One Does Not Simply Walk Into Your Pants discussion
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Emma
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Discussion of chapters 1-10!
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SO. Here are the first half of the notes I mentioned in my video (that's all I have typed up so far). Chapters 1-5:
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Ch. 1:
"Ah! my dear, I wish you would not make matches and foretell things, for whatever you say always comes to pass." And from that point on, the EXACT OPPOSITE of whatever she says always comes to pass.
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"I think very well of Mr. Elton[...]." Emma is such a terrible judge of character, particularly where men are concerned. Mr. Elton, Robert Martin, Frank Churchill--she's SO SURE she knows exactly what they're like, and she's so wrong each time. With women, she's not so much wrong about their characters as she is uncharitable and shallow. She doesn't like Miss Bates (because Miss Bates is chatty and annoying and thinks Jane Fairfax is the most perfect being on earth instead of thinking Emma is, the way everyone else does), and she doesn't like Jane Fairfax ("because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself" [Vol. 2, Ch. 2]), but she doesn't mistake their characters particularly. (Of course, Jane has secrets, but that's a whole different thing.) She initially likes Harriet primarily because Harriet is extremely pretty ("her beauty happened to be of a sort which Emma particularly admired" [Ch. 3]) and thinks Emma is wonderful and perfect--but Harriet really *is* very nice, if not very bright or very self-aware; Emma is again shallow but not really mistaken.
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Ch. 2:
"Captain Weston was a general favourite; and when [...] Miss Churchill, of a great Yorkshire family, [...] fell in love with him, nobody was surprised, except her brother and his wife, who had never seen him, and who were full of pride and importance, which the connection would offend. [...The marriage] took place, to the infinite mortification of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, who threw her off with due decorum." Emma is something of a snob, but she is not a HUGE snob, and Austen is careful to point out the difference by showing us the Churchills' behavior.
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Ch. 3:
"[...]Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Goddard[...] were fetched and carried home so often, that Mr. Woodhouse thought it no hardship for either James or the horses. Had it taken place only once a year, it would have been a grievance." Such a great, economical description of Mr. Woodhouse's patterns of thought.
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I'm always a bit surprised that Emma should be so willing to so thoroughly befriend a young woman who is illegitimate. Perhaps this is where we are meant to see that Emma is only *kind of* a snob, not a *complete* snob. (Though I suspect that Harriet's illegitimacy would have mattered more to Emma if Harriet had possessed less prettiness, less sweetness, and less conviction that Emma is perfect.)
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More excellent Mr. Woodhouse descriptions: "Upon such occasions poor Mr. Woodhouse's feeling were in sad warfare. He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion of his youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unhealthsome made him rather sorry to see anything put on it; and while his hospitality would have welcomed his visitors to everything, his care for their health made him grieve that they would eat." Funny that Mr. Woodhouse's entire personality is made up from these sorts of contradictions, and yet it makes him an extremely, extremely consistent character--gentle, a little feeble, constantly rather worried about everything and concerned for everyone's health and wellbeing, very caring about other people while absolutely unable to consider that anyone might feel or respond differently from himself.
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Ch. 4:
Harriet is basically a big piece of Play-Dough--completely malleable and without any distinct shape of her own--for Emma to mold and stamp the way she wants. Emma finds this delightful.
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Harriet: "[...] for they are quite as well educated as me." Hee!
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Harriet is the most literal person on earth.
Emma: "Compare Mr. Martin with [Mr. Weston and Mr. Elton]. Compare their manner of carrying themselves; of walking; of speaking; of being silent. You must see the difference."
Harriet: "Oh yes!--there is a great difference. But Mr. Weston is almost an old man. Mr. Weston must be between forty and fifty."
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Just *totally* dependent on Emma's judgment.
Emma, making prognostications about Robert Martin, whom she has never met and has only seen once from a distance: "He will be a completely gross, vulgar farmer, totally inattentive to appearances, and thinking of nothing but profit and loss."
Harriet, as if Emma has The Sight: "Will he, indeed? That will be very bad."
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Ch. 5:
"This will certainly be the beginning of one of our quarrels about Emma, Mr. Knightley." It amuses me hugely to think that Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley have (presumably friendly) arguments about Emma, like, *all the time*.
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Interesting that Mrs. Weston accuses Mr. Knightley of snobbishness ("I can imagine your objection to Harriet Smith. She is not the superior young woman which Emma's friend ought to be"--surely a reference to Harriet's illegitimacy as well as her lack of education, accomplishments, etc.?) when he's probably the least snobbish character in the book.
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Knightley spells it out: "I think her [Harriet] the very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have. She knows nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing everything. She is a flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse, because undesigned. Her ignorance is hourly flattery. How can Emma imagine she has anything to learn herself, while Harriet is presenting such a delightful inferiority?"
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Sorry I am so slow and terrible! I'll try to get up my thoughts for Chapters 6-10 sometime soon (we'll see how that goes with Camp NaNo on and everything, but I'll try!).
I'll share some of my comments tomorrow since I have a crazy morning tomorrow, but for now let me just say, I love how this one passage in chapter three describes Emma as a person: "She was so busy admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and listening, and forming all these schemes in the in-betweens, that the evening flew away at a very unusual rate (...)". I think the "schemes in the in-betweens" is such an accurate portrayal of what Emma's actions are centered around and when I read this sentence I thought that this is a gem of precise description.