How does this evocation fit with your reading of the relationship between Emma and Harriet?

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Emily Tamhne                03/05/2007

…Emma had very early foreseen how useful she might -find her…; a Harriet Smith…one, whom she can summon at any time for a walk, would be a valuable addition to her privileges.’ How does this evocation fit with your reading of the relationship between Emma and Harriet?

                   

From what the quotation title tells us, we learn straight away that Emma Woodhouse is a rich and very privileged girl and Harriet Smith is naïve an orphan and poor, of a lower social class than her and has become her friend. She seems to be the perfect person for Emma to make use of like she did with Miss Taylor but doesn’t realise that she is only being used by Emma who ‘lost no time in inviting, encouraging and telling her to come very often; and as their acquaintance increased, so did their satisfaction of each other’. Emma was glad when she heard that Harriet Smith was to accompany Mrs Goddard on a trip because she ‘had long felt an interest in, on account of her beauty…and the evening no longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion’    

Emma sees Harriet as a weak and vulnerable woman, which the modern reader is most likely to agree with, and she decides to take charge of her life for her. ‘Harriet was certainly not clever, but she had a sweet docile, grateful disposition; was totally free from conceit; and only desiring to be guided by anyone she looked up to’ Emma wants to better Harriet ‘those soft blue eyes and all those natural graces should not be wasted on the inferior society of Highbury’ Jane Austen is suggesting that she can’t really make Harriet into a better person than she already is because that isn’t possible. Harriet has already reached her full potential. Hartfield, where Emma lives is a quiet place especially since she has grown up and her sister has moved away and early on in chapter four there seems to be another reason as to why Emma wants to be friends with Harriet, ‘the young friend she wanted – exactly the something which her home required’ but in reality it is not what her home requires due to the lack of noise, but what Emma wants. Jane Austen cleverly takes the reader into Emma’s thoughts. ‘Emma was obliged to fancy what she liked’ she is a selfish person who has never really had any discipline from her governess. From Emma and Harriet's first meeting, Emma has exercised her control and power over Harriet and persuading her to do things that she would not normally do. She becomes an enemy to the reader in these parts because she is being very manipulative.

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Emma’s ability to match make also tends to affect the relationship between her and Harriet (although this doesn’t become apparent until later in the book) she is trying to control every aspect of Harriet’s life especially when she comes round to Hartfield with a letter from Mr Martin proposing marriage. Emma is not pleased because she is forming in her mind that she will match make Harriet with Mr Elton the vicar of Highbury. ‘You and Mr Elton are one as clever as the other’ Jane Austen tends to play a trick on the reader throughout the book in ...

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