Line #11 YMMV/Emma


1	!!The Book
2	* EsotericHappyEnding: Many readers take the news of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax's marriage the way Mr. Knightley does, which is to speculate that for all of Frank's apologies, her happiness with him is still very much in doubt.
3	* LesYay:
4	** Good God. Emma even says she's interested in Harriet because she's so pretty and passionately insists to Mr. Knightley that no man in the world is good enough for her, and one of the reasons she's so fervently against Harriet marrying Robert Martin is that she doesn't want to lose her companionship, as she wouldn't be able to easily associate with the wife of a yeoman -- which is exactly what happens at the end of the novel.
5	** The wording of Emma's relationship with her former governess Miss Taylor. She has nothing but admiration for her personality and looks.
6	* ValuesDissonance:
7	** Some readers think Emma's insistence on ignoring Harriet's rank is remarkably forward-thinking for a person living in the absurdly class-conscious environment of Regency England, but this still misses the main point of what Emma is doing. Emma insists that Harriet has a right to find a worthy husband and "low birth" should not deprive her of opportunity, but this is because she is making the unfounded assumption that Harriet's father is of high enough social rank that Harriet's illegitimacy can be ''overlooked.'' Once Harriet's parentage (a successful merchant) is revealed, Emma herself thinks that even Mr. Elton wouldn't deserve such a connection. Mr. Knightley's objection is not to Harriet's low social station, but to Emma encouraging false hope in a girl who isn't bright enough to see sense and derailing a perfectly reasonable match with a respectable yeoman farmer.
8	** One reason it's good that Emma and Harriet's friendship fades out after the denoument is that Harriet is still beneath Miss Woodhouse, even though Knightley acknowledges Emma has improved Harriet's gentility and manners. And Emma should have cultivated a relationship with Jane instead because she and Jane are social equals (among the more resonant reasons).
9	** Similarly, Emma is offended at Mr. Elton's proposal to her not just because he's a rude gold-digger who just wants her money and connections (er, connexions), and not just because he thinks he's smart and cool enough for her when he isn't, but because of the presumption of someone of his class proposing to someone of hers. Specifically, she's offended he doesn't even seem ''aware'' he's reaching above his station by asking for her hand, which would imply he considers her on his level when she very much is not.
10	** Augusta Elton's behavior is obnoxious to modern readers in some ways (continually referencing her rich brother-in-law, being super condescending) that are very familiar, but not in others. We know it's overfamiliar of her to call Mr. Knightley just "Knightley" because Emma fumes about it, and similarly she leaps straight to calling Jane Fairfax just "Jane" (you may note that even after her engagement to Frank is revealed, ''Frank'' still calls her "Miss Fairfax" most of the time), but today people usually just call each other by their first names once they've been introduced, making this a more old-fashioned kind of rudeness.
11	** It's eventually revealed that Mr. Knightley has been in love with Emma since she was ''thirteen''... at which time he was twenty-nine! Though he says it in a tongue-in-cheek-y way. In modern times, where women are much more free to decide how to live their lives, a man Knightley's age marrying a woman Emma's age (even without having known her from childhood) is often seen as suspect because it can indicate that he wants someone without life experience to recognize bad behavior in a partner.
12	** The book's portrayal of "gypsies" is very wince-inducing now. Not only is that term used freely (which is now considered a slur; the more correct term is "Roma" or "Romani"), but they only randomly show up once as a threat from which Frank has to save Harriet, and are portrayed as a faceless AlwaysChaoticEvil group who need to be driven out of the neighborhood for everyone's safety. The 2009 and 2020 adaptions change it: the 2009 adaption shows Harriet overreacting to some rowdy Roma children while the 2020 adaptation only shows the aftermath.
13	** The modern reader gets an insight into the way English society of this time stereotyped their historical rivals, the French, when Mr. Knightley uses "being French" as a synonym for double-talk and meaningless conversational frippery.
14	* ValuesResonance: Mr. Knightley's scolding of Emma for having publicly insulted Miss Bates is a lesson in power dynamics that could resonate with the modern idea of "checking your privilege" and avoiding behaviour that would be more damaging to someone of a lower socio-economic situation than it would be to an equal (i.e. "punching down".)
15	* TheWoobie: Miss Bates is pretty annoying for most of the book, but you want to give her a big hug after Emma insults her. Especially in the 2020 adaptation, where’s she’s clearly holding back tears.
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17	!!Adaptations
18	* RetroactiveRecognition: Creator/EwanMcGregor is Frank Churchill in the 1996 film.
19	* TheWoobie: The 2009 miniseries gives us a glimpse of the Bateses' elegant home just before they had to leave (and before their beloved Jane is sent away), so the viewer gets a better sense of the sacrifices and pain that Miss Bates has had to endure.

Context YMMV / Emma