r/janeausten • u/My_Poor_Nerves • 13h ago
Read-through Emma, Sporadically - Chapter 9
Beware, spoilers.
"but Emma could not quarrel with herself." -Kinda the crux of the whole issue, isn't it?
"and the intention of going on to-morrow." -I emphasize deeply with this delightful description of procrastination.
"It was much easier to chat than to study; much pleasanter to let her imagination range and work at Harriet’s fortune, than to be labouring to enlarge her comprehension or exercise it on sober facts;" -I was too precipitous. *This* is the crux of the issue.
"the only mental provision she was making for the evening of life" -This is rather dark, isn't it?
"Miss Woodhouse”—he stopt a moment—“or Miss Smith" -Oho!
"The speech was more to Emma than to Harriet, which Emma could understand." -I love, love, love how the narration so align's itself with Emma's viewpoint, creating a third person unreliable narrator. But the fun of it is that a first-time reader doesn't necessarily know to be suspicious. The layers in the writing are so genius.
"Humph—Harriet’s ready wit!" -I am afraid I am not on the "Justice for Harriet" train. I won't even step on the caboose. The narration goes out of it's way to emphasize just how relatively empty-headed the girl is.
"For once in your life you would be obliged to own yourself mistaken." -One can feel, a bit, how badly Emma would like this to be true.
"or a shark?" -See note above about not hopping aboard the Justice for Harriet train.
"Emma spoke for her." -A likely thing to happen.
"Could it really be meant for me?" -When you start to look for those clues, they are everywhere! So many lines allow for inferences or double-meaning. Austen must have had so much fun writing this!
"Receive it on my judgment." -This is truer than Emma knows.
"There does seem to be a something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right direction, and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow." -I love how, by the end, this does actually hold true.
"and a man that every body looks up to, quite like Mr. Knightley! " -Another little clue: from very early on Harriet does seem to be able to appreciate Mr. Knightley exactly as she ought.
"I love to hear you. You understand every thing." -A winning combination of flattery and delusion!
"It is as long again as almost all we have had before." / "to sit down and write a letter, and say just what you must, in a short way" -I could make a crude joke about Harriet being length obsessed (which I guess I just did), but I love how Austen keeps the basis of Harriet's literary critiques consistent.
"She read it to him, just as he liked to have any thing read, slowly and distinctly, and two or three times over, with explanations of every part as she proceeded—and he was very much pleased, and, as she had foreseen, especially struck with the complimentary conclusion." -Poor Emma, this is awfully tedious for her, but she does it without complaint.
"and as Emma saw his spirits affected by the idea of his daughter’s attachment to her husband," -Ha!
Mr. Woodhouse's idiolect seems to be made up of the words "pretty," "poor," and "gruel."
"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other." -Another wonderful example of Emma saying something that sounds wonderfully wise. I think this time we can give her credit for not saying it (inadvertently or otherwise) speciously.
"here was a sort of parade in his speeches which was very apt to incline her to laugh." -Emma isn't entirely bad at reading people. She values Mr. Elton's performative compliments for exactly what they are worth.