Aesthetic
Realism seminar:
What's the Biggest
Thing Women Need
to Know about Power?, part 3
We see some of the effects of bad power working
in Emma when she and Harriet briefly meet Mr.
Martin on a walk, and later Emma contemptuously
remarks to Harriet:
" 'He
is...remarkably plain:--but that is nothing,
compared with his entire want of
gentility....I did not expect much; but I had
no idea that he could be so very clownish, so
totally without air....'To be sure,' said
Harriet, in a mortified voice, 'he is not so
genteel as real gentlemen.' "
And Emma tells Harriet
of some warm personal praise Mr. Elton said of
her. We see, as Harriet blushes and
smiles, that Emma's bad power over her is
weakening Harriet, encouraging her to make less
of her true feeling for Robert Martin.
Later, Emma learns that Mr. Martin has
proposed marriage to Harriet, and when she
tells Mr. Knightley that he is certainly not
her equal, Knightley objects:
"Not
Harriet's equal!" [he] exclaimed..."Emma, your
infatuation about that girl blinds you."
The infatuation is
really Emma's lust for an ugly power based on
ill will and this is what Mr. Knightley is
objecting to. "Aesthetic Realism sees good
will as the aesthetic oneness of encouragement
and criticism," writes Mr. Siegel,
"If we are
to be true to a friend, or anyone, we must
hope to be able to tell him what he may be
doing against himself.... In the same way as a
wall may be washed because we care for the
wall, so a person may be told he has welcomed
something harmful to himself." [TRO 195]
Knightley has good will
for Emma; he sees she is bringing out
something bad in Harriet and, in the process,
hurting herself; and he tells her of it so she
will change. In contrast to Emma's desire
to manage and run other people's lives, Jane
Austen shows that Mr. Knightley has given
careful, deep thought to Robert Martin, Harriet
Smith, and also to Emma. He says to Emma:
"[Harriet]
was as happy as possible with the Martins in
the summer. She had no sense of
superiority then. If she has it now, you
have given it. You have been no friend
to Harriet Smith, Emma. Robert Martin
would never have proceeded so far, if he had
not felt persuaded of her not being
disinclined to him. I know him
well. He has too much real feeling to
address any woman on the haphazard of selfish
passion."
Emma is stirred by
Knightley's criticism but she is also, Miss
Austen shows, in a fight between questioning
herself and justifying herself.
Good
Will Is the Biggest Power in the World
In her commentary to
The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known,
Ellen Reiss writes that we are truly
important,
"through
seeing that we are related to every person and
thing in the world and that justice to them is
the way to take care of ourselves. [This
is] good will, which Mr. Siegel showed to be
the biggest power there is." [TRO
757]
But because Emma has
been going after another kind of power, she has
totally missed the boat as to Mr. Elton.
She was powerless to see that Mr. Elton was
never interested in Harriet--it was Emma he'd
had designs on, being well aware she would one
day be a wealthy heiress. She is shocked
that she could have been so deceived, and feels
bad as to her influence over Harriet. But
Jane Austen shows the ego can put up quite a
fight in its wanting to justify bad power or ill
will. Emma thinks, yes, she was wrong
about Mr. Elton for Harriet, but pretty quickly
starts enumerating all the many ways she has
been right as to her.
A culminating point in the novel is what
occurs at a party in the home of Mr.
Knightley. One of the guests is an old
family friend of Emma's, Miss Bates, who is
described by Jane Austen as
"devoted to
the care of a failing mother, and the
endeavour to make a small income go as far as
possible. And yet she was a happy woman,
and...quick-sighted to everybody's
merits;...She was a great talker upon little
matters,...full of...communications..."
As part of a game to
amuse and entertain others, Emma makes fun of
Miss Bates being so talkative. We see the
power of good will in Mr. Knightley, when he
says:
"Emma,...I
cannot see you acting wrong, without a
remonstrance. How could you be so
unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you
be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her
character, age, and situation?--Emma, I had
not thought it possible....Her situation
should secure your compassion.... You, whom
she had known from an infant,...and before
others? This is not pleasant to you, Emma--and
it is very far from pleasant to me; but I
must, I will,--I will tell you truths while I
can,..."
Emma is deeply affected
by this. "The truth of his representation,"
writes Jane Austen "there was no denying.
She felt it at her heart. How could she
have been so brutal...to Miss Bates!" The
beauty of the end of this novel is that Emma
changes. She comes to have more feeling
for Miss Bates, whom she hopes to know
better. Emma gets to a new power--she
comes to be affected by the real selves of other
people. There is a true pride in her now
as she questions her "insufferable vanity," and
"unpardonable arrogance [in] propos[ing] to
arrange everybody's destiny." She sees
"she had brought evil on Harriet," and "on
herself" and was "universally mistaken."
And fortunately, Harriet does marry Mr. Martin.
And now Emma wants to understand her own
heart. Jane Austen writes: "How long had
Mr. Knightley been so dear to her, as every
feeling declared him now to be?" She is
deeply in love with the man who has most
strengthened her life through his criticism of
her injustice. And he, swept by how Emma
has changed, asks her to marry him. She
accepts.
We Need
Criticism to Be Strong
When Michael Palmer
and I had our first date, I felt I was in
large, new territory; I was excited by the
possibility of trying to know a man and have a
good effect on him. I had made mistakes
as to love, and now I saw a man sincerely
interested in knowing what I felt, who wanted
to make me stronger. And as we talked, I
liked learning from Michael as he spoke about
current things happening in the world, the
music he cared for, books that affected him,
and baseball. And I liked his humor and
keen criticism of me. Michael didn't
flatter me. He asked me, for instance,
"[Did I feel my life was held back, because I
didn't have a deep and continuous enough
interest in other people?" Yes, it
was. I was affected by Michael's
thoughtfulness, and also by his saying he
wanted to be deeper about people too!
And I fell in love with him. I'm
grateful for our very happy marriage these
past years.
During the time we began to know each other, I
received, and it continues, such grand
education in what it means to have good will
for a man and for the world he
represents. Some of the questions I was
asked in classes given by Ellen Reiss--as
fresh today in enabling me to be a better wife
and person, as when first asked--are:
Do you want
to be a beginning point of Michael Palmer's
seeing all human beings more happily and
deeply?
Do you think you
want enough for Mr. Palmer to be fair to
what's true in this world?
Do you think
Michael Palmer's mind is worthy material for
you to get excited about--something you
should be interested in, concerned about,
and educated by all the time?
Yes!
Aesthetic Realism shows--and the great
literature of the world backs it up--what the
big power is in a person's life: wanting to be
just to other people and to the world, which is
the purpose of our lives.
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