Emma 36-40: “Wait For It”
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These chapters feel like balancing on a precipice. While we wait for the next bomb to drop, we're talking about Romanichal history in England and some very distressed damsels.
Links to topics discussed in this episode:
Roma community in the UK today
White Damsels & Jungle Savages in Pulp Fiction
Transcript
Reclaiming Jane Season 4 Episode 8 | Emma 36-40: “Wait For It”
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 36 through 40 of Emma through the theme of waiting.
I feel like we're still waiting for something big to happen, like this whole section felt like us and Emma waiting for a big reveal.
Emily: Yeah, I don't know, just a feeling of anticipation.
Lauren: I don't have too much to say without getting into recaps, so we should probably just dive into recaps so we can discuss what on earth is happening in these chapters where again, it just seems like five chapters of waiting for something else to happen.
Emily: I completely agree. We should just jump into recaps.
Lauren: Okay. Beautiful. Easier for me to say because I'm not going first.
Emily: Yeah. I also, it was weird doing my notes because I had to catch up on a chapter that I missed from last time.
Lauren: Oops.
Emily: I was like, okay. No, don't include that. You gotta remember--
Lauren: --you do not need to include six chapters. Only five.
Emily: Yes. It's truly incredible that it took three and a half seasons to get to a point where either one of us was off the chapter count.
Lauren: That's pretty dang good.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: I think you should give yourself a pat on the back for that.
Emily: Thank you. I will do that.
Lauren: All right. Will you also be giving yourself a pat on the back for this recap? We shall see.
Emily: Yeah. I sure fucking hope so.
Lauren: Okay. Are you ready?
Emily: Yes.
Lauren: All right. Three, two, one. Go.
Emily: It turns out that Mrs. Churchill, who has been so unwell, is coming south for her health, which means the return [00:02:00] of Frank. The ball from February is finally going ahead with all kinds of preparations from the Westons who are super excited about this.
Mrs. Elton obviously makes the whole thing about her because everything has to be about her. Harriet is spurned by the Eltons and Mr. Knightley arises to the occasion. Fortunately, Harriet is totally over Mr. Elton.
Lauren: The end.
Emily: I didn't quite get to everything, but that's okay.
Lauren: That's okay. I feel that's like the most important things.
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah.
Emily: Let's see how you do, my friend.
Lauren: I don't know. We'll see.
Emily: You ready?
Lauren: Yes.
Emily: Three, two, one, go.
Lauren: Mrs. Churchill may or may not have actually been sick, but either way, they're coming back down south and so Frank Churchill has returned. There is a ball that happens. Mrs. Elton makes everything about her. Ms. Bates speaks incessantly at length, ad nauseam, and Mr. Knightley dances with Harriet and it's really nice. Harriet is accosted by a band of travelers and it's like a very damsel in distress moment, but Frank Churchill comes and swoops in and saves the day. Harriet finally gets over Mr. Elton and they burn her most precious treasures. And it's really sad and also funny.
Emily: well done. You got to a couple of things that I missed.
Lauren: I think our recaps complimented each other this week.
Emily: Yes.
Lauren: Yes.
Emily: I love when we manage to do that.
Lauren: It works out so well. Okay, I think let's, let's start with Frank Churchill returning and being just a ball of anxiety this entire section.
Emily: Yeah. The first time that he's able to come back and visit, he comes right to Hartfield after stopping at Randall's, but he's sort of nervous.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: and Emma decides, of course, because Emma always just decides what's going on. As we know. Emma decides that he's just fortunately no longer in love with her, but is concerned that perhaps proximity will rekindle his feelings, and that's why he only stays 15 minutes.
...sure.
Lauren: If [00:04:00] it, if that's what makes you sleep at night.
Because she had been worried before about how she was going to disappoint him, were he to make the grievous mistake of actually asking her to marry him, which always cracks me up because before when it was just a possibility and not a reality, she really loved the idea of possibly being married to Frank Churchill.
But then once it becomes something that could, in theory, clearly not in practice, actually become reality, she's like, oh no. Mm, I don't think so. How do I let this man down gently?
Emily: Emma just loves to live in her own constructed fantasies.
Lauren: 100%. And if there's something that threatens to break that fantasy, such as anything becoming reality, she's not pleased. But thankfully, she doesn't really have to worry about it because he dashes off to go do whatever, and she can remain content in the knowledge that he has not asked her to marry him. So she did not have to disappoint him like she did Mr. Elton.
Emily: Of course, unsurprisingly, he's not really able to visit as much as he had anticipated. Which, once again, I just feel bad for Mr. Weston being so eternally disappointed by his son's promises and breaking thereof.
Lauren: Yeah. He's always so excited that Frank is coming back into town and this time around he's telling people like, 'oh, I was so excited to receive the letter. I didn't even realize that it was addressed to Mrs. Weston and not to me because I just saw that it was his handwriting and I was so excited to open it that I did so before even realizing it wasn't, it wasn't a letter for me.'
Emily: I also think it's very cute that Frank keeps up with writing to his stepmother.
Lauren: I think that's very sweet. That's like one of the few, like, genuine marks of good character. There's been lots of things that we're told are good character marks from Emma. But not necessarily from people who are a bit more reliable, but this is one of those little things that's actually really commendable.
Emily: Mm-hmm. I also started getting really a sense in this section of a comparison that could be made between Mr. Weston and Sir John Middleton. And it came out more in the immediate [00:06:00] scenes before the ball was beginning, but he's just so eager for everyone to be pleased by what he has planned for them.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: and wants all the young people to be happy and flirtatious and just wants to prop up all of these happy things in his neighborhood and among his peers, and it's very sweet. I, I really love the Westons.
Lauren: He reminds me of... there was a neighbor who we had, who used to live around the corner from us growing up, who always was just a parent who would organize all the kids coming to play in like one of the yards, which is super sweet. It wouldn't be uncommon for him to come knock on the door and say, "Hey, we're playing whiffle ball over at our house. We're shooting hoops, we're doing whatever," and sure enough, you know, give him enough time and he's rounded up like all the kids in a half mile radius to come hang out in his yard. And it was just very pure and very sweet. And that's what this reminds me of.
Emily: Absolutely. I love that. The Westons are lovely people.
Lauren: They are. They deserve the world. Now people who do not? The Eltons.
Emily: Oh my God. Still being unreasonably mean to Harriet, in addition to Mrs. Elton continuously making everything about herself.
Lauren: Yeah. This ball she has decided is about her, and we get an extended conversation between her and Mr. Weston at the beginning of the section where Mr. Weston has to kind of, like make up an excuse to get out of the conversation at the end because she just keeps turning things back to Maple Grove and, 'oh, well, you know, my brother does,' and, 'in society that I get to keep,' and every possible topic of conversation she manages to turn back around to herself.
Emily: It was extremely funny though during that conversation where Mr. Weston is talking about the way that Mrs. Churchill prefers to travel, and Mrs. Elton compares it to her sister, and Mr. Weston says something about fine ladies having things always the way they want. And Mrs. Elton tries to pull that charmingly self-deprecating thing and says, 'oh, well my sister's [00:08:00] no fine lady.'
And then she immediately realizes, 'Hang on. That makes me look bad.'
Lauren: Like, 'I can only say that about myself. I can't say that about my sister.' She tries so hard.
Emily: It's so obnoxious.
Lauren: Yeah. And in that same conversation too, he's talking about. Frank's imminent arrival in Highbury. And in the midst of that conversation, she's saying he must be excited that there's a new person in the midst of Highbury, you know, if he's ever heard of such a creature, and the narration says that this was so loud, like a compliment to be asked for that Mr. Weston has to say, 'oh no. Of course he's heard of you. You know, every letter that Mrs. Weston writes includes some mention of Mrs. Elton,' before he can then go on in the rest of his conversation because even he picks up on the fact like, oh my God, okay, clearly you're fishing for compliments.
So let me give you what you want and then I can continue on with the rest of my conversation. Yes, he has heard of you. Yes, you were interesting. May I continue?
Emily: Queen of Fishing for compliments. Honestly.
Lauren: She wrote the book.
Emily: She's a champion angler.
Lauren: And she seems to be catching a lot.
Emily: She really is, because no one wants to slight her because she is new to their society.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: and she's married to their vicar, so she has a certain standing. Plus, she apparently has these connections to people elsewhere and no one wants to be outright rude to her, so they just kind of play along as best they can.
Lauren: And they have to continue playing along even at the, at the ball that finally occurs, to the point where the Westons realize like, oh, she thinks that we've thrown this ball for her. And so we were going to have Frank and Emma open the dancing, but it would be perceived as a slight if we don't, but we also don't want her to dance with Frank. And Frank's like, oh no, I actually asked Emma like months ago, so previously engaged, so sorry. Can't do it. And so Mr. Weston ends up being the one to stand up with Mrs. Elton and begin the dancing and open the ball. [00:10:00] Which, you know, she would've preferred to be with Frank, but she will accept this as the proper compliment that it is.
Emily: It's still perfectly respectable.
Lauren: Mm, of course, because why else would they be throwing this ball if not for her?
Emily: Aside from the fact that it was planned before she was ever known.
Lauren: Details.
Emily: Details. She's a bride. And so all due compliments must be paid to her.
Lauren: And Emma has to suck up the fact that she has to be seen as second to Mrs. Elton. And that's this point where she says, you know, this is the only time where I'll consider marriage cuz this is the pits.
Emily: Also very funny.
Lauren: Like, why are you better than me just because you managed to secure a husband? This is crap. Emma's not amused.
Emily: Very much not amused.
Lauren: I think the most egregious thing is them laughing about Mr. Elton slighting Harriet, because Harriet's also been invited to this ball, but really isn't being invited to dance. She's just kind of off on the side, watching the festivities and Mrs. Weston says to Mr. Elton like, oh, you know, had been complimenting his dancing. And he's like, oh, you know, I'm an old man now. I'm an old married man. I feel like I should be standing off to the side now, but I do quite enjoy dancing, blah, blah, blah.
Emily: He's like, what, 25?
Lauren: He's-- Yes! He's like, Ugh, ridiculous.
Emily: Ignoring the fact that I was also making jokes about being incredibly old when I was 25.
Lauren: Right, but whatever, it was-- that was based off of personality. He's just trying to milk the fact that he just got married and like, you are no materially different than you were three months ago. Please calm down. And so then she says, Oh, well Harriet's not dancing. Like, you must know Miss Smith. Like, why don't you go and stand up with her? And all of a sudden, he couldn't possibly, he can't dance. Like there's no, I'm too old for that. I'm not going to do it. And Mrs. Elton is not in the conversation but is within earshot and is eavesdropping and is kind of like, egging him on from afar and then they go and they laugh about it together.
Emily: Horrible people.
Lauren: And Mrs. Weston even is like, that was rude. Like she doesn't know the full story, but she [00:12:00] can tell that there is like a specific slight happening. But then Knightley swoops into Save the Day and he dances with Harriet and it's very sweet.
Emily: It was so gallant of him and also brings Emma's attention to him more. We get quite the flattering description of him, especially compared to the other gentlemen.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: and even before he started dancing, the narration is noting his tall and firm figure and how--
Lauren: the broad shoulders--
Emily: how well he looks in comparison to the, the fathers and husbands that he's standing next to who are stooped.
Lauren: Yeah. It was telling to me that she's dancing with Frank Churchill and she's looking over her shoulder at Mr. Knightley.
Emily: There is of course, the little caveat in narration that you know, she's dancing with the only man that he couldn't compare to.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: But I don't know. She's quite complimentary of Mr. Knightley.
Lauren: And even more so when he decides to dance with Harriet.
Emily: Cause it's a nice thing to do. Again, a good mark of character.
Lauren: A good mark of character. And even though he already is like, clearly quite high in her esteem, this takes him up another notch.
Emily: And he, he gains absolutely nothing by asking Harriet to dance. So, like Frank writing to Mrs. Weston, it really does sort of mark him out as being a good person, especially in comparison to the bullshit that Mr. Elton has just pulled.
Lauren: Yeah, there's really no competition between the two of them.
Emily: He's a man of the church. Good lord.
Lauren: Act like it.
Emily: Really.
Lauren: Well. Maybe he is. Oh no, I didn't say that.
Emily: You know, for, for someone who grew up in a clerical household, Jane Austen certainly has some things to say about members of the clergy.
Lauren: I wonder if there's someone who's done research into like her papers, into how she felt about the church. Cause I'd be really interested to know, because clearly she was devout Christian lady of the time. However, you can be a devout Christian woman [00:14:00] and also critique the institution.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: I wanna know. That'd be really interesting.
Emily: Yeah. I mean, because being in the household of a a clergyman, she probably would've met quite a lot of other people who were also serving the church in some capacity.
Lauren: Hmm. There's gotta be a scholar out there somewhere who's already done that work before.
Emily: I'm sure there is.
Lauren: Let me search the MLA Bibliography, see what we can find. J-Stor? Hello .
Oh, but the other main event is poor Harriet being accosted on the road.
Emily: Oh my goodness. Yeah. I've got a little more to say about that later.
Lauren: I had a feeling .
Emily: Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, this, this comes out of nowhere that Harriet is set upon. Well, not really. I don't know. She's, she's in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess.
Lauren: It kinda seems like they just asked her for money and then they were following her, but it's like a big deal.
Emily: Oh, yeah. It's absolutely elevated in the retelling, which is also kind of suggested by the fact that Emma's nephews are later asking for the story again and again and again.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: and correcting her if she tells it in any slightly different way. Very sensationalized. But she is rescued upon the road by Mr. Frank Churchill.
Lauren: The most important part of this whole narrative.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: and Emma is, you know, she's determined. She's not matchmaking anymore. She's done. She will say nothing about it. But like... that has to inspire some kind of feeling, right? She can't be saved by someone and not feel anything.
Emily: And it's only a few days after that that Harriet comes to her declaring that she's completely done with Mr. Elton. She comes to burn the precious things that she has kept in remembrance of him, which when it comes down to it is like, it's an open, an open bandaid, and like, the last stub of a pencil. It's so hilariously sad.
Lauren: Oh, sweet baby Harriet.
Emily: I could not stop laughing over that scene. I felt so bad, [00:16:00] but really? And it's like labeled precious treasures, and she's got it in this beautiful little box tucked into cotton.
Lauren: And she's shocked that Emma doesn't remember where she's gotten these things from. Because they weren't significant moments to her. Emma doesn't freaking know! And she's like, well, you must know the pencil at least, this was his, you must remember. And Emma's like, no, it's a piece of pencil. I don't know where you got this from.
Emily: Like when they started talking about the court plaster that he had cut off of a larger piece and put a different piece of it on the cut on his finger, I was so worried that it was gonna be a used piece, like Harriet, please, please do not have kept a dirty bandaid from this man.
Lauren: No, thank God it wasn't because Emma even asked like, well, do we have to throw away the plaster? Can we not?
Emily: That's still good. We could use that.
Lauren: And Harriet's like, no, I'd rather watch it burn.
Emily: Harriet truly is that person who is always head over heels in love with someone.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: and every single time it's a ride or die, they're the one, it's never been like this before and never will be like this again. And then a week later it's a completely different person.
Lauren: Mm-hmm. Okay. So I think Harriet would've been a fan girl in the 21st century, but of who? What fandom would Harriet belong to?
Emily: One Direction.
Lauren: Oh, you're right.
Emily: That came to me so fast it cannot be incorrect. You know, she would've cried about her ships.
Lauren: She would have-- 20. Yeah. If she were in the 2010s. One Direction. If she were in the 2020s, BTS. Mm, 100%. But I see her, I think more as a One Direction person. Like you said, less as a K-pop girly. Definitely cried on Tumblr and filmed a video of herself crying when Zayn left.
Emily: You're so right. Oh, Harriet. Just every time I think about her, the only thing that comes to mind is, bless her [00:18:00] heart. I can't with this girl, and neither can Emma apparently, like she's, she's pretty well over managing Harriet's feelings about all of her crushes.
Lauren: So sweet.
Emily: Even though half of it is Emma's fault.
Lauren: Yeah.
Emily: Which like, okay girl, get some perspective here.
Lauren: It's like, you were the root cause of this, so I don't really want to hear you complaining about how you don't wanna hear anymore. A little self-awareness goes a long way.
But along with burning the things that she kept from Mr. Elton, there's apparently somebody else who's risen in Harriet's esteem, but they never say the name because Emma's not going to be matchmaking. So we're never going to say who it is, but they both think the other knows exactly who it is they're talking about.
Emily: Emma thinks that she knows who it is. She assumes that it's Frank Churchill because Harriet describes being rescued in a moment of misery and all of that falling away to perfect happiness. And Emma pretty reasonably assumes that it must have been when he came upon her in the road trying to escape apparent harassment.
Lauren: Mmhmm. That does make sense.
Emily: Yeah. It's a perfectly reasonable assumption.
Lauren: For once, Emma's logic is really not leading her astray here.
Emily: Yeah. Unfortunately, they never did confirm that they were talking about Frank Churchill.
Lauren: On the bright side, at least Emma did say, don't get your hopes up. Like, stranger things have happened, however, I don't think this strange thing will happen. You know, nurse this on your own. I will speak nothing more of it. But I'm glad at least she tampered her urge to be like, oh my gosh, this is great. I'm going to try and get the two of you together, even though it's really not a likely match as far as society goes.
So even though she doesn't know for certain who Harriet's talking about, she at least isn't trying to encourage Harriet to dream of things that can't happen.
Emily: And harriet also seems to have an awareness of this.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: because her revelation also comes along with a declaration that [00:20:00] she's never going to marry. And an insinuation that this new man she's in love with is of a completely different station, that he is infinitely superior to Mr. Elton, and therefore also to her because she's of a much lower station.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: So she seems to be moderating her own expectations here. But we'll see. Because it also feels like a very hopeless romantic kind of declaration to make.
Lauren: It does. Which, you know, I can relate.
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: Especially because Harriet's, how old? She's still a teenager.
Emily: 17, I think.
Lauren: Yeah. She's a baby.
Emily: She's really a baby.
Lauren: Like who, who amongst us was not a hopeless romantic at 17.
Emily: I know I was.
Lauren: Yeah. Angsty poetry. Song lyrics and lyrics that you know, could relate, are specifically written to relate to like 10,000 situations. But those are written just for you.
Emily: The updating of Facebook statuses with lyrics.
Lauren: What a time.
Emily: Kids these days will never understand.
Lauren: Okay. Well, as we're talking about Harriet's damsel in distress moment, that leads to the rejection completely of Mr. Elton and her declaration of love for someone else, what was your historical connection that tied into her, into her moment?
Emily: Well, this was one that was not so much thematic as it was, 'okay, this is something that we need to address. Particularly the use of a certain term.'
Lauren: Yeah, I figured that was coming.
Emily: Yeah. Yeah. Basically, I wanna talk about the, the group that has supposedly accosted Harriet on the road that caused so much fright in her that her friend fled and she had to be rescued.
This is a lot. To start this off, the word that Austen has used in her writing, which contextually it makes sense that she would've used it, but it's now recognized that historically it has been used pejoratively against the Roma people, the Romani. [00:22:00] And so I won't be using that, but that's, that's also not something that is sort of mainstream known in especially America right now.
Lauren: Yeah.
Emily: So I do want to make sure that people know that that's a term that has been used by people who are not Romani in a negative way, and they prefer that not to be used. So we're not gonna do it. But the group of people that we're talking about, there are several different terms.
Some more specific, some more general that can, that are actually their names. So Roma, Romani, and the specific group that we're probably talking about in this context would be Romanichal, or Romanichal travelers in England.
Traveler is another term that it's used throughout the United Kingdom, but it can refer to several different groups, some that are Roma affiliated or Roma descendants, some that are descendants of Celtic nomads. I'm, in this case, referring to Romanichal travelers. The Roma people now live mostly in Europe, but from genetic and linguistic evidence, it seems that the group probably originated in what is Modern Day India, but have been immigrating outward since about 500 AD.
They're a largely nomadic group, which has contributed to a lot of stereotypes about them. They have been living in the UK since at least the 16th century, probably earlier, which is confirmed by several pieces of Tudor era legislation that attempted to control both their presence or their assimilation to existing English society.
Because you know, outside group, we gotta make them exactly like everybody else.
Lauren: Assimilate or die.
Emily: Exactly. Similar to a lot of other minority and marginalized ethnic, cultural, [00:24:00] racial, religious groups throughout Europe, they're often linked to, or not linked to, but compared to the experience of Jewish peoples throughout Europe, especially because they were also a major target of the Holocaust.
So this isn't a very happy historical topic. I'm very glad to be able to draw attention to like the actual realities of this group that has been mentioned specifically in Austen, but they're not very nice realities. Roma people have been victims of ethnic marginalization and violence known in their cases, antiziganism.
For centuries, there have been legal restrictions placed on their movements and on their economic participation, which is really intricately tied up with the nomadic lifestyle. There are myriad misconceptions about disposition that has been erroneously tied to ethnic traits, like we see with literally any non-white ethnicity that happens to exist in the proximity of white institutions.
Lauren: Same story, different page.
Emily: Yeah. We've, we've talked about basically the same issues for other groups as well in previous episodes of this podcast. Some of these misconceptions, these stereotypes are very clearly perpetuated on the page in Emma because of the way that these people, you know, aggressively go after Harriet and are demanding money.
So this description is, is definitely stereotypically motivated, but I would dare to say that it's, it's just stereotype, which doesn't surprise me. Especially because there have been centuries, literal centuries of discourse about, you know, the kind of made up quote unquote racial traits ascribed to Romani people as well as [00:26:00] many other peoples.
But these are people who have been systematically and institutionally excluded from participation in mainstream society in in England, in this specific case, but elsewhere as well. One thing that particularly would've affected them were the land enclosures that we discussed in an episode about Mansfield Park, where previously public lands were privatized by large landowners, and so the access of the nomadic Romanichal would've been very abruptly revoked to lands that they previously might have had use of. And because those areas were now privatized, it also would've become legally punishable for them to make use of those lands. And so that's, that's economic exclusion. It's physical exclusion from certain areas.
There were specific anti-Romani laws in England that existed from, again, at least the Tudor era. Many of them were being gradually repealed from about the 1780s onward, but prejudice has remained really strong even up to today. Romanichal are still among the most stigmatized groups in England today. So this is not something that was very specific to Austen's time.
It's, it's been ongoing for many centuries and remains a major issue of prejudice today, unfortunately.
Lauren: Oh, thank you for that context. I've guessed when I got to that section, I was like, oh, I bet this is what Emily's gonna bring up for the history discussion today. And I hope it is because I feel like that's really necessary.
Especially because, like you said, I think a lot of people aren't aware of the negative stereotypes surrounding the Roma people, or even the fact that the word that we most commonly use is a slur. I don't think people are very aware of that outside of certain circles. So.
Emily: Yeah, and I don't really know how it is obviously in, in other countries, but in the United States [00:28:00] it's appended to, you know, white women who want to come off as being carefree, and it's just --
Lauren: the boho hippie.
Emily: Exactly. Yeah. It's a really questionable use of a derogatory term. I have seen a decent number of groups or individuals who had previously used that are starting to become aware of its history and to change names where they're able to, which is good.
Lauren: Mm.
Emily: If anybody wants to learn more about this, which I encourage, I definitely recommend listening to the episode of The Thing About Austen with Amanda Rae Prescott. It's very good, goes a little more in depth and is actually focused on this topic. So that's a great jumping off point. Totally go and listen to that if you can.
Lauren: Took the words outta my mouth.
Emily: So yeah, like I said, not, not a fun topic, but one that I hope is contextually important. I hope your pop culture is a little more lighthearted.
Lauren: Ish.
Emily: Oh God, not this again.
Lauren: Well, because it's also focused on the same thing, but a different aspect of it.
Emily: What do you have?
Lauren: I was trying to think about how it could involve waiting into the, what I wanted to talk about and I shoehorned it in because I wanted to talk about the damsel in distress trope.
That is really what gets Emma thinking about how Harriet and Frank Churchill now have the setup to fall in love. And how I'm shoehorning it in is that the damsel in distress is waiting for a man to save her. So she's waiting for something. It's been a trope for hundreds of years, but it was particularly a staple in Gothic literature, and that may have been where Emma has gotten the idea of being saved as something romantic because that was something that played out all the time in Gothic literature that she may have read. I mean, we'll see more of heroines getting too much from Gothic literature in Northanger Abbey, but I just wanted to look at that damsel in distress trope just in general, cause I think it's an interesting [00:30:00] commentary on pop culture and how it shifts.
And there's a really good quote from an article called, "When Natives Attack: White Damsels and Jungle Savages in Pulp Fiction." And they describe the evolution of the trope as, "what changes throughout the decades isn't the damsel. The woman is always the weak victim in need of the male savior. It's the attacker. The focus of the attacker in popular media are legion. Monsters, mad scientists, Nazis, hippies, bikers, aliens, whichever group best meets the collective fears of a culture gets the role." And I thought that was super on point for pretty much anything that you could apply to, including this.
You know the people who were in the collective fears of Regency Britain become the attackers who Harriet as a damsel, needs to be saved from by the gallant Frank Churchill swooping in from, you know, whatever weird errand he was on that he also won't talk about.
So some of like the prototypical damsel in distress characters that might come to mind. If you wanna go like, really throw it back. Olive Oyl from Popeye. She's forever needing to be saved to get Popeye to eat his spinach so he can knock somebody out.
Emily: That was not what I expected when you said really throwing it back, but I love it.
Lauren: We are! If we're going perhaps less far, then Lois Lane, of course, in Superman. Also like Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man. It's something you see a lot in like superhero comics or movies, but then also in things like video games where the protagonist is a man who needs to save the probably disproportionately drawn woman who is in distress.
And then the trope has now kind of evolved to the empowered damsel because people figured out that, oh, maybe women also like to see themselves doing things instead of waiting for a man to come and save them.
You know, I, because I am forever a stan of the Cheetah Girls, there's like that lyric in their classic bop Cinderella, that's like it's, I don't wanna be a [00:32:00] Cinderella sitting in a damp cold dusty cellar waiting on somebody to come and set me free. Because that's what their audition song is, because they wanna be pop stars and they wanna be empowered, whatever.
But we have realized kind of as a society that women don't always want to be waiting for a man to come and set them free. However, we cannot completely get away from the damsel in distress trope. So we have the empowered damsels who don't need to wait on a man. They can, in theory, do it themselves. And so they get their moments of like girl power or girl boss, whatever.
However, at some point still probably need to be saved by a man. And so those are like your Princess Leia, your Elizabeth Swann, like the, we have our moments of girl boss, girl power and like, look at me, I can fight too, but eventually there will be a man swooping in from the skies to come and save you from whatever trouble you have gotten yourself into.
So I thought that was really an interesting way to think about the damsel in distress and what it says about what culture is at the time. Both like, who they're in distress from, what is the thing that we're collectively afraid about, and then why are we unable to completely let go of this idea of a woman needing a man to come and save her, even as we shift more into a more empowered view of women.
Very slowly, but surely, kind of. We can't completely let go of the fact that she's somebody who needs to be saved. And there of course are media that like, reverse that trope specifically. And even in things that are meant to be, you know, lighthearted and silly will kind of take that trope and turn on its head and on purpose. Like Enchanted where instead of it being the ultra feminine Princess is in distress, she is the one who's climbing a tower with a sword to go save Patrick Dempsey. You know what I mean? Like there are moments--
Emily: such a good movie.
Lauren: Such a good movie! There are moments where it's specifically reversed, but as far as like general cultural trends, we still can't quite seem to let it go. Perhaps because it is so rooted in our [00:34:00] collective imaginations that it goes back as far as even Emma, 200 years ago, immediately seeing the damsel in distress trope as the beginnings of a romance. And that is my pop culture connection today.
Emily: That was very good. I love that.
Lauren: Thank you.
Emily: And it is very revealing to look back at what are the most popular damsel in distress stories, and look at who the villain is.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: and why they're the villain. It tells you a lot about this, that specific cultural moment.
Lauren: It does, and you can do that with horror movies too.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: whatever is being positioned as being terrifying is probably something that is haunting the collective cultural mind too, just in a metaphorical sense, sometimes in the horror movie itself, which is pretty cool. I still can't watch them because they're too good at what they do. I will be horrified and I will not be able to sleep, but I can appreciate them.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: we were, we've kind of talked about waiting, but we've mostly kind of glossed over where we saw it in the text. Was there any place where you wanted to kind of draw it out?
Emily: Not really. I mean, I think what you said at the very beginning was exceptionally apt, that the whole section kind of feels like it's on the cusp of something. Like we're, we're reaching a turning point or a climax.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: and I, I think that just sort of permeates everything that that's going on. Was there any, anything specific that you wanted to delve into?
Lauren: I don't think so. It's all in like, little interactions, but not really anything that needs to be really highlighted. It's like Mrs. Elton waiting for people to pay her a compliment, or Frank Churchill waiting on something. We don't know what, but Lord, if it isn't making that man anxious, but nothing that's like really huge.
Emily: I agree. Yeah.
Lauren: It's still served its purpose for the episode though.
Emily: Absolutely.
Lauren: Alright. If that's all we have to say.
Emily: Final takeaways?
Lauren: You read my mind.
Emily: You're up first.
Lauren: Thinking [00:36:00] of Harriet's, you know, her box of precious things and how she needed both time and distance to heal. I think my final takeaway, I suppose, would be that sometimes things aren't right in the moment, but we have to wait and sometimes time heals or we're given another situation, or we're given something that shows us what we need to work on in order to fix it, which is not a very well articulated thing because it just makes it feel very passive. But I honestly don't know what my final takeaway is. I think really it's just like if things aren't okay, wait, maybe they will be.
Emily: I mean, yeah, that makes sense.
Lauren: Not saying don't take action, like you should work to fix things if you know what it is. Like, if you know it has to be done, go do it. But. I don't know. I'm struggling .
Emily: That's okay.
Lauren: What's your final takeaway?
Emily: Like you, I, I have like the core of an idea, but I just need to like, I need to form the pearl around that piece of sand.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: I think the base of what I have is patience is a virtue. With, you know, specific thoughts of, I mean, obviously, Emma. Because she doesn't have any patience with Harriet. She doesn't have much patience with other people around her, and she makes up her mind very quickly without waiting for all the information that perhaps should be informing a decision.
Lauren: Yeah. Emma never wants to wait.
Emily: Never, ever. Well, are we ready to go ahead and pull our tarot? I believe it is your turn.
Lauren: Okie doke. We have the Ace of Clubs.
Emily: Ooh. The Ace of Clubs is also known as strength, and our theme for next time is courage.
Lauren: Interesting. And the illustration is a teapot that has very intricate designs on it that is blowing off a lot of steam.
Emily: [00:38:00] The description is, "nothing bolsters the soul like a good spot of tea."
Lauren: They're not wrong.
Emily: I think that means the next time we should probably make a pot of tea for recording.
Lauren: I do have English breakfast tea.
Emily: We should totally do it then.
Lauren: We should.
Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time we'll be reading chapters 41 through 45 of Emma with a focus on courage.
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 at Reclaiming Jane Pod.
Emily: Reclaiming Jane is produced and 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: See you next time, nerds.
Emily: Such a weird, specific timeframe to be a teenager.
Lauren: It really was.
Emily: I mean, I'm sure every generation of teenagers has a comparable experience, but it was real weird.
Lauren: Things changed so much in a short period of time too. Like, I just watched the Woodstock 99 documentary and like... pop culture and what it meant to be a teenager and what was and wasn't socially [00:40:00] acceptable was wildly different from 2009 when I was a teenager.
And that was only a decade. And there was so much that had happened with like social media and cell phones and technology and all this stuff that just totally shifted like what youth looked like in a very short period of time. And we were right at the heart of all of that.
Emily: Yeah, and I mean, imagine, you know, 99 to 2009 was a massive shift.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: but then even think 2009 to 2019.
Lauren: Yep.
Emily: Being 17 in 2019 would've been, I mean, it's quite literally unimaginable for me.
Lauren: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I-- like we experienced the same world events, but with a different perspective because we were older.
Emily: Exactly. People are different ages than me. Ew. No.