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Chapter One Embodied Surprise
Surprise, according to Miller, is conceived of as “a fully corporeal emotion”
that involves “a sudden seizure, a violent physical or sexual attack, a temporary condition of muteness, a petrification of the body, an intimation of death” (1). That is, although surprise is a psychological condition, it has conspicuous physical
ramifications. When confronted with utterly unexpected events, one may be petrified at the moment, without any ability to move or speak. In fact, surprise, according to Miller, is derived from the old French word, surprendre, meaning to attack or overtake (3). The English word, “surprise,” first denoted “military assault, seizure, rape or disturbance” (Miller 3). It was not until “the late Middle Ages that it began to acquire a cognitive sense” (Miller 3). In the modern usage of the word, the physical and psychological dimensions of surprise seem combined. The phrase “surprise attack”
therefore is “etymologically redundant” because “the first word denotes the psychic effect of the second” (Miller 3). To feel surprised is not only to experience a particular kind of emotion, but also to be reminded of “what it means to have a vulnerable body and a fallible mind in a world of unpredictable and chaotic events” (Miller 3). In other words, surprise “takes both physical and cognitive form” (Miller 3). The body plays an important role in understanding surprise.
Though one may argue that aside from surprise, all emotions can be manifested through physical responses, corporeal surprise deserves our critical attention because it features one’s involuntary response. While physical
manifestations of joy, anger or sadness can be consciously suppressed or exaggerated, surprise, according to Miller, features a “startle reflex” (5). That is, one simply cannot control his bodily reactions when receiving surprise. Surprise, in its corporeal form, is
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not as performative as other emotions. Thus, it provides a useful lens through which we can observe one’s true emotions, morality and social views.
Jane Austen’s novel, Emma, draws on this corporeal dimension of surprise to articulate her social vision and moral ideas. To discuss this dimension of surprise helps us to reconsider conventional knowledge of Austen’s use of the body in her novels. This conventional knowledge would have us believe that in Austen’s novels, bodies are at best insignificant, at worst nonexistent. John Wiltshire summarizes this view when he writes:
Jane Austen’s novels, I will admit, seem among the least likely texts on which to found a discussion of the body. Isn’t the body—absent, suspended, at best relegated to the inferior partner in the dyad of mind and body, as all agree is its position in our culture—virtually banished from her work?
However we categorise them—as comedies of manners, or narratives of moral sensibility, of domestic politics, of the developing ethical
consciousness, of heroines educated out of illusion, of the anxieties of choice, the subtleties of self-deception—these are novels whose titles, Sense
and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, firmly ensconce them
within an august and dominant tradition of moral adjudication, and by‘moral’ here we must mean transcending the natural and the immanent.
These are novels of a polite society too, in which obvious restraints are put upon the discussion of bodily matters, and the latitude of bodily expression allowed men and women, but especially women, is severely curtailed. (1)
Wiltshire uses other 19th century writers’ comments to illustrate this point. After reading Emma, Cardinal Newman observes: “Everything Miss Austen writes is clever, but I desiderate something. There is a want of body in the novel” (qtd. in Wiltshire 2).
Charlotte Brontë, having read Pride and Prejudice, comments on it in a similar vein:
“what did I find? An accurate daguerreo-typed portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully-fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers, but
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no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy” (qtd. in Soutam 126). Austen’s novel
Emma does not change Brontë’s dislike of her predecessor. Having read this novel,
Brontë feels that, although it briefly touches on the body, the representations of the body in this text are superficial. There is no emotional substance shoring up those representations. Brontë thus criticizes Austen:
‘Her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, mouth, hands and feet; what sees deeply, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study, but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of Life and the sentient target of death—this Miss Austen ignores’ (qtd. in Wiltshire 2, emphasis original).
I believe that Brontë’s understanding of Austen’s novelistic engagement with the body generally, her representations of the body in Emma in particular, is wrong. Three examples of surprise in Emma: Mr. Elton’s unexpected proposal, Emma’s sudden insult of Miss Bates and the revelation of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax’s secret engagement, refute such limited understanding of the body in Jane Austen’s novels.
They reveal Austen’s interest in embodied experiences and the powerful feeling that underpin such experiences.
Bodies play an important role in Mr. Elton’s unexpected proposal to Emma.
As an imaginary match-maker, Emma thinks that she detects a growing romance between Mr. Elton, a local vicar, and Harriet Smith, a young woman whom Emma chooses to befriend. Emma tries her best to foster affection between Mr. Elton and Harriet, expecting that he will make a marriage proposal to her sooner or later. But all such fanciful thinking comes to an end during a carriage ride with Mr. Elton.
she found her [conversational] subject cut up—her hand seized—her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her:
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availing himself of the precious opportunity, declaring sentiments which must be already well known, hoping—fearing—adoring—ready to die if she refused him; but flattering himself that his ardent attachment and unequalled love and unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect, and in short, very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as possible.
It really was so. Without scruple—without apology—without much
apparent diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself
her lover (E 92 original emphasis).
Austen emphasizes the word “her” in this passage, because she wishes to stress Emma’s astonishment in this scene. In this dramatic scene of surprise, a series of physical contacts are made by Mr. Elton. The confident suitor not only expresses his passion by seizing Emma’s hand but also forcefully demands that his words be heard. With an effort to prove his “violent love” for Emma, Mr. Elton even professes that he is “ready to die if she refuse[s] him” (E 92). Here, by using the expression, “to die,” the passionate suitor is imaginatively and figuratively putting his body in a potentially fatal crisis. He is telling Emma that, by accepting his proposal, she is not only saving him from a broken heart, but also rescuing his body from an imminent threat of destruction. Mr. Elton believes that he has already won Emma’s heart. The confident suitor claims that his “unequalled love” and “unexampled passion” must have moved Emma so that he is “very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as possible” (E 92). Much to our heroine’s astonishment, the vicar, whom Emma perceives only as Harriet’s suitor, seems extremely certain that his “ardent attachment”
will be reciprocated (E 92). With an attempt to rationalize this extraordinary confession of love, Emma blames Mr. Elton’s shocking behavior on the effect of alcohol, that is, on a dysfunctional and intoxicated body. She feels that “half this folly must be drunkenness” and secretly hopes that this alcohol-induced misdemeanor may soon pass in due course (E 92).
One measure of how the connection between surprise and the body in this
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scene carry social significance is that Mr. Elton mentions a dead body twice to refer to two different situations. When Emma argues agitatedly that Harriet, instead of herself, is the one who Mr. Elton has been pursuing all along, Mr. Elton replies: “I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my existence… never cared whether she were dead or alive” (E 93). An interesting parallel can be seen in Mr. Elton’s choice of expressions. When expressing his love for Emma, a lady from the prestigious
Woodhouse family, the passionate young man declares that he is ready to die if rejected. However, when addressing Harriet, a girl whose family background is entirely unknown, the romantic suitor turns drastically into a cruel man who does not care whether the poor girl is dead or alive. A dead body therefore becomes a vehicle of expressing social values. Mr. Elton, just like what Mr. Knightley has predicted, indeed “knows the value of a good income” and is “not at all likely to make an imprudent match” (E 48).
In this surprising scene, Mr. Elton’s proposal proves to be more than an unexpected incident but a catalyst that surfaces unpleasant truths and transforms existing opinions about others. Emma is surprised not only because she finds that the man she prepares for Harriet is proposing to herself; moreover, her shock is induced by how Mr. Elton, being merely the vicar of the town, can suspect that she, a
“handsome, clever, and rich” lady from the Woodhouse family, will return his “love”
(E 5). Mr. Elton, in a similar fashion, cannot believe that he, the vicar of the town, would be associated with Harriet, a girl of no consequence at all. To view the matter in this light, it can be said that the cause of Emma’s and Mr. Elton’s surprise is actually very similar. Both of them are extremely surprised and upset when being related to the member of an inferior social class. On one hand, Emma’s “unpleasant sensation” reaches its uppermost when Mr. Elton suggests that she has been giving him “encouragement” throughout the course of his pursuit (E 93). On the other hand,
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Mr. Elton’s anger reaches its peak when he expresses: “Every body has their level” (E 94). However, though both of them dislike being associated with their social inferiors, they think it is acceptable for one to do social-climbing. For Mr. Elton, seizing
Emma’s hand equals to holding on to the social-ladder that promises elevation of his position in the Highbury society. As for Emma, she encourages the match between Harriet and Mr. Elton because, compared with Robert Martin, a “gross, vulgar farmer,”
the vicar is obviously more superior (E 17). In this scene of surprise, physical contacts and references to the body indeed are not skin deep. It is through bodies that Emma’s and Mr. Elton’s snobbery is revealed.
Thanks to this surprising proposal, Mr. Elton’s bad manners are exposed and Emma is finally able to see that he is not the “superior creature” that she has always believed him to be (E 228). However, Emma’s insulting words toward Miss Bates at Box Hill make her realize that, actually, she herself is not a superior creature either. When Miss Bates makes fun of herself good-humoredly about her capability to say “three dull things” without effort, Emma could not resist replying: “Ah! ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me—but you will be limited as to number—only three at once” (E 256). Facing a shocking public insult,
Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of [Emma’s] manner, did not immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not anger, though a slight blush shewed that it could pain her.” (E 256).
In contrast to Miss Bates’s timid reaction towards a shocking insult, Emma expresses her surprise critically after receiving the unexpected proposal from the vicar:
‘Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last month, to Miss
Smith—such attentions as I have been in the daily habit of observing—to be
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addressing me in this manner—this is an unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible! Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object of such professions’ (E 93).
There is an obvious difference between Emma’s and Miss Bates’s reactions towards surprise. On one hand, Emma’s expression of “astonishment” serves as a means for her to criticize Mr. Elton’s inconstancy. In Emma’s opinion, Mr. Elton suddenly and mysteriously stops pursuing Harriet and channels his attention to her instead. On the other hand, it is described that Emma’s insult “could not anger” Miss Bates but only makes her blush involuntarily (E 256). Unlike Emma, who, when confronted with unpleasant surprise, is able to voice her displeasure vocally, Miss Bates can only respond with a “slight blush” in a similarly embarrassing scenario (E 256).
A blush, undoubtedly, is a very physical expression. However, according to Mary Ann O’Farrell’s book, Telling Complexions: The Nineteenth-Century English
Novel and the Blush (1997), a blush is not merely “an event of the body” but also a
means for people to “speak with her body” (4). That is, a blush, instead of simply being viewed as a bodily phenomenon, is a meaningful physical reaction to a particular external stimuli. A blush, in contrast to good manners, is an involuntary physical response that exposes one’s true feelings. That is, a blush can easily frustrate one’s endeavor to compose himself or herself in awkward, humiliating situations, not least by betraying what he or she really feels. Therefore, though Miss Bates is not capable of responding to the insult verbally, her blush serves as a way of telling her discomfort and pain. According to O’ Farrell, one’s “self-recognition and
self-revelation” can easily induce a painful blush (5). After fully comprehending Emma’s meaning, Miss Bates is indeed struck by the painful recognition that she must have made herself “very disagreeable” (E 256).
The disparity between these two women’s social positions is revealed in this
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scene about surprise. Though obviously, it is Emma who should be embarrassed by her bad manners, Miss Bates, as a social inferior, cannot criticize the heroine’s behavior by expressing her surprise verbally. It is because surprise, in its verbalized form, is often used as a “lever of judgment” (Miller 5). Examples of such function can be drawn from the episode in which Emma tries to persuade Harriet into loving Mr.
Elton. She says that she “should be surprized” if Harriet, after spending time with
“very good specimens of well educated, well bred men”, will still perceive Mr. Martin as a gentleman (E 25). Believing Harriet is secretly in love with Frank Churchill after he comes to her rescue during the gypsies attack, Emma expresses her approval: “I am not at all surprized at you, Harriet. The service he rendered you was enough to warm your heart” (E 235). In these two instances, the expressions of surprise equal to
expressions of judgment. Emma, instead of saying that she disapproves or approves of Harriet’s choice of man, makes comments about herself being surprised or not.
If we realize that verbalized surprise can serve as a form of critical judgment, we can also understand why Miss Bates feels unable to talk about her surprise during the Box Hill episode. As a social inferior who depends on the
generosity of her neighbors for a lot of things, from food supply to social gatherings, she cannot afford being critical of Emma and running the risk of losing her patronage as a result. So fearful of forming her own critical judgment, Miss Bates declines to use the critical potential of verbalized surprise even when she actually expresses her surprise verbally. Miss Bates only utters her surprise once throughout the whole novel.
Having in mind Mr. Knightley’s considerate act of sending a carriage for her and her niece to go to the ball, Miss Bates thankfully expresses: “I was quite surprized;—very glad” because it is “the sort of thing that so few men would think of” (E 155).
Surprise, here, is spoken not as a criticism but an expression of gratitude and compliment toward Mr. Knightley’s kind attention. Unlike Emma, who constantly
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uses surprise to evaluate other people’s behavior, Miss Bates uses surprise as a means for her to thank her friends. The reason why these two women use the word “surprise”
so differently lies in the great disparity between Emma’s and Miss Bates’s social positions. On one hand, Emma, who has “a great many independent resources” of her own, does not have to be afraid of offending others (E 63). On the other hand, Miss Bates, who is dependent on the neighbors’ help to sustain a living, cannot afford the consequence if she accidentally offends someone by uttering sharp, critical words.
However, Emma fails to sympathize with the poor woman’s situation in the society and criticizes her for being “so silly,” “so undistinguishing and unfastidious” (E 62).
Our resourceful heroine forgets that a poor spinster like Miss Bates does not have the privilege to be picky. To reach an average living standard, what the amiable woman can do is to make the most of what she has—interpersonal relationships. In the Highbury society, Miss Bates indeed proves to be very much “to the taste of every body” because of her “universal good-will and contented temper” (E 62). A surprising insult and Miss Bates’s bodily response to it speak volumes about the social dynamics and power structure of the world of Emma.
If Mr. Elton’s unexpected proposal and Emma’s shocking insult of Mrs.
Bates combine to challenge traditional consensus that Austen has zero interest in the body, the surprising revelation of Frank Churchill’s engagement with Jane Fairfax casts healthy doubt on Brontë’s criticism that emotions play little role in Austen’s scant references to the body. At one point in the novel, Emma and Mr. Weston are on their way to Randalls, where Mrs. Weston wishes to communicate a piece of
important news to Emma. However, before reaching their destination, the heroine cannot suppress her curiosity.
‘[N]ow Mr. Weston, do let me know what has happened.’
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‘No, no,’—he gravely replied.—‘Don’t ask me. I promised my wife to leave it all to her. She will break it to you better than I can. Do not be impatient, Emma; it will all come out too soon.’
‘Break it to me,’ cried Emma, standing still with terror.— ‘Good God!—Mr. Weston, tell me at once.—Something has happened in
Brunswick Square. I know it has. Tell me, I charge you tell me this moment what it is’ (E 271).
Austen’s choice of word and its context in this passage deserve our careful attention.
Mr. Westion says that his wife will “break” the news to Emma. According to the
Oxford English Dictionary, the verb “to break” in the phrase “to break news” means
“to make it known, disclose, divulge it.” The OED also indicates that, when used in relation to news, the verb “to break” carries the connotation of “caution and delicacy.”
Ironically, the verb “to break” also implies a certain degree of violence and
disruption.8 Therefore, when Mr. Weston tells Emma that his wife “will break [the news] to you better than I can,” he cautiously implies both that something unexpected and unpleasant has happened and that it has the potential to shatter Emma’s peace of mind. In other words, Mr. Weston tries to prepare Emma mentally for an unwelcome surprise.
It is worth noticing that Emma “stand[s] still in terror” when she picks up
It is worth noticing that Emma “stand[s] still in terror” when she picks up