In
early January 2015, Diane Reynolds and I had a conversation in Janeites and
Austen-L regarding the thinly veiled, creepily pedophilic subtext of the interactions
between Emma and Mr. Knightley relating to their large age differential (21 vs.
37):
Diane:
“The chapter opens with Emma deciding to make it up to Mr. Knightley and doing
so by greeting him as he visits with her niece (and his niece), baby Emma, in
her arms, a bit of artifice that Emma uses to disarm him. Again, atmospherics
come into play--the text never says that the current baby Emma reminds Mr.
Knightley of the baby Emma he remembers from when he was 16--the baby Emma who
is now the grown up Emma holding a baby Emma--but clearly the implication--or
background note--is all over the passage. And Emma works very hard to be a
peacemaker, to smooth over differences for the family Christmas. The baby
gambit works. …”
Me: “As
usual, Diane, your attention gravitates to the most significant aspects of each
chapter which lead off the page into shadowy realms. In this case, you rightly
pick up on what I see as the latent pedophilia in which Chapter 12 is drenched,
as I will now explain….it’s Knightley’s disturbingly fond free associations
from holding a baby girl in his arms to remembering holding the infant version
of his now 21 year old sister in law in his then 16 year old arms. The
universal response should be “EEEWWWW!”
The creepiness factor is off the charts. It was a memorable moment at
the 2011 JASNA AGM in Ft. Worth when Andrew Davies drew a collective gasp from
800 attendees at his plenary address by daring to suggest that Knightley’s
interest in Emma is very disturbing.”
Diane:
“He is holding baby Emma when he agrees with the adult Emma. "Yes ... I
was sixteen years old when you were born."
How can the baby Emma he is holding not be jogging this memory -- and
awareness -- of their age difference? How can he not be thinking of adult Emma
in her babyhood? Emma tries to reduce the difference Mr, K perceives by noting
that she is now 21, implying they are both now adults, which they are. But Mr.
K won't give it up: "I have still the advantage of you by 16 years
experience" and then he says patronizingly, pointing directly to his male
privilege, "and by not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled
child." If Emma looks to establish some equality with him as an adult--and
she IS an adult—he insists on characterizing her as a child. Mr. K then turns
to address baby
Emma
directly, asking her to tell her aunt to set
"a better example than renewing old grievances."
Me: Indeed,
Jane Austen is showing us, without saying it out loud, that the age difference
is what really turns Knightley on --- he’s like one of the pedophiles on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
who loses interest in his victim unless he can keep seeing her as very young.
We see Knightley in this scene charmed by Emma from angry thwarted petulance to
smiling joviality—we see a side of him we’d rather not. This whole creepy theme
will be revisited, in spades, when Emma and Mrs. Weston chortle over baby Anna
Weston near the end of the novel. But enough about Knightley---I say the
chapter is drenched in pedophilia, because the far greater portion of Chapter
12 is then given over to Mr. Woodhouse’s disturbingly strong feelings about
having some alone time with daughter Isabella.
We see that Knightley and Mr. Woodhouse have an awful (all puns
intended) lot in common when it comes to their attentions to much young
females--- in their own families, no less….”
Today,
I want to add several additional insights regarding the passages in which Emma
“saucily” engages with Knightley about his fixation on her when she was young.
(For ease of reference, at the end of this post, I’ve presented both of those
excerpts, with the many specific references that Knightley makes to Emma’s age
shown in ALL CAPS, to show that Knightley collected and treasured these
memories the same way Harriet collected and treasured Mr. Elton’s used
bandages! And I’ve also included an excerpt from the tete a tete between
Knightley and Mrs. Weston in Chapter 5 which is part of that pedophilic aura of
the novel, in that Knightley fondly reminisces about the prepubescent Emma
there as well.
First
and foremost, in response to those who might claim that Knightley’s fixation on
the young Emma was not meant by Jane Austen to disturb, but was simply a
reflection of JA’s comfortable acquiescence in the patriarchal mores of her
time --- during which marriages of men to much younger women were common --- consider
what prompts BOTH of those two conversations between Knightley and Emma,
separated by 41 chapters and six months of action in the novel:
Emma
is holding baby Emma (her niece) in her arms in the first passage; and
Emma
and Knightley are discussing baby Anna Weston in the latter one, presumably
right after a visit to Randalls by Emma and Mr. Knightley.
So in
both cases, we see Knightley’s romantic imagination being very specifically triggered
by the sight (and touch) of a female baby. EEEWWW!!!!! This subtle textual clue
removes any doubt that Jane Austen intended her attentive readers to notice
this connection, and to recognize that Emma has somehow (and surely not in a
good way) learned a long time ago that the way to Knightley’s heart is through
his interest (obsession) with young girls. And when we add to that creepiness
the even greater creepiness of Mr. Woodhouse and his focus on young women
around him---looks like we stumbled into a particularly disturbing episode of
SVU!!
Second,
returning to Andrew Davies’s brilliant insight into the pedophilic subtext of
Mr. Knightley, I want you all to know that he not only discussed it in passing
at that JASNA AGM, he also addressed it in more length in his witty, scholarly
1996 article in The Telegraph, the
relevant text of which I have also added at the end of this post for your ready
reference. And…best of all, Davies also embodied his insight in his film
version of Emma, when we hear the
following dialog at the romantic climax, when Knightley finds Emma in the
garden at Hartfield after his return from London, and decides to take the
plunge and tell Emma that he loves her. Davies added the following two lines of
dialog:
Knightley:
“I held you in my arms when you were three weeks old.”
Emma:
“Do you like me as well now as you did then?"
[Knightley
moves in for their first kiss]
So,
to that loud chorus who complain that Davies sexes Jane Austen up on his own
initiative, the above shows that Davies is as much insightful scholar as
creative storyteller, and he grounded that dialog on very firm textual footing
indeed! It foregrounds Jane Austen’s actual background.
Third,
writing this post caused me to connect the dots between several related strands
of research I’ve been doing over the past several years on JA’s pedophilic
subtexts, including two in particular:
Back
in 2011, I looked at the apparent allusion to Emma in Gigi (both in
Colette’s original novel, and in the 1958 musical film adaptation)—an allusion which Amy Heckerling was the first to
cleverly and brilliantly tag in Clueless (1993),
when the music from Gigi is played at
the precise moment when Josh first notices his stepsister Cher as a beautiful,
desirable woman, when she appears dressed to kill coming down the stairs of
their home. Gaston Lachaille and his “charming” uncle do seem to me to be
modern French versions of Mr. Knightley and Mr. Woodhouse, and the older family
members who are grooming Gigi for Gaston are interesting takes on Miss Bates
and Mrs. Weston; and
I
have been posting regularly during the past few years about the many sides of
the pedophilia subtext of Mansfield Park,
which I eventually recognized as a key allusive source for Nabokov in Lolita.
It
all makes me realize that Nabokov surely had Mansfield Park, Emma, Pygmalion, and perhaps also Gigi, on his scholarly mind when he
created Humbert Humbert and Lolita.
And
finally, that brings me to Ground Zero of this particular thread ----Alan Jay Lerner, the lyricist and
librettist who collaborated with Frederick Loewe on My Fair Lady (of course, adapted from Shaw’s Pygmalion), also, as everyone knows, had equally great success with
Gigi. That might just have
coincidence, that Lerner and Loewe’s two biggest successes were both about
older men lording it over a younger woman in a disturbing way. But the kicker
that puts Lerner in the Hall of Shame in terms of promulgation (peddling) of
pedophilia into the zeitgeist as an acceptable, even desirable, lifestyle, is
that after Loewe retired, Lerner went through a series of unsuccessful musicals,
and one of them was (what else?) called Lolita,
My Love.
As
Cher from Clueless would have chimed
in -- EWWWW!!!!
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
RELEVANT
PASSAGES RE KNIGHTLEY’S PEDOPHILIC FIXATION ON EMMA:
Chapter
12: She hoped they might now become friends again. She thought it was time to
make up. Making-up indeed would not do. She certainly had not been in
the wrong, and he would never own that he had. Concession must be out of
the question; but it was time to appear to forget that they had ever
quarrelled; and she hoped it might rather assist the restoration of friendship,
that when he came into the room she had one of the children with her—the
youngest, a nice little girl about eight months old, who was now making her first
visit to Hartfield, and very happy to be danced about in her aunt's arms. It
did assist; for though he began with grave looks and short questions, he was
soon led on to talk of them all in the usual way, and to take the child out of
her arms with all the unceremoniousness of perfect amity. Emma felt they were
friends again; and the conviction giving her at first great satisfaction, and
then a little sauciness, she could not help saying, as he was admiring the
baby, "What a comfort it is, that
we think alike about our nephews and nieces. As to men and women, our opinions
are sometimes very different; but with regard to these children, I observe we
never disagree."
"If
you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and women, and as
little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings with them, as you are
where these children are concerned, we might always think alike."
"To
be sure—our discordancies must always arise from my being in the wrong."
"Yes,"
said he, smiling—"and reason good. I was SIXTEEN YEARS OLD WHEN YOU WERE
BORN."
"A
material difference then," she replied—"and no doubt you were much my
superior in judgment at that period of our lives; but does not the lapse of
one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal nearer?"
"Yes—a
good deal nearer."
"But
still, not near enough to give me a chance of being right, if we think
differently."
"I
have still the advantage of you by SIXTEEN YEARS' EXPERIENCE, and by not being
a pretty young woman and a spoiled child. Come, my dear Emma, let us be
friends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little Emma, that she ought
to set you a better example than to be renewing old grievances, and that if she
were not wrong before, she is now."
"That's
true," she cried—"very true. Little Emma, grow up a better woman than
your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited. Now, Mr.
Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. As far as good intentions went,
we were both right, and I must say that no effects on my side of the
argument have yet proved wrong. I only want to know that Mr. Martin is not
very, very bitterly disappointed."
"A
man cannot be more so," was his short, full answer.
"Ah!—Indeed
I am very sorry.—Come, shake hands with me."
Chapter
53: I do not believe I did you any good. The good was all to myself, by making
you an object of the tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so
much without doating on you, faults and all; and by dint of fancying so many
errors, have been IN LOVE WITH YOU EVER SINCE YOU WERE THIRTEEN AT LEAST."
"I
am sure you were of use to me," cried Emma. "I was very often
influenced rightly by you—oftener than I would own at the time. I am very sure
you did me good. And if poor little Anna Weston is to be spoiled, it will be
the greatest humanity in you to do as much for her as you have done for me,
except FALLING IN LOVE WITH HER WHEN SHE IS THIRTEEN."
"How
often, WHEN YOU WERE A GIRL, have you said to me, with one of your saucy
looks—'Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so-and-so; papa says I may, or I have
Miss Taylor's leave'—something which, you knew, I did not approve. In such
cases my interference was giving you two bad feelings instead of one."
"What
an amiable creature I was!—No wonder you should hold my speeches in such
affectionate remembrance."
"'Mr.
Knightley.'—You always called me, 'Mr. Knightley;' and, from habit, it has not
so very formal a sound.—And yet it is formal. I want you to call me something
else, but I do not know what."
"I
remember once calling you 'George,' in one of my amiable fits, ABOUT TEN YEARS
AGO. I did it because I thought it would offend you; but, as you made no
objection, I never did it again."
"And
cannot you call me 'George' now?"
"Impossible!—I
never can call you any thing but 'Mr. Knightley.' I will not promise even to
equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton, by calling you Mr. K.—But I will
promise," she added presently, laughing and blushing—"I will promise
to call you once by your Christian name. I do not say when, but perhaps you may
guess where;—in the building in which N. takes M. for better, for worse."
Also,
see Chapter 5, Knightley’s tete a tete with Mrs. Weston, and ask yourself
whether the memory that Knightley “feelingly” desires to forget, about Emma
omitting to do any thing Mrs. Weston wished, might just have something to do
with Mr. Knightley’s desires for the very young Emma:
[Knightley]
"Emma has been meaning to read more EVER SINCE SHE WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD. I
have seen a great many lists of her drawing-up at various times of books that
she meant to read regularly through—and very good lists they were—very well
chosen, and very neatly arranged—sometimes alphabetically, and sometimes by
some other rule. The list SHE DREW UP WHEN ONLY FOURTEEN--I remember thinking
it did her judgment so much credit, that I preserved it some time; and I dare
say she may have made out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting
any course of steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to any thing
requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the
understanding. Where Miss Taylor failed to stimulate, I may safely affirm that
Harriet Smith will do nothing.—You never could persuade her to read half so
much as you wished.—You know you could not."
"I
dare say," replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, "that I thought so then;—but
since we have parted, I can never remember Emma's omitting to do any thing I
wished."
"There
is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as that,"—said Mr. Knightley, feelingly; and for a moment or
two he had done.
"But I," he soon added, "who have had no such charm thrown over
my senses, must still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being the
cleverest of her family. At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able
to answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always quick
and assured: Isabella slow and diffident. And EVER SINCE SHE WAS TWELVE, Emma
has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her mother she lost the only
person able to cope with her. She inherits her mother's talents, and must have
been under subjection to her."
…."I
either depend more upon Emma's good sense than you do, or am more anxious for
her present comfort; for I cannot lament the acquaintance. How well she looked
last night!"
"Oh!
you would rather talk of her person than her mind, would you? Very
well; I shall not attempt to deny Emma's being pretty."
"Pretty!
say beautiful rather. Can you imagine any thing nearer perfect beauty than Emma
altogether—face and figure?"
"I
do not know what I could imagine, but I confess that I have seldom seen a face or
figure more pleasing to me than hers. But I am a partial old friend."
"Such
an eye!—the true hazle eye—and so brilliant! regular features, open
countenance, with a complexion! oh! what a bloom of full health, and such a
pretty height and size; such a firm and upright figure! There is health, not
merely in her bloom, but in her air, her head, her glance. One hears sometimes
of a child being 'the picture of health;' now, Emma always gives me the idea of
being the complete picture of grown-up health. She is loveliness itself. Mr.
Knightley, is not she?"
"I
have not a fault to find with her person," he replied. "I think her
all you describe. I love to look at her; and I will add this praise, that I do not think her
personally vain. Considering how very handsome she is, she appears to be little
occupied with it; her vanity lies another way. Mrs. Weston, I am not to be
talked out of my dislike of Harriet Smith, or my dread of its doing them both
harm."
EXCERPT
FROM ANDREW DAVIES’S 1996 ARTICLE
“Among
all the flawed inhabitants of Highbury and its environs, Mr Knightley stands
alone as the very embodiment of the ideal English gentleman. I have yet to find
a critic prepared to hazard a question-mark about this most Austenian of Austen
heroes so let's raise one or two here. Mr Knightley is "seven or
eight-and-thirty", Emma is 20. He is an "old family friend". He
probably held her in his arms when she was a baby. He's played a lot of different
roles through her childhood and adolescence: much older brother, sort-of-uncle,
stern but loving tutor and substitute father, since Mr Woodhouse is so
inadequate in that role. And then in Chapter 53, he tells her that he has been
in love with her since she was 13. Hmm. We'd certainly see that as an
inappropriate attachment these days. The guy has practically powdered her
bottom, for God's sake.
Well,
at least he waited till she was 20 before proposing a full sexual relationship.
But why did it have to be Emma? I know people didn't get about much in those
days (Emma's never been to the seaside) but Mr Knightley must have met some
eligible women. Is Knightley a bit of a Humbert Humbert, or what? To put it at
its kindest he looks a bit slothful in the mate-hunting department. There is of
course the material consideration: Knightley has land but not much cash, and
Woodhouse has cash but not much land. In fact, Knightley owns most of the
county, apart from the Hartfield estate. Is it mean of me to imagine Knightley
as having spent many hours pondering the map of the area and thinking how much
more satisfying it would be if that awkward corner of land were subsumed into
the Donwell estate? And Mr Woodhouse's thousands would have a very beneficial
effect on the cash flow.
But
these are base thoughts, and I shall desist from them. Knightley is one of
Austen's most attractive heroes: strong, decisive, intelligent, outspoken,
unsnobbish - and he's sensitive to other people's feelings, sussing out the
Jane / Frank situation long before anyone else does. He is also an exemplary
English gentleman.”
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