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Article: Where does the pleasure come from? The marriage plot and its discontents in Jane Austen's Emma.(Miscellany)(Critical essay)
- Article from:
- Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal
- Article date:
- January 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Jane Austen Society of North America. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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She spoke then, on being so entreated.--What did she say?--Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does.
--Jane Austen, Emma
IS THIS TRUE? Does a lady always say just what she ought, even in a Jane Austen novel? Only the repetition of many re-readings can dull us to the extraordinary implications of this claim. Yes, the voice is ironic--but the structure of the passage also suggests a more earnest impulse behind the narrator's smooth dismissal. Who asks, "What did she say"? The reader, of course. The reader always does. By ventriloquizing her reader's curiosity, and then implying its naughty prurience through her refusal to satisfy it, Austen seems ...