Emma believes she needs. She and Knightley have a regular verbal brawl, with Knightley landing the best blows, and Emma “playfully” and energetically defending a bad cause. A number of slippery and disputable terms have also been put into play: yeomanry, gentleman-farmer, Nobody, gentility.
A recollection or recurrence of this spirited exchange takes place toward the end. Knightley, this time unbeknown to Emma, has “interfered,” has taken charge of the matchmaking, and has arranged for a meeting of Harriet and Martin in London; Martin has again proposed and this time been accepted. And this time Knightley breaks the news to Emma, although he is unduly anxious that she will still be adamantly opposed. He now calls Martin “ ‘my friend Robert.’ ” In his solicitude toward Emma, Knightly acknowledges that—
“His situation is an evil; but you must consider it as what satisfies your friend.... As far as the man is concerned, you could not wish your friend in better hands. His rank in society I would alter if I could; which is saying a great deal, I assure you, Emma. You laugh at me about William Larkins; but I could quite as ill spare Robert Martin” (p. 427). x
Martin’s character remains unblemished. His place or status in an inherited, customary social hierarchy is a circumstance that Knightley would like to change but cannot. Knightley would, in this instance, be happy to depart from the social regime of a market economy that in its turn is embedded in and constrained by a traditional, semi-feudal order of ranking. This disposition of legitimate authority allows for gradual, progressive change and the rising of worthy persons through the traditional grades or categories: from farmer to gentleman-farmer to bona fide gentleman. Knightley would be willing, for Robert Martin, to bypass the noninterference policy that guides doctrinally the social economy of a market-driven system, which has in turn been mixed into a supervening context of historical, inherited socio-political institutions. It would be close to violating his ideological principles (he has, ironically, already done so in masterminding the match of Martin and Harriet), and he would if he could, but he can’t. xi Still he relies as much on Martin as he does on his steward, William Larkins (along with Martin, one of the considerable group of enumerated and significant symbolically silent characters in Emma) . The laughter that Knightley refers to has to do with Larkins giving Knightley “permission” to keep back some extra apples (which he will doubtless give away), but the purport of his remark is that he depends on Martin and that his tenant’s Abbey-Mill Farm and Knightley’s home farm are connected by more than geographical proximity. In sum, the shiftings and irregularities or inconsistencies that are observable in Emma’s and Knightley’s statements about Robert Martin are refractions from an actual historical world of social changes and contradictions.
The Bates family is a counterpart to Weston and Martin, but going in the opposite direction. (As George Orwell described his own Anglo-Indian family, they are downstarts.) Mrs. Bates is the very old widow of “a former vicar of Highbury.” While Mr. Bates was alive, we are prompted to assume, the family occupied the same social position as Mr. and Mrs. Elton. But the defunct vicar left his family in a very poor way, almost without resources. Miss Bates, the unmarried daughter, is neither young, handsome, clever, or rich. xii She takes care of her “failing” parent and also does whatever she can for her niece, Jane Fairfax, the orphaned child of a sister—and also as good as penniless. Miss Bates is all goodwill and “contented temper,” simplicity and cheerfulness, “a recommendation to every body, and a mine of felicity to herself” (p. 18). She is a lesson in Christian acceptance and gladness and buoyancy in the midst of adversity and loss. She keeps herself spiritually
A recollection or recurrence of this spirited exchange takes place toward the end. Knightley, this time unbeknown to Emma, has “interfered,” has taken charge of the matchmaking, and has arranged for a meeting of Harriet and Martin in London; Martin has again proposed and this time been accepted. And this time Knightley breaks the news to Emma, although he is unduly anxious that she will still be adamantly opposed. He now calls Martin “ ‘my friend Robert.’ ” In his solicitude toward Emma, Knightly acknowledges that—
“His situation is an evil; but you must consider it as what satisfies your friend.... As far as the man is concerned, you could not wish your friend in better hands. His rank in society I would alter if I could; which is saying a great deal, I assure you, Emma. You laugh at me about William Larkins; but I could quite as ill spare Robert Martin” (p. 427). x
Martin’s character remains unblemished. His place or status in an inherited, customary social hierarchy is a circumstance that Knightley would like to change but cannot. Knightley would, in this instance, be happy to depart from the social regime of a market economy that in its turn is embedded in and constrained by a traditional, semi-feudal order of ranking. This disposition of legitimate authority allows for gradual, progressive change and the rising of worthy persons through the traditional grades or categories: from farmer to gentleman-farmer to bona fide gentleman. Knightley would be willing, for Robert Martin, to bypass the noninterference policy that guides doctrinally the social economy of a market-driven system, which has in turn been mixed into a supervening context of historical, inherited socio-political institutions. It would be close to violating his ideological principles (he has, ironically, already done so in masterminding the match of Martin and Harriet), and he would if he could, but he can’t. xi Still he relies as much on Martin as he does on his steward, William Larkins (along with Martin, one of the considerable group of enumerated and significant symbolically silent characters in Emma) . The laughter that Knightley refers to has to do with Larkins giving Knightley “permission” to keep back some extra apples (which he will doubtless give away), but the purport of his remark is that he depends on Martin and that his tenant’s Abbey-Mill Farm and Knightley’s home farm are connected by more than geographical proximity. In sum, the shiftings and irregularities or inconsistencies that are observable in Emma’s and Knightley’s statements about Robert Martin are refractions from an actual historical world of social changes and contradictions.
The Bates family is a counterpart to Weston and Martin, but going in the opposite direction. (As George Orwell described his own Anglo-Indian family, they are downstarts.) Mrs. Bates is the very old widow of “a former vicar of Highbury.” While Mr. Bates was alive, we are prompted to assume, the family occupied the same social position as Mr. and Mrs. Elton. But the defunct vicar left his family in a very poor way, almost without resources. Miss Bates, the unmarried daughter, is neither young, handsome, clever, or rich. xii She takes care of her “failing” parent and also does whatever she can for her niece, Jane Fairfax, the orphaned child of a sister—and also as good as penniless. Miss Bates is all goodwill and “contented temper,” simplicity and cheerfulness, “a recommendation to every body, and a mine of felicity to herself” (p. 18). She is a lesson in Christian acceptance and gladness and buoyancy in the midst of adversity and loss. She keeps herself spiritually
Similar Books
