Emma: Final Thoughts

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It's the wrap-up of (spoiler) one of our favorite Austen novels! Listen to find out where Emma stands in our estimation, what we'd say to the characters, and our biggest takeaways from this delightfully infuriating book.

Transcript

Reclaiming Jane Season 4 Episode 12 | Emma Final Thoughts

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 wrapping up our discussion of Emma and giving some questionable advice to our favorite characters.

Emily: I gotta say, I always enjoy how we're very, like, NPR voice for the intro, and then it immediately deteriorates. 

Lauren: You only need it just for that. beginning and ending at the episode, we can switch into the radio voice and then after that, no one wants to listen to that for the entirety of the podcast.

Emily: Seriously, that's not what this is.

Lauren: That's not why you're here. we have come to the end of, I mean, this is one of my personal favorite Jane Austen novels. Now that you've finished it, where does it rank for you? 

Emily: I think, oh, this is really hard. Pride and Prejudice is still my top. And that is probably, you know, first exposure bias, because, you know, I read it when I was a teenager and it was extremely formative. but I feel like Sense and Sensibility and Emma are kind of warring for second place. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Emily: I feel like Sense and Sensibility has more compelling conflict in it, but Emma is just so much fun. 

Lauren: I feel like there are more hijinks than conflict in Emma.

Emily: Definitely. 

Lauren: And the stakes are a little bit lower as well because of where Emma's positioned just socially, because she's one of our only, like, truly rich Austen heroines where she doesn't have the looming pressure of there is something that could put you out in the street, [00:02:00] destitute, forever. Better make a decision.

I hope you figure it out. 

Emily: Yeah. Until the very final chapters, she's saying the entire time, I'm never going to get married. And that's a perfectly valid choice for her. 

Lauren: Yeah. And that won't have negative consequences the way that it would for other Austen main characters. 

Emily: Yeah, and that definitely changes the feeling of the book.

It feels much more high society shenanigans. even though she's messing with the lives of people who are not high society. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Emily: Harriet. 

Lauren: Poor girl.

Emily: But it has a very different underlying emotional base, I feel like, whereas the others, like you said, the stakes are a lot higher. 

Lauren: Yeah. I enjoy Emma so much, so I'm, I'm sad to be coming to an end, but excited that we now get to discuss it in full.

Emily: since you have read Emma before you have a formed experience with it already. How was this approach for you? Did it change the way you looked at it? Do you like it more or less? 

Lauren: Hmm I think I like it more. I think because this book is a little bit lighter, similar to other readings we've done before, I think I have a better understanding of the nuances within Emma from like the historical context that you bring into it and a different way of understanding some of the characters, but I don't think that my overall understanding of the book has changed drastically. I do think that, I enjoy it a little bit more because I have those additional interpretations and those other thoughts that I can bring into my reading of the book.

And I also now have the experience of like reading it as the podcast community. And that just automatically elevates my enjoyment of it so much more because I like being able to read something like in this little mini podcast book club. It's so much fun. 

Emily: It's so much fun. 

Lauren: And I like seeing people's reactions to what we said on Twitter or on Instagram and seeing how other people interpret things in ways completely different than the way that we do.

[00:04:00] but yeah, I think I already really enjoyed the book. for me it's top three, not my top two, but top three. My top two is coming up. so we'll see if after, after our next season what my rankings are and if they've changed. 

Emily: We'll have to see what my rankings are too! 

Lauren: To be determined! I dunno. I really, really love our next book.

Emily: Yeah, sorry. I think Mansfield is probably gonna stay at the bottom for me. 

Lauren: I think that's a fair assessment.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: And what about you? What are your overall thoughts on Emma as a book? we'll save Emma as a character for later, but Emma, the book, what are your overall thoughts? 

Emily: It definitely doesn't have the gravity of the others that we've read, and I think because of the positioning of our point of view alongside Emma, where she doesn't have the same kind of cares as the protagonists of any of our other books.

but that lack of gravitas also allows for so much humor and so much commentary by Austen that it was, it was kind of just a silly, fun read almost, despite the fact that it's a fairly long book. 

Lauren: Yeah. I think even though it's still dealing with like those societal questions, Jane Austen likes to bring up in her books.

It was because the stakes are so much lower, it was still like a fun lighthearted book. And then if you pay attention, you realize, oh, there's actually a lot at work here with questions of social status and power and, interpersonal interactions that she's doing a lot of work on the page in writing that underlying commentary.

You don't have to understand all the commentary to have fun reading the book. I think it enhances the book, but you can also just read the surface story for what it is and have a fantastic time reading the story and laughing at the hijinks of all the characters. 

Emily: Yeah, definitely. I think it also is really interesting [00:06:00] how just taking away that one pressure of marriage from the-- functionally, the point of view character

 changes the perspective so intimately, and I don't really know how to explain it, but class-wise, yes. Emma's a bit higher up than our, our previous heroines. But not that significantly. It's really the fact that she knows she's going to be taken care of. She's not out looking for a husband, whether from her own volition or from external pressures, and just having that taken off of her turns the focus so much more to all of the characters around her

, and that makes this book feel very different from the previous ones.

Lauren: I think that's really similar to what I was going to say in that because she doesn't have to focus on herself and her future prospects. She can just be in everybody else's business, which she is thrilled to do. But because Emma is nosy and in everybody else's business, it also means that we get to see the lives of these characters as interpreted by Emma in a way, and so we get, I think, more insight into, like, the secondary cast of characters than we normally would, just because Emma has more cause to interact with them more because her singular focus, like as a protagonist, is not to secure her own future.

So she's not hyper focused on a sibling's prospects or on herself or on a love interest, and she doesn't even think that she has a true love interest until the last couple chapters of the book. She is content with saying that she has people who she might, you know, entertain, but she's never going to actually get married.

So a love interest ostensibly is completely out of Emma's brain for the entirety of the book until we get to the end. 

Emily: It's very funny to me that for being, I think, perhaps the most self-centered protagonist we've seen so far, having Emma's perspective gives us so much [00:08:00] more of a view of everyone around her.

And that's because she is relating to them entirely in ways that relate to how she can affect their lives. 

Lauren: Yeah. It's a funny contradiction that she's definitely the most, like, self-interested character that we have, but because she sees people as being able to advance her own interests, we get more of the, of the people of Highbury than we normally would from an Austen protagonist.

Emily: And what a cast of characters it is. 

Lauren: What a cast of characters it is. 

Emily: This is, it feels like so much of an ensemble piece because you really couldn't focus more intensely on Emma and still have the same experience. You have to get to know everyone around her and see their idiosyncrasies and the way they drive each other up a wall too.

You kind of feel the sense of the community that Highbury is and we don't really get that in any of the other books, possibly because most of them are pretty narrow in their, their focus of characters that's centered around a family or just their close friends. But you get the view of that whole, at least from a certain class up, you get a view of that whole community in a way that really does invite a lot of that classic Austen commentary on social difference. 

Lauren: She does. She does it so well. Not to ever call Jane Austen of all people like a one trick pony, but she definitely has a focus and a recurring theme in her books, and she does it exquisitely well. 

Emily: It's absolutely the strength of her books, I would say.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. 100%. Yeah. 

Emily: Aside from those very quotable lines, there's so many. 

Lauren: We've already given Knightley his lashings. We'll probably continue to do so in this episode, but I do really love the line of like, "if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more." 

Emily: An arrow to my heart. 

Lauren: Ugh. I like, I'm sorry, Darcy's line still like, take the cake from me so far [00:10:00] at this point.

But that is a close contender. That's a pretty good one. 

Emily: if I were still in my teenage habit of writing down every single quote that ever made me feel anything that would've gone right down in the notebook. 

Lauren: Oh my God, that's so cute. 

Emily: I think I still have several of those little journals. . 

Lauren: That's adorable. I wanna see what teenage Emily was writing down in their journal. what other general thoughts do you have about Emma before we start thinking about our, our themes and our pop culture connections? 

Emily: I don't know if I do have other thoughts, just generally that it was, it was very enjoyable. And again, that may be starkly contrasted with Mansfield Park being the last one that we read, but it was just, it was more of a romp than the others have been.

Lauren: And even compared to things like Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, it was just a lot more lighthearted and something where you could be invested in the characters without feeling as though there was going to be, a chance of disaster happening to someone. 

Emily: Definitely. 

Lauren: Everyone gets their happily ever after, to tie it back to an earlier pop culture connection, people have a situation that is pleasing to them, whatever that is, and they just get to ride off into the Highbury sunset, it's lovely. For now, you know. 

Emily: Cottage core fantasy. 

Lauren: It is. just don't look too closely at the Eltons' marriage, they may be the one to make that all fall apart.

Emily: Ooh, that's true. But we can talk about that later. 

Lauren: We can talk about that later. 

Emily: Well, do we wanna go ahead through our, the retrospective of our topics?

Lauren: Would love to. 

Emily: So, we had 11 episodes of analysis for Emma. One of our most expansive books thus far. And our themes were effort, tradition, stability, caution, movement, beginnings, assertion, waiting, courage, hope, and sharing. 

Lauren: This was also, an interesting season to have themes since we were using the tarot deck again, and rather than deciding on a list of themes ahead of [00:12:00] time and then randomly assigning them to sections, we found out in real time what we were going to be reading the next section through, which has been a fun way to approach things.

Emily: Yeah, I really enjoy this method because there is truly no telling what we're going to get. We can't prepare ahead of time. 

Lauren: Mm-hmm. No, it's always just, it's a mystery and I enjoy having at least the task of deciding what the themes are taken out of our hands, because I also think that we come up with better ideas or better ways of reading the book because we're not limited by only what we can come up with as far as themes, like having an outside force that helps us think about, oh, I hadn't even considered that as a way to focus on the chapter is great.

I never would've said, 'oh, let's read Emma with a focus on movement,' because what would I, what would I do with that? But we were able to come up with some really interesting things. 

Emily: Yeah. We're not coming in with preconceived notions of what we want to get out of the book. We're just kind of letting it happen.

Lauren: Exactly. Like what will be will be. We'll find out! I hope it creates a good episode! What was your favorite theme that we read through? 

Emily: I think my favorite might have been one of the more recent ones, actually. I liked talking about courage. 

Lauren: Oh, okay. 

Emily: And all the different ways that that can manifest depending on who you are and what your circumstances are.

That's a topic that is, kind of universally pertinent. I think especially the idea of having to have courage to kind of jump into the unknown, no matter how great or small it might be, you still have to kind of steel yourself for certain things and just, you know, being an adult in the world that we live in, everything takes a little bit of courage right now.

Lauren: Amen to that. 

Emily: Did you have a favorite theme? 

Lauren: I think mine was from earlier in the season. I think mine was movement because when [00:14:00] we first pulled that tarot card, I had mentioned this earlier, but I truly had no idea. I was like, what on earth are we going to do with movement? How do we use that as a theme? but that one surprised me because I realized that that was something that we could do so much with.

So we could talk about the physical movement of characters in their travels, but also it opened up a really cool conversation about social mobility and what that looked like. Who has social mobility and who doesn't? what does it mean to have the privilege of mobility or that you don't have any mobility at all because you're already at the top

and the only place you can go is down, in which case it's not really mobility, it's more of a social downfall. so I think just out of the unique nature of that theme and then how we were able to interpret it, I think that that one was my favorite. I really didn't think I was going to get as much out of it as I did.

Emily: That one was a lot of fun. I remember, enjoying it very greatly at the time. 

Lauren: Yeah, it was, it also helped that, that happened to be a section, I think, where characters were physically moving all over the place. I think-- 

Emily: yeah, that was helpful. 

Lauren: I think that was where Frank Churchill decided to go to London just to get his haircut.

Emily: It was. 

Lauren: Allegedly! Now we know that there were ulterior motives for him to go to, to London, but on its face, this man was just jetting back to the city for a haircut. NBD. 

Emily: Absolutely ridiculous. 

Lauren: Just speaking of social mobility, my God, like the fact that he had the disposable income just to say, oh, I'm just gonna pop over to London for a day. BRB. What? 

Emily: Meanwhile, I'm here in the 21st century, like I could just trim my split ends myself. 

Lauren: I don't need to go to a hairstylist. It's fine. Yeah. I think that was my favorite. you also have, you are the, the keeper of our historical connections. 

Emily: Yes, I was. 

Lauren: So did you have a favorite one to research or to discuss?

Emily: Well, let's recap them first for everyone who has, you know, probably not binged the entire season before they came to listen to this. If you did, good on you, I guess? 

Lauren: [00:16:00] congrats. Welcome. 

Emily: That's a significant investment of time, but our history themes were medicine, religious houses, sea bathing, governesses, travel, the grand tour, postal services, the Romani people, strawberries, funerals, and purple.

Lauren: Okay. All right. What was-- okay, either your favorite to talk about or your favorite to research? 

Emily: I think probably my favorite to talk about was the dye, just because that fits perfectly into my little textile obsession that we have going on. favorite to research might have been the postal service, weirdly.

Lauren: Yeah?

Emily: Yeah. Because it just operates so differently than how we know mail services today. And it, it gave also deeper context to the books that we've read before, because there's always letter writing going on, and I didn't really understand, like, how quickly that could move or what was involved in sending letters to people.

so yeah, funnily enough that one was kind of my favorite research, I think.

Lauren: Neat. 

Emily: Did you have a, a favorite to learn about? 

Lauren: Ooh, I really liked our historical topic of the Romani people because I think one, that's a culture and a people that's still really misunderstood today. And so I really liked that we were able to bring that discussion in since they were mentioned so strangely in the book, it was a really perfect opportunity to discuss, okay, well how does, how does a group of people become dehumanized and villainized in this way?

And then what's the actual true culture behind like this idea of a person or a culture that we get through either historical books like this or modern pop culture interpretations that are very flat and don't actually get at the heart of who the Romani people are. So I think that was, that was my favorite because I really enjoyed being able to both learn more and to add something else to that scene [00:18:00] with Harriet.

I think that was a necessary contextual add. 

Emily: Yeah. In my mind, I kind of group that one with the slavery episode from Mansfield Park just in terms of treading topics that are, modernly kind of controversial to link in discussion with Austen. 

Lauren: Right. 

Emily: But it was definitely one, like as soon as I came across that reference as I was reading, it was like, that has to be my topic,

 because that's the kind of thing it that we don't wanna leave out of our conversation about these things. Yeah, we like random topics like strawberries, but there are also deep historical precedents to the way that the world is now, and they do come across in these novels, even though we tend not to think of Austen as being related to those kinds of, things.

Lauren: Yeah. Everything is connected. I really like that. I thought that was a, a great topic. So thank you for your research.

Emily: You're so welcome. What about our pop culture topics? 

Lauren: Those were equally random and varied.

Emily: It was a very scattershot season in terms of the topics that we chose. 

Lauren: It was, I think it definitely, or not definitely.

It hopefully makes for some interesting listening, but the pop culture connections that we had this year were, reality TV and makeovers, book to movie or TV show adaptations, stubborn characters like Gaston and Lady Catherine, the Bridesmaids movie, class and social mobility, specifically influencers in the upper class and what the upper class looks like today.

K-pop debuts, and K-pop in general, white feminism and who can be assertive, damsel in distress characters, Don't Worry Darling and being in the public eye, being famous in general, the secret relationship trope and then happily ever after. we went all over the place. 

Emily: We really did. What was your favorite to talk about or to, you know, get that thrill of connection with Austen?[00:20:00] 

Lauren: Ooh. I think one of my favorites to talk about was the Don't Worry Darling drama and being in the public eye. That was just hilarious to me to talk about because, I am Marie Kondo. I love Mess and I love any excuse to talk about messy celebrity drama, but also to talk about why discussing messy celebrity drama can have some kind of relevance to our own normal people interactions, thinking about the consequences of being in the public eye and the courage that that takes while also saying, let's talk about how Harry Styles may or may not have spat on Chris Pine. That was a joy. As far as connection to Austen, I think my favorite one was, white feminism, who can be assertive.

I think that was my other favorite. What about you? 

Emily: I think my favorite was influencers. Just because they fascinate me so much. Like sometimes I feel like I am a different species from internet influencers, but also having the ability in that to look at aspiration as a concept and who creates the things that we aspire to and the social norms and mores around all of that is just so fascinating. Like maybe I should have been a philosopher instead of a linguist. 

Lauren: But you can just be a cultural critic. . 

Emily: No, thank you. That sounds terrible. 

Lauren: That's okay. I'll do it. No, but I think you're so right in that influencer culture just in general is fascinating and it's especially interesting to me now because I have multiple friends who are like, micro influencers and seeing who they are as people and who they are when the camera's not on is like nine times out of 10 the same, but it's fascinating seeing what their internet persona is and then also knowing them as a [00:22:00] person.

Seeing where there is or isn't a disconnect is super fascinating and sometimes a little bit uncanny valley where it's like, oh wow, like I had this perception of you as a person because you are my friend and I'm close with you and I know who you are just as a human being, but other people only have what you decide to share with them, like, on whatever social media platform that you use. And that's their only perception of you. And that's so wild because I know who you actually are, but these people never actually will. They only get this very flat idea of who you are. It's weird. It's trippy. 

Emily: Yeah. That's something that I, I agree completely that it is trippy, but also something that I think a lot of us need to think about more.

 because the majority of us, I would venture to say, are on social media. I think a lot of us, me included, forget that there is an entire person behind what goes on social media. and I, I forget that about myself. You know, whatever I tweet, whatever I post on Instagram, I forget that 99.9% of the people who are seeing that have no idea who I am.

Emily: and it's just really weird to remember that not only am I only seeing a fraction of who all these other people are, they don't know anything about me either. 

Lauren: I think that's part of why that new social media app BeReal has been gaining traction. I've had multiple people ask me to get on the app. I get the point of it, but I just, I cannot have another social media app.

I can't do another one, but --

Emily: Okay. I've been trying to understand this. Does it just pop up at a random time? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Emily: And when you open the app, it just automatically does the thing? 

Oh 

Lauren: no, it's not gonna automatically take a picture for you. Like it's, it's not gonna be that violation of privacy. Like you get to choose a moment. it's, so I think the, the general idea is supposed to be, the whole point is to be real.

So rather than being able to curate your day, it'll say, oh, at now 2:28 PM this is your moment to be real. So take a picture of whatever's happening in your day at that time, whether you're [00:24:00] in bed eating popcorn and like watching a romcom or you're hiking a mountain, like whatever you're doing at that point in time is when you post.

but I think you still get to decide when you post, because now the problem is that because it's not gonna force you to like take a picture, people take a picture later and then upload it. It's like, okay, but the whole point was for you to post when you weren't necessarily doing something interesting.

Emily: And people still find a way to curate. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Emily: Because we realize even if it's subconscious, we realize that we're creating a public persona. there are some things that you don't post on social media, or at least some people don't. I don't know. I, I know some people who will post literally anything and I question that decision.

Lauren: Okay. So now that we've done our themes, our historical connections, our pop culture connections, do we wanna move into giving some questionable and slightly tipsy advice to the characters of Emma? 

Emily: Absolutely. Have you curated our list this time? 

Lauren: I have. So we can choose what order we'd like to go in, but I have, six, perhaps seven characters depending on how we wanna spin it.

Emma is of course, a given.

Emily: Obviously. 

Lauren: Mr. Knightley, Harriet, of course, Frank Churchill, Jane Fairfax, and then either or both of the Eltons. 

Emily: I'm so glad the Eltons are on that list because I was thinking about them earlier. 

Lauren: Oh, good. I debated adding Mr. Woodhouse, but I feel like our advice to him would just be, I don't know, hang out under a blanket or something. I don't, I dunno what to tell you. 

Emily: Go get some edibles, my guy. 

Lauren: Yeah. What are the regency equivalent of edibles? Is that just alcohol? Can you find some, some herbs to smoke? I don't know.

Emily: surely they had weed. 

Lauren: Yeah. But like do the upper class people know about weed or is that just the lower class people having a ball?

Emily: I do not know. But where, where shall we begin? 

Lauren: Let's start with the Eltons, because you were already thinking about them. 

Emily: All right. I don't know if I had any advice in mind. I just think that they deserve each other. . [00:26:00] 

Lauren: That is true. Yeah. 

Emily: Did you have any actual advice for them? 

Lauren: I think my advice for... hmm. She doesn't need to smile more, Mrs. Elton, I was going to say talk less. Smile more. 

Emily: Lauren, it is 2022.

Lauren: Yes. 

Emily: Or actually by the time this airs it might be 2023. 

Lauren: It will, it will be 2023. It is a dated reference, but it is relevant to her . I just need her to be a little, be a little quieter. What I tell my students, I'm gonna put my Student Affairs hat on.

I just facilitated a workshop today, and one of the ground rules that we set is listen to understand, not listen to respond. So instead of already forming your response or rebuttal in your brain, as you're listening to people talk, listen to actually understand what they're saying instead of already be-- instead of already trying to decide what you're going to say to them and

she's not really thinking about what to say in response ever, because I don't think that she -- she lets people get a word in edgewise. But I would say actually listen to other people to understand them and not just to confirm what you already think about yourself. 

Emily: Yes, absolutely. And I would tell Mr. Elton to get over himself. 

Lauren: Yeah. And maybe if you, I don't know that he was planning on proposing to Emma, but maybe plan a sober proposal. I'm not exactly in the best position to say that, but I'm also not planning a proposal to anyone at the moment. So! 

Emily: Yeah, I feel like that's solid advice. Like unless they're extenuating circumstances, plan a sober proposal, please.

Lauren: You know, you are not in Vegas, you're not running off to go get married by Elvis. Maybe have one less glass of wine if you think that there is even the slightest chance you may be asking a literally life altering question.

Emily: Especially to a woman who is definitely out of your league. 

Lauren: Oh, by leaps and bounds. Bruh. Think it through. 

Emily: All right, who are we taking to task next? 

Lauren: I feel [00:28:00] like we need to go with Frank Churchill next. 

Emily: Okay. Okay. How do I sum up everything that I wanna say to Frank Churchill? Behave better? 

Lauren: Yes. agree with all of that, but how would you like him to behave better?

he, he took a lot of liberties with a lot of people's feelings without having earned the confidence to do that.

Emily: And so I think he needs to be much more careful of the people around him, especially the people that he cares about, like Jane. 

Lauren: I think that relates to my advice and also throwing it back to like one of the other themes we had of courage is have the courage to just be honest with the people around you instead of forcing the woman you love into this months long charade of secrecy.

Because truly, if his aunt hadn't died, I don't know what his end game was. 

Emily: Seriously, what was your plan, my dude? 

Lauren: What? I don't think there was one. It-- completely irresponsible. No forward thinking whatsoever, we'll just be secretly engaged and somehow think that that's going to work and that neither of us are going to have any adverse consequences.

Just have the courage to just be honest with the people around you and to tell 'em what you really think. Because Jane is lovely and honestly the way you're acting, you do not deserve her. You're very lucky she still said yes because that was abhorrent. 

Emily: Absolutely agree.

Lauren: So yeah, just. I hate like, the gendered phrase of like, man up and just be honest.

But man up and be honest dude. Come on. The end. 

Emily: The end. That was it. No more advice. 

Lauren: No more advice for him. Just be honest and stop forcing people into secrets that are like harmful. That is, you involve so many people in the charade for no good reason and that really almost blew up in your face. You got very lucky.

Emily: He's so lucky it didn't, like what was he gonna do if Mrs. Churchill had lived like another 20 years?

Lauren: Or even if she hadn't [00:30:00] died and he just was not good at his mail and he didn't realize that Jane had accepted a governess position. 

Emily: Seriously!

Lauren: Because what, what would've happened if he didn't get to her until after she'd already started her new position?

Was she just gonna say, actually, just kidding. Bye. I started this new job and now I'm gonna leave after three days? 

He got 

Emily: so damn lucky. He better recognize that. 

Lauren: Truly, like even by timing, he got lucky because if she had been there already, I feel like Jane is the type of person who would say, I'm so sorry, I've already made this commitment. I'm here now. You know, you had a chance to have pursued this engagement and you told me to be quiet and not say anything. So... sorry. 

Emily: Frank ain't shit. 

Lauren: No. Trifling. 

Emily: All right. Who's up next? 

Lauren: Shall we go with Jane? I feel like that's a natural transition. 

Emily: Yes. Let's go with Jane. Oh, Jane. I, we've, we've hit this problem a couple of times in past books, but I, I feel like there's no advice that I could really give her because she made what she thought were the best decisions at the time.

maybe don't put up with so much from Frank. You deserve better. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she deserves much better in her treatment from Frank, but I, we also talked about how she's kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place, and being a governess isn't a great life option for people. 

Emily: Definitely.

Lauren: And so I think Frank was a better option than being a governess, but she deserves better than Frank.

I mean, she'll be rich, at least. So there's that. 

Emily: Yeah. So make the most of it, I guess is my, is my advice to her. 

Lauren: Yeah. But I do agree with you that she deserves better. yeah, maybe, maybe My advice is demand better from Frank. 

Oh, that's good. if this is the person who you're going to be with, then hold his feet to the fire and ask him to be more for you. He's clearly whipped, so you might as well. 

Emily: And she deserves a man who's whipped for [00:32:00] her. 

Lauren: She does. She deserves somebody who wants to dote on her loudly and in public, not in secret letters and practically ignores her in public. You deserve all the good things in the world, and you should make sure that Frank facilitates that for you. 

Emily: Once again, the Jane character deserves everything and we want her to have it. 

Lauren: Gee, I wonder what anybody couldn't have thought of when they were creating these perfect characters named Jane. I don't know what the author was doing with that. I don't know what she's trying to tell us.

Emily: it's just a common name. There's nothing more to read into it. 

Lauren: No, nothing else. 

Emily: All right. We wish the best for Jane Fairfax. Who's next? 

Lauren: Harriet. 

Emily: Oh, Harriet. This is advice that we have given several times, but Harriet, I need you to grow some semblance of a spine. 

Lauren: Stand up. Stand up!

Emily: Emma Woodhouse does not deserve to be your idol. That's, I -- 

Lauren: the end. 

Emily: The end. I, I, yeah. I don't know what I can say to Harriet because she's just, so, every time I think of her I just, it's synonymous with, "Bless her heart." 

Lauren: Yep. Sweet baby girl. Oh honey. 

Emily: Not a brain cell to be had. 

Lauren: It's not her fault. 

Emily: It's not. 

Lauren: She tries. She tries so hard. 

Emily: Oh yeah. I will never forget her burning the precious items that she had from her infatuation with Mr. Elton. 

Lauren: The plaster. I can't get over the fact that she basically kept a bandaid. Thank God not a used one, that would've been even more horrifying.

Emily: Oh, seriously. 

Lauren: But like, yeah, he trimmed this extra plaster and I have kept it. Oh my God. [00:34:00] Why? 

Emily: Oh, sweet darling. Harriet.

Lauren: Not the darling coming out.

Emily: It's that bad. 

Lauren: Oh my goodness. Yeah. What would my advice to Harriet be? Maybe listen to your own intuition and not to Emma. We knew from the jump that she belonged with Robert Martin. She was infatuated with that boy. They clearly, like they got along well. They had this cute little summer romance while she was at the farm.

It was adorable. She already had her romcom moment before Emma tried to create one for her. 

Emily: Seriously. 

Lauren: And so I think my advice to her would be, don't ask Emma whether or not you should accept him. Just do it because you know that you're completely in love with him anyway. And Emma does not have your best interests at heart.

Emily: Yeah, I think along basically the same line, I would say to recognize and embrace what makes you happy. 

Lauren: Yeah, that's good advice for any of us to take. Cause it's so easy to get caught up in like the opinions of friends and family over, oh, this is what I think is best for you. And then say, oh, okay, well you know, they have my best interests at heart so maybe they're right cuz I don't really know what I wanna do and it just-- mm-mm.

Emily: The word 'should' is really intoxicating. 

Lauren: It is. Just think about what makes you happy and then act based off of that, not what other people think is, is right. Because they may or may not be correct. They might be totally off base like Emma is. I'm glad she got her happy ending. She deserves.

Emily: Me too. Yes. 

Lauren: I wonder how the Martin sisters treated her after she said yes to, to their brother. I hope they welcomed her back with open arms. 

Emily: The Martins seem like a decent sort, I feel like they would. 

Lauren: Yeah. I think they got over their initial frostiness In that random 15 minute meeting Emma allowed her to have.

Emily: I, I, I don't think we even ever [00:36:00] saw them on the page, but I want to give them enough credit for their intelligence to realize that it was completely Emma's doing.

Lauren: I hope so. 

Emily: Harriet will never recognize that, but maybe someone will. 

Lauren: Somebody will say, you know what, let, let's, let's reframe this. Let's take a, a walk down memory lane and think about what was, one contributing factor or common influence that caused you to make these decisions. 

Emily: It was that cursed amulet.

Lauren: That's what it was. I just gotta take off the amulet. The course, the, the source of all your problems. 

Emily: All right, sweet Harriet, we would like to leave her to her own devices. 

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: is it time to rag on Mr. Knightley? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Emily: It kind of also feels hard to give Knightley advice because he is a pretty solid guy, like he's got his shit together, except for the fact that he's in love with Emma.

Lauren: In other love interests, we see a more evident character arc or growth, but Mr. Knightley kind of stays the same for the entirety of the book. He doesn't have quite as obvious of an arc as other people do. I think he just becomes more aware of his feelings for Emma, but there's not... he hasn't gone on a journey in a way that, like Darcy goes on a journey throughout Pride and Prejudice, or even that Edmund does in Mansfield Park.

He still kind of ends up the same person, but we at least watch him go through some trials and tribulations. Mr. Knightley really doesn't in the same way. 

Emily: Yeah. Like narratively, Knightley, doesn't have to earn the love of the heroine. because he's already very upstanding. He cares about his community. He does what is right in almost every circumstance.

 he's a little judgmental, but given his standing, it's understandable why he is. 

Lauren: He's a little judgey. And, but [00:38:00] with, with reason within context. 

Emily: Definitely. 

Lauren: Yeah. I think really the only, the first thing that comes to mind as far as advice to Knightley is maybe like, don't fall in love with a literal child.

Emily: Yeah. That's super weird. 

Lauren: That's, it's a little weird dude. Like, maybe, maybe don't. 

Emily: I will never get over that. 

Lauren: Never. 

Emily: She could have left out that one line and everything would've been fine, but now we're hung up on it. 

Lauren: Would've been Gucci. We would've been great. And yet here we are. 

Emily: Here we are. 

Lauren: Discussing grooming in Jane Austen.

Emily: Not where I expected that to go. 

Lauren: Yeah. I don't know. He's a difficult character to give advice to. 

Emily: Because he even does change his mind on things. The few things where he does seem to be hasty. His initial criticisms of Harriet, he does come around to seeing her advantages. 

Lauren: Mm-hmm. and takes the initiative on his own.

Yeah. Maybe my only real piece of advice for Knightley would be to keep Mr. Perry on retainer, because now that you're moving in to the Woodhouses' home, you're going to see him a lot. So you might wanna just continue throwing him like a crisp one pound note or whatever. I don't know what the currency conversion is, but just give him some money.

Lauren: Every time you see that man. 

Emily: Yeah, that's probably smart. 

Lauren: Yeah. I don't know, dude. Hey, you're gonna have to just pay him a lot of money. Just be prepared. Include medical expenses in your new budget. 

Emily: Yep. 

Lauren: There won't be a reason, but do it anyway.

Emily: There won't be actual medical emergencies, but no, be prepared. 

Lauren: And bring your cook with you from Donwell Abbey. You will want food that Mr. Woodhouse has not put on the menu. You don't want gruel. I mean, maybe you do. I don't know. Maybe he has terrible taste. He is English. No offense. 

Emily: Even Emma wouldn't eat gruel for her father, so. 

Lauren: No, she wouldn't. 

Emily: Although [00:40:00] speaking of the lady herself, what advice do we have for Miss Emma Woodhouse?

Lauren: You don't know everything. 

Emily: Oh my God. Seriously. 

Lauren: You truly, truly do not. 

Emily: Stop trying to puppet everyone around you because they're not your little play things. Highbury is not just a setting for your own petty dramas. 

Lauren: No. they're all people with their own wants and desires and they're not going to do the things that you think that they should just because you thought it one time and you never actually vocalized that desire.

That is not how things work. 

Emily: You may have gotten lucky with a couple of things like getting the Westons together, but you're not all powerful. 

Lauren: And I think also you are smart, but you're not as smart as you think you are. 

Emily: Yes!

Lauren: You are intelligent, you are a very smart woman. However comma. 

Emily: Real big comma.

Lauren: Very big comma, you're not that smart.

Or maybe not as perceptive. The intelligence is there. The perception needed to pair with that intelligence to actually come to the right conclusions, not present. 

Emily: develop some humility. 

Lauren: Ooh, yeah. That would be, much appreciated by probably most of the people around you. Yeah. Like poor Ms. Bates, you did not have to drag her like that in public.

You weren't wrong, but like it didn't need to be said. 

Emily: Yeah. Emma deserved to be mortified by that. 

Lauren: She did. She was incorrect and I'm glad that Knightley told her that because somebody needed to check her. 

Emily: Definitely. 

Lauren: That was so wrong. 

Emily: Justice for Ms. Bates. 

Lauren: Justice for Ms. Bates! I mean, granted, if we were giving her advice, would my advice be to talk less?

Yes. But like also it's like, nervous talking. She's not doing it on purpose. She just, I, she strikes me as somebody who does not know what to do with silence, and is [00:42:00] also well aware that most of the time, she's on the lower social rung in the situation and so she's already nervous and is trying to make up for whatever deficiencies she might see in herself in the situation.

So like, I get it. Would it personally drive me nuts being in conversation with her? Absolutely. Do I understand it? Also yes. 

Emily: I, yeah. I would say for Emma both humility and patience. 

Lauren: Mm, it is a virtue that you do not have that maybe can be taught. 

Emily: One can only hope. 

Lauren: One can only hope. Bless her heart. Of all of the heroines that we've had, I think Emma is one of the most flawed and one of the ones who perhaps is on the surface most irritating, but also is really entertaining. Like she still manages to be a lovable character despite all of the like, immediate advice we have for her as to how to be a better person. She's still a really fun character to have spent the book with, which is hard to do. 

Emily: Definitely. It was a balancing act for sure.

Lauren: Yeah, because there were certainly characters in Mansfield Park we had lots of advice to give to and they were not fun to read about. To us anyway. but this was great. 

Emily: It was a nice reprieve. 

Lauren: It was. And how have we finished Mansfield Park and we're still ragging on that book? 

Emily: Look. It was just so much. 

Lauren: Any other last pieces of advice for any of the characters, either the six slash seven that we've mentioned or anybody else?

Emily: I think my piece of advice for Isabella would be, your children are probably fine. 

Lauren: Yeah, she is the, the early helicopter mom. 

Emily: Yep. Made in her father's mold. 

Lauren: Oh, 100%, yes. 

Emily: Do you have any other additional advice to dispense.

Lauren: Mr. Weston could stand not to gossip so much. for gossip being a woman's occupation, that man tends to gossip a lot. He is a source of a lot of the, a lot of the town finding out new [00:44:00] information. 

Emily: Yeah, I feel like that was something that I meant to mention in our final analysis episode and just didn't get around to, but, yeah. Ms. Bates gets a lot of credit for being the gossip in the town just because she talks nervously. But Mr. Weston's the one who's actually, dispensing a hell of a lot of information. 

Lauren: He is telling everybody's business and on purpose to the point where Emma and Knightley even count on the fact that once the Westons know, everyone's going to find out because he'll just be, oh, yeah. By the way, did you hear, did you know? 

Emily: That was possibly the funniest part of the last section. Was just, oh, well, if we tell Mr. Weston, everyone else will know within this time period. 

Lauren: We didn't have-- who needs Instagram when you have the town gossip? Just say one thing and wait. 

Emily: Absolutely hilarious. But also I love him. 

Lauren: He is, I think like an example of-- as many examples of bad relationships or absent husbands as we can get in novels. I feel like he's an example of like a good engaged partner, like he and Mrs. Weston always seem to be on the same page and-- 

Emily: it's very cute. 

Lauren: It's very cute and like genuinely enjoy each other's company and are able to confide in one another about like, their worries or their hopes for things and they just seem like a very evenly balanced and matched couple and that's a lovely thing to see.

Emily: It really is. 

Lauren: Evenly matched in a way that the Eltons are not. Like they're evenly matched, but in like, you guys are both infuriating. You deserve each other kind of way. 

Emily: They're opposite ends of the spectrum. 

Lauren: Exactly. This is more of a wholesome. 

Emily: Good well-matched versus terrible, well-matched. 

Lauren: Chaotic good versus chaotic evil.

Emily: Exactly.

Does that wrap up our discussion? 

Lauren: No, think of something else!

Emily: Lauren, I gotta go home. 

Lauren: No! Yeah, I think, I think that does bring our discussion of Emma to a close. 

Emily: Ah, well we do have one last element. We have our final takeaways. 

Lauren: Oh, and I'm first, and-- 

Emily: you are!

Lauren: --I did not start thinking about it as we were having this discussion.[00:46:00] 

Emily: Uhoh. . 

Lauren: Emily said earlier that they were afraid that I was going to take their final takeaway. And I'm going to laugh if that's the case because I truly dunno what mine is. 

Emily: If you fabricate something in the next 10 seconds and it's exactly the same, I'm gonna be so mad.

Lauren: what's coming to mind right now, and my final takeaway might shift after I hear yours as well if it's not the same, I don't think it is. but there's so much miscommunication in this book, that I think my final takeaway is to be honest with other people and to be honest with yourself. 

Emily: That's really good. Yeah. I like that. 

Lauren: Thank you. 

Emily: Yeah, it's, it's definitely related, but not the same prompt.

Lauren: Oh, good.

Emily: Because mine is sort of playing off of some things that we said earlier, but it's also basically like cognitive behavioral therapy for social anxiety is you cannot read minds. You cannot control what other people do, the only person whose behavior you can be accountable for is your own. 

Lauren: I like that. Little mini therapy session. Yes. 

Emily: And that concludes Emma for us. 

Lauren: Oh my gosh. End of an era. 

Emily: I know. It was so much fun. 

Lauren: It was. This has been a joy. It's always a joy, but this was especially fun. 

Emily: We will have some continuation of the joy though, as always, following the end of a season. Our next episode will be six degrees of Austen. Patrons will also at the $5 or up levels, receive an exclusive Emma season sticker. 

Lauren: Woohoo. Stay tuned for social media for the design. 

Emily: I'm so excited about this. our next book, drum Roll. Yeah.

Lauren: Persuasion! 

Emily: Yes. I'm so excited to dive into Persuasion because this is one that I know ranks are really high for a lot of people, including Lauren.

Lauren: Yes. 

Emily: And I have never read any of it. I barely know what happens at all, so. 

Lauren: Oh, good. You've been unspoiled? 

Emily: [00:48:00] I've, I've been pretty well unspoiled, I think. I know like maybe one thing, but also there's so many names attached to Persuasion that I don't know what's going on. 

Lauren: That is fair. 

Emily: I know the main character is Anne.

That's-- 

Lauren: cool. 

Emily: Pretty much it. So yeah, once again, truly I will be unspoiled for whatever happens in Persuasion. 

Lauren: Excellent. 

Emily: Will be a lot of fun. We will announce the premiere of that as soon as we have finalized our plans for, recording and for our posting schedule. 

Lauren: And be on the lookout as well for any extra Emma adaptation discussions we may have on the horizon. We'll post all those details on our website and on our social media so that you have it. 

Emily: We really hope that you have enjoyed our Emma journey as much as we have, thank you so much for coming along with the ride. It's always an absolute delight to see everyone else's commentary around new episodes. I mean, that's part of why we decided to do like a chapter by chapter breakdown for all these books is that we wanted to read it alongside you guys, and I love, every time I get to talk to someone who's actually reading it with us.

Lauren: It literally, it makes my day every time. Oh, thank you once again for being here. We say it every season and every episode but we really, truly mean it.

Emily: We love you guys so much. 

Lauren: So much!

Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming [00:50:00] Jane. Next time we'll be back with our six degrees of Jane Austen segment, using topics that you have suggested and perhaps voted on to connect random things to Jane Austen. 

Emily: To read our show notes and a transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaiming jane pod.com, where you can also find the full back catalog and links to our social.

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: I, I'll see if I can dig one out. It may, it may be late teenage. I've probably lost the ones that were super early, but Oh yeah. I've always been quote obsessed. 

Lauren: That might be for the best. I found one of my journals when I was 14 and was reading it horrified, and I was like, oh no, this-- for, for the sake of my future self, I will not burn this because I will eventually want to go back and remember what I was like when I was a teenager, but, hmm.

Mm-mm. There are certain things, that never needed to be committed to paper. 

Emily: I went through a poetry writing phase at 14. I really desperately hope that that's been lost to the sands of time. Mom, if you find those anywhere, just throw them out. 

Lauren: Please throw. Throw it away. I think some of, most of my poetry notebooks, I think, thank God I did not keep in my actual journal.

My journals I've kept with me and they move from place to place. the poetry was just in like random spiral notebooks and I'm really hoping were just purged at some point. Those don't, I don't need to know. I don't need to know what angsty poetry I was writing when I was 14. It's not good.