Pulled from the comments - Grace had some good questions:
1. The more I think of it, the more Frank Churchill seems like a thoroughly bad sort. There's a malicious quality to his immaturity that you don't see with Emma's. So my question is, what odds do you give his marriage to Jane? I think they'd have a rocky time of it.
2. In a chapter where Mrs. Weston and Emma let Mr. Knightly know they think he's smitten with Jane Fairfax, he responds that he could never love her because she lacks the "open temper" he prizes in a woman. (He says it again for emphasis, and it's one of those hints that Emma never seems to pick up on.) At the point that he reveals his feelings to Emma, he says, "But you hear nothing but truths from me. I have blamed you, I have lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have done."
It's incredibly romantic, IMHO. It's a hint of the true attraction between people that a male author probably wouldn't have gotten so well (at least in the 1700's). But ... what does Knightly mean by 'an open temper?' What is it about his lecturing and her bearing it that makes that such a strong bond, and one that blossoms into love?
posted by Mimi @ 12/10/2009 11:40:00 AM
11 Comments
11 Comments:
I read somewhere that in letting Jane and Frank get together Jane Austen was letting Fanny Price and Henry Crawford have another chance. Frank is immature but is he any more immature than Emma? I am sure there are times we could all have choked Emma, does Frank deserve less?
I missed the bit where you said Frank is more malicious than Emma. I'm not sure I agree that it's malice, I think it's more heartlessness. He's got himself into a predicament with Jane and like a lot of men he's reacting by almost blaming her, being cold to her, unloving as when he plays his silly game with the alphabet letters. Emma, on the other hand, is certainly not heartless but it's Emma who almost did the very real damage. Imagine Harriet's life without the Martins? She's a nobody with this one change to marry into a substantial, respectable family and to become in stead of "someone's natural daughter" a valued wife and mother. Emma is prepared to ruin this for her out of essentially snobbery. I do like Emma but I don't think the harm she nearly did Harriet should be glossed over.
Hmmm, I don't think Frank and Jane are a good match. But some men like that: playing the perpetual bad boy against mummy's rigid, indulgent goodness. Who knows?
AFA Mr. Knightley by "open temperament" I think he meant not so private or inwardly focused as Jane. I tend to be more of the latter believe it or not in a relationship and I realize not all people like that, and find it threatening.I like to think I'm like the Virgin Mary, though who "pondered things in her heart."
Of course we don't know what Jane is really like. She's keeping a great and terrible secret for 99% of the novel and I often wonder what made Frank fall in love with her in Weymouth? He's certainly attracted to 'open' Emma so perhaps Jane too is open tempered when she's not guilty and stressed and living in abject fear of becoming Mrs Suckling's governess.
The point at which I was judging Frank to be such a bad guy is that scene where he plays a game with the children's alphabet letters and hands Jane 'D-i-x-o-n.' I realized that whereas Emma thinks that the joke is Jane's attachment to a married man, in actuality Frank is probably sharing a joke with Jane at Emma's expense. He's probably inviting Jane to consider Emma's silly notion (which I'm inclined to think he would've told her) and have a laugh which only they will understand. Jane isn't amused (I wouldn't be either), and I thought Frank was being a jerk. But that's subjective, I realize.
Emma's badness -- Margaret puts it very well. It may be that I'm just more sympathetic with Emma because she's the protagonist, or because she at least has enough sense to feel really ashamed of herself at the end. But she came close to causing Harriet irreparable damage, and it's only through the author's generosity that the book isn't a kind of tragedy.
I always think that one of the downsides of books is that you never know what happened next, and that is why the "continuing story of..." books are so popular, and why I pick them up.
So, having said that, I was intrigued by Grace's first question because I never tend to look at issues like that, because I just get focused on the romantic aspect - Frank and Jane are in love and get married - and that's where I leave it. So, if I look back on Frank with a more critical eye, I do see a thread of maliciousness - perhaps, like Emma's narcissism unintentional. I'd like to think that he and Jane will work as a couple, but as Margaret pointed out - she's got another side as well.
It's defiintely something that is a good point to think about.
As to the second question - my favorite line from my favorite song (Maybe, I'm Amazed by Paul McCartney) is "you right me when I'm wrong" - and I think that's what Mr. Knightly is getting at - the feeling that her personality rights his.
Something I like about Mr Knightley and Emma is that they are very much equals, partly through being in-laws but also, and this was more important to Austen than to most people today, they were social and financial equals. Elizabeth Bennet for all her “He is a gentleman and I am a gentleman’s daughter” marries up. And Fanny Price for all that she grew up with Edmund still marries in. Emma is the only one of Miss Austen’s heroines who doesn’t need to marry, all the rest will end in poverty not unlike Miss Bates if they don’t, and Emma, apart from Elinor Dashwood, is the only one not to actually gain in any material sense from marrying.
Margaret - I must recitify the fact that I don't know which novel Fanny Price is from.
And, I agree, they are equals in a lot of ways, which I think makes their relationship stronger.
I have to admit that I've never read any of Jane Austin - but you are making me curious...
Mimi, I've been lurking, but am still around...
Great reeading your blog post
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