think he needed to be more specific. so it was popularized first in the 1750s, but it became a lot more prominent among the upper classes in the 1780s. When George Prince of Wales, the future George the fourth and Prince Regent started going to Brighton.

Lauren: We know it well.

Emily: We know Brighton a little too well. But seawater was thought to have a lot of different health benefits. That it, it was healing and invigorating and strengthening for the body, both externally when you're, you know, taking a plunge in the cold sea and also internally. Doctors were actually telling their patients to drink sea water. Don't do that.

Lauren: No!

Emily: Please do not drink sea water. That's extremely bad for you. Blanket rule. Don't listen to 18th century doctors. Generally a bad idea.

Lauren: Yeah, I think we can safely. A good portion of that medical advice should just be left to history.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: Do not incorporate it into your current lives.

Emily: It can [00:24:00] be a fun little fact.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: But that's generally about as far as you should go. But of course sea bathing was also just enjoyable as we use it now, going to the beach. Especially once the ideal bathing months shifted from being like November back to late summer into like September, October.

Lauren: I am trying to imagine going sea bathing in November in Britain.

Emily: No, thank you. I would not like to imagine that. That sounds terrible, actually.

Lauren: Sounds awful.

Emily: Popular spots included Brighton, of course, and Waymouth was sort of a competitor to that. And when you go out sea bathing, if you have the money, you can rent a bathing machine, which is just a little enclosed hut on wheels. And you can also hire a horse rider to pull you out into the sea while you sit in your bathing house so that you can have some privacy and then you open the door and you get on the steps and you do your little sea bathing for however long.

And then you get back into your bathing house, your bathing machine and they pull you back up to the beach.

Lauren: Wow.

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: Do they, is that in Sanditon or do they just have like little dressing rooms?

Emily: I think they do have that in Sanditon.

Lauren: Okay.

Emily: I, I never finished even season one of Sanditon, but yes, I think they did have that.

Lauren: I was like, this sounds familiar. Okay.

Emily: Yeah. The privacy aspect was definitely more important for ladies.

Lauren: Of course.

Emily: It seems like it varied a lot with like how much they would wear. Some people would go in basically in like their shifts, their chemises, but if there was sufficient privacy, they might just go and bathe naked, which, you know, good for them.

But yeah, that's what the John Knightleys were doing. They took their gaggle of five children all down to the seaside so that they could be invigorated by sea bathing.

Lauren: Yeah. I'm sure that that November ocean would be very [00:26:00] invigorating.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren: It's a shock to the system, all right. That'll get you up.

Emily: Seriously.

Lauren: Well, thank you.

Emily: Yeah, it was just a little fun tidbit.

Lauren: Little tidbit, little fun fact.

Emily: Mm-hmm. What did you have for pop culture connection today, Lauren?

Lauren: I decided to use the definition of stability that's more synonymous with stubbornness. So unchanging mind, for example, which is not, it's a very loose way to define stability, but I was trying to come up with a connection that would be entertaining.

So this is where we're taking the word today.

Emily: Okay.

Lauren: On open source psychometrics, there is a community voted list of characters who are considered to be the most stubborn. So I picked out a couple from across franchises of some of the most stubborn characters as voted by internet users.

Emily: Okay.

Lauren: These are not necessarily in the order of most stubborn because some of the characters that were voted most stubborn on the scale of zero to hundred, didn't have as many people voting on it as others who were lower down, but had more people saying yes, absolutely, this character has no flexibility of mind whatsoever.

So these are a, a random selection that people might recognize, could be entertained by. First up on the list we have Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

Emily: What a place to start. Yep.

Lauren: Yeah. A completely immovable mind.

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: At all.

Emily: To...his...death.

Lauren: Detriment.

Emily: I was gonna go for detriment. It was like, no, they actually do kill him. So...

Lauren: he does die. Being stubborn does kill him in the end. So there's that. There's one who you would appreciate, Azula from Avatar the Last Air Bender.

Emily: Definitely. Yeah. Oh man. One of the greatest onscreen breakdowns of all time.

Lauren: Chef's kiss.

Emily: So good.

Lauren: Fantastic. The third one Sherlock Holmes.

Emily: Interesting.

Lauren: Yeah. I'm wondering if people are thinking of Sherlock Holmes from the BBC show, if they're thinking of Sherlock Holmes from the original book series, I'm not sure. It doesn't [00:28:00] really give much nuance, but Sherlock Holmes was voted one of the most stubborn characters.

Emily: I don't really see that. Admittedly, I'm not super familiar with the original stories.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: But from what I understand of them, he's not really that kind of character.

Lauren: I think people are conflating it with Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of him.

Emily: See, that I can see.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: Because he's just a dick.

Lauren: Yes. But Sherlock Holmes, the character is kind of all about incorporating new information into your worldview. So I can see it for BBC Sherlock, but not so much for the original writing of the character, but I didn't make the list.

Emily: Internet, you're wrong.

Lauren: I'm just reporting on what the internet has said.

Emily: Fair enough.

Lauren: The fourth one is Voldemort.

Emily: Yeah. Okay.

Lauren: Also stubborn to his detriment and to his death.

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: I don't know why you are so set. I do know why, but like, come on, dude. He's a teenager. Let it go. Just, you could have had world domination if you weren't so fixated on this little child, but no. I mean, I'm glad. You really fumbled the bag there, dude.

The fifth one is Rachel Berry from Glee.

Emily: I feel like I didn't watch enough Glee to really be able to comment on this, but now I also can't remember how much Glee I actually watched.

Lauren: There is a moment at the very beginning of season two, where Rachel Berry realizes that there is a student who can probably out sing her. And so she gives her directions to a crack house because she's determined to be the best.

Emily: Yikes.

Lauren: so that is just one example of many.

Emily: Okay.

Lauren: Yeah. Rachel Berry, piece of work. Okay. I have two more. The sixth one is Dr. Gregory House from House, MD.

Emily: Yeah. Another one that I didn't see much of, but yeah.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: I mean, he's also Sherlock Holmes.

Lauren: Oh, yeah, you're right.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: Oh.

Emily: But he is definitely stubborn, but not in the same way as BBC Sherlock.

Lauren: No. Yeah. And House, the character, usually has a reason to be stubborn because he's usually right. [00:30:00] He's being stubborn in the face of other people telling him, this diagnosis is impossible. And he says, no, it's not, look at this q-tip I pulled from this drawer.

Emily: Look at the medical malpractice I've committed. this is proof!

Lauren: It's true. And I'll show you! I never watched House. I'm pretty sure that's how it went though.

Emily: people who've seen House, tell us how wrong we are.

Lauren: Let us know in the comments. Like we have comments. I don't know, drop us a line on Twitter.

Let us know if we're right.

Emily: Which we are, we're always right.

Lauren: We're always right. I mean, I'm a Taurus, I'm always right. Isn't that how it goes?

Emily: Who is your final stubborn character?

Lauren: My final stubborn character, which tickles me endlessly, because as I said, I didn't actually make this list. I'm just curating from a list that was already made. Is Lady Catherine de Bourgh from Pride and Prejudice.

Emily: Flawless. Perfect. No notes. Absolutely correct.

Lauren: another one who is very set in her convictions and will hear nothing else. Kind of like Emma.

Emily: That was fantastic. What a wild spread of characters.

Lauren: Yep. There were 25 that made the list. I just culled it to some like immediately recognizable ones, but it has a very wide range of, of genres, of characters, all of the above.

Emily: I mean, that's what happens when you poll the entire internet.

Lauren: Yes. Yeah. Goodness. Is it final takeaway time?

Emily: Once again, I've forgotten that we do final takeaways.

Lauren: How do you forget this every episode?

Emily: I don't know. I'm so caught up in the euphoria of laughing at whatever the pop culture connection is that it just goes right out of my brain.

Lauren: Anytime. I live to serve. It was my disastrous recap first. So you, my friend get to do the first final takeaway.

Emily: Your disastrous recap. My disastrous takeaway.

Lauren: Yeah, it evens out.

Emily: Hmm. Final takeaway for stability. I think it is going to be very simply that stability manifests in different ways in... for [00:32:00] different people.

Lauren: Nice. Short, sweet. And to the point.

Emily: Hopefully holds up under scrutiny. We'll see. Lauren, what is your final takeaway?

Lauren: I think stability can represent safety and a comfort zone, but it's not always a zone in which you need to stay. So stability can mean that you are safe and comfortable where you are, but sometimes to grow, you need to get a little bit unstable.

Emily: That's very good.

Lauren: Oh my God. Thanks.

Emily: Like that a lot. shall we go ahead and pull our tarot card?

Lauren: We shall. It's your turn to pull.

Emily: It is indeed. We have the Jack of spades.

Lauren: Jack of spades.

Emily: The illustration is a lovely lady looking coyly back over her shoulder.

Lauren: The Jack of spades is caution. In Persuasion, Mrs. Clay seems modest, but Anne Elliot senses her ambition and feels wary. Caution...

Emily: something Emma needs a little bit of?

Lauren: Yeah. Immediately we can take this 10,000 different ways.

Emily: And we haven't even read the next section yet.

Lauren: Don't even know what happens. We already can say yeah, whatever it is. Emma could use some caution.

Emily: Definitely.

Lauren: Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time we'll be reading chapters 16 through 20 of Emma with a focus on caution.

Emily: To read our show notes and a transcript at this episode, check out our [00:34:00] website, Reclaiming Jane pod.com, where you can also find the full back catalog and links to our social media.

Lauren: If you'd like to support us and gain access to exclusive content, including special Patron-only events, you can join our Patreon @ReclaimingJanePod.

Emily: Reclaiming Jane is produced from co-hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis Hale. Our music is by Latasha Bundy and our show art is by Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: We'll see you, next time nerds.

I think this is the same website that maybe they do like enneagram type and you can see like, which characters are more like you or something like that. I don't remember. I do remember taking a quiz on there and then being very upset because it gave me like, Charlotte from Sex in the City. And I was upset.

I'm like what? This is insulting. I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be Charlotte.

Emily: it's been a while since I've done an enneagram. I can't remember what characters are supposed to be most like me.

Lauren: I remember your type but not the characters.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: I'm a one wing nine.

Lauren: I only took the enneagram test because Emily texted me and said, please tell me you are not a two because everyone in my life is a two and I'm going insane.

Emily: Literally, everyone who was closest to me was a two! You're a wing two, right?

Lauren: I am. And so I took the test. I said, are you ready for this? I'm not a type two, but I am a three with a very strong wing two.

Emily: Everyone around me had some sort of two. And I'm just over here. Like, no, I think not.

Lauren: Congratulations. You have a type.

Emily: I do! Truly, I do.