For Friday: Try to Finish Emma!

No questions for Friday's class, but try to finish the remaining chapters of the book or get as close as you can. We'll do a final in-class response over the end parts of the book, focusing on some of the following:

* Frank's letter in Chapter 50 (which we didn't get to talk about yet): what does it reveal about his character and his perspective on the story?

* How do Emma and Knightley read and respond to the letter? Do they agree?

* How does Emma, who vows she will never marry since that would require her to leave her father, reoncile her desire to marry Knightley? What compromise can help them live together?

* Frank returns to the story briefly, and re-encounters Emma: what is their reunion like?

* Similarly, how does Emma and Harriet mend fences after the 'betrayal' with Knightley? Does Harriet get her own happily ever after? Or does she simply  have to take what she can get, since Emma has left her with nothing? (or has she??)

* Why does the Narrator (or Austen) seem so disinterested in the marriage and the 'pay off' for the reader? Why does she merely write, "The wedding was very much like other weddings"? 

* Having read the novel, is it more of a romance or a satire? Can we sympathise with and appreciate the love story at the heart of the novel, or is it satirizing the fact that we can't? In other words, does this end like a traditional love story, or does it make fun of one? 

For Wednesday: Austen, Emma, Chapters 44-50

Keep reading, even if you fall short of Chapter 50. You can catch up for Friday and even next Monday. And heck, even if you don't finish the book, you can still answer the questions and do the Final Paper assignment. So just try to enjoy the story and see where it takes you! There are many surprises in store...

Answer two of the following:

Q1: Why do you think Emma falls in love with Mr. Knightley? Do you believe, as she comes to believe, that she always loved him, but just didn't recognize an emotion that was so familiar to her? Or did it actually happen in response to Jane and Harriet's rivalry? Consider Emma's reflections at the beginning of Chapter 48: "Till now that she was threatened with its loss, Emma had never known how much of her happiness depended on being first with Mr. Knightley" (336). 

Q2: Is Frank Churchill a scoundrel, even despite his happy ending with Jane (who seems to care for him--if we can believe Mrs. Weston and Frank himself)? Why does Knightley thunder against him and even claim "He is a disgrace to the name of man...Jane, Jane you will be a miserable creature" (345-346)? Is this still Knightley's jealousy speaking, or is Austen creating the very real possibility that Jane has made a disastrous match? 

Q3: In Chapter 50 we get a long letter from Frank himself, which is the only time we get a parallel narrative to the episodes related to us by the narrator/Emma. How does it change the story as it was set down in the previous chapters? Is he a convincing narrator--or an unreliable one?

Q4: In Chapter 47, Emma realizes with horror that she has 'ruined' Harriet forever--made her into a vain, upstart woman not unlike herself! As she reflects, "Oh! had she nevr brought Harriet forward! Had she left her where she ought, and where he had told her she ought!" (336). Do you think it's true that Harriet has been corrupted or spoiled in some manner by Emma's friendship? Would Harriet herself agree with this? Did she gain nothing from the chance to move in higher circles? Or is Emma just angry that she created a rival? 

The Last Paper Assignment: Paper #4: Old Wine in New Bottles!

NOTE: The questions for Monday are in the post BELOW this one...

INTRO: Students often complain, “why are they speaking in Old English?!” when reading anything from Shakespeare to Jane Austen, even though the language is easily accessible with a little practice. But then when you ask them their favorite movies, it’s often an adaptation of something very old, which only looks/sounds like new. Even though these films are now pretty old, so many people adore Clueless, Ten Things I Hate About You, She’s the Man, and Cruel Intentions, each one of which is based on a classic work of literature. The twist? It only sounds new through the language and the context—a modern high school, spoken by modern gossip-mongering teens. So is the play the thing? Or does the language really matter?

PROMPT: Sort of following on the heels of our dramatization of The Sonnets, I want you to RE-WRITE A SHORT PASSAGE from either The School for Scandal OR Emma in modern language and in a modern setting. Imagine that this is part of a new adaptation of either work that is set, Clueless-style, somewhere in the modern world. Figure out where it would work, in what setting/context, and between what characters. You can keep the characters exactly the same (Emma, Knightley, etc., just as Clueless did) or you can change their names or backgrounds as long as you don’t fundamentally change who they are. But all you really have to do is re-write a passage (length is entirely up to you) in modern language/style without deviating from the general sense of the passage in question. I want to read some of these in class so we can hear the translations live, and enjoy what changes and what doesn’t change with the switch of language and time/place.

FOR EXAMPLE: In Chapter 31 of Emma, Emma is trying to talk Harriet out of love with Mr. Elton. She finally finds a wonderful way to gaslight her, which I might re-write as the following: “Harriet, if we’re being honest, you’re really making me feel like proper shit here. I mean, I’ve done so much for you, and I’ve already taken the blame for this whole Mr. Elton-fiasco, but here you’re still whining about him and why it didn’t work out. So what you’re really saying is, “Emma, you’re a terrible matchmaker, or else you don’t think I deserved him to begin with.” Which is really triggering me because like, I know it’s my fault, okay? I get it. You don’t have to keep reminding me. My therapist—Dr. Weston, she’s totally the best—is already telling me about working on my positive self-image, and I was about to scale back to three sessions a week, but then whenever you start crying, it’s like one step forward, two steps back, you know? So chill, please. I’m only thinking about you, after all. You get that, right?”

See how fun it is? So take a passage that really delights you, either a long dialogue-bath from Miss Bates, or a witty change between Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, and let us hear how modern words/phrases can clothe this timeless situation. Help us see how modern it is behind the 18/19^th century decorum. Because really, nothing ever changes, and literature in particular reminds of this fact.

DUE IN-CLASS Friday, May 9^th! It’s a birthday present to me! 😊

For Monday: Austen, Emma, Chapters 33-43

NOTE: I'm starting where we left off on the questions, even though I told you to try to finish Volume II for Wednesday's class. But since we didn't really discuss it much (other than the parts which were covered by the movie), I thought we would go back and pick up some of the important passages in these earlier chapters. 

Answer two of the following:

Q1: Though Austen tries not to delve too much into politics and social causes, how do some issues of the world 'outside' bleed into the novel? Where do we see that Austen was aware of the social ills of her society, and wanted to address them, even slightly, in her novel? And which of her characters seem most aware of thes social reality of early 19th century England? (hint: you might look at Chapter 35)

Q2: How does Emma's interest seem to shift from Frank toward Knightley in these chapters? Where do we see--and perhaps, where does she see--that she is more interested in Knightley than she may have realized? And why might the Frank/Jane duo be necessary for her to realize this?

Q3: Why does Emma concoct the scheme to bring Harriet and Frank together? Isn't this a match doomed to fail? And isn't her too highborn for Harriet (who is an orphan, after all) to aspire to? Besides hubris, what else motivates Emma to bring the two of them together?

Q4: In many ways, Chapter 43, at Box Hill, is the dramatic heart of the novel. We saw this scene dramatized in the 1996 BBC version of Emma  on Wednesday. What does Austen, herself, show us about this scene that makes it so important to the novel and to the characters in it? What comes out in this scene, and what can never be put "back in"? 

For Monday: Emma, Chapters 24-32 & Paper #3

The 2009 BBC Emma, which is well worth watching; there are four versions currently available, from the 80's, 90's, 00's, and 20's. 

NOTE: The Paper #3 assignment is at the bottom of this post, so if you missed class on Friday, be sure to review it. I'll give you a hard copy on Monday.

Answer two of the following: 

Q1. How does Frank Churchill ingratiate himself with Emma throughout these chapters? Is this meant to be romantic, the way any two characters fall in love in a novel? Or does the narrator gently push against this in some way? Are we meant to believe in him (as Emma does), or suspect him (as Knightley does)? 

Q2. Jane Fairfax is a peripheral character in these chapters, seen only in glimpses; yet Austen is careful to lay great weight on these moments.  What are we made to see in her brief interactions with Frank, Emma, and Miss Bates?  What kind of character is she?  Do we agree with Emma’s comment, “this amiable, upright, perfect Jane Fairfax was apparently cherishing very reprehensible feelings”? 

Q3: Find a passage where the narrator employs "free indirect discourse" (see the paper assignment below that follows for a definition) in the novel. How does she incorporate other voices into her narration, and why do you think she does this? What affect does it have to hear the voices through her voice, rather than through their own?

Q4: Why is Emma's first impressions of Mrs. Elton--like Jane's--so unfavorable? How does she form a judgment of her even before she sees her, and how does the impression worsen once they actually meet? What lies behind her dislike? Is it merely jealousy and competition? Or we are meant to dislike her, too? 

Paper #3: The Author Behind the Curtain

From M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms:

“The grammar of narration is the analysis of special grammatical uses that are characteristic of fictional narratives…that mis, words and phrases such as “now,” “then,” “here,” and “there,” “today,” “last week,” as well as personal pronouns and some tenses of verbs—whose reference depends on the particular speaker and his or her position in space and time. In many narratives, usually in a way not explicitly noted by the reader, the references of such terms constantly shift or merge, as the narration moves from the narrator, by whom the events are told in the past tense to a character in the narration, for whom the action is present.

 Another notable grammatical usage in narration has been called free indirect discourse or “represented speech and thought.” These terms refer to the way, in many narratives, that the reports of what a character says and thinks shifts in pronouns, adverbs, tense, and grammatical mode, as we move—or sometimes hover—between the directed narrated representation of these events as they occur to the character and the indirect representation of such events by the narrator of the story. Thus, a direct representation, “He thought, ‘I will see her home now, and may then stop at my mother’s,’” might shift to “He thought that he would see her home and then maybe stop at his mother’s.”

 PROMPT: For this assignment, I want you to examine a short passage in Emma where the narrator is not just telling us what is happening, but is inserting her own ideas into the narrative and/or appropriating the voices of her characters (often satirically) to make her points. How is she using the tools of her trade, including things like “free indirect discourse” to tell the story behind the story? Since she is writing in the present, and her characters exist in the past, how does this passage play with the space in-between the two?

CLOSE READ this passage (it can be a paragraph or about a page long, but not much longer) to explain how Austen is artfully using narration to say things without seeming to say them, and to challenge how we read or interpret the story without the characters being aware of it. Do you think this is fair? Is it too heavy-handed? Too satirical? Or does it help explain the ‘gray areas’ of the text which the characters often can’t express or are otherwise taboo? Why would the book lose something important without this passage (and others like it), and why do you think authors refrain from this kind of narration today?

NO PAGE LIMIT…BUT YOU MUST CLOSE READ: DON’T JUST SUMMARIZE!

DUE NEXT FRIDAY IN-CLASS!

 

 

 

 

For Friday: Austen, Emma, Chapters 16-23

 

Answer two of the following:

Q1: In Chapter 18, Emma and Knightley are discussing Frank Churchill--a man neither of them has yet met--and they have (once more) an argument. As she complains, "You seem determined to think ill of him." Does his dislike of Frank come from a simple source--jealousy? Or do his complaints carry more weight than she wants to believe? You might consider whose criticisms seem more true to life once Frank enters the story. 

Q2: What makes Jane Fairfax such a foil for Emma in the story? How does the narrator present her to us, and how to other people genreally respond to her? Similarly, why does Emma seem to dislike her so much from the beginning? Does anyone share her opinion? 

Q3: First impressions are always an important element of any Jane Austen novel. What are Emma's first impressions of Frank Churchill once she actually meets him? Is she really seeing him, or is she still 'reading' him through her own novelistic fantasy of class and family? Is it love at first sight? Or something else?

Q4: Does Emma begin to have any doubts in these chapters of her powers of observation or matchmaking? What might make her overweening confidence begin to falter--even for a moment--in the wake of Elton's rejection and Churchill's arrival? 

For Wednesday: Austen, Emma, Chapters 9-15 (approx)

No questions this time, but keep reading Emma and try to get around Chapter 14 for next time. I'll give you an in-class response when you return based on some passage or idea in these chapters, which might include the following:

* Why does Emma so completely misread Mr. Elton's romantic intentions towards her? Why does she attribute them instead to Harriet? What might this say about her character and talents of outward perception?

* How does her relationship with Knightley continue to develop in these chapters? Do they have a potentially romantic relationship--or merely an adversarial one? What insights does Austen allow us to into their past relationship? 

* While Knightley criticizes Emma's attempts to mold and improve Harriet, could we argue that he is doing the same toward Emma? Is he trying to shape her into the future Mrs. Knightley (and failing)?

* Why is she so insulted by Mr. Elton's declaration of love? Is it merely because of the insult to Harriet--or to the insult toward herself? Does she really think him so beneath her? 

* How does the novel continue to play with the ideas of sensibility and sentiment? Which characters most embody which quality? How does Austen make us aware of this? 

* What does Emma see as Harriet's biggest failings--and hardest 'flaws' to correct? Are these really flaws, or just her own social bias showing through? In other words, do these need to be fixed?