For me, S&S is like a less polished, less interesting, less complex, more unpleasant predecessor to MP.
I went to a lecture once wherein the thesis was that S&S was a less polished, less complex predecessor to Emma. The idea was that Elinor and Marianne had been combined into one character. Emma has a lot of the selfishness and foolish romantic ideas that Marianne has, but the voice of reason (Elinor) is internal. She has some rather foolish romantic ideas about Frank Churchill, and yet it is Emma herself who tells herself that she is being foolish, that the attraction she feels is skin-deep and she won't be so very heartbroken if it doesn't work out, etc. Knightley does tell her at one point that she is selfish, but Emma internalizes it and thinks about it and decides to self-monitor.
Frank Churchill as a far more complex Willoughby is interesting too. He's slick and attractive, the way Willoughby is, the ideal romantic hero. You expect that there is something not quite as nice brewing under the surface, just as you do with Willoughby. But Willoughby ends up being pretty 2d (which I feel like Austen realized and tried to rectify with the Willoughby-visits-Marianne scene toward the end), whereas when you find out the truth about Frank, you realize yeah, he was kind of a jerk, but he's not evil, and pretty sympathetic besides.
And Knightley is Colonel Brandon without the tragic past, but Knightley definitely sort of pines from afar (by which I mean next door), and is also a magistrate like Brandon (isn't he?) and is the "sensible" choice, like Brandon, as well as the sentimental one. Anyway, I really like the parallels. It makes me like Emma better. I already love the book, but sometimes I do find Emma herself frustrating. But when I think of her as Elinor/Marianne, it helps her make sense to me--because I loooooooooove Marianne. And S&S. I think it's the worst-written of all her novels, but it holds a special place in my heart because of when I read it and the specific issues it deals with.
Interesting! I was thinking more of the atmosphere, and I'm definitely in the opposite boat (I love Emma, and dislike Marianne), but I can actually see Emma with a sort of Marianne-side and Elinor-side. I think I see more of it with Fanny Price, though; she's deeply romantic and the narrator pokes fun at her melodrama, but also dutiful, perceptive, rigidly self-contained, and deeply values the, hm, social codes.
I can see the Brandon element in Mr Knightley, too, though I think the lifelong relationships results in a very different dynamic. One of the things I've found interesting is that, theoretically, I'd find "I held you in my arms when you were a baby and I was a teenager, lol" much more disconcerting than a large age gap with people who'd never met before, but as written, Emma/Mr Knightley bothers me much less than Marianne/Brandon.
I wish I could remember which essay it was, but I did find one that posited Emma as following from P&P - it's not quite as sparkly-dramatic, but it's essentially pretty light-hearted (unlike S&S and MP - I sort of mentally group the six novels into "light" and "dark": NA/P&P/Emma, S&S/MP/Persuasion). Frank Churchill parallels as easily with Wickham as Willoughby, but he actually has a characterization beyond "amoral opportunist" - he's a selfish jerk, and he has his reasons for how he behaves. Like you said, pretty much!
The main idea, though, was that Emma is essentially Darcy and Elizabeth rolled into one - she's snobbish, with a sense of entitlement a mile wide, her basic willfulness has been given full scope by her privileged situation in general and ridiculously indulgent parenting in particular, she's actively generous and deeply loyal to her inner circle, she's physically very attractive but not at all vain about it, she has an impressionable protégée who she persuades out of a marriage she regards as unsuitable, but later is very happy to approve of, she's basically good-natured, principled, and well-meaning, but sometimes she's thoughtlessly rude. At the same time, she's witty, charming, lively, engaging, misjudges a ton of people, jumps to conclusions and clings to them. (2/3 Darcy to 1/3 Elizabeth, stir and mix!)
So, yeah, I can see her as Elinor/Marianne, but Darcy/Elizabeth fits a bit better for me.
I went to a lecture once wherein the thesis was that S&S was a less polished, less complex predecessor to Emma. The idea was that Elinor and Marianne had been combined into one character. Emma has a lot of the selfishness and foolish romantic ideas that Marianne has, but the voice of reason (Elinor) is internal. She has some rather foolish romantic ideas about Frank Churchill, and yet it is Emma herself who tells herself that she is being foolish, that the attraction she feels is skin-deep and she won't be so very heartbroken if it doesn't work out, etc. Knightley does tell her at one point that she is selfish, but Emma internalizes it and thinks about it and decides to self-monitor.
Frank Churchill as a far more complex Willoughby is interesting too. He's slick and attractive, the way Willoughby is, the ideal romantic hero. You expect that there is something not quite as nice brewing under the surface, just as you do with Willoughby. But Willoughby ends up being pretty 2d (which I feel like Austen realized and tried to rectify with the Willoughby-visits-Marianne scene toward the end), whereas when you find out the truth about Frank, you realize yeah, he was kind of a jerk, but he's not evil, and pretty sympathetic besides.
And Knightley is Colonel Brandon without the tragic past, but Knightley definitely sort of pines from afar (by which I mean next door), and is also a magistrate like Brandon (isn't he?) and is the "sensible" choice, like Brandon, as well as the sentimental one. Anyway, I really like the parallels. It makes me like Emma better. I already love the book, but sometimes I do find Emma herself frustrating. But when I think of her as Elinor/Marianne, it helps her make sense to me--because I loooooooooove Marianne. And S&S. I think it's the worst-written of all her novels, but it holds a special place in my heart because of when I read it and the specific issues it deals with.
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I can see the Brandon element in Mr Knightley, too, though I think the lifelong relationships results in a very different dynamic. One of the things I've found interesting is that, theoretically, I'd find "I held you in my arms when you were a baby and I was a teenager, lol" much more disconcerting than a large age gap with people who'd never met before, but as written, Emma/Mr Knightley bothers me much less than Marianne/Brandon.
I wish I could remember which essay it was, but I did find one that posited Emma as following from P&P - it's not quite as sparkly-dramatic, but it's essentially pretty light-hearted (unlike S&S and MP - I sort of mentally group the six novels into "light" and "dark": NA/P&P/Emma, S&S/MP/Persuasion). Frank Churchill parallels as easily with Wickham as Willoughby, but he actually has a characterization beyond "amoral opportunist" - he's a selfish jerk, and he has his reasons for how he behaves. Like you said, pretty much!
The main idea, though, was that Emma is essentially Darcy and Elizabeth rolled into one - she's snobbish, with a sense of entitlement a mile wide, her basic willfulness has been given full scope by her privileged situation in general and ridiculously indulgent parenting in particular, she's actively generous and deeply loyal to her inner circle, she's physically very attractive but not at all vain about it, she has an impressionable protégée who she persuades out of a marriage she regards as unsuitable, but later is very happy to approve of, she's basically good-natured, principled, and well-meaning, but sometimes she's thoughtlessly rude. At the same time, she's witty, charming, lively, engaging, misjudges a ton of people, jumps to conclusions and clings to them. (2/3 Darcy to 1/3 Elizabeth, stir and mix!)
So, yeah, I can see her as Elinor/Marianne, but Darcy/Elizabeth fits a bit better for me.
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