Mr Woodhouse's age

[Iain Sparrow]

Yes, OK, I was carrying on the 'creepiness' of the age difference between Knightley and Emma. I've always preferred older men, in fact, though I don't think I'd ever thought about getting one who was double my age. Though I say that... If I had met the right man and he happened to be older than forty whereas I was only 17, then who's to say I wouldn't have been happy? As it is, I've settled for 9 years older.

Ha!.. only 9 years older.
Us fortysomething men have a name for guys that young, "boy scouts".

[Jackson Richardson]

kev - Big apologies for giving a spoiler on the plot. Mind you, I rather think the plot of Emma, after Mr Elton has proposed, is not that clear when read the first time around!

Mr Woodhouse is both totally without malice and courteous and at the same time self centred. The absent Mrs Churchill's claims to ill health are clearly regarded highly critically. Mr Woodhouse's are not, but that's partly because of his personal charm and because Emma can manage him.

[kiki1982]

Ah, that's an interesting point about Mrs Churchill... I hadn't paired the oldies up... Maybe the Greek chorus of Highbury public opinion in Emma thinks that Churchill's aunt is unreasonable and Mr Woodhouse isn't, merely because Mrs Churchill isn't one of them and they know Mr Woodhouse? A bit like Emma's hostility towards Jane Fairfax because she isn't 'one of them' and is new in the village (and beautiful as well, how dare she).

After all, we never hear anything about Mrs Churchill, apart from the very few things Austen gave us. Maybe she's a sweet old lady, as sweet as Mr Woodhouse, who knows?

Maybe this was intentional...
It's amazing what you can disover in her novels.

[Ecurb]

One internet Austen fan has a theory that there's a "shadow story" in Emma, hinted at in the plot, and dependent on hints from anagrams and alternative answers to the word games. The hinted-at "shadow" story, which can be deciphered through careful reading (his story goes) includes: Jane Fairfax is pregnant -- hence the constant headaches and "indispositions". Knightley forces Frank Churchill into marrying her -- which is why he is able to repeat the letter to Mrs. Weston in his proposal to Emma, even though he (supposedly) hasn't seen the letter yet. He actually dictated it. Mrs. Weston's baby, Anna (Ann-a Weston refers to Anne Austen, one of Jane's relatives, for some reason I can't remember) is actually Jane's baby, whom Mrs. and Mr. Weston kindly offered to rear as their own.

Here's the guy's website, if anyone is interested: http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.co...ight-and-every

[Clopin]

A bit like Emma's hostility towards Jane Fairfax because she isn't 'one of them' and is new in the village (and beautiful as well, how dare she).

I found Emma's dislike of Jane very true to life, Austen probably knew some real eighteen to twenty three year old girls haha. Also Jane is smart and Knightley likes her. It's funny that I don't really think I cared much for Emma the character, but looking back now I have a pretty vivid memory of what she looked like (to me obviously), sounded like, and even the types of facial expressions she was likely to make when she was speaking. I think I might have disliked her for being actually written as her age. I mean I would probably dislike a true to life portrayel of my own character in a novel as well.

[Ecurb]

In my experience, most modern readers close to Emma's age can't warm to her. They see her as a self-absorbed snob. They are right, of course, but many older readers look back at their own youthful self-absorption fondly, and like Emma despite her many faults.

Personally, I don't like Jane Fairfax -- that's one point on which Emma and I agree. Miss Fairfax is a whiner, a complainer, and she's constantly feeling sorry for herself. Here she compares her potential life as a Governess to that of slaves in the West Indies:

"I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade," replied Jane; "governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely different certainly, as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies.

Oh, come now! Perhaps wealthy wedded bliss with Frank Churchill is more attractive than becoming a governess, but I don't think the lot of a governess is as miserable as that of a slave. In fact, life as a governess is probably as luxurious as (say) life as Robert Martin's wife, a fate that Emma may find deplorable, but most readers do not. The reader cannot but suspect that Jane Fairfax would never (in a million years) marry the likes of Robert Martin.

Perhaps if Miss Fairfax would stick to performing on the piano-forte, instead of professing her self-serving, whining opinions, she would avoid exposing herself readers' scorn. Who can blame Emma for disliking her?

[Clopin]

Yes, what really made me dislike Emma was how contemptuous she was of Martin because he actually worked for a living (the horror). In that regard I don't see her as being any better than Jane in the quote you posted and I'm sure she would also find life as a governess intolerable.

[Ecurb]

Of course you are right that Emma is a snob and would THINK the life of a governess beneath her. However, Emma is wrong about a lot of things, not the least of which is herself. Here's a brilliant stream-of consciousness example, with Emma thinking about Mrs. Elton:

" 'Insufferable woman!' was her immediate exclamation. 'Worse than I had supposed. Absolutely insufferable! Knightley! - I could not have believed it. Knightley! - never seen him in her life before, and call him Knightley! - and discover that he is a gentleman! A little upstart, vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her caro sposo, and her resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery. Actually to discover that Mr. Knightley is a gentleman! I doubt whether he will return the compliment, and discover her to be a lady. I could not have believed it! And to propose that she and I should unite to form a musical club! One would fancy we were bosom friends! And Mrs. Weston! - Astonished that the person who had brought me up should be a gentlewoman! Worse and worse. I never met with her equal. Much beyond my hopes. Harriet is disgraced by any comparison. Oh! what would Frank Churchill say to her, if he were here? How angry and how diverted he would be! Ah! there I am! - thinking of him directly. Always the first person to be thought of! How I catch myself out! Frank Churchill comes as regularly into my mind!' * "

In reality, the "first person to be thought of" was Knightley, not Frank Churchill, and Emma is self-absorbed about Mrs. Elton's insult to Mrs. Weston, thinking it an insult to herself. As usual, Emma is actually right about everything here, but wrong-headed in how she thinks about it.

However, one thing I like about Emma (and Austen herself wrote that in Emma she was taking a heroine that nobody would like but herself) is her energy and intelligence. All of those brains (look how quickly she solves every riddle!) and all of that energy are misguided, of course, but they're still attractive. The reality is that Emma would probably be happy as a Governess -- energetic; meddling in the family's life; inventing romances for herself in the community; matchmaking for her acquaintances. Jane Fairfax is right about herself: she'd be miserable as a Governess because she's a stick-in-the mud and she won't be happy anywhere.

Which character is more admirable: the one who thinks she'd be miserable as a governess, but is wrong about herself, or the one who thinks she'd be miserable and is right?

By the way, one more reason to like Emma: where in literature is there a more devoted daughter to a difficult (if sweet) father? Emma's faults are many and manifest; her virtues are manifest as well.

[Clopin]

haha don't be mad if I say this but my general sense of you as a sort of masculine, athletic, sporty type guy always clashes humorously with your expertise in Jane Austen novels and romance plots in general! No offense meant, it's a good thing of course.

[Ecurb]

Thanks, Clopin. Austen is one of my favorites (along with Tolstoy -- a strange pair, so different in their style of writing).

[Pompey Bum]

Group hug! :-D

[Jackson Richardson]

Jane Fairfax has every reason to feel sorry for herself, particularly as she's been stitched up by Frank. (Even if they haven't had it off.) She only has to look at her aunt, to see in what a precarious position a woman without adequate support can be. (Miss Bates never moans, but her incessant chatter is an expression of her insecurity. Sometimes goodness is only possible if you lack a certain intelligence.)

But I can't warm to Jane and, like Emma towards the end of the novel, I feel cross with myself that I can't feel really sympathetic. Emma rightly feels that she should have been nicer to Jane, but I can't imagine how she could have been.

Knowing that being a governess was the pits was the one thing Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte would have agreed about.

[kiki1982]

Interesting point that about the shadow plot. However, I seem to remember that some time early on in the story, just after Mr and Mrs Weston have got married, it is mentioned that she is not allowed to dance. Code for 'she's preggers'. So the baby born at the end can't be Jane's, but anyway, that wouldn't necessarily dicount the shadow plot. Its interesting, although I think I personally find Churchill too charming to be that callous, although Jane was angry with him and they had an argument at that afternoon's strawberry picking at Donwell Abbey.

You're right, Ecurb, Jane would be a terrible governess. Although probably it is worth mentioning that governesses had a kind of double life, a bit like clergymen's wives: they were part of high society, but didn't have anything. So they were genteel, but were really poor. And not to forget that you could be despised by everybody in your household if you were unlucky: your pupils might not care for you, your mistress neither and the rest of the staff definitely not, because you were 'one of them upstairs'. If you did get a post like that, you'd be pretty miserable and lonely. You were also permanently present at parties and everything, but you had to mind what you said and did. No trying to get a husband, I suppose... Or you'd move from post to post to post and really never settle. I mean, for someone like Harriet Smith who doesn't really know her parents, it's quite alright to spend her life in that school, she's probably thankful for it, but for someone like Jane who has grown up as a lady and a companion to her friend, that's a come-down... And she's suddenly faced with it because her friend has got herself a husband. Being a companion which Mrs Weston was to Emma before her marriage, cooud be a bit like slavery. only think of Miss Crawley's companion in Vanity Fair, basically Miss Crawley just kept her as a laughing stock. If that isn't slavery I don't know what is. Governesses could end up like that definitely.

[kev67]

Regarding Jane Fairfax, I was quite impressed with the way she resisted Mrs Elton's intentions to look out for governess posts for her, while not giving offence. Not being assertive myself, this sort of behaviour impresses me. Mrs Elton sounds like the sort of person it is difficult not to be rude to.

I read the bit where Jane compared slavery to governessing, but I assumed she was joking a bit. It does not sound an appealing prospect, rather like being an au pair whole your life. I seem to remember being told at school, while studying Jane Eyre, that it was expected most of these women would never marry.

George Gissing's The Odd Women is another book outlining the not very appealing prospects for young, genteel women without a fortune or good looks. That was written the other end of the century though. I recently read a biography of Florence Nightingale, which again outlined the lack of opportunities for educated women. Florence had a difficult time breaking away from her parents' control so that she could undergo some nursing training, even when she was over the thirty. She did not need the money, but she was very frustrated. Teacher, governess or lady's companion were about the only jobs available to genteel women who needed to work.

[kev67]

Getting back to Mr Woodhouse's age, in chapter 41 it says he had eaten two of his daily meals on the same small table for forty years. Mr Woodhouse hardly seems the entrepreneurial go-getting type, so presumably he inherited the Hartfield estate when his father died. He must be well over sixty.