The 'Seeming' Reality

[wynnleaf]

No: HPFGUIDX 155507

I don't post often, but read a lot, and thought you all might be 
interested in this.

I recently ran across this quote from JKR from the Readers Digest, 
2000.  "I love a good whodunnit and my passion is plot construction. 
Readers loved to be tricked, but not conned," Rowling says, warming 
to her theme. "The best twist ever in literature is in Jane Austen's 
Emma. To me she is the target of perfection at which we shoot in 
vain."

I love "Emma," and decided to look up something that analyzed how 
Austen achieved the surprise twists of that book.  Here's a exerpt 
from an essay written by Jitender Rajpoot, at Cal State and is 
titled "The 'Seeming' Reality." 

"In Jane Austen's Emma, we catch a glimpse of a character that seems 
to be attuned to her surroundings, and who is observant enough to 
provide us with a glimpse into the interior world of her supporting 
cast. This effect is attained by the writing style of the author who 
provides us with a seemingly omniscient narration that appears to 
travel within the consciousness of her characters. However, there is 
an undermining irony operating throughout the text which makes a 
more effective claim than what a superficial reading might suggest. 
The inability of Emma to perceive the true intentions of other 
characters, or as Harriet states "see into the heart" of others, 
actually envelops the reader as well. The narration of the novel 
makes us as vulnerable to take superficiality as reality as does the 
plot in misdirecting Emma."

"Austen achieves the art of misdirecting the reader by getting him 
caught up in the mundane details that border precision, but in 
reality serve to get him enraptured in a feeling of trusting the 
narrator. At times we are regaled the same account of events from 
different perspectives, which lead us to believe the validity of the 
event because there is corroboration from different characters. 
Ironically, this is a fault that we are critiquing in Emma who takes 
superficial details to infer something deeper (truthful). Just as 
she misconstrues signs, we take the corroboration of events to lead 
us down a misdirected path. And this is a crucial effect of Austen's 
writing style- have the reader believe all that is told to him as if 
the narrator has an inner view into the character's motivation 
(omniscient perspective), but the deception is that in reality the 
narrator is limited...... "

"Just as Emma is guilty of taking superficial details to confirm the 
pre-existing convictions in her mind, we are at fault to consider 
the narrator to be all-knowing and honest with us. Austen plays a 
trick on Emma by pulling the rug from underneath her feet, and we 
are duped analogously for confirming our convictions by taking the 
events of the story to be relayed in an unbiased fashion." 

While not everyone is fooled by Austen's plot, who was or wasn't 
fooled doesn't matter - the point is that JKR thought it was the 
standard of all surprise plots, and that's the kind of thing she 
says she likes to write. So whether or not Austen fooled everyone 
isn't the point. The point is that JKR wants to trick people and is 
likely using the methods of Austen to do it. So the question isn't 
whether, if you've read it, you were tricked by Austen, but whether 
we are being tricked by JKR, using similar misdirection methods.  
And, by the way, it isn't just any character that you shouldn't 
trust.  If JKR is using Austen's method, it would be Harry's point 
of view, and by extension the narrator's pov, that you shouldn't 
trust. 

wynnleaf