Emily of New Moon Episode 12

Emily feels the bliss of the coming wintertime as she finds the chance for her work to be published on the newspaper featuring a literary column once every month. She was filled with excitement the moment she heard about this from Jimmy, and decides on sending her latest work about the tree’s semblance with a new bride.

Emily never felt any doubt in her heart that her work will be published, and even brags about this news to her classmates. The awaited day arrives and much to Jimmy’s surprise, things didn’t turn out as Emily expected. He decides to keep the news from her and even bought most of the copies of the newspapers, knowing how disappointed she will be the moment she finds out about this.

Emily however discovers the pile of newspapers Jimmy bought and became really upset that Jimmy lied to her, and thought that he bought all those copies just to hide her shame. She runs away and finds solace in Teddy who tells her about Jimmy’s sadness earlier, and finally realizes how Jimmy cares for her so much to do things to such an extent. She apologizes to Jimmy, who preserves the poem she made as he engraves in a wooden block by the tree. Emily recalls her love for writing and remembers her oath to not give up despite the possibility that her work won’t be published.

Thoughts

The moment I saw how hopeful and confident Emily was about her work being published, I immediately thought that things are not going to turn out the way she expected it, considering that newspapers most likely get tons of the same letter in the hopes of their work becoming published as well. As such, there’s a need for a rigid screening and choose the one which they deem best among the other ‘contenders’. This is a pretty intense competition considering that only one poem will be featured each month.

I can fairly understand Emily’s sentiments and [over]confidence in herself since she’s but a naïve little girl filled with hopes and dreams, and wasn’t able to see the possibility of her failing. This confidence was probably built-up within her as she hears all these wonderful praises from people regarding her talent. Jimmy is one of these people who admire Emily and her love for writing. Though, I was somewhat disappointed that an adult like him wasn’t able to see the possibility for failure, and prevent Emily from having false hopes.

But nevertheless, things turned out great in the end as she was able to experience this kind of ‘failure’ and be able to recover from this. This further allowed her to gain more passion for writing, despite the failures that await her. (and hopefully, make her humble and learn not to ‘count the chicks before they hatch’)