Emma 16-20: “Cautionary Tale”

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No one's mad. But they're all disappointed. In this episode, Emily and Lauren ask whether certain characters could have been rather more cautious in their behavior, plus some context on Miss Fairfax's situation and nostalgia for Bridesmaids.

Transcript

Reclaiming Jane Season 4 Episode 4 | Emma 16-20: “Cautionary Tale”

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.

Lauren: And today we're reading chapters 16 through 20 of Emma through the theme of caution.

Emily: Caution is such an interesting theme for this book because I don't think Emma actually knows what it means.

Lauren: No, this whole book is a cautionary tale.

Emily: It is!

Lauren: Of, "don't do what Emma does."

Emily: Do not be like Emma.

Lauren: As we immediately see with the poor consequences to Harriet. Before we dive too far into the consequences that Emma must face and Harriet has to face for Emma's poor choices in this cautionary tale.

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: do we wanna start off with the recaps?

Emily: Yes. Let's do it.

Lauren: All right. You can do it. You got this.

Emily: I, I believe in me.

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

Emily: So we start out with Emma ruminating on her disappointment that Mr. Elton has proposed to her, but she manages to avoid him thanks to the weather. Both the John Knightley family and Mr. Elton all leave town. Emma ends up having to break the news to poor Harriet. Frank Churchill is not coming after all, which Mr. Knightley thinks is very shitty of him. And then we also learn a lot about Miss Bates's niece Jane Fairfax, who is coming to visit in like a week.

Lauren: Good job.

Emily: Thank you. The magic of note taking.

Lauren: What a concept.

Emily: Are you ready to go, Lauren?

Lauren: I think so. I feel like I have a [00:02:00] redemption arc to, to complete.

Emily: I believe. You ready?

Lauren: Yes.

Emily: 3, 2, 1. Go.

Lauren: Emma is self reflecting about what she has done to Harriet and to Mr. Elton. She kind of realizes that she's wrong and that she's never going to do it again. And then at the end of the section we can see her planning to do it again.

The John Knightley family and Mr. Elton leave town. Emma's really glad that she doesn't have to see Mr. Elton specifically because it'd be extremely awkward. She tells Harriet, Harriet's very upset, but Emma feels like she bears it pretty well. She goes to speak to the Bates women out of charity and she has to hear all about Jane Fairfax, who Emma is incredibly jealous of.

Emily: I'm so glad that you said that Emma is incredibly jealous of Jane Fairfax because that is such a dominating feeling through that whole conversation.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: That Emma's just sitting there like stewing in, in her own jealousy that everyone loves Jane Fairfax so much, and Jane is so like, a sweet and accomplished and good tempered and so self sacrificing.

She's just so mad about it.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. Like, Oh, perfect. Jane, with her elegance and her perfect figure and her perfect manners, Oh my God, everyone loves Jane Fairfax.

Emily: Everyone also loves you, Emma. Get over yourself. She's never gonna get over herself.

Lauren: No. There may be only one Supreme, and it is Emma.

Emily: Humility? Don't know her.

Lauren: Never experienced that, not familiar with that emotion. But before we, we delve into Jane, let's look at Emma realizing that she should have maybe exercised some caution at the very beginning of this section.

Emily: Oh my God.

Lauren: It's nice to see that she is at least taking 10 minutes to be contrite. You know? I don't know how long it really lasts in context of the book, but she at least does take some time to feel guilty about what she's done.

Emily: But then she slides right into the irony of judging other people, especially when she calls Mr. Elton, "proud, assuming, conceited. Very full of his own claims, and little [00:04:00] concerned about the feelings of others."

Lauren: Yeah, she almost immediately starts pushing off the guilt that she feels into anger at Mr. Elton for being so arrogant as to assume that he could ever have a chance with her, and is trying to cloak that in righteous indignation on Harriet's behalf. Like he's not cognizant of the gap between the two of us, but he's overly aware of the gap between him and Harriet.

So how can you see the gap between one pair of people, but you are refusing to see the gap between the two of us, which is obviously so much more important. How dare you?

Emily: Honey, I think he does see the gap. It's just that the gap between you and him is much more advantageous for him.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. And she does not like the idea of a social climbing Mr. Elton.

Emily: She really doesn't. She wants everyone to be in their particular place as she views them and doesn't want anyone to change their status unless she has explicitly approved it, as she would have with Harriet marrying Mr. Elton.

Lauren: Mm-hmm, because she has orchestrated Harriet's introduction into her society, Harriet changing her status is fine. That's something that's desired. Mr. Elton changing his own by marrying her? Absolutely not.

Emily: Unforgiveable.

Lauren: Why would he ever conceive of such a thing? And you know, maybe she could see that if she was confused about his intentions, that he could have been confused about hers. But did she do anything wrong? I mean, not really.

Emily: No. Emma's never done anything wrong in her life.

Lauren: We know this and we love her.

Emily: She is saved by fortuitous weather though, because the storm that, or not even storm, but the snow that came in on that Christmas Eve night continues and she's saved from having to go to church and then by the time it all clears, Mr. Elton has declared that he's actually off to Bath to see some friends who he had promised his company to, and Emma is relieved.

Lauren: Yeah, she's saved by going to church on Christmas day and on that following Sunday because you know, [00:06:00] it was right in between frost and thaw, and her father would never hear of her leaving the house in such terrible weather.

So she has an excellent excuse to avoid his company and not also seem to be paying him any extra attention by showing up at church. So she has a readymade excuse. And when Mr. Elton tells them that he's going to be removing to Bath for a few weeks, it's in a note only to Emma's father and not to her.

She's not addressed or mentioned at all, and she thinks surely my father will pick up on this and think that it's strange, but he's so caught up in the fact that Mr. Elton is going to Bath at all, that he doesn't even realize that there's anything strange about the language of the note itself.

Emily: I also, this is completely off topic, but definitely noticed the fact that Emma and her father, and Mr. Elton and everyone are completely incapable of going anywhere. Only Mr. Knightley is, you know, brave enough to venture out, but they're still sending notes back and forth to Highbury.

Lauren: Through someone.

Emily: Through someone.

Lauren: Someone is out in the elements.

Emily: Hmm. Who could that possibly be?

Lauren: Someone not worthy of Emma's notice.

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: We can assume.

Emily: Someone who doesn't need her help.

Lauren: So not important, they don't exist.

Emily: Nope. Only as the conveyance.

Lauren: You know what kind of cracked me up as I was reading that first part of our section, those first chapters? Was thinking of Mr. Elton as a smoother and more socially adept, Mr. Collins.

Emily: He really is. Have we not said that before?

Lauren: I don't think we have.

Emily: I feel like someone has. Maybe it's just occurred to me while reading.

Lauren: I think it's probably a common connection.

Emily: He's a clergyman. He's trying to solidify his position.

Lauren: Mm-hmm, and Emma talks about how he basically talks a good game, but I don't think he's actually in love with me. I think he just knows what to say to woo a woman in theory, cuz clearly didn't work. But perhaps on somebody not Emma, his attentions and his, his pretty sentences would've been better received.

Emily: Someone more willing to receive them for herself.

Lauren: Exactly. So he perhaps does not know his audience as well as he thinks he does, [00:08:00] but.

Emily: He was also a little drunk at the time.

Lauren: He was also a little bit drunk.

Emily: Once Mr. Elton is safely gone, though, Emma has to take it upon herself to break the news to Harriet about what has transpired.

Lauren: And she's just gotten over her cold. So instead of just being able to be happy in her renewed health, instead she's crying in her room all day. Apparently she was a lot more in love with Mr. Elton than Emma had, had bargained for. So.

Emily: Emma, it's your fault.

Lauren: Which she does admit to herself. Not so much to Harriet. She does a little bit. She does own her part in encouraging her to develop feelings for Mr. Elton, but she's still thinking to herself, a little bit unkindly, like, 'Ooh, I didn't realize she was gonna be this upset about it. I knew she would be upset, but oh, she really liked this guy. This is not... this is not good. I have more damage control to do than I thought I did.'

Emily: She's so close, so close to just the, the tiniest whisper of self-awareness and consequences of her actions and the power that she actually has over other people.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: But doesn't quite make that final step to think maybe I shouldn't be doing these things.

Lauren: And again, the only person to give her any reprimand is Mr. Knightley. And that is another example of her being very close to the point and not getting it. After she has told Harriet this bad news and after she's broken it to her, she's having a conversation with Mr. Knightley about how Mr. Frank Churchill's actually not coming, and she realizes that she's actually taking the opposite view of her own in arguing with Mr. Knightley because apparently Emma just likes to argue, just to argue, and she's enjoying getting on Mr. Knightley's nerves.

So he's basically telling her the same thing that she's been saying to Mrs. Weston the whole time. But she's not going to admit that, she just keeps poking at him because she thinks it's fun.

Emily: Emma would thrive on Reddit.

Lauren: Oh my God. She totally would. Just be contrarian, just for the hell of [00:10:00] it.

Emily: Devil's advocate.

Lauren: The entire time. And at the end of that conversation, Emma is saying, 'oh, once Mr. Churchill arrives, he's going to be the talk of the town. Everyone's going to think that he's so lovely,' and Mr. Knightley is saying, 'Your account of how he would be sounds like an extraordinarily silly man. And I don't think even you would respect him.' And Emma finally says, 'Okay, well I'm not going to talk about it anymore. You make everything less fun. We're both prejudiced you, you against, I for him. And we have no chance of agreeing until he's really here.'

And Mr. Knightley says, "Prejudiced? I'm not prejudiced." And Emma says, "But I am very much, and without being at all ashamed of it, my love for Mr. and Mrs. Weston gives me a decided prejudice in his favor."

And Mr. Knightley says, "he is a person I never think of from one month's end to another with a degree of fixation," which made Emma immediately talk of something else, though she could not comprehend why he should be angry. Babe.

Emily: For all her earlier reflection about maybe not being so hasty, now she is throwing caution to the wind and just leaning into an argument even though she doesn't actually believe in it.

Lauren: You really can't think of any reason why Mr. Knightley would be a little bit vexed? Not only about you arguing with him, but about you saying the praises of this man you've never met.

Emily: There's also the fact that even if Mr. Knightley and Frank Churchill don't know each other personally, Knightley probably has a much better grasp of what Churchill's life actually is.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: and what kind of freedoms he has as a young man of means in this era and in the circles that they move in.

Lauren: And Emma's just like, No, you're wrong. Just based on vibes.

Emily: Everything she does is vibes based and it's not working out.

Lauren: And she doesn't even believe it in this instance because she knows he's right. She's just being annoying.

Emily: Sibling energy.

Lauren: Yeah. Oh, that's a bit problematic.

Emily: Yeah. But we do get a bit of a reprieve [00:12:00] from those particular vexations when Emma and Harriet are somewhat unwittingly obliged to go visit Mrs and Miss Bates and are treated to an earful.

Lauren: Yeah, Emma is not being the kindest to them either in action or in thought.

However, they would also work my last nerve, so I can't fully blame her. I can a little bit, but reading the Never Ending Dialogue where Ms. Bates clearly barely is taking the time to take a breath in between every sentence. The introvert in me already just wants to leave.

Emily: I, I feel like everyone knows somebody who is that kind of person, who will just sit there with no awareness whatsoever and just go on and on and on and on and on.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. .

Emily: And hopefully if you have a charitable bone in your body, you're not like, pissed at them for being like that. But I, I also understand that reaction. 'Get on with it. Okay. We've heard this, you've told me this a million times.'

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: Yes, we know these things. Go on, please.

Lauren: It can be a little bit draining. They're being very sweet just in a very emotionally demanding way if you are forced to, to listen and be polite to things that don't really have a point. So, she's -- for example, trying to set the stage for the latest letter from Jane Fairfax, which Emma was really hoping she wasn't going to have to sit through.

She specifically goes with Harriet because she's thinking to herself, 'Okay, great. We won't have to hear about Jane Fairfax this time around. I think I've timed my visit properly to where it will be okay,' but no, no. Not only do they have a new letter from Jane Fairfax, but she's coming to visit soon. So there's even more news of Jane to come. But in setting the stage to tell Emma about the letter that Jane sent, she basically summarizes the entire letter and then wants to go and read it to her again. At which point Emma just leaves.

Emily: I can sympathize with that [00:14:00] acutely.

Lauren: I can too! At this point, I already know what she wrote. I didn't need to hear it word for word. I can't. I'm going home.

Emily: we've heard literally everything and all of the commentary on it. We don't need to actually read the letter.

Lauren: And on top of that, it's implied that this is all being said with an elevated tone because her mother is half deaf in the corner, and so she's not just speaking incessantly ad nauseum, but also kind of shouting so that her mother can hear and understand what's being said, because she's in the warmest corner of the room just kind of minding her own business because she can't hear. Because she's old.

Emily: You can really tell though that the two of them are so sweet and caring, and they're so effusive and genuinely delighted to have a visit from Emma and Harriet, and so looking forward to having Jane visit.

They've been so concerned about her health and they're so proud of everything she's accomplished and how much she's adored by the people that she's been living with, and they seem like really lovely people. Just maybe a little hard to be around for extended periods of time.

Lauren: But genuinely lovely.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: Yeah. Not any sense of being mean spirited or anything other than just like, generous with their kindness and their time and maybe could use a little bit of a filter, but that's it.

Emily: They're not even really gossipy.

Lauren: Mm-mm.

Emily: they share all of the news, but it's not like trying to drum up scandal or anything. It's just, Oh, I have this piece of information. I want you to have this piece of information.

Lauren: Yeah. And it's also implied that there's not exactly that much excitement in their lives. So a letter from Jane is a big deal, and they're really excited to be able to share that with someone else because they've already shared the excitement with one another. But here is this new person for whom they have so much respect and they get to share the good news that they have a new letter from Jane and also Jane is coming to visit.

Lovely Jane will be here.

Emily: Even more exciting for Emma because she and Jane are exactly of an age and they're such accomplished and lovely young women, and Emma's just sitting here grinding her teeth, [00:16:00] like you can practically hear it.

Lauren: And what cracks me up so much is that this is the exact thing that Emma wants people to say about her and Frank Churchill. If it's him, then it's fine, but the second people start drawing the same connections between her and Jane Fairfax, anathema, she hates it.

Emily: The worst possible comparison.

Lauren: And Mr. Knightley has said to her before, Perhaps you don't have the most charitable feelings towards Jane Fairfax because she reminds you of all the things that you are not, and because she's actually the accomplished woman that you want to be.

And Emma does not like that mirror being held up. And so she got quite mad at him for that, but she kind of deep down knows that it's true.

Emily: Jane is accomplished and humble.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: and I think Knightley is probably the only person who would explicitly make that comparison. But Emma can feel it implicitly.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: Whether or not anyone else says or even thinks it, she knows that if it went head to head on these very particular topics, she would lose out and Jane would look better.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. The only thing that she has going for her is birth and wealth.

Emily: Exactly.

Lauren: Those are the two deciding factors that continue to elevate her in the eyes of some people. Otherwise... Jane's taking it.

But throwing it back to Mansfield Park, Jane's situation reminds me of an emotionally healthy Fanny. If she were raised in like an actual supportive environment with people who cared about her. You know, she's been taken in, in this case, not by people who were actually related to her.

Her father was in the military and died in combat. Her mother died of grief and consumption, and so she was orphaned, but one of her father's friends took her in and kind of elevated her in society and decided to take responsibility for her education, which is how she's become this like, beautiful and elegant and accomplished woman who's spent time in London and has all the benefits of being around good society, et cetera, et cetera.

And even though she's being raised to become a governess so that she has a way to support [00:18:00] herself because they weren't actually going to give her like, a dowry because his fortune has to be given to his own daughter. So they can't really help her out that way, but they can make sure that she's well prepared to take on like a, a suitable, respectable position.

It just struck me how similar the two situations were at first glance, but then how much different Jane Fairfax's life turns out to be because of the genuine care that she was receiving from the people who decided to take her in rather than condescending towards her the entire time. They really wanna treat her like another one of their daughters as much as possible, and they're not related to her.

Emily: Yeah, they have no actual obligation to her, aside from whatever affection was between Colonel Campbell and Jane's father.

Lauren: Yeah. It says, "This was Colonel Campbell, who had very highly regarded Fairfax as an excellent officer and most deserving young man, and farther, had been indebted to him for such attentions during a severe camp fever, as he believed had saved his life."

Emily: So he's really just sort of doing this good deed of raising an extra child from the good of his heart and the obligation he feels to a friend who helped him out. And they've actually tried to, it seems, promote Jane as best they can, bring her into good society, give her whatever advantages their own daughter also had.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: which is incredible.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. Versus the Bertrams who were like, 'Oh, good. A house servant.'

Emily: Basically. Here's a live-in friend for our daughters.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. what a difference. All of the advantages that Jane Fairfax has cannot endear her to Emma. Even when Emma decides, maybe I am being a little bit ridiculous, I'm resolved to like Jane Fairfax. That lasts for about half an hour.

Emily: But then as soon as someone has said too much about Jane Fairfax, she's like, Actually, no, I hate her again.

Lauren: Yeah. It doesn't help that her aunt is prattling about yet again. And I don't know how that's Jane's fault, but in Emma's mind it is. And she no longer can, can be nice to her.

Emily: Her opinions [00:20:00] are not always logical.

Lauren: No.

Emily: Yeah. I, I can't say that I've never irrationally disliked someone.

Lauren: I think we all have. I, I think that's like a natural thing to just like, have illogical dislike for someone that sometimes we know doesn't have like any rational decision behind it, but there's just this visceral dislike of just, I can't, I cannot associate with this person because they drive me nuts.

And if somebody presses you as to why, you don't really have a good answer, other than, 'that's just how I feel.'

Emily: Especially if they are set up in any kind of perceived competition with you.

Lauren: And that's the real rub. It's that competition piece.

Emily: Definitely. Being human really sucks sometimes.

Lauren: The human condition leaves much to be desired.

Emily: Truly it does. What are we doing with these meat sacks?

Lauren: I don't know. I was entertained by the fact that for once, the word of our theme actually kind of appeared in the text.

Emily: It did, twice!

Lauren: Twice. That never happens. And it's specifically about Jane Fairfax because Emma is annoyed that she was so cold and so cautious.

Emily: Leave the girl alone. She's an orphan.

Lauren: "There was no getting at her real opinion, wrapped up in a cloak of politeness. She seemed determined to hazard nothing. She was disgustingly, was suspiciously reserved." I just, I need her to take a moment of introspection to think of why Jane Fairfax would be reserved in general, but then especially reserved with Emma, who has made her dislike quite clear.

Emily: Emma, who has all of the material advantages that Jane lacks.

Lauren: Mm. And maybe to Jane's eyes is kind of squandering it because here is accomplished Jane and here's Emma, who could be all of these things and is kind of just like, Oh yeah, I was drawing for a bit, but I wasn't immediately good at it, so I quit.

And then I have a book of like some unfinished poems, but eh, they were okay. Picks things up and puts them down and isn't really the type of person to truly dedicate herself to something, to the point where she can master it.

Emily: I think Jane would have much more cause to dislike Emma, just out of frustration.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: than Emma [00:22:00] has caused to dislike Jane.

Lauren: 100%.

Emily: But we haven't met Jane yet, so we don't know how she feels. We only have Emma's interpretation and Emma, Emma is worse than internet fandom for just ascribing things to people.

Lauren: The most unreliable narrator.

Emily: Seriously.

Lauren: It's like, this is how I see it in my head. So this is the truth.

Emily: Mmhmm.

Lauren: The end.

Emily: This girl, what are we gonna do with her?

Lauren: Continue to laugh.

Emily: Yeah. It's good to have a hot mess in your life sometimes.

Lauren: It is. And annoying as she is, she's still like hilarious and likable. Like, you are a hot mess, but I'm enjoying every second of this.

Emily: I'm extremely entertained and that's what matters.

Lauren: Exactly. Any other places where you see caution or just parts of this section that you want to call out or call attention to?

Emily: I think we pretty well covered it. We just have Emma's complete disregard for any kind of personal caution when it comes to making judgements. This book should have been called Pride and Prejudice.

Lauren: It really could have been. Cause lord knows she's got both in spades.

Emily: Oh, she really does. Was there anything else that you wanted to pick out?

Lauren: I don't think so. The only other place where I saw caution was wondering how much caution did Mr. Elton take when he was addressing Emma?

Emily: Oh, that's a very good point. I think less than he should have.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: and probably less than he intended because he was a few drinks in.

Lauren: Yes. That, that initial address, but then also I think like the courtship, like the, 'Oh, my friend wrote this charade.' And what in hindsight is clearly him testing the waters that Emma doesn't see. I wonder if he's perhaps more cautious than she gave him credit for.

Emily: I would agree. He was overly cautious in directing his attentions. I don't want him to have been more direct, but he wasn't direct enough in showing that-- well, I don't know.

Lauren: It's all from Emma's point of view.

Emily: Yeah, he was, he was pretty direct in in showing [00:24:00] attention to Emma specifically.

Lauren: Yep.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: If that's all we have for caution and our, our general recap, what's, what's our history context for today?

Emily: Well, it's actually something that you brought up earlier.

Lauren: Ooh.

Emily: I wanted to talk about governesses.

Lauren: Oh, fantastic.

Emily: This is something that's been brought up briefly in in other books, in Pride and Prejudice, especially Lady Catherine de Bourgh asks Elizabeth whether the Bennets' governess has left them yet. But let's look at what a governess actually is, what she does and what that means for Jane Fairfax potentially.

So a governess was typically a young woman, usually Gen Teal, who would be employed to mind and educate the children of a house, especially the daughters for these upper class families. The sons might be sent away to boarding school or something, but a governess might stay on and continue to teach the daughters, like we saw with Miss Taylor and Emma and Isabella.

But it wasn't necessarily a good life. There's a quote from 1849, so after this, but still relevant. That says, "the real definition of a governess in the English sense is a being who is our equal in birth manners and education, but our inferior in worldly wealth."

Lauren: Mm.

Emily: Because a governess, even though she might be gently born, was really at the mercy of an employer. So if you had other options, this is probably not one that you would take. Some governesses were paid. The average that I found was about 20 pounds a year. Some could be paid up to 200 pounds, but there were others who just got room and board.

It was a really unsettled position within a household because the governess was, was often of the same or even a better class than her [00:26:00] employers, but she had effectively the status of a servant, which could leave a governess really isolated, especially because the servants weren't really going to socialize with her. And resentment could kind of come directed at a governess from like every quarter of the household because obviously she has a privileged reputation compared to most of the servants. To children, she's an authority figure who may or may not be a good authority figure.

For a mother, she could potentially harbor jealousy against the governess for having an intimacy with the children. And then because a governess usually lacked worldly wealth, and often that was the result of just some unforeseen consequence, it could also remind the parents of just the whims of the world.

So a governess was not really a loved figure in most households, despite the fact that they had to be ready to go, they had to be really well educated because throughout a child's lifetime, a governess could be expected to teach reading, writing, math, history, whatever languages she might know, geography, plus all of these little feminine accomplishments that would befit the daughters of a house, like needlework and music and art and etiquette.

So she was doing so much work, literally 24/7 because she lived within the household, but she didn't quite fit in with any particular status? Neither family nor servant. It seems like Miss Taylor definitely was among the better treated, given what we know of her relationship with Emma and Isabella and the way Mr. Woodhouse speaks of her. But poor Jane Fairfax doesn't have a position anywhere yet, and so she can't count on that, and it seems like her dread of entering the working world is really not unfounded.

Lauren: Mm-mm. It. hints [00:28:00] at that in the passage too about the Campbells being reluctant to also send her out into that life, and they want to keep her in an environment where she's safe and where she's cared for, but are also wondering, are we doing her a disservice by keeping her in the lap of luxury for too long and just prolonging the reality of eventually she's going to have a life that's far more difficult.

Emily: And Jane apparently recognizes that as well because she's determined that upon her 21st year she's going to forge out on her own and embrace the sacrifice that she's going to make. Yeah. So it was a way for gently born young women to fend for themselves effectively, but it wasn't really a great position. And while you're working as a governess, you're not really on the marriage market. So...

Lauren: you're kind of stuck.

Emily: Yeah. It comes with a lot of disadvantages.

Lauren: That is a really tough position to be in.

Emily: For sure. It's interesting. It's something that I, it didn't occur to me before, but like the Bennet sisters, that's seemed like it could have been perfectly plausible for one of them to end up as a governess because they are gentility, but their estate is entailed away.

The daughters aren't really going to inherit much of anything. But also maybe they're not well educated enough to become governesses.

Lauren: They might not be given the fact that they didn't have one. But I can see how without the advantageous marriages of the two eldest sisters, that would very well be an option, or perhaps the only option that they really have.

Emily: So yeah, that was what jumped out at me and what I wanted to learn a little bit more about.

Lauren: That was really good. Thank you. Especially because they're often the seen and not heard characters. That's that context that we don't often think about where they were in the household and must have been, you know, at least treated somewhat decently. But that's not necessarily getting at the entire picture of what it would've looked like.

Emily: I suspect it's also a very [00:30:00] exploitable position by employers, especially.

Lauren: Very much so. When you were saying that there was jealousy, resentment from the mother towards the governess because of the close relationship with the children. I also always think about the resentment for a younger, prettier woman in the house and the jealousy that comes with that, whether founded or otherwise. But again, there's that illogical dislike of someone where they can't help, like their age or what they look like, or that they happen to be like 20 years younger than you.

However, they remind you of the things that you are not. And so you harbor dislike towards them for no other reason other than youth and beauty are prized and that currency, for whatever reason has been taken away from you.

Emily: Well, that wraps up my history topic. What do you have for caution and pop culture?

Lauren: It ended up being connected to caution. At first, I was wondering if I was really going to be able to get the theme to connect with what first came to my mind for pop culture, but I think I made it work and it also ties into the illogical dislike that we've touched on a couple times. So let me take us back to the year 2011 when Bridesmaids was released.

Emily: Okay.

Lauren: If you haven't seen it or if it's been a hot minute since you've seen Bridesmaids, the the general idea of the movie is that Annie, who's played by Kristen Wiig, is the best friend of Maya Rudolph's character who is getting married. Maya Rudolph's character is Lillian, and she's introduced to her, her quote unquote new best friend who is the wife of Maya Rudolph's fiance's boss. Convoluted, whatever. A work friend that they're thrown together on the husbands' work trip to Paris and they become very close, very quickly, and Helen as the new person in Lillian's life, reminds Annie of all the things that she is not because she is wealthy and she's well married, and she allegedly has all these friends and she throws these lavish [00:32:00] parties and she seems like the quote unquote, like, perfect woman.

Whereas Annie, she's just been dumped, you know, her career's kind of in the pits. She has no money. She has a best friend in Lillian, but she feels like her best friend is being taken away from her by Helen, who has all these things that she does not. And so there's all these moments of tension and clashing between Helen and Annie specifically over the course of the movie.

And what I was thinking of is that, you know, in circumstance, Emma is quite like Helen, in that she is more focused on being envied than on being liked. And has that social status where she is the girl who you love to hate, where it's like, ugh, she's so perfect. And so it's, she's so easy to hate by image alone, you know? She has the wealth, she has the status, she has the connections. She's generally well liked by the whole town. And similarly to Helen, she has what society has said is like the perfect aspirational life for women.

Her emotions, however, mirror more of Annie's when she meets Helen. With regards to Jane Fairfax specifically. Emma dislikes Jane for all of her virtues because they remind her of all the things that she does not have. Just like Annie dislikes Helen for everything that she reminds her is allegedly wrong with her own life and it's as if, if Annie, despite being lesser, heavy air quotes, in society, turned up at one of Helen's galas and showed her up at every turn, and Helen was extremely rattled by this person who should be considered less than her in society. And yet, is making better conversations and connections with people and seems to be stealing away all of her friends.

Or after Helen has just played like a beautiful piano ballad in honor of Lillian, Annie swoops in and brings Wilson Phillips like Helen does at the end of the movie. You know, and in a way, Helen is jealous of Annie because although Annie is seeing all of the things [00:34:00] that she feels like are deficiencies in her own life, Annie's life is a lot more fuller in reality.

So Helen actually doesn't have any friends. She's very lonely. She doesn't really know how to build those strong female relationships. But Annie has that, and she has genuine connections with people that Helen doesn't have. And even though Annie isn't married, Helen's not happily married, her husband's always gone. Her stepchildren hate her. Like once you remove the veneer, her life is actually not that great.

It was interesting to me because you can look at...as funny as Bridesmaids is, we were talking about, 'Oh, this is like a cautionary tale for Emma.' Like this is also a cautionary tale of what happens when you focus more on being envied than being liked and also when you really take that illogical, dislike and resentment of someone else to a level where you're doing harm to one another and your relationship when really, you could be really great friends or at least have a relationship of mutual respect, but you're letting your illogical dislike of the other person get in the way of what could be a really like, mutually beneficial relationship because all you're allowing yourself to see is what they remind you that you don't have.

So that is my pop culture connection is Bridesmaids, which is such a great movie. We should all re-watch Bridesmaids. It's probably been a minute, but go back and give it another watch.

Emily: That's everyone's homework. Before the next episode, go re-watch Bridesmaids.

Lauren: Go re-watch Bridesmaids. It's hilarious. And also is probably a lot deeper than we all thought when we first watched it.

Emily: I love that you brought up the idea of wanting to be envied instead of liked because it hadn't clicked for me before that that is definitely what Emma wants. She wants people to want her status and accomplishment.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: she doesn't actually care if they genuinely do like her.

Lauren: No, she doesn't seem fussed.

Emily: It would be a perk probably, but she just wants them to recognize that she's top of the heap.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. And similar to Helen, she really does not know how to make [00:36:00] female friends. At all. You know, Miss Taylor was there out of convenience and was friendly to her, but also started off as an authority figure, and they were thrown together by proximity and circumstance because Miss Taylor literally lived in the house.

There was nowhere else for her to go. Her sister's related to her. Again, can't get rid of her. And she is making a quote unquote friend in Harriet, but she doesn't really see her as an equal. She sees her as a charity case.

Emily: Yeah, she's just a project.

Lauren: Exactly. The person who could be her equal and be her friend, like everyone else in her circle sees, she sees as an enemy and as a competition instead of somebody with whom she can form like, a friendship and something that could be emotionally rewarding for both of them.

Emily: I think we've finally reached the point in this book that we've reached in all of the others where we start saying, "Go to therapy." Emma, please talk to someone about these friend issues.

Lauren: Not Mr. Knightley. Yeah, that was it. That was my pop culture connection .

Emily: I love it. That was great. Thank you so much.

Lauren: Thank you. Caution was a little bit shoehorned in, but it's fine.

Emily: Whatever. I didn't really have caution in mind.

Lauren: Valid.

Emily: Sometimes we make everything connect and sometimes there's, you know, hints.

Lauren: Yeah. You know, the thought was there.

Emily: Like a La Croix of the theme.

Lauren: I literally was gonna say that.

Emily: You're kidding. Can y'all tell that we've been friends for too long and that we share one brain cell?

Lauren: As long as Bridesmaids has been out.

Emily: Well, shall we go ahead and do final takeaways?

Lauren: I believe we shall.

Emily: You're up first.

Lauren: Dang it. I, I feel like my final takeaways are kind of contradictory, so I'm trying to think of a better way to explain them. . .

Emily: It's also okay if you have contradictory takeaways.

Lauren: This is true. Because this seems like the opposite of our theme of caution, but thinking about what we keep saying about that illogical dislike, what's coming to my brain first is that it's sometimes best to push back that initial sense of discomfort because it's not [00:38:00] always serving you.

Sometimes it's you trying to stay in your comfort zone. And so my, my initial final takeaway is that sometimes it's okay to throw caution to the wind and push past that initial sense of discomfort because it's not always your fight or flight doing right by you. Sometimes it's actually taking you in the opposite direction of where you need to be.

Emily: Well, you stole my takeaway.

Lauren: Haha!

Emily: I, I was sitting there the entire time you were saying that, trying to figure out, is it different enough that I can still use it? I don't think it is. Well, actually no, I think, I think mine can be construed a different way.

Lauren: Go for it.

Emily: So my final takeaway is that it is often worth taking the time to examine our initial reactions and see what actually lies beneath it. Yeah, that's what I got.

Lauren: Two sides to the same coin, but both equally important.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: Yes.

Emily: Again, we share one brain cell.

Shall we pull our tarot?

Lauren: Yes, we shall. Ooh, I get to pull it this time. Yay!

Emily: What do we have?

Lauren: Eight of clubs.

Emily: The art is a nice little floral design, and our theme for next episode is movement.

The description is, "vines grow rapidly and blooms swiftly now with nothing standing in their way."

Lauren: This is the first time I've had no idea how we're going to connect it to the upcoming section.

Emily: I suspect it'll come to us as we're reading.

Lauren: Definitely. Movement. Okay. Movement.[00:40:00]

Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time we'll be reading Chapters 21 through 25 of Emma with a focus on movement.

Emily: To read our show notes and a transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaimingjanepod.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, you can join our Patreon @ReclaimingJanePod.

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

Lauren: We'll see you next time. Nerds.

Whereas the fan fiction, that's Mr. Elton's point of view, he's just jilted at the end.

Emily: Oh, we have, I hope that someone is taking all these fan fiction ideas that we just throw out here during this podcast and like squirreling them away for a future because they all need to exist.

Lauren: They do. I need somebody-- if they exist already, and you know the fanfic authors, can you get them to just add the tag #ReclaimingJane on AO3 so we can find them?

Emily: That would be amazing.

Lauren: That-- we would peak. That would be, I need nothing else.

Emily: We, we want an AO3 tag, not, not of us! Just of fics that we have suggested.

Lauren: Exactly. No, no fanfic of the podcast. Just fanfic recommendations for us to read ?

Emily: Yes. Send us recs.

Lauren: Please.