Growing up with Jane Austen's Emma

Emma by Jane Austen

published 1815

 

 

 

Earlier this year I wrote extensively about Jane Austen adaptations for the i newspaper – links in these posts. Taking my commission very seriously (and enjoying myself hugely) I watched literally dozens of JA films, TV series, and ‘modern updatings’. And I reread all her major works to give me a baseline to work from. I am not a purist about film adaptations (which annoyed some people commenting on my choices) but I thought it was important to know where they were all, ultimately, coming from.

In the past I always said Emma was my favourite, and I wondered if that would remain my first choice. And - yes it did. I was more impressed than ever by the cleverness, the charm, and the good-heartedness of the book. But there were some differences, reading it in later life.

I still love the casual jokes – the miserable old hypochondriac Mr Woodhouse asks his friend Mr Perry, the apothecary, if if it might be wiser NOT to eat the rich wedding cake. Mr Perry says yes, it might not be right for everyone.

There was a strange rumour in Highbury of all the little Perrys being seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston's wedding-cake in their hands: but Mr. Woodhouse would never believe it.

When the snow comes at Christmas time

Poor Mr. Woodhouse was silent from consternation; but every body else had something to say; every body was either surprized or not surprized.

For forty years that has always popped into my head whenever a group of people discuss a weather event. As true now as it was 40 years ago, and 200 years ago.

It’s often pointed out that Jane Austen does not do scenes where only men are talking. But that she thinks about it is always obvious, and there is this interestingly frank input from Mr Knightley, warning Emma about the hideous Mr Elton:

'…from his general way of talking in unreserved moments, when there are only men present, I am convinced that he does not mean to throw himself away.'

ie he will not be at all interested in Harriet.

Though in some areas Emma has no illusions about her protegee – when she thinks the acrostic is addressed to Harriet, and it mentions a ready wit, Emma thinks:

Humph-Harriet's ready wit! All the better. A man must be very much in love, indeed, to describe her so.

Emma is honest and real:

Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her.

And only Frank Churchill and the Bateses would prefer Jane Fairfax (cold, serious and willing to enter into an inappropriate engagement) to Emma.

Mind you, we can all feel for Jane F when people keep saying the wrong thing, going on and on about her morning walk. Austen does that so well, they are just being civil and conversational but we feel for Jane and her journey to the post office, and whenever it seems the conversation must turn, back it comes again.

There is the bleak cold ruthlessness of the comment when the truth about Harriet’s parentage is revealed:

The stain of illegitimacy, unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed

And the surprising way that Harriet gets back together with Robert Martin – I can’t be the only reader who had no memory of that curious incident at all. Astley’s Circus! We might as well be in a Georgette Heyer book.

And there is always Mrs Elton’s criticism of Emma’s wedding to enjoy:

‘Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business!’

I had some new perceptions on this rereading. I think when I was younger I took Emma at her own valuation: lucky, blessed, happy, and:

I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with any other 

This time round I found her sadder, and lonely, and brave. I realized Emma is a book about motherless children – Emma, Harriet, Jane. (The men also, but it is less of an issue, though Frank’s situation is complex). It is glimpsed in the book in a moving way behind the humour and satire, beautifully done. None of them has a mother to tell her how to behave. All Jane Austen books - apart from Northanger Abbey - make you wonder a lot about Jane's relations with her own parents. 

Is it possible the main characters’ privileged lifestyle is not popular with the lower classes? Mozart’s opera the Marriage of Figaro, and the play it was based on, famously showed masters and servants, but was subversive and suggesting things should change, and that was nearly 30 years before. It sounds unlikely that Jane Austen is heading for that territory but she was too smart and thoughtful not ever to think about it. The turkey thieves at the end of the book (another aspect I had forgotten) are surely a sign that trouble is coming,

And the book even reminded me of Shakespeare’s King Lear: perhaps this is over-dramatic, but Emma’s fate if she hadn’t married Mr Knightley, was not promising, for all she thought having money would be enough. She could have ended up stuck playing backgammon with her father every night forever, like Cordelia’s prospect of being locked in a cell with her father:

‘We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage….So we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh’

You just have time to think ‘well that’s all very well for you, mate, you’re old’, when something worse overtakes Cordelia.

Emma got off lightly, even though her living with her husband and father together is not that attractive a thought.

 

When I looked at adaptations of the books I mentioned the description of Emma’s response to Mr K’s proposal:

What did she say?-Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does

Saying, that’s all very well in a novel, but not going to work on film.

My favourite version was the 2007 TV serial with Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller. I thought writer Sandy Welch brought out Emma’s loneliness and Knightley’s awkwardness. Tamsin Greig was wonderful as Miss Bates, and to hear her drop her voice to a whisper on the word ‘gypsies’ is worth the price of admission.

The 2020 version with Anya Taylor-Joy is also good, and definitely draws attention to the thoughtless lifestyles of the rich. It looks as though it was shot in the Fortnum and Mason’s ice cream parlour, very aesthetically pleasing.

More on Emma in the blogpost on Sense and Sensibility.

Sitting with her cup of tea – NYPL fashion collection

Morning walking or carriage clothes - NYPL.