Emma 41-45: “Have Courage”

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The characters of Emma decide to make some courageous decisions in these chapters, while your hosts courageously decide to share opinions on fictional characters and celebrities who will never respond. It's basically the same thing. 

In this episode, we're discussing moments of character growth, what makes Knightley's strawberries so exciting, and why the Don't Worry, Darling drama is actually an example of being courageous. 

Transcript

Reclaiming Jane Season 4, Episode 9 | Emma 41-45: “Have Courage”

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 41 through 45 of Emma through the theme of courage.

We have some drama beginning to ramp up in these chapters.

Emily: Truly, we do.

Lauren: It's not quite drama filled, but there's just enough to keep things interesting.

Emily: It's a little titillating.

Lauren: And you know, uh, a little provocative. Hints of further drama to come--

Emily: --some interpersonal conflict. Uh,

Lauren: we love a good interpersonal conflict in fiction.

Interpersonal conflict.

Emily: That doesn't piss you off as much as Manfield Park.

Lauren: 100% yes.

Emily: Because it's, it's people making mistakes and not people just deep down being assholes.

Lauren: Right? It's interpersonal conflict that I feel like I can witness without wanting to tear out my hair. So.

Emily: Yes, it's fun drama.

Lauren: Mm. This whole book is fun, and we've said that so many times, but I just love this book so much.

Emily: It's great. I also discovered the other day, uh, a tweet of mine from like five years ago, responding to a question about like, what's a classic book you've never been able to finish? And my answer was Emma.

Lauren: Oh!

Emily: Because I had tried to read it once or twice before and just never got very far. And I had also at that point never finished watching an adaptation either. So it was very fun to realize, like, oh, wow. Five years and, like, one month later, from the time of that tweet, I will finally be finishing Emma.

Lauren: How things change.

Emily: I know. [00:02:00]

Lauren: Well look at you now. Who would've thought?

Emily: Look how far we've come.

Lauren: All right. Shall we dive into our, our thirty second recaps of this section?

Emily: Yes, you are getting us started.

Lauren: Oh, yay.

Emily: Are you ready to recap?

Lauren: I am ready.

Emily: Three, two, one. Go.

Lauren: Mr. Knightley is suspicious of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax. He thinks something's going on and he's going to find out, and he definitely doesn't have any ulterior motives as to why he's curious. Uh, there are also lots of other parties that are happening, so Mr. Knightley invites everybody over to his place. They go over there. There's also like drama where Jane Fairfax leaves early and that's for like very suspicious and then they go on a different outing. Mrs. Elton wants to control everything as usual. Um, all the party's a little fractured, Emma's rude to Miss Bates. Jane Fairfax has to leave and that's it.

Emily: Nice. You finished with like a second and a half left.

Lauren: There was a major thing that I left out, but that's okay.

Emily: Okay.

Lauren: Okay. Are you ready?

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: 3, 2, 1. Go.

Emily: Knightley suspects that there is something up between Frank and Jane. Mrs. Elton's sister is not going to come visit for a while, which puts a damper on all of her plans, like being in the spotlight, um, Knightley invites everyone over to Donwell and immediately has regrets.

There's some really weird tensions in the air, especially when they go to Box Hill and we get our drama. Emma tries to make up for her mistakes. Amazingly, Jane Fairfax is actually going to take the position that Mrs. Elton has organized for her, uh, and then Mrs. Churchill.

Lauren: The end. Perfect.

Emily: Yay!

Lauren: That was the one thing that I left out. I was like, I did leave out a character death, but oops.

Emily: just put it in the AO3 tag.

Lauren: Right?

Emily: Minor character death.

Lauren: Yeah, exactly. I was like, she's never actually seen on screen or on page.

Emily: Yeah. You know, she dies off screen.

Lauren: Apparently--

Emily: it's not graphic--

Lauren: she was actually sick. Yeah. You know, who knew?

Emily: The commentary on that was funnier than I wanted it to be.

Lauren: It was really bad because [00:04:00] nobody actually believed that she was sick. Frank Churchill leaves again and 36 hours later she's gone. It's not funny but it is funny. RIP Mrs. Churchill.

Emily: I mean, it's also explicitly in the text, one of those situations where after she's gone, everyone's like, oh, we can't speak ill of the dead. Like she probably wasn't that bad. Right? So she was, she was a bitch. While she was alive.

Lauren: Yeah. They just now are forbidden from saying that she was really awful to be around.

Emily: Mm-hmm. But anyway, that's the very end of our section.

Lauren: Right. In the beginning we actually get almost a full chapter point of view from Mr. Knightley.

Emily: That was so much fun to read.

Lauren: It was, and a really interesting departure of mostly being in Emma's head that we got to spend so much time with Mr. Knightley.

Emily: Yeah. So amazingly, to his amazement too, mr. Knightley is suspecting that there's something up between Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax.

Lauren: Mm-hmm, he's noticed, uh, a glance shared here or there. Um, what seems to be, you know, inside jokes that Frank is making that Jane does or does not respond to. So he decides he's going to pay a little bit close attention just to see if his suspicions are confirmed. And, uh, one of the conversations about some intelligence that Frank allegedly received about Mr. Perry is just kind of confirming Mr. Knightley's suspicions about something going on between the two of them.

Emily: So Frank has heard something about Perry ordering a carriage and assumes that it must have come through Mrs. Weston because she's his only known correspondent in Highbury. But she insists that she didn't know anything about it until they brought it up just then, she could not possibly have told him. And he tries to play it off as like, 'oh, I'm just dreaming of Highbury all the time. It must have come up. It's a coincidence.'

Lauren: That is such a terrible lie. He's an awful liar.

Emily: So bad. Oh my God. [00:06:00] But then it comes out that actually the Bates knew and Jane was there when that information was received. And if we recall from previous section, Jane has been very invested in getting her mail on time every single day.

Lauren: Mm.

Emily: I agree with Mr. Knightley. Something is up.

Lauren: Something's a foot. And honestly, you know, if Ms. Bates were perhaps a little bit more prone to reflection, she probably also would've figured it out.

It's that moment when you are listening to someone and you're like, you're so close. You were so close to getting it. And because she's the one who admits like, 'oh no. Well, you know, we had heard about it, but I only spoke of it to Jane and she wouldn't have told anyone.' Like, I just, I need you to replay that sentence in your head.

Emily: Just like turn your gaze like 15 degrees to the right.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: and you'll see it.

Lauren: If you were the only two people who knew and you didn't say anything. And Frank somehow knows... if one plus one is two, and two plus two is four.

Emily: But Ms. Bates, bless her heart, is one to take everything at face value.

Lauren: She is.

Emily: And so if Frank says he must have dreamed it, of course he dreamed it.

Lauren: Sweet Miss Bates.

Emily: Sweeet Miss Bates.

Lauren: To be so innocent.

Emily: I know. Not a brain cell.

Lauren: She has brain cells!

Emily: Affectionate-- affectionately, not a brain cell! It's not derogatory. It's affectionate. Like orange cats.

Lauren: Right? Oh yes. Just lovable sweetheart dummies.

Emily: The orange cat of Regency Society.

Lauren: Mr. Knightley is gonna get mad at us too. We're being mean. We'll get to that. It's fine. Uh, Mr. Knightley is also watching how Frank and Emma interact with one another as well, and this is more about his suspicions about Frank Churchill than it is about like any kind of critique of Emma's behavior. He's more watching [00:08:00] Frank and how he's flirting with Emma, but then also how he seems to have a tendency to glance at Jane or to make jokes that Jane is picking up, which he can tell because she's blushing. She doesn't actually say anything.

But what seem like innocent comments from Frank are clearly intended for Jane, but are masked by being in conversation with Emma or with the rest of the room, which nobody else is really picking up on, because to them they're just like, oh, Frank and Emma are playing a game, or they're just chatting and having like a little flirty conversation.

But Mr. Knightley is really picking up on all the subtext of the conversation and it's like, I don't like what I'm seeing here.

Emily: I don't know if he realizes it, but he's definitely witnessing like, some inside jokes between Jane and Frank.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: or, not necessarily inside jokes, but things that they've clearly discussed that Emma thinks she's in on the joke for.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: like when they're playing this little letter game, and it seems like basically they're handing over the scrambled letters of a word and you try to solve it.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: So Frank first shows Emma and then passes to Jane, the word Dixon. So remember Emma thinks that Jane and Mr. Dixon, her friend's husband, were originally in a flirtation.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: I don't think that's the case. Emma thinks that it'll be mortifying to Jane because of this supposed flirtation. I think it's become a, a joke from Frank.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: because he's actually the one, it's him! And he thinks it's very funny that Emma has landed on this and he's trying to share this joke with Jane. I completely understand why Jane doesn't find it very funny. Um,

Lauren: and Mr. Knightley can see that something's happening, but he doesn't get it. He doesn't understand. He knows there's something that he's picking up on, but he can't quite tell what it is. And he tries to ask Emma, you know, what was happening over there? What [00:10:00] were you laughing at that Jane was clearly not pleased with? And Emma, you know, waves it off and says, oh, it's not a big deal. Don't worry about it. And he's a little bit unsettled still. Cuz he can begin to get at what's going on. But he doesn't have all the information. He doesn't have all the pieces.

Emily: And he has also been suspicious of Frank and his disposition and his intentions from the beginning. He thinks that he's just kind of a lay about not really good for anything.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. And so when he shares these suspicions with Emma, she's amused by the very idea. She's like, oh, Mr. Knightley, it's so cute that you think you can do the same thing as me and put two people together, but you can't be more mistaken.

There's no way you're correct.

Emily: Oh honey. attentions are soon diverted though by Mrs. Elton finding out that her sister, Mrs. Suckling, will not be able to come and visit during the summer like she thought, which means that she is right out of opportunities to continue to be the center of attention because that takes away all of her chances to host parties and make introductions and plan outings, and she's very upset about this.

Lauren: But that does not stop her from trying to insert herself into Knightley's planning of an outing where she keeps trying to strong arm him into letting her plan the entire thing, which he keeps very politely rebuffing her.

Emily: I was about to throttle her. I was like, no, stop talking to Mr. Knightley, please.

Lauren: Just ridiculous. Like, 'oh, well, you know. You can let me plan this event because I'm a married woman and we can do these types of things.' And he says, 'well, you know, there's only one woman who I will ever let, you know, decide who is going to come to my household.'

And she gets very upset about it. And she goes, 'well, who would that be?' And he goes, 'well, that will be Mrs. Knightley. And until she exists, I will be the one determining the guest list. Thank you very much.'

Emily: Yeah. In the conversation, after he graciously extends this invitation for them all to come to his house and be hosted by him, she says at two different points, 'it is my [00:12:00] party.'

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: honey, no. You're not just automatically the bell of the ball every single time. Just because you're the one who's new in town and you're a bride. It does not make you better than everybody else.

Lauren: Yeah. And she's gonna try.

Emily: But, uh, perhaps to Knightley on his handling of that, he is just completely calm and staunch about the fact that he will be doing the planning.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: he will be inviting the guests.

Lauren: And no, he does not need her housekeeper. Do not insult my household staff by implying that yours should come and do the work instead.

Emily: But fortunately for Mr. Knightley, he does prevail and mostly manages to plan the party to his own specifications.

Lauren: Despite weather interference and Mrs. Elton's interference, eventually the party can assemble.

Emily: And he's very thoughtful about it too. He makes sure that the food is set out inside.

Mm-hmm. . And he has a specific room prepared for Mr. Woodhouse to tempt him away from Hartfield so that he can come and be in society, but not be put out.

Mm-hmm. , he has his one little turn about the garden and that's it.

And then he gets to go sit inside next to a. Just Mr. Knightley knows all of these people so well. Mm-hmm.  and I think very few of them realize it.

Lauren: And really takes pains to make sure that they're all comfortable, including Harriet, who, Emma notices at one point, Harriet and Mr. Knightley have been taking a turn throughout the gardens because Mr. Knightley is trying to make sure that she feels included.

Emily: He may not have much respect for her position in society, as we've seen before when he told Emma off for trying to throw Harriet at Elton. Mm-hmm. But as a person, he can be kind to her.

Lauren: Right. And that's something that I think raises him in Emma's esteem as well, seeing that he cares for her friend despite that difference in station.

Emily: However, we do see a little more drama [00:14:00] and tension brewing during this otherwise rather idyllic party because Emma, while walking through the house, comes upon a distraught Jane Fairfax who very hardly tells her to, you know, make her excuses, apologize for me. I'm walking back to the village, Emma, even out of Genuine Concern offers her own carriage to take Jane back mm-hmm. , because she looks unwell, but Jane insists she's going to walk back. She's fine. And she's very clearly upset.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: I really wanna know what set her off.

Lauren: Yeah. We have no clue what, there's no hint as to like, what might have happened outside for her to come back so obviously distressed. And she may have passed Frank Churchill on his way back in because he arrives quite late and also in a terrible mood. Like the two seem to be unrelated to Emma at least, but he's been held up by Mrs. Churchill yet again. And so he was looking like he wasn't going to be able to join the party at all.

And now he's been forced, once he was finally freed from Mrs. Churchill, to come during the hottest part of the day, and he's so hot, he's in a terrible temper, and he just keeps complaining for the entire entrance into the party.

Emily: He was so annoying.

Lauren: He was really annoying. And Emma was annoyed. She was like, okay, well how about you eat some food? No, I don't want that. How about you-- okay, well ...

Emily: Either try to help yourself or, you know, get over it. Behave better.

Lauren: Pretty much. Yeah. And like a child, eventually he's like, okay, fine, I'll eat some food. And then his mood improves. And he has one last little weird exchange with Emma where she's trying to convince him to come out and join the party again tomorrow.

And he's like, 'no, if I do it, I'm gonna be annoyed.' She goes, 'okay, then stay here.' 'Well, if I stay there, then I'm gonna be annoyed that I missed out on the, on the party with all of you.' Okay, well then make a decision, sir. You're going to be annoyed either way, evidently. So why are you complaining to me? Just make a choice. We would love to see you. If you don't come, it's fine.

Emily: There's definitely something external irritating him. Mm-hmm. . And I [00:16:00] mean, the most obvious culprit would be Mrs. Churchill, that she's just kind of yanking him around by her own whims.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: And of course, at this point we don't know that it's anything serious.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: You know, she's dead 48 hours after this, but--

Lauren: oh god. Is that really the timeframe?

Emily: Pretty close, yeah. Because he leaves after the Box Hill excursion and within 36 hours of that, she's...

Lauren: rest in peace. But let, let's talk about the Box Hill excursion, because there's a lot happening there.

Emily: There's so much happening there.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: I mean, it's a trial just to have it happen. Mm-hmm. because the initial plan had been formed around Mrs. Suckling visiting. She's not coming anymore, but Emma decides, you know, that actually does sound pretty nice. So she forms a plan with Mr. Weston to take a very small and select party over to Box Hill.

But then he, in his generosity, involves all of the people that Emma doesn't wanna spend an entire freaking day with. Mm-hmm. he invites the Eltons, he invites Ms. Bates and Jane Fairfax. So in addition to spending her day with Mr. Knightley and Frank Churchill, and Harriet Smith and Mr. Weston, she's surrounded by all the people who annoy her as well.

Lauren: And she's already not in the greatest mood when this day begins. And it's not helped by the fact that the vibes just seem to be off within the entire group. So they've fractured into little cliques. Uh, they're not really gelling together as a large group, and Mr. Weston is really trying to get everyone to mingle and come together as a group and have a conversation, but they all just kind of seem to be drifting away back into their little groups of two or three.

Emily: Yeah. And Emma finds herself unhappy about it. And the narration says that 'it's not that Emma was gay and thoughtless from any real felicity, it was rather because she felt less happy than she had expected. She laughed because she was disappointed.' Mm-hmm. . So she's [00:18:00] trying to boost the spirits of the party.

And I completely understand this reaction, like, oh, this kinda sucks. This thing I had really been looking forward to is horrible, actually. And so you're just, you're trying to compensate and make yourself feel better about it. Mm-hmm. and Yeah, the entire energy of the day is just weird.

Lauren: Yeah. And Frank Churchill's energy is also weird except for when they all sit down together. Then his spirits seemed to drastically improve for whatever reason. And so Emma is laughing and letting herself get drawn into, into conversation because like you said, she's not actually that happy, she's disappointed, and she's trying to find some kind of entertainment in the day, but that turns into like, this very obvious flirtation between her and Frank.

Made more obvious by the fact that no one else is really talking because again, the vibes are off. So it's just. Emma and Frank laughing together while the rest of the party is just kind of witness to their flirtations, which does not really bode well for a happy outing.

Emily: It's like everyone is the third wheel. Mm-hmm. . Including Frank and Emma while they're flirting.

Lauren: Yeah. And then Frank makes it worse by trying to draw people into conversation, but in a rude way. So Emma, to her credit, looks up and says, we're the only two talking. Um, we should maybe expand the conversation and shift the topics that we can expand it to other people, because this is really impolite.

So, Frank's response to that is, "our companions are excessively stupid. What shall we do to rouse them? Any nonsense you'll serve, they shall talk. Ladies and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse, who, wherever she is, presides, to say that she desires to know what you all are thinking of."

Emma, of course, has said no such thing, but he decides to make this declaration.

Uh, Mrs. Elton is put out by this, by the very suggestion that Emma's presiding over the event at all. So she's already in a bad mood because how dare anybody else be put above her? The way that he's phrased [00:20:00] it is just strange, where it's like, tell us all what you're thinking immediately by the order of Emma Woodhouse, which is meant to be funny and a joking manner, but no one's really in a joking mood, so it doesn't land well.

Emily: Yeah. Within the context of the group, it just comes off as weird and brusque mm-hmm.  and just rude overall.

Lauren: Yeah. It doesn't land at all. And rather than breaking the ice and getting people to like laugh and join the conversation, it just kind of creates even more of an awkward situation and he keeps doubling down on it and he continues to double down.

'Well, okay. Well if you don't wanna tell us what you're thinking, share, like, three facts or three just silly things.'

Emily: He demands, or rather, "Miss Woodhouse demands from each of you either one thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated, or two things moderately clever, or three things very dull indeed, and she engages to laugh heartedly at them all."

Which is when we have the debacle.

Lauren: Yes.

Emily: Where sweet Miss Bates, in her own self deprecating way, says, 'oh, well if you just want three dull things, I can do that. That's fine.' In a sort of, you know, humorous relief that she'll be able to contribute to the happiness of the group.

Mm-hmm.  and Emma verbatim from the text. "Emma could not resist. 'Ah, ma'am. But there may be a difficulty, pardon me, but you'll be limited as to the number. Only three at once,'" which lands like a stone.

Lauren: And Ms. Bates doesn't get it at first and then it clicks and it shows, and she's really embarrassed.

Emily: Who wouldn't be?

Lauren: Those are the people with whom they spend most of their time. Emma's embarrassed her and you know, shied her for being a chatter box in front of all of them. And Emma is somebody who she holds in high regard. So, her opinion means a lot to her, and she tries to play it off with Mr. Knightley later, and it's like, 'oh, well, you know, Emma's being very kind to let me know.'

You know? Like, 'I must be being really [00:22:00] annoying if she said something about it, like, I should change my behavior.'

Emily: No, she's being a bitch. You're fine.

Lauren: Like, yeah, that was just not good. Not a good moment for Emma.

Emily: Not a good moment, no. And there's no way to save the party after that. Mm.

Lauren: Mrs. Elton's already in a mood, so she and Mr. Elton go walk elsewhere because she doesn't get to preside over this party, and the vibes are off. Ms. Bates and Mr. Knightley go on their own and have a conversation cuz Ms. Bates is really upset and is trying to kind of talk her way through it. It's just not, not a fun day.

Emily: Especially as the party is breaking up, people are waiting for their carriages and starting to leave. And Mr. Knightley fully scolds Emma, mm-hmm. about how badly she has behaved towards Ms. Bates, and she deserves it. She deserves everything. She's already aware that it was badly done, mm-hmm. , it was in poor taste. It wasn't appropriate, but he really goes to town on how she should not have treated Ms. Bates like that, especially because of Miss Bates' inferior social position.

Mm-hmm.  that it hits really hard because Emma is so high up relative to her.

Lauren: She knows that she's done something wrong but tries to play it off, but then he continues, and like the consciousness of just how much she's messed up is rising within her. So she can't look at him. She can't speak to him because she's just really upset by how correct he is in admonishing her for how poorly she acted.

But he thinks that she's not looking at him because she just doesn't-- she's upset with him for pointing it out. He doesn't know that she's actually feeling guilty and is listening to what he's saying. And by the time she turns to like, actually, like, take her leave of him and say goodbye, he's turned away and the carriage is moving, and then she feels even worse because now she's just rudely left Knightley behind without a word exchanged.

You know, he's admonished for her behavior and then she doesn't say anything and she cries the whole way home. And Harriet's also in a mood, but it doesn't really say why.

Emily: I mean, you know, even if [00:24:00] nothing touching me had happened at that party, I would've been in a mood too.

Lauren: Agreed.

Emily: It was just a bad day all around.

Lauren: No one really enjoyed themselves.

Emily: Definitely not. But, bright and early the next morning, Emma decides that she needs to atone for what she's done. She needs to go and apologize to Ms. Bates and make it clear that she was in the wrong. Mm-hmm. , which is absolutely incredible for Emma, especially because she goes out first thing so that she can't change her mind.

She doesn't stop to see anybody on the way. She makes no commentary about what her plan is. She just goes right to the Bates to apologize for having been terrible to Ms. Bates.

Mm-hmm. ,

Lauren: and she never actually says the words, I'm sorry, but the meaning is understood by the fact that she came first thing in the morning. She inquires, like, very warmly after Jane who um, is seen being hustled away into her bedroom when Emma first arrives and is, if not well, and needs to lie down. And so Emma's genuinely concerned and that genuine concern comes through. And when Ms. Bates comes into the room after she's helped Jane settle, Emma can tell there's something off in the way that she's interacting with her, because she's still kind of feeling the sting of what Emma said to her yesterday.

But after she asks about Jane, then her spirits kind of pick up again.

Emily: Good on Emma. She did a sincere thing.

Lauren: She did!

Emily: And she humbled herself a little bit in that moment.

Lauren: Need the clip from Insecure. You know what that is? Growth.

Emily: But this is also the visit where we learned that Jane has very suddenly and against previous plans decided that she is going to accept the governess position that Mrs. Elton has arranged with a friend of her sister's.

Mm-hmm. ,

Lauren: which even Ms. Bates didn't know about. It's come out of nowhere for her as well.

Emily: Apparently, Mrs. Elton has been very pushy about it, which is unsurprising. She has told Jane, despite Jane's initial refusal of the position, she said, 'I'm not writing back until I can give them an affirmative.'

And so [00:26:00] Jane, after the Box Hill party, apparently, gave in, and said that she would take the position and in something like two weeks she will be gone from Highbury. Mm-hmm. when only a few chapters before we had learned that she was planning to stay until the Campbells returned from Ireland, which was gonna be like another two months.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: So on a dime, she has changed her mind. Now she is very visibly distraught mm-hmm.  about having made this decision.

Lauren: And we don't know what spurred her to make this decision either, which is, like you said, a complete 180 and also goes against everything that she's been saying. It's a major life change that she seemingly made a decision about in two days without being able to get input or say goodbye to the people who have taken her in for years.

Emily: And poor Ms. Bates is, you know, trying to put a happy face on it and, leaning into the nice things that Mrs. Elton has said about the family. Mm-hmm. , But she's obviously upset at losing Jane, her niece, who she dotes on, who she loves having around. And like we discussed in my history topic on governesses, it's not really a great position to be in.

So it's completely understandable why both Jane and the Bateses are upset about this sudden decision and how quickly she's moving on.

Lauren: Something suspicious is afoot.

Emily: Something is afoot.

Lauren: And speaking of removals, Mr. Knightley is also suddenly needing to leave on business, and Emma only finds this out when she comes back from visiting Ms. Bates and Jane because Mr. Knightley has been sitting with her father, and she can tell when she sees him that he-- or she believes, you know, he hasn't quite forgiven her yet. He's still a little bit upset with her, and he also doesn't know at that point in time that she actually does feel really bad until her dad accidentally kind of like throws her a bone, is like, 'how was your visit to the Bates? You know, Emma went there first thing this morning, blah, blah, [00:28:00] blah,' and Mr. Knightley and Emma look at each other and he immediately knows why she's gone. And he can tell that she's received the message that he gave to her and the response that she gets from him is like, more feeling than we've seen from Mr. Knightley the whole book.

Emily: He, he almost kisses her hands.

Lauren: Yeah!

Emily: Incredible.

Lauren: That's a lot. For what seems to the rest of the room is just a normal thing. Like, okay, you went to go see the Bates. Why is Mr. Knightley acting like you've just become a saint all of a sudden? But...

Emily: You know, I think it probably hit him as being even more significant in the manner of its delivery. Mm-hmm. , because there's no way Emma was gonna go home and tell her father, 'I was really mean to Ms. Bates.' He would've had a heart attack on the spot.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: The fact that he's the one who just says this offhand, he has no suspicion about what's actually happened. Mr. Knightley would know that. Mm-hmm. . And so he knows that there's no ulterior motive in it being announced to him because Emma had no hand in delivering the information.

Mm-hmm.  and I, I think that probably, again, rises her in, in his esteem.

Lauren: I think so, too.

Emily: And then Mrs. Churchill dies.

Lauren: Yeah, really, that's it.

Emily: Yeah, that's it. We end on that note.

Lauren: Yeah. So those were all the myriad events that happened. Where did you see courage in all of this?

Emily: For most of it, I think it came through in a lack of courage. Mm. There's clearly a lot of things not being said by many characters. Mm. It's kind of hard to speak to whether that's a lack of courage or just circumstances dictating what they can and cannot do. But then we also have that breakthrough from Emma of sucking it up, humbling herself and going to Ms. Bates to make amends, even if she didn't in words, apologize.

Lauren: Right. I think that's the, the greatest display of courage we have in these sections, because [00:30:00] it does take guts to one, admit that you're wrong, even to yourself, because I think sometimes we lie to ourselves because that's more mentally safe. And then even more so to then actually go and make amends and open yourself up to the negative opinions of the people who you wronged.

Emily: However, it was also extremely courageous of Mr. Knightley to invite Mrs. Elton to his house.

Lauren: It really was because only Lord knows if she ever would've left without trying to make some sort of change.

Emily: That took guts, my man.

Lauren: You know, the other thing where I saw Mr. Knightley having courage was in the small act of asking Emma what was going on with her and Churchill, only because there was so much emotion tied up in him asking her at all, because he doesn't quite know how to make sense of what seems to be like, changing emotions towards--

um, he has some animosity towards Frank Churchill, and it does say that he has to kind of like, work up the nerve to ask her, because he's not as disinterested of a party as he would like himself to believe. And so it takes some effort to actually ask the question because he doesn't know if he wants to know the answer, really.

Smaller display of courage, but I do still think--

Emily: still significant.

Lauren: A little baby bit. Mm-hmm. . Oh wait. No. You know what we're missing?

Emily: What?

Lauren: Mr. Woodhouse leaving the house.

Emily: So true. Oh my God. He apparently has not been to Donwell in two years when it's like half a mile, a mile away? This is two visits out in the space of six months.

Lauren: That's true courage.

Emily: Absolutely incredible.

Lauren: How did we forget?

Emily: All credit to Mr. Woodhouse. Look, he's an agoraphobe.

Lauren: He is. And facing that phobia truly does take courage.

Emily: Even if he's a little goofy about it.

Lauren: He's a little goofy about it. But you know what?

Emily: He did it and that's what matters.

Lauren: He did it. Good for you, Mr. Woodhouse.

Emily: Round of applause.

Lauren: I wonder if there's any [00:32:00] displays of courage from Jane that we just don't get to interpret as courage yet.

Emily: That's a good point, yeah. Maybe in retrospect we'll see something that happened this section. Mm-hmm.  as having been incredibly brave. Either from her or from anyone else.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: Because the only people we have any interior vision on are Emma most of the time.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: And this little bit of Knightley.

Lauren: Well, I'm interested to hear how you tied courage to a history topic?

Emily: I haven't.

Lauren: Okay, great.

Emily: I'm gonna be real, real upfront with you. I haven't, I kind of chose a random one cuz there --another section where nothing really sprang to my attention mm as to have more context for until there was one tiny thing that was just like, oh, you know what? I don't know anything about that. Let's learn about it.

Lauren: Okay.

Emily: Plus, the first thing that I thought of was Box Hill, but I keep reiterating topics that The Thing About Austen has already done , and I wanted to give that a little bit of a break, so completely unconnected to courage, but still something that came up in the section was the strawberries that Mr. Knightley apparently so famously grows at Donwell.

Lauren: Oh, do tell.

Emily: It was, it was just such a random thing really, is that there was such like, obsession with it on Miss Elton's part. Like, she's so into dressing up in her big bonnet and bringing the basket that has a ribbon on it. It was like, okay, what's up with the strawberries? What's going on here?

So strawberries were not a novelty at this time. They are native to both Europe and the Americas. Their ornamental and medicinal qualities were referenced by ancient Romans like Ovid and Virgil. They were apparently used to treat depressive illnesses. They had been cultivated domestically from about the 14th century starting, especially in France.

So wild strains [00:34:00] were just brought into gardens and grown that way. They were really popular artistic motif throughout Renaissance Europe, so Italy, France, England, a lot of textiles uh, you'll see incorporating that, especially when you get to, like, black work and polychrome embroidery. Uh, from like Tudor and early Jacobian England.

Supposedly, strawberries and cream was invented for the court of Henry VIII by Thomas Woolsey.

Um, but that sounds like something that was probably a thing earlier, like just literally just strawberries and cream.

Lauren: Did the Royal Court 'Columbus' strawberries and cream and claim that they invented it?

Emily: Look, probably. I-- it's the court of Henry the Eighth. They probably did. But after contact with the New World, these varieties from the Americas started being brought over to Europe.

They were being interbred with European varieties, and those crosses largely gave rise to the modern cultivars that we see in our grocery stores today. There was a variety. Fragaria chiloensis, cultivated in Chile by the Mapuche and Huichille peoples. Fragaria virginiana grew wild in North America. Those were both brought over and-- to Europe and crossed with European wild strawberries.

They also, because of all this cross breeding that was going on, influenced some really crucial discoveries about sexual reproduction in plants.

Lauren: Oh, cool.

Emily: Yeah, it was so wild. Strawberries of all things. And most of the modern varieties that we eat today were actually descended from strains that were developed in England in the early 19th century, some of our most popular varieties today.

Lauren: The more you know.

Emily: I know, but yeah, that, that scene where they're out strawberry picking, just it, [00:36:00] it brought to mind for me a lot of the same mindset that we saw in Mansfield Park when, uh, we were talking about like landscape gardens and landscape design. With these fantasies of pastoralism that are harbored by the upper classes who want to go and put on their cute bonnets and pick strawberries or you know, Marie Antoinette and her Petite Trianon pretending to be a shepherdess.

Lauren: Oh my God. Early cottage core.

Emily: Early-- literally it's early cottage core! But yeah, the sort of upper class longing for an idealized simplicity that just doesn't actually exist in real life, it has to be very carefully constructed for them to enjoy. But yeah, I think, I think it's interesting that we, we get another glimpse of that through Austen.

Uh, I also have one fun fact about a name of a variety of strawberries. It's just, it's just very funny to me.

Lauren: Okay.

Emily: It's a French, originally French variety. Um, it's apparently, supposedly the English pronunciation is Ho Boy, but it's, it's spelled H a u t B O I s.

Lauren: What?

Emily: And every time I see it, I say to myself, hot boys! And in French, I think it should be pronounced hautboi.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: But you know, English. Just absolute mangling of any other language we possibly can.

Lauren: English vowels and french vowels don't get along.

Emily: Ho boys.

Lauren: Now I want a poboy.

Emily: Ooh, I didn't even think of that. I was just thinking about strawberries the whole time. So that is our very unconnected, but still hopefully interesting history topic.

Lauren: Beautiful.

Emily: Thank you. Get a little agriculture, a little horticulture in there.

Lauren: If sales of strawberries go up...

Emily: you're welcome, economy. I hope that you have more of a connection to courage than I did.

Lauren: I [00:38:00] do. I think.

Emily: All right. What's our pop culture topic today, Lauren?

Lauren: So, back in September, you may remember that there was a lot of hubbub around a little movie called, Don't Worry, Darling.

Emily: Yes, I remember.

Lauren: And I would like to talk about the courageousness of appearing in public when you know everyone is talking about you.

Emily: Okay.

Lauren: So one of the things that Mr. Knightley says to Emma when he's admonishing her for being really rude to Ms. Bates is that Ms. Bates has fallen from her original station, and as she ages, you know, she's only going to become poorer and her station's going to decrease. And so that makes it even more cruel that you would say something like that to her because you're not on the same social level.

And so that got me thinking about how, because everyone in Highbury knows everyone else and knows everyone's business, that it's even more significant to be out in society knowing that everyone knows all of your insecurities. And so it takes more courage to go out and to interact with people who perhaps used to be your equals and are very clearly now your superiors according to the social order of the day, and still go out and still be cheerful and still act as though everything is fine because that's what society tells you you have to do.

You don't really have another choice. And I think that's a form of courage, of knowing that people are probably speaking about you poorly. When they know that you can't hear and are being polite to you because that's what custom dictates that they do. And wondering if they actually want you around, especially since someone's just been really rude to you, or are they only including you out of obligation and they don't actually want or respect your company at all. And still going out and putting a brave face on that? I think that's courageous.

So then I was thinking about like, what else is courageous about going in public when you know everyone is thinking about you and magnifying that times like a million is celebrity drama and going out in public knowing that not [00:40:00] just everyone in your social circle is talking about you, but a significant portion of like, the nation's population has something to say or an opinion about who you are as a person or your actions, which is a fishbowl that I cannot imagine.

I would never like to be part of. I will be anonymous forever. Thank you so much.

Emily: Now, for the Don't Worry Darling drama you're talking about like the Venice Festival and--

Lauren: Yes.

Emily: All the hubbub around that.

Lauren: All of the hubbub around that, and also the lead up surrounding the Venice Film Festival.

Emily: Okay.

Lauren: So for people who are not perpetually online. Before Don't Worry, Darling was even released, there was already drama happening between Olivia Wilde, Shia LaBeouf, Florence Pugh and Harry Styles. Olivia Wilde is the director of the movie and has also been dating Harry Styles throughout production and the lead up to the movie being released. Everyone knows that they're a couple. Harry Styles still wants to be the weird enigma persona he's trying to portray, and he made a comment in a magazine interview, I think in August that you know, he's never dated anyone publicly. Which sir, why are we lying?

So Olivia and Harry are romantically linked. This is important. We will come back to that. Uh, Olivia Wilde also has been in a relationship with Jason Sudeikis, also known as Ted Lasso, and they have a couple children together. Back in May, she was served custody papers in public at Cinema Con.

Emily: What?!

Lauren: From Jason Sudeikis! Because that relationship has dissolved because she has started a relationship with Harry Styles and the timeline of when the Harry Styles relationship began and her relationship with Jason Sudeikis ended is a lital blurry. Uh oh.

So there is some drama there and there is also some questionable things happening over how Harry Styles got this role because the reason Shia LaBeouf is involved in this is because he was the [00:42:00] person originally cast in the lead male role, which is what Harry Styles has. And the original story from Olivia Wilde is that because Shia LaBeouf has domestic abuse allegations, she, as a feminist really wants to create a welcoming work environment for the other people on her set and was not going to have Shia LaBeouf there.

Emily: So why was he ever there, if that was your concern.

Lauren: Valid point. She didn't address that.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: The receipts that were then later brought to the table by Shia were a leaked video of her basically asking him to come back because he had quit. And also speaking poorly about Florence Pugh, who was a female lead opposite of Harry Styles.

So there has been all of this drama happening before we even get to the premiere of the movie. And people who are more plugged into either celebrity drama or film Twitter, or honestly Harry Styles Twitter because his stans know everything, have been watching all of this play out. But it doesn't really hit like public public knowledge until she gets served with papers at Cinema Con in May, and then people start to take notice of the fact that something is going on.

So there's been all of this drama happening before we even get to the premiere, and so we arrive at Venice Film Festival also with the knowledge that because of the drama with Olivia and Harry on set, there's rumors that Olivia's a poor director and that Florence Pugh, the lead actress, has been having to take more of a lead role on set than she should have because Olivia's distracted by Harry.

In ways that have not been confirmed. But Florence Pugh usually really promotes her films. She's very online. She is like, um, a fan in that way, in that she's very plugged into everything that's happening. She is notably really not doing any posting or press or any kind of discussion around, Don't Worry, Darling, despite the fact that she's the lead actress in the film.

So people are starting to take note.

Emily: Yeah, it's a little interesting.

Lauren: It's a little [00:44:00] interesting. It's a little suspicious. And as we get closer and closer to the premiere at Venice Film Festival, more things begin to come out. So like in the lead up-- in between Cinema Con, where Olivia Wilde gets served, is when Shia LaBeouf Leaks a video that she actually, like-- he had quit and she had asked him to come back. There was more drama going on with Harry. It's becoming more apparent that your lead actress really cannot stand you.

And so here we are at Venice Film Festival. Everyone knows all of this drama and you need to go and show up at the film festival, not just in front of the hundreds of spectators, but also in front of the millions of people who are watching online.

And you need to show up, and you need to act as though everything is fine and you need to put it together because you now need to be a professional and go and promote this movie. And regardless of the ethics or the acts that you may or may not have engaged in over the course of the production of this movie, that's really hard.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: I'm not taking sides in this drama. I always say I love mess, but I just like spectating. There's too many moving parts going on.

Emily: Not trying to pass judgements.

Lauren: No. And I also don't-- like, no one actually really knows what happens. This is all like, unsubstantiated rumor except for like the leaked videos or whatever that we've seen.

But I can only imagine how much courage it takes and how difficult it is when after being like publicly served papers, you are dating someone and ended a relationship for somebody who won't publicly claim you and says that he's never publicly dated anyone. Yeah, your lead actress hates you. There's drama about the movie that is eclipsing the actual work of art itself that you've been trying to create, but you need to go out and engage with the world and engage with the very community that you know is most plugged into this drama because it's their job to know about everything about this.

Emily: This is why I have absolutely no desire to be a celebrity.

Lauren: No.

Emily: It sounds absolutely horrendous having to live every facet of your life in public unless you're [00:46:00] like, Lee Pace. Yeah, watching all this has just been absolutely absurd and I didn't know anything before the festival debacle.

So picking through whatever details pop up on posts and only seeing bits and pieces of what's going on. Yeah, you've definitely gotta have a certain amount of courage to get through that with anything resembling poise.

Lauren: 100%. And if you crack, it will immediately be caught on video, on photo dissected by everyone. So you really have to be on your A-game, because there's, there's no room for error. In that sense. Olivia Wilde, that was very courageous because girl, it could not have been me. I would've said, you know what? I know it is my professional duty to go and premiere my movie in Venice, but I will pass on the opportunity to go to Venice in favor of hiding in my house.

Emily: Just every single person on Twitter has been that Marie Kondo GIF. I love mess.

Lauren: Yes. It's like one of those things that just feels like we can all unite to just like, Kiki on the timeline about something that doesn't actually matter. To us, anyway. Like it matters to the people who were actually involved in the movie.

But this is like nice low stakes drama that we can engage in. Celebrities are serving their purpose again, thank you so much.

Emily: Nature is healing.

Lauren: Nature is healing, and I'm, I'm sorry that your purpose requires so much courage because , I would not like to be the subject of people cartwheeling down the timeline making fun of me.

Uh, so props to y'all cuz I couldn't hack it.

Emily: That was such a fun topic. Thank you for bringing the Don't Worry Darling drama into our podcast. I love it.

Lauren: I was determined. I really, I don't have anything else to follow up other than, Do you wanna do our final [00:48:00] takeaways?

Emily: Would love to, despite the fact that I have to go first.

Lauren: You do.

Emily: I think my takeaway is that we draw on our own courage more in our lives than we think we do. Mm. Because there are a lot of things that require the support of courage that we don't necessarily realize. We're, we're being brave about things a lot more than it seems.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: Something like swallowing your pride or putting on a happy face, it, it can take a lot out of you. What's your takeaway?

Lauren: I think that my final takeaway is that courage is made more profound by fear, and that when you dread doing something or when there's like, a risk to you, then that's when I suppose being courageous is, uh, even more significant. And then tied to that is that you really can't have courage without fear of something because without fear, you're not really being courageous.

Emily: I like that. That's also a nice corollary too that, uh, the quote about how courage is not the absence of fear. Mm. Um, I can't remember the rest of it.

Lauren: Wait, let's look it up. "Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."

Yeah.

Emily: Very nice.

Lauren: That was a much more eloquent way of saying what I tried to say.

Emily: Shall we pull our tarot?

Lauren: Yes. We shall.

Emily: it is the Jack of Diamonds or the Star.

Lauren: Hope.

Emily: Hope.

Lauren: Yeah. And, funnily enough, the character who is the artwork on this card is from Emma. So the short description is, 'Jane Fairfax in Emma was orphaned as a girl, yet she grows up to sing and play piano and so,' and a spoiler, which I will not read.

So Jack of Diamond slash the Star is Hope.

Emily: How lovely.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.[00:50:00]

Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time we'll be reading chapters 46 through 50 of Emma with a focus on hope.

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 get 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 art is by Emily Davis-Hale.

Lauren: See you next time nerds.

What's so funny?

Emily: Sorry, I'm-- I'm still thinking about...about hot boys! I need to turn my iPad off cause I keep seeing the word and I just crack myself up.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: sorry. For, for, for anyone who knows McElroy Brothers lore. I'm in their voices going, hot boys!

Lauren: I just looked over at Emily and they were trying to suppress a giggle. I was like, I haven't done anything funny, what's happening?

Emily: I'm so sorry. Let me move on mentally from the strawberries.

Lauren: Okay.