How effective is Jane Austen's characterization of Mrs Elton?

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How effective is Jane Austen’s characterization of Mrs Elton?

After Emma declines his offer of marriage, Mr Elton – a man of the cloth in Highbury – disappears in search of a better match, and returns a few months later to proudly present his ‘beautiful, quite beautiful’ nightmarish bride. She has all the qualities he should desire in a woman and a wife, and chooses to ignore her faults as much as he does his own.

Mrs Elton, as a character, is provided as a source of comedy, to shock the reader that anybody could be so extremely arrogant as to near on the ridiculous, but her comedy is far more harsh and bitter than that of Miss Bates. If the macrocosm of Emma is a social satire, seeking only to poke fun at their ideas of hierarchy and social standing, then Mrs Elton is the microcosm – for she judges a person by their class, though she is herself nouvelle riche and therefore available to be looked down upon by such historic families as the Woodhouses and the Knightleys.

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Mrs Elton is also, on a slightly darker side, a hideous caricature of Emma, whose only saving graces from comparison are her intelligence, subtlety and good taste. Their similarities are emphasised at various points throughout the novel, for example, when Mr Weston holds the ball at Randalls; Mrs Elton claims he is ‘ “no doubt giving this ball chiefly to do me honour” ‘, yet Emma ‘had always considered the ball as peculiarly for her’. The one factor which allows Emma to be forgiven for her assumption is that it is most likely true.

The arrival of the new bride ...

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