Aesthetic
Realism seminar:
What's the Biggest
Thing Women Need
to Know about Power?, part 2
In an early class I
attended with Mr. Siegel, after another
relationship I'd had with a man ended, he asked
me: "Do you believe your largest purpose
is to be admired by a man you admire?"
LA.
Yes.
ES. Is
that really your largest purpose? Most
girls feel if they meet the right man,
everything will be alright. [Did] you
feel that?
LA.
Yes.
ES.
[Did you feel] you could solve all your
problems through sex[?] A woman can
feel most of her life is marking time until
a man really pays homage to her.
LA. I
felt that.
ES. ...You're
finding
out that life is a larger word than
sex. You feel you had a
solution. [And he asked,] You have a
hard time liking anything don't you?"
"Yes" I
replied. And he composed this poem for
me, which I love for its logic and
tenderness.
Question for Clorinda
Can
you like anything that's real,
For
instance a man,
Unless
you like
Reality
as such
Clorinda?
A Novel
of the 19th Century Can Have
Us See
the Power We Truly Want
Emma, by the
important English author Jane Austen, published
in 1815, is a novel that can teach us usefully
about our subject. Emma is a beautiful
young English woman living in Hartfield, who
takes care of her aging and doting father, and
spends much of her time thinking about whom
should be married to whom, and how she can bring
the match about. In an essay printed in The
Right Of Mr. Siegel explained:
"Every
person is troubled by the drive towards good
power and the simultaneous drive towards bad
power. The way that good power can be
distinguished is through asking the question:
'If this desire of mine was to be successful,
and if I were to have power over this person,
would the world look better and would the
person himself or herself be stronger?'
Any power that a human being has over another
that doesn't make the person it is exerted on
stronger, and the world in which the power
takes place look more beautiful, is bad
power."
Early we see Emma going after a bad kind of
power. Her governess, Miss Taylor,
has just married Mr. Weston, and Emma brags to
her father and Mr. Knightley, a family friend,
about her "great" success, "I made the match
myself...and to...be proved in the right,...may
comfort me for anything." Emma is acting
as if she were all powerful, if not for her,
they would never have gotten married. "The
real evils indeed of Emma's situation" Miss
Austen writes,
"were the
power of having rather too much her own way,
and a disposition to think a little too well
of herself; these were the disadvantages which
threatened alloy to her many enjoyments.
The danger, however, was at present so
unperceived, that they did not by any means
rank as misfortunes with her."
These sentences are
critical, satiric even, but kind, because Jane
Austen sees the power of Emma having "too much
her own way," as being a disadvantage,
even as Emma herself doesn't, I didn't either,
and most women don't. I learned this
important fact: that if you go after having your
way through managing others, it is a great
disadvantage, because in making another person
an adjunct to yourself, you rob yourself of
having any real feeling about that person, and
you end up feeling empty and cold.
Mr. Knightley does not flatter Emma Woodhouse,
he questions her, saying:
I do not
understand what you mean by "success"....
'Success supposes endeavour....Where is your
merit?-- what are you proud of?--you made a
lucky guess; and that is all....
Emma, though, instead of
welcoming and thinking about his questions,
tries to make him unsure, and defends herself,
saying:
"I thought
you cleverer--...a lucky guess is never merely
luck. There is always some talent in
it. And as to my poor word 'success,'
which you quarrel with,...If I had not
promoted Mr. Weston's visits here, and given
many little encourage-ments,...it might not
have come to anything after all."
Undaunted by Emma's
arrogance, Mr. Knightley shows respect for the
married couple, saying to her:
"A
straightforward, open-hearted man like Weston,
and a rational unaffected woman, like Miss
Taylor, may be safely left to manage their own
concerns. You are more likely to have
done harm to yourself, than good to them, by
interference."
Mr. Knightley is a real
friend to Emma--he wants her to be exact.
In a class, Mr. Siegel once said to me, "The
whole purpose of life is to be exact about
value....Aesthetic Realism says if you aren't
exact, you're rooking yourself."
Emma--to
use the current phrase--has her own
agenda. When she meets a pretty 17-year
old woman, Harriet Smith, whose parentage is
unknown, and had just parted from under the
care of the Martin family, she thinks, Jane
Austen writes:
"The
[Martins]...must be coarse and
unpolished....She would...improve
[Harriet];...and introduce her into good
society; she would form her opinions and her
manners."
Emma's thoughts are
snobbish--who Harriet really is, she has no idea
and really no interest in. As Harriet
tells Emma of her high regard and care for
Robert Martin, Emma wants her own way and
encourages Harriet to scorn her "degrading"
associations--she has a much better match in
mind for her, a "real gentleman," a Mr. Elton,
"remarkably handsome...with most agreeable
manners."
At a time I was seeing a certain man--like
Emma as to Harriet--I was after having my way,
my pleasure, and I didn't think about whether
I was weakening or strengthening him. I
felt driven, but I also felt ashamed.
Mr. Siegel asked me in a class: "You can
participate in something while not believing
in it--isn't that a description of your life
Miss Abel?" It was. And he asked
"Do you want to have a good effect on people
or do you want to have your way? That is
the big question of people." These
questions began to have me see what kind of
power I wanted most.
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