Jane Austen (1775 -1817) Emma (1816) Jane Austen wrote of 'Emma'; "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." Do you agree with Austen's appraisal of Emma?

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Rowen Salt                                                                                     4th December 2001        

        

                Jane Austen (1775 –1817)

                          Emma   (1816)

Jane Austen wrote of ‘Emma’; “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.”

Do you agree with Austen’s appraisal of Emma?

  To draw a firm conclusion, I feel some of Emma’s strengths and weaknesses have to be discussed first;

  Emma has a vacuum or emptiness in her life. Most recently, Miss Taylor, her governess, but also her close friend married. She therefore leaves Hartfield and Emma on her own again, without a female companion in the house. But it seems that “ dear Emma bears everything so well,” said her father. ”But Mr. Knightley, she is really very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am sure she will miss her more than she thinks for.” But Emma finds the fact that she made the match more important. From this, one could believe Emma is quite heartless and cold. You could take a sudden dislike to her. As well as Miss Taylor married, her sister (Isabella) is also married and doesn’t live at Hartfield, so she has “been mistress of the house from a very early period.” Her mother died when she was young, so she now lacks friends and a maternal figure; “ The real evils indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself.”

  At this point, at the beginning of the book, you do actually feel sorry for Emma, as she is now left ‘on her own’, however your views soon change. She is very ‘full of herself’ to a quite annoying point, which is probably as Jane Austen intended her to be, even if it was for her enjoyment only. As she describes “ the Woodhouses were first in consequence there. All looked up to them,” about Highbury, (the village in which she lives). She is constantly very aware she is above everyone else in the local society, causing you to think her a ‘snob’ and take even more of a dislike to her. I can only think that Jane Austen must have found this quite amusing, because snobs are not generally admired. She even starts believing that she is above her father, thinking him unequal company; “ She dearly loved her father, but he was no companion for her. He could not meet her in conversation, rational or playful.” After this, there is a tendency to dislike Emma very much. She has a ‘lack of serious education’ in her life and tries to fill her emptiness by taking up a hobby- matchmaking.

 Emma’s first project was of course Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston. This, having worked successfully, has actually taken Miss Taylor away, leaving Emma even more time to concentrate on matchmaking. Her next ‘project’ is Harriet Smith whom she befriends, initially for Mr. Elton’s benefit (“Mr. Elton, papa – I must look about for a wife for him.”)

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Her confidence in herself that she is doing the right thing concerning matchmaking can annoy you greatly. After all, it is none of her business. I think most readers would feel the same way and find it hard to comprehend how Jane Austen can even like Emma’s less fine points. Emma thinks Harriet is very suitable because she is malleable and deferential. No one knows who Harriet’s father is, but Emma fantasises about him being a lord or nobleman. Emma thinks, “ Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard’s ...

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