The centre of an Austen novel always features a pivotal event. Elizabeth's refusal of Darcy's first proposal is at the centre of Pride and Prejudice. Marianne shows Elinor Willoughby's appalling non-apology letter along with her returned letters from him at the centre of Sense and Sensibility. In Emma it is the arrival of Jane Fairfax's pianoforté. In Mansfield Park it is Henry Crawford announcing his plan to make Fanny Price fall in love with him.
In Northanger Abbey, the centre of the novel features a whole lot of pivotal incidents; features far too many pivotal events. There are three or four depending on how you count them—and I'll count them out ina series of upcoming posts.
The pivotal event in Emma is the picnic. That is, if you mean the moment that induces the change(s) that draws the novel to its conclusion. The arrival of the pianoforte is one of Austen's brilliant clues to us that Jane is Emma's foil and not Harriet as readers who are too simplistic might think. I love the fact that in Emma you can play detective if you are paying enough attention to the Jane plot and are not overly absorbed by the distracting Harriet plot. The pianoforte's arrival is a clue in the mystery, but the pivotal moment for Emma (and Jane too) is the picnic when the word game goes awry.
ReplyDeleteWell, thank you for commenting. I do love it when people contest my claims; it keeps me on my toes. You may be right about greater importance of another "pivotal" event, I make no claim in that regard.
ReplyDeleteI sense that I have not explained myself clearly. I take Miss Austen to be a good classicist for whom symmetry means physical symmetry as well as narrative symmetry. When I say the centre, I mean the centre. All the scenes mentionned above are in the actual centre of the relevant books.
The edition of Emma I have is 495 pages long and if you turn to page 247, you get a scene in which Jane Fairfax is trying out her new pianoforté and Frank starts repeating Emma's speculation that perhaps Col. Campbell is the mystery donor with the dark implications that go along with that.
Then Mr. Knightely comes along and does whatever one might call the opposite of the sort of game that Franck Churchill and Emma have been playing.