PBS - Saved!
Profuse thanks to Julie Stiles for finding her way to the broadcasting schedules for PBS (see her ‘comment’ on the previous post for the links). I can only say that things must have improved since I had my stab at trying to find out times and days, and thank goodness they have.
It will be a real pleasure to see ‘Emma’ again, filled as it is with distinctions in class and sensitivity to social distinctions. Those who have criticized Jane Austen as classist seem to me to have missed a major point. Of course class prejudice is horrible - and she depicts that in such figures as Mr and Mrs Elton, who are all about exploiting personal prestige in whatever way they can. Even Frank Churchill knows how to manipulate opinions for his best monetary advantage - and he’s already pretty well up the social ladder. But there’s also something in the novel that I can only think of as class respect. Mr Knightley has it when he knows exactly who his workmen and tenants are. Harriet may be a sweet woman but he sees right away that she’d not suit Mr Elton’s temperament or social climbing aspirations, for instance. Social respect means knowing who some one is, both limitations and virtues, and acknowledging where such a person would be best placed in society. Mr Knightley knows that Robert Martin would be an excellent husband for Harriet, and that the Martin family would be genuinely supportive and loving to her in a way that Mr Elton could never have managed.
Is he just a good judge of character? Yes, and more than that, too. He’s also an emblem of how a society could function well, because there’s only one of him in the whole of Highgate, but he’s enough to make a difference.
Class respect. It’s basic. Emma’s wish that Harriet should ‘marry well’ has nothing to do with her seeing who Harriet really is, and that’s a form of disrespect any of us would wince from. Ask anyone who’s ever been set up on a bad blind date by a well-meaning but clueless friend….
