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Tear Jerker / Emma

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From the book:

  • There's a scene following Mr. Knightley's rebuke of Emma, in which she devotes her full attention to trying to make her father happy with backgammon and conversation. The narrative says that she's fervently hoping that in this, at least, no one can criticize her, and that she can't be considered lacking as a daughter if nothing else. It really shows that despite her normal confidence and cheerful outlook, Emma is somewhat desperate for approval and afraid of losing people's good opinion - most particularly Mr. Knightley's, the good opinion she is terrified she may now have lost.

From the adaptations:

1996 film

  • With LOADS of woobieness added into it, the reaction of Miss Bates to Emma's slight in the 1996 film comes off as this, particularly when she says, just above the level of tears: "I must make myself very disagreeable for her to say such a thing to an old... friend..."

2009 series

  • The opening, with the different fates of the three children of Highbury.
    • Emma's mother dies, leaving her father desolate and desperate to hold onto his daughters.
    • Mr. Weston loses his wife and is forced to give up his son to his Obnoxious In-Laws. He waves to his son in the carriage as it drives off in the rain, trying to smile through his tears.
    • The Bateses lose their house and give up their granddaughter/niece Jane to be raised by her late father's friend Captain (later Colonel) Campbell. Her grandmother is absolutely devastated (and indeed never speaks again, not until the ending), while Miss Bates tries to point out all the good things about this turn of events.
  • Emma and her father open up more while she's trying to assuage his worries, and says that she knows how lucky she is that she and her sister were able to stay at home with him rather than being sent away like Frank and Jane. Mr. Woodhouse then speaks to the origins of his constant fretting: the early loss of his wife showed him that catastrophe can strike at any time, and it made him terrified that it would strike his family again.
    "You don't know what fear is until you have a child."

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