Persuasion 1-3: “Who Fears Death?”

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Welcome to a new season! Let's meet the Elliots... Vanity, mortality, and haunting the narrative are the orders of the day.

Show Notes

Welcome to season 5 of Reclaiming Jane!

Usually, we try to still provide a lot of content in between seasons. That way, even though we might not be in your headphones every two weeks, there are still ways to engage with us while we take a brief break and prep for the next season. Readers (and listeners)…this time, our break was ROUGH.

February and the first half of March ended up being personally tumultuous for both of us, and we weren’t able to spend nearly as much time as we would have liked on the podcast. (Or on engaging with you on social — sorry for going MIA.) Returning to recording was a very welcome boost of positivity; recording this episode on schedule was nothing short of a miracle.

But here we are, and we are very excited to start this new book with you. Persuasion is one of Lauren’s favorites, and we know it’s a favorite for many in the Austen fandom as well. Even if it’s not your favorite, we hope you enjoy our takes. If you’re like Emily and this is your first time reading, share your thoughts with us!

Transcript

Reclaiming Jane Season 5 Episode 1 | Persuasion 1-3: “Who Fears Death?”

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 one through three of Persuasion through the lens of death.

Emily: I am so excited about this book. I am so excited about this start to it. So, Persuasion is one that I have not read. We are back in unfamiliar territory for Emily.

Lauren: Which I'm very excited about.

Emily: Yeah, cuz I know Pers-- is Persuasion your favorite Austen?

Lauren: It is my second favorite, but it is very like-- Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice are very, very close for me.

Emily: So that's high praise.

Lauren: It is. I really love this book.

Emily: And I know it's a lot of other people's favorite books as well and I've seen commentary on how it feels more mature among Austen novels. And man, starting with a theme like death, what a way to open the season with a bang.

Lauren: Right. And again, completely coincidental.

And I didn't want to tell you, I was like, oh, this is actually gonna work really well because you haven't read it yet.

Emily: Okay. It works really well with the theme in so many ways.

Lauren: Yep.

Emily: And I can't wait to talk about it.

Lauren: I'm excited. All right. Shall we dive in?

Emily: Let's dive in.

Lauren: Okay. This is unfortunately my turn to go first. So.

Emily: Yeah, we flipped a coin for this one.

Lauren: We did.

Emily: So it's on Lauren.

Lauren: This is, this is not gonna be pretty. I'm gonna tell you that right now.

Emily: That's okay. It usually isn't. We do the recap for the goofs, not necessarily for clarity.

Lauren: This is true.

Emily: Are you ready? [00:02:00]

Lauren: Ready as I'll ever be.

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

Lauren: Okay, so we open with the Elliots of Kellynch Hall.

The father, Sir Walter Elliot is very conceited. He has three daughters. the oldest one is just like him, the middle one Anne, who's just there. And then the youngest one who's the only one who's married. Sir Walter Elliot likes to spend a lot of money without his wife there to check him because his wife has passed away.

So they're going into debt and they now have to move from Kellynch Hall, which none of them is very happy about. It's a scandalous thing to suggest they may have to let it, and that means that someone may be returning to the home.

Emily: Finished with one second left.

Lauren: Let's go!

Emily: Well done.

Lauren: I also, guys, I'll admit, I forgot that we were doing three chapters for this book so that we can still try and keep like the rough same number of episodes.

So I read chapters one through five and then I had to go back and figure out where we stopped at chapter three because I totally forgot that we were changing the number of chapters we read per book.

Emily: Yeah, don't spoil the next two chapters for me.

Lauren: My bad. I, you know what? We stopped ourselves from doing it, so it's all good. It was, it was a close one. Okay. Emily, are you ready to recap three chapters of Persuasion?

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: Okay. On your marks, get set. Go.

Emily: All right. We are introduced to Sir Walter Elliot, who is a man of great importance and his three daughters, his dead wife, and his closest confidants. there is some serious child favoritism going on here because he thinks Elizabeth is great, Mary is fine, and Anne seriously needs help.

Their finances are in dire straits because Sir Walter relied very heavily on his dead wife to keep their finances above water, despite his indulgences. so the solution is that they rent the house, which Sir Walter feels bad about. but they settle on someone.

Lauren: Good. Done.

Emily: Woo. Okay.

Lauren: I was worried about it for a second there. We got to five seconds and I was like, Emily, Emily!

Emily: Also, you almost broke me laughing when I, when I said that we met his dead wife.

Lauren: I almost broke. It was just the way you said it. "We meet Sir Walter Elliott, his three daughters and his dead [00:04:00] wife." I was like, dang!

Emily: But we do, we really do meet her. She's there!

Lauren: Is the dead wife with us in the room right now?

Welcome back to Reclaiming Jane, everybody!

Emily: Woo!

Lauren: But yes, it's The Dead Wife is actually very important to these three chapters.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: Especially because, her absence is why the events of these three chapters are being put into motion. Because she was the more tempered of the two in that relationship. She was the one who could keep Sir Walter Elliott's spending in check.Without his wife there to kind of be that voice of reason and only his eldest daughter who has the same kind of indulgences, we'll say, and the same expensive taste. He's not really been paying any attention to what he's been spending in regards to what he actually has to spend. And there is not a neat way to fix those debts without doing something he does not want to.

Emily: Yeah. Which is why he turns to, Lady Russell, who was a great friend of said wife, and Mr. Shepherd, who is a lawyer, and asks for their help basically in figuring out how he's going to not go completely broke. And the way that they react to these-- I, this, these opening chapters were such a like masterful early foundation of personalities.

 and values, which is really typical of Austen.

Lauren: Right.

but through just things like Lady Russell and Mr. Shepherd reacting to Sir Walter's request for help. And it was very funny-- as always, love the Austen humor -- very funny the way it's noted that Mr. Shepherd has some opinions about what should be done, but he's gonna let somebody else bring it up first.

Lauren: please don't kill the messenger. It's not my fault that you've gotten yourself this far in debt, but I really don't want to be the one to tell you about all the things you're going to have to give up if [00:06:00] you really want to get this right.

Emily: And it's gonna be a lot of things, properly, that he should have to give up.

Lauren: Yeah. Which he does not take well to, there's a lot of going back and forth, even though he has asked for help and asked for the insight into what he should do about his finances, his pride is really not letting him accept any of the solutions that they bring forward. So they say, 'okay, what about giving up this?'

'Oh, absolutely not. I couldn't do that.' 'Okay. What about...' 'preposterous. Why would you ever suggest such a thing?'

Emily: But it's not just his pride, it's his vanity.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Emily: Because as we are told very early on, "vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character, vanity of person, and of situation."

Lauren: 100%, to the point where he just likes to read the pages in his family book about his own family, and leaves it open for other people to go and read as though the information changes with any kind of frequency. It does not. It's the same.

Emily: I hate to say it, but that's kind of iconic. Like I already have some issues with you, Sir Walter, but like just reading your own name over and over in like the list of people of consequence in your country, and that's the only reading that ever brings you joy. What a man.

Lauren: Narcisscus could never.

I feel like that, like a modern day equivalent would be people who just back stalk themselves on social media and -- okay, like who among us has not gone back and like looked and say like, oh, if somebody else were to look at my profile, what would you see? But then taking that to the next level where like every photo in your phone, you don't have pictures of anybody else.

You don't have photos of scenery, every picture in your cell phone is just a selfie. That would be, like Sir Walter.

Emily: Yes, definitely.

Lauren: And then maybe, you know, a selfie with you and your favorite daughter, but not the other two. They don't exist.

Emily: Not the other two.

Lauren: No, screw them. Just the one who goes to London with you to go continue spending all of your money.

Emily: Oh my God. And when they're talking about the places where they might have to [00:08:00] cut spending, and one of Elizabeth's first suggestions is that they could just not bring Anne a present from London when they don't ever bring her to London anyway.

Lauren: She doesn't even get to go.

Emily: She doesn't get to go!

Lauren: It's like, why is it that you guys are the cause of the problem? And then when you're trying to solve the problem, it's, 'oh, let's take something away from Anne.' What did Anne do?

Emily: Literally nothing.

Lauren: She's just minding her business and trying to keep the two of you in check.

Emily: Justice for Anne Elliot.

Lauren: Justice for Anne Elliot! Once again, here we are with a wronged heroine right off the bat.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: Yeah, Sir Walter does not take well to the suggestion, any suggestion that people give him, but he especially hates the idea of letting Kellynch Hall. He hates it. Somebody else being in his home, walking around his flower gardens? No, no, no, no, no. We can't have that.

Emily: And even worse, other people knowing that he has rented his house.

Lauren: That's the real kicker.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: It's not so much there's so-- someone going to be in his house. It's that other people in his social circle will know that he can no longer afford to continue living at the level that he has been.

Emily: Which is why when they finally form this scheme, when he finally approves it, it's on the condition that they have to make it look like someone just applied out of the blue and they were an exceptional candidate.

And he said, "well, for you!"

Lauren: Right.

Emily: "That's fine." But he absolutely will not have it advertised. No one can know ahead of time.

Lauren: The word advertise makes him break out in hives. There's no way. He simply will not. And you know, poor Anne, bless her heart. She'd also put forward a very excellent plan because she and Lady Russell are quite close.

And so Anne has her own ideas of like, okay, well we can cut this, we can cut this. Here's everything that can be reduced if we're going to move forward. And Lady Russell looks at it and says, this is a great plan. They will never agree. It's just not going to happen.

Emily: I'm very glad that Anne at least has Lady Russell.

Lauren: Yes, me too. It does seem like in the absence of her mother, Lady Russell has been the stand-in [00:10:00] mother figure for her, and then also just the only confidant who she has because she's certainly not really able to talk on any kind of deep level with her father or either of her sisters. You know, her younger sister is married and doesn't live too far away, and she's not the same level of like, vain as Elizabeth is, but she's still very self-involved.

She's really not worried about anybody but herself. And that leaves Anne. And Lady Russell.

Emily: It is interesting that we're told that Anne is the daughter who is most like her mother , and yet she's also the most disregarded, which I think also says a lot about the way Lady Elliot would've been treated in her own household.

By her husband.

Lauren: Yeah. Like she clearly had enough influence, at least on the finances, but I can see her being disregarded along with Anne.

Emily: Which is so sad.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. other than the death of Mrs. Elliot, where else did you see death?

Emily: So, one of the biggest things, sort of skirting around what my history topic is gonna be.

 one of the biggest things that I saw was the sort of alternate meaning that's often read into death when it comes into tarot readings. where it's not necessarily literal death, but an end or impending change. This very much encapsulates that, for especially Sir Walter, but for the rest of the Elliots as well.

they're going to have to make changes in their situation. They're going to have to accept this large change of someone else moving into their house and them going to Bath. Yeah, I think that was one of the most clear places that I saw an interpretation of the theme of death.

Lauren: Yeah, definitely. I was thinking something along the same lines of death of civilities between people.

They had mentioned that there is a Mr. Elliot who is set to inherit Kellynch Hall and, he and Elizabeth were kind of meant to be thrown together cuz then, you know, Kellynch Hall can stay in the family, you know, [00:12:00] cousins and cousins. NBD.

Emily: He's a fairly distant cousin.

Lauren: Yeah. It's not like they have the same grandparent.

Emily: He's like a couple times removed. It's okay.

Lauren: You know, it's fine. but Mr. Elliot has committed the grave sin of marrying somebody else who they feel is beneath them. She was rich, but like, not...

Emily: Rich in the wrong way.

Lauren: Rich in the wrong way, not the right kind of rich.

Emily: Nouveau riche.

Lauren: Exactly, oh, how gauche. And so, that killed any kind of civility between Sir Walter Elliot and Mr. Elliot. And then of course, any pleasantries between Elizabeth and Mr. Elliot, which is top of mind for Elizabeth again because the wife who Mr. Elliot did choose has also passed away. And so even as she's wearing black ribbon for his wife, she's still like, oh, screw this guy.

Emily: That particular situation was a little sad too, because we saw that, aside from Elizabeth just having the social expectation of being paired with Mr. Elliot it says that she, upon meeting him actually liked him as a person.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: And was genuinely disappointed when he married some rando.

Lauren: That's like death of those hopes too. You know, you start to build an idea of a future for yourself in your brain, and then that's taken away from you and you have to reframe everything.

Emily: Yeah. And on that note, we could also think about the metaphorical deaths as you're going through transitions in life. , like one of the things that's talked about is Elizabeth's age. Especially. She's 29.

Lauren: She's my age!

Emily: Which is not completely the end of the road for a Regency woman of status.

But there's a line about her approaching, like, the danger years. where she's going to really and truly be a spinster and we have to assume that Anne at 27 is also feeling the approach of that, especially with their younger sister having already been married for several years. It says that she was married in 1810, and this is 1814.

As an aside, I really love that it actually gives us the years because it drives me up a wall when I have to [00:14:00] try and figure out timelines myself.

Lauren: Yes.

Emily: So thank you Jane Austen. I appreciate this.

Lauren: We love details.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: But yeah, I think, I mean, even in modern times, I see people feel like the pressure is on when a younger sibling gets married before they do.

So going back to, you know, 200 years prior to this, when marriage is even more of a major marker in your life and your age is of particular interest when you get married. I can see how that would be stressful to have the knowledge that your younger sister has already been married for years, and here the two of you are. Elizabeth especially has gone to London, I think, what does it say?

Like 13 consecutive seasons. 13 springs, she goes to London, 13 springs, she's come back home and she's still not engaged and she's realizing, oh, you know what? I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. This has got, I would be very happy if I found someone this upcoming season. If there is someone who's nice, I think I'm good. Like I think I just need to wrap it up.

Emily: Yeah. And in terms of the younger sister going first, we saw in Pride and Prejudice some flavor of that. especially with Lady Catherine's comments about the younger sisters being out in society before the elders are married.

Lauren: Yep.

Emily: So they're certainly, because the Elliots are definitely a class above the Bennetts, we can only imagine that there has been some kind of speculation about that, maybe, maybe, you know, subjective gossip among their social circles that Elizabeth is 29 and she's still not married, and her sister's been married for four years already. like, what's going on there?

Lauren: Yep. And Elizabeth has been acting as woman of the house in Kellynch Hall in the absence of her mother.

And you have to wonder if, you know, maybe she's enjoyed the power of that because it kind of already feels like she has her own household to run, and that's given her some measure of independence within her personal life and has allowed her to forget that this is not actually hers to run. It's only because her father has not yet remarried.[00:16:00]

Emily: We got a taste of that in Emma as well, who's been acting as Lady of Hartfield since. mother-- well her mother passed when she was very young. but since her elder sister married and left. but Hartfield will, as far as we know, be rightfully Emma's.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: And so she has a much more secure position there. It was not out of the blue for her to claim at certain points that she wasn't going to marry. Elizabeth does not have that security because Kellynch Hall is going to someone else.

Lauren: Exactly. And someone who she's not married to. Yeah.

Emily: Yet?

Lauren: Yet, question mark?

Emily: Question mark?

Lauren: I don't know!

Emily: Is it time to start making predictions?

Lauren: The door is open. His wife is not in the picture anymore. I'm just saying.

Emily: As soon as those black armbands come off.

Lauren: You know I'm not gonna say anything.

Emily: No, I know. that's, that's part of why I feel safe to speculate is that I know that you wouldn't actually spoil it for me.

Lauren: I would never, that ruins the fun.

 but it is, it's what I had written down was Death of Youth and then with that, like the death of your opportunities. Just--

Emily: absolutely.

Lauren: At a certain point the door is closed and there's really nothing else that you can do about it. So, you know, thank God I don't live in 1814 because I am 29 and I am vibing.

Emily: Danger years approach.

Lauren: Hey, the danger years apparently are approaching, even according to some people in 2023. So.

Emily: That's very true.

Lauren: That's okay. I plan on being 30, flirty and thriving.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: And I really like what you said about thinking of death in the tarot card sense of death and that, I mean, we have literal death, but also thinking of it as like it's an ending and marking a new beginning of change because there's so much in these first three chapters that is coming to an end.

You know, we're kind of getting these, we're getting a very good idea of the characters' personalities being established. We're getting a sense of what their life had been before. Only for it to come to an end and then to embark on this new journey. So death was really the perfect tarot card to pull.

Emily: A surprisingly apt theme for a beginning.

Lauren: Look at that. Earned our paychecks for the day. Our non-existent paychecks.

Emily: I was gonna say, what have [00:18:00] we earned?

Lauren: Anything else plot-wise we wanna discuss before we talk about history?

Emily: I don't think so. Yeah, I think, I think I've got everything that I wanted to touch on. What about you.

Lauren: I think the only thing that really came to mind that I wanted to discuss is how we get more of Elizabeth's character than we do of Anne's character to begin with.

So I'm curious, did you already know who the protagonist was from? Like just hearing things about Persuasion before?

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: Okay.

Emily: Just ambient knowledge. I know that Anne's the protagonist.

Lauren: Okay. Got it. So I'm always interested in hearing if people think it's going to be Elizabeth, because it focuses on her more. And then, you know, it's very evident eventually that it's Anne, because we get more of her.

Emily: Surprise. It's actually Mary!

Lauren: Right? It's like a bait switch. but. I found it interesting that we focus on Elizabeth more just so that we get more of her personality and a little bit more of the context, and then we delve more into Anne's personality. I think with modern structures of books, it's rare for the protagonist not to be front and center in those first couple of chapters, but it works for this because one, Anne is the background in her own life, so it makes sense that even in her own book, it takes a couple chapters for us to get to Anne.

Emily: Yeah, it establishes her status quo really well.

Lauren: Really, really well. Yeah.

Emily: Because there is all this luxury and potentially opulence surrounding her, but she just kind of glides past in the background. and she'll give her opinion in a very roundabout way. She'll share it with Lady Russell and Lady Russell might bring it to Sir Walter, but really, until it's literally like the very final line of that third chapter.

 where we get that insight into Anne's thoughts directly.

Lauren: Exactly.

Emily: Where she says to herself, "a few months more and he perhaps may be walking here."

Lauren: Who's he?

Emily: Who's he?

Lauren: I don't know.

Emily: I mean, I have an educated guess.

Lauren: Who's your educated guess?

Emily: My educated guess is Mr. Wentworth, [00:20:00] who was there, who Anne was the only person who's remembered his name.

Lauren: I don't know what you're talking about.

Emily: Also, ambient knowledge of Persuasion.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: I might not be totally spoiled for everything that happens in this book, but I I know some broad strokes.

Lauren: Yeah, no, I, I knew you knew. I just thought it would be funny.

Emily: It is funny. Surprise. It's another random guy.

 I don't put it past Jane Austen.

Emily: That's very true.

Lauren: She's not above a bait and switch. Okay. If that is all we have. Please share, what is your history topic for today?

Emily: My history topic is the concept of Memento Mori.

Lauren: Ooh. Okay.

Emily: So this is a concept that's been around for a very long time. It's a Latin phrase. Interestingly, today in English, we tend to translate it as, 'remember you will die,' but grammatically it should more properly be understood as, 'remember that you die,' or 'remember death' because Mori is a present infinitive. So it's, it's not this nebulous future. It's like, death is here with us all the time.

So this term itself, memento mori, became best known in early Christianity as a sort of moral admonition. This focus on the afterlife that other religious systems of the time didn't necessarily put a lot of emphasis on. Early Christianity definitely did. they wanted you to keep in mind those ideas of heaven, hell, reward, or punishment after life.

medieval and Renaissance Europe really expanded on this moral purpose and used the concept of Memento Mori to emphasize how empty and fleeting mortal pleasures are, which also ties in really nicely with Sir Walter's vanity.

Lauren: Yes, it does.

Emily: That was perfect. That was the topic I was trying to avoid before because [00:22:00] the, the juxtaposition of vanity and death is just, ah, very delicious. I'm super into this, if you couldn't tell.

Lauren: it makes it so much better, please continue.

Emily: But, yeah, medieval and Renaissance Europe also is hosted a total explosion of visual art dedicated to this concept.

there were pieces of jewelry, there was architecture, there were clocks that harken to this with sayings like Memento Mori, or time flees. Like, you know, the end is coming for you. Keep an eye on it. As well as the dance macabre genre. So if you've ever seen a medieval or renaissance illustration of like a bunch of skeletons dancing either with each other or with the living, that also evokes ideas of Memento Mori, death is always with us.

Emily: It could be just around the corner. A lot of philosophical and devotional literature of the time also draw very heavily on this. Again, definitely a Christian concept moving forward, but it served also, or was intended to serve, as sort of an equalizing force because rich or poor, everybody dies in the end.

And was again, sort of in conversation metaphorically with the Vanitas genre. of like still lifes that might show all the luxuries of life that you might enjoy in your mortality now, but also there's like a skull looming in the background because death is there too.

Lauren: Don't forget!

Emily: Don't forget! late 18th century artists, so around the time of Jane Austen, sort of took the Memento Mori and injected a, a very period typical style of satire into this genre. A lot of the time it was making commentary on contemporary events, which of course had been done back into the medieval period as well. You know, bubonic plague is around, Memento Mori is on everybody's mind.

But [00:24:00] there were certain artists who really took this to a sort of satirical extreme. One was Johann Rudolph Schellenberg, whose death was a prankster with a very melodramatic flair, would be like, dressed up as some well off woman in the street and like, luring some man to his death. but then there was also very particularly, in 1815 to 16, so around the time this book would've been produced, Thomas Rowlandson published a series of illustrations called The English Dance of Death.

It's very lighthearted, it's very witty. There's a lot of bright illustrations and it had accompanying verse as well. Unlike Medieval and Renaissance depictions, the victims here have lost their sort of everyman appeal, as well as maybe a bit of that solemn reminder of impending death. most of the victims here are just caricatures and a lot of them call to ideas of contemporary undesirables. So it's like the drunkard, it's the nagging wife. It's things like that. which definitely brings that memento mori genre a little further from its roots.

Lauren: Not so much an equalizer at that point.

Emily: Definitely. Yeah. So that's, that's a concept of death that, I found really interesting.

I love Memento Mori stuff. Like, it was a little irritating that I was trying to do research for this, and the things that kept coming up were like, oh, here's a Georgian memento mori ring with the little skull and everything.

Lauren: Wrong time period.

Emily: Yeah. Well, it is the right time period. Yeah. It's Georgian. Yeah. but yeah, I was like, no, no, no. I want the philosophical drive behind this, not the--

Lauren: not the ring!

Emily: Not the auction house. Yeah.

Lauren: That's perfect. And I like how it ties into vanity as well. especially with--

Emily: Yeah, that's really perfect.

Lauren: With our initial introduction to Sir Walter. That ties in perfectly.

Emily: I had a lot of fun with this and I had a lot of fun thinking about it while I was [00:26:00] reading as well.

Lauren: Nice.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: Thank you.

Emily: You're welcome. Glad to bring some more death into the conversation.

Lauren: Yeah. You know, this is a surprisingly lighthearted episode for a theme with death.

Emily: It really is. Like we've, we've gotten pretty bleak on what could otherwise have been lighthearted themes.

Lauren: Yeah. So I was just thinking that. We tend to reverse it.

Emily: It's all about balance. balance in the force.

Lauren: Tying it all together.

Emily: Well, I have no idea what your pop culture connection might be, so would you share it?

Lauren: I will indeed. So in our last, six degrees of Jane Austen episode, I was told in no uncertain terms that I needed to start The White Lotus, and I did.

And it actually turned out to be perfect because I both read the first three chapters of this yesterday and started watching the White Lotus yesterday. And The White Lotus starts with us finding out that one of the characters who we're about to meet has died. So this is not a spoiler because it literally happens in the first five minutes of the first episode.

I'm not spoiling that much for you, and I won't say, you know, who's watching the body be loaded onto the plane. So you really won't know who it is. But it's, it's in the first five minutes guys. I'm really not spoiling that much. But, it was-- got me thinking about when death is used in storytelling that way when we're told about someone's death, who we don't know.

And in this case, we're getting to know the cast of characters throughout the rest of the episode. So at the very beginning, we find out that somebody has died and then it flashes back, and so we'll get to know all these characters over the course of the, the season of the TV show. But in the moment when we're being told about this death, it's not because we're supposed to be sad for that character, it's because we're meant to see how the other characters react to that death.

And so I was thinking about death being used in that way as a tool in storytelling for us to see how people react to it. And was thinking about that here, where, similar thing with Lady Elliot having passed away, telling us about her death isn't meant to have an emotional impact on us because we don't, we don't know her from Eve.

You know, we don't know who that is, but we can learn a lot of the characterization [00:28:00] of the other people who we're getting to know through how they react to her being gone. So Sir Walter goes into excess, not as implied by the narration because he's sad, but just because he no longer has anyone to check him. This is not--

Emily: His impulse control is gone!

Lauren: His impulse control is gone. This is not like a grieving coping mechanism where, 'oh, I'm so sad, my wife is dead. I'm going to numb the pain with some retail therapy.' No, no, just there's no longer anyone who's going to keep him in check. We don't get much about Elizabeth's emotions after her mother died.

So we don't, we really can't make any conjectures about how she might have felt, but we do know how she reacted after the fact, which is that she rose to become Lady of the House and she was really enjoying that. Like she was able to make all of her own decisions. She has power over what they purchased.

She goes with her father to London, and she's good with that.

Emily: I just remembered that Elizabeth would have gone to participate in the season for the first time around the time of her mother's death, but we don't actually get a date other than 1800.

Lauren: Yeah, Elizabeth was 16 and Anne was 14. That's a really pivotal age to lose your mother.

That's really rough. Especially for, like you said, a woman who's about to go for her first season and for someone who is two years, one or two years out from that, and is looking for the guidance of their mother. So even if we don't have their direct reactions, we can conjecture, you know, as we watch all three of the daughters throughout the rest of the book, like how might that have affected you and your development and then how you're reacting to other people.

So thinking about how, telling us of a character death when we don't know the character is really meant to say, look at how these other people react or don't react to it, because that's going to tell you a lot about the characters you actually are spending time with in the story. So that was my, my pop culture connection for today.

I did watch White Lotus. [00:30:00] Or I have started it, I'm not done. I do really love that show. It was a good recommendation for me. I don't know why I did not start watching it before, but we're here now. I fixed the error. I am now indeed watching White Lotus.

Emily: Perfect. Thank you for the recommendation, Becca.

Lauren: Thank you so much. I'm on it now, cuz I, you know, I hate not knowing pop culture references.

Emily: See, this is why I lean on you for pop culture knowledge because I don't necessarily have any investment in figuring out what's going on.

Lauren: I do, and it was really bugging me. Also, this is a, a very small little thing that brought me joy over the past week. At the time of recording, we just had Mardi Gras in New Orleans and people will mask or dress up in costume, whatever term you'd like to use for it, and often will do so with groups of friends that make it a group costume.

There was a Krewe of Coolidge this year who dressed up as Jennifer Coolidge's character from the White Lotus, so they were just, Like a dozen Tanyas from White Lotus running through the French Quarter and it made my day.

Emily: That's amazing.

Lauren: It was incredible.

Emily: Krewe of Coolidge, whoever you are. I wanna be friends with you.

Lauren: Let's hang out. Have we come to final thoughts?

Emily: Oh my goodness. I guess we have. I know I have to go first.

Lauren: You do indeed.

Emily: It's not really so much a takeaway from the chapter, but more that I'm very intrigued from this setup to see where all of the characters go from this inflection point of plot. And I know that's basically just, I'm excited to read the rest of this book, but.

Lauren: Well, that's a valid takeaway.

Emily: That's what I've got. Yeah, it was, it was a really great setup. Great three chapters. And yeah, I think there's so much room for growth and change or the refusal to do that. So yeah, I can't wait to see where it goes. What's your takeaway [00:32:00] having read the book before?

Lauren: Memento Mori, I think.

Emily: Yes!

Lauren: Honestly. yeah, I think just remembering and being comfortable with death is something that I think we push aside in American culture specifically. We're very uncomfortable with death and I live across the street from the ce--, from a cemetery, and I constantly get people asking me if that bothers me or if it creeps me out. I'm like, it really doesn't. They're very quiet neighbors.

People are very sick of me telling that joke. It doesn't, it doesn't bother me in the way it bothers so many other people, but I also don't think that death is, as present in my life just due to the way American culture is in the way it could be, or at least I don't acknowledge it in a way that I could, always.

I think it's something that I'm very okay with pushing to the back of my mind, which again is really funny because I step out my front door and there's a whole cemetery. But, yeah, I think memento mori is my takeaway.

Emily: Tangential recommendation for everyone. If you're interested in the intersection of like death and American life, definitely go check out Caitlin Dowdy and the Ask A Mortician YouTube channel.

She does such amazing work. I got really obsessed with her over the last couple years. yeah, definitely contributed to my interest today in memento mori.

Lauren: Noted. Thank you. Okay.

Emily: Shall we pull our tarot?

Lauren: We shall. It is your turn to pull the tarot.

Emily: All right. Let's go with queen of diamonds.

Lauren: Ooh.

Emily: The illustration is a very lovely lady with her hair up in a curly coif.

Lauren: The queen of diamonds is security. Oh, and the very lovely lady is Emma, who's independently wealthy and happy with a comfortable home.

Emily: Oh, that's gonna be so interesting to compare.

Lauren: 100%. That's gonna be good.

Emily: Okay. Security.

Lauren: We're starting off strong.

Emily: Really!

Lauren: Going from death to security. This is great.[00:34:00]

Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time we'll be reading chapters four through six of Persuasion with a focus on security.

Emily: To read our show notes and atranscript at 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.

Emily: One of my friends was saying the other day that, their concept for the 30th birthday party being dirty 30, was that they were gonna get their friends to come over and clean their house.

Lauren: Oh my God.

Emily: It's like, you know what? That's a thought.

Lauren: It's not a bad idea, this could use a good reorg. You know? I don't know.

Emily: You just have to invite the right friends.

Lauren: I, I know exactly who I would invite, too. It's like, who are the people where I know they have a system for everything? I have friends where they enjoy cleaning and that's like calming from them. I'm like, come over and clean my house, and they would say, thank you so much.

Emily: Everybody needs friends like that.

Lauren: You really do.