Emma

Summary: A beautiful, rich young women with no interest in marriage makes a series of disastrous assumptions in matchmaking for her friend.

I went through most of this work viewing Emma Woodhouse as a most unlikable character–rich, class-conscious, and with an exaggerated estimate of her ability to understand others. As it turns out, that was Austen’s intent. Before beginning to write, she wrote, “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” On that count alone, Austen succeeds.

Emma Woodhouse is the younger daughter of Henry Woodhouse, a wealthy but frail (or at least he believed himself to be) and fussy old man. Emma’s mother died when she was young. Her older sister Isabella is married to John Knightly show more and they live in London with their five children. Emma is the lady of Hartfield, wealthy and lacking for nothing and attentive to her father. She insists she is content to remain single.

She also thinks she played an important role as matchmaker with her former governess, Ann Taylor, who marries a widower, Mr. Weston. As a married couple, they live nearby and visit regularly. Mr. Weston has a son by his first marriage, Frank Churchill, raised by his uncle and aunt at Enscombe. The latter plays a controlling role in his life, keeping him close by through her ill health. However, when he finally visits, he manages to stir up trouble.

But Emma does well enough on her own account. She becomes a mentor to Harriet Smith, who supervises younger girls at Mrs. Goddard’s boarding school. The daughter of a successful tradesman, she is attractive, winsome, but untrained in the ways of society. While boarding, she stayed for a summer at Abbey Mill Farm, at the invitation of Elizabeth Martin, one of the students. During this time, she became acquainted with Elizabeth’s brother Robert, who took a liking to her.

Robert Martin was a young, hardworking farmer, well-esteemed by those who knew him. For someone like Harriet, it would have been a good match and he proposed. Enter Emma, who has befriended Harriet. Before Emma tries to make a match for Harriet, she helps break one, influencing Harriet to believe she could do better. That is, she could marry a higher class of person. So, she turns down the match.

George Knightly thinks Emma has misguided her friend. George, who is called Mr. Knightly throughout, is a leading figure in Highbury and owns Donwell Abbey, a large estate. Abbey Mill Farm is part of the estate and so he knows and thinks highly of Robert Martin. He believes Robert would have been a good husband to Harriet. Throughout the novel, Knightly is a friend to Emma, the kind who sees more wisely than she, though it will take some time for her to accept that.

Much of the novel unfolds the successive misguided schemes of Emma to make a match for Harriet. First there is Reverend Elton, who Knightly correctly realizes wants to marry into money, which Harriet doesn’t have. Then there is Frank Churchill, who instead seems to flirt with Emma. Finally, because he acted kindly toward her, Harriet thinks Mr. Knightly might care for her, which Emma supports until she discovers that Mr. Knightly loved another.

In addition to failing her friend, the appearance of two other women give Emma her comeuppance. One is Augusta Elton, who is even more unlikable, arrogantly so, than Emma, who is gracious and pleasant if misguided. Emma gets a brutal lesson in class pretensions when she sees Harriet heartlessly “cut” by the Eltons. The other is Jane Fairfax, who arrives on the scene at the same time as Frank Churchill. She is distinctively attractive, intelligent, and a far more talented musician than Emma.

Emma is young and the novel turns on whether she will go the way of Augusta Elton or become a humbler, better person. And her insistence that she will remain single? Here as well, she will face the chance to know herself better.

The issue of class pretension runs throughout the novel, particularly in the tension between Emma and Mr. Knightly. It’s also subtle, but there is nothing spiritual about the minister, who even “comes on to” Emma during a carriage ride. He only seems concerned with status. Is Jane Austen conveying her low opinion in general of clergy?

In sum, Austen’s title character, unlikable as she comes off, keeps us wondering, and reading, to find out if she will “get a clue” that will enable her to see others, and herself, in a truer light. show less

Let me begin by saying that I dislike Jane Austen, the authoress. Pride & Prejudice is light-hearted revelry, but it is quite uneven, its heroine and hero unintentionally distasteful; Emma is worse - in that it is longer, much longer - and with an even narrower focus. The titular heroine, equally unlikeable - although she, at least, is well-defined. Lizzy Bennett? Not so much.

Well. I do not find Austen funny. I know she's supposed to be satire; I can understand that, I can see that; but I can't believe it.
I believe Austen believed herself funny. I believe she intended to be amusing, diverting, a little crisp at times but usually gentle enough. She seems as little self-aware as her heroines, who are generally deluded: they think show more themselves very clever indeed and very knowing too - until some great disappointment comes.
Austen is not funny -- she is angry. (I would be angry too.) She is sharp-tongued and (dare I say it?) almost bitter; she is a bare inch away from cruel.

(note - The Beautiful Cassandra story is my favorite Austen, far and away. Chapter the 4th is particularly great.) show less

It’s rather surprising that I haven’t read ‘Emma’ before. Although I’ve never made a systematic effort to read Classic British Literature, Clueless is one of my favourite films of all time and I realise now that it’s impressively loyal to the spirit of the book. What spurred me to finally read it was a recommendation from a friend that it’s a good portrait of female friendship. (In general, I’m not willing to read books based only on the judgement of posterity and prefer to get a more specific recommendation.) This proved to be very true and I loved the complex dynamics of Emma’s relationships with Harriet, Jane, her sister, her former governess, Miss Bates, and Mrs Elton. The whole novel concentrates on these show more relationships between women, while male-female relationships are seen predominantly through the frame of how women talk about them to one another. The class dynamics are also portrayed with great nuance and insight.

I found, as with [b:Pride and Prejudice|1885|Pride and Prejudice|Jane Austen|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320399351s/1885.jpg|3060926], that classifying Austen as romance is inaccurate and unfair. Both are very witty family dramas, centred on fascinating female characters. Emma herself is a wonderful creation and effortlessly involves the reader in seemingly asinine details of her life. Her intelligence is clearly in need of some better outlet than rural gossip, although a great deal of her energy goes into caring for her kind yet querulous father. The scenes between father and daughter were very moving, as they reminded me of my late grandparents. I also very much liked the fact that Emma eventually marries her closest male friend, even if this does mean a weakening of her friendship with Harriet. The fact that he claims to have fallen in love with her when she was thirteen is creepy, however. There must not be anything remotely original left to say about Jane Austen novels, but it's still worth noting that the dialogue is absolutely magnificent, something I greatly value in any novel. Also, I felt it much in Austen’s spirit that the Penguin Classic I read had this wonderful typo: Mrs. Elton ‘return[ed] a letter to the purple and gold ridicule by her side’. I presume it was actually a reticule; the malapropism couldn’t have happened to a more fitting character. All things considered, an excellent novel to read on the sofa during a World Cup final. show less

I’m sure much has been written about the longevity of Jane Austen’s works of proper English life during the early 19th century, but you have to wonder why, at this time, her novels of keen social commentary immersed in drawing room drama and provincial balls, continue to enjoy such a wide readership. When you consider the lack of manners today, it’s hard to understand why so many of us enjoy her social commentary of a time long past. But enjoy them we do and Emma is no exception.

Emma Woodhouse proudly proclaims to all who will listen that she never intends to marry. Rather she spends her young life meddling in those of others, mainly playing matchmaker, to mostly disastrous results. Nothing seems to stop her though, to the show more detriment especially of her young, decidedly lower class, friend Harriet. Emma’s object is to raise Harriet’s station in life.

Early on in the book, I did not find Emma appealing at all. I mean, she was methodically destroying Harriet’s life. For someone who was so obviously aware of the importance of the English hierarchy regarding class, it never occurred to Emma that by matching Harriet with a young man of higher station she would thereby lower his and that just wasn’t going to happen as her friend, Mr. Knightly, points out.

At any rate, Emma cannot be convinced of her own folly and along the way we are treated to Austen’s trademark satire and biting wit. She doesn’t fail to provide for a few deliciously drawn supporting characters including Emma’s father, who is scared of his own shadow and the possibility that someone, anyone will suffer from the fatal effects of a draft; his neighbor Miss Bates, whose non-stop chatter absolutely grates on the nerves and the obsequious prattler Mrs. Elton. How these people exist and even thrive in each other’s company is beyond the pale. A conversation between Emma and Mrs. Elton went like this:

”’My brother and sister will be enchanted with this place. People who have extensive grounds themselves are always pleased with anything in the same style.’
Emma doubted the truth of this sentiment. She had a great idea that people who had extensive grounds themselves cared very little for the extensive grounds of anybody else, but it was not worthwhile to attack an error so double-dyed.”

As the narrative progresses Austen tosses the omniscient reader bits of information that enable you to piece together the clues and come to the proper conclusion.

My early misgivings about Emma are soon overcome as I realize that she actually considers her meddling to be a service and, at heart, she is trying to help poor Harriet. Once again when Mr. Knightley points out her faulty thinking it becomes apparent that Emma is actually “faultless in spite of all her faults.” This made her endearing to me although Austen claimed before the book was even written, “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.”

Well, I liked her and loved her tale. Highly recommended. show less

Mr Knightley > Mr Darcy. Discuss.

***

Let me just get this out of the way: I love Jane Austen. I’ve read all of the major novels. I’m not an expert or anything, and I haven’t read much in the way of the juvenalia or Sanditon or anything, but it’s telling that I would have a hard time ranking five of those six novels in any sort of sensible order. This one, Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion are probably my favourites, but I don’t have an order in which I could sensibly put them. Then Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey sort of bounce around somewhere below that – they both have things I mildly dislike but I don’t think I’d go so far as to find actual fault in them. I loathe Mansfield Park but that’s down to me show more just plain (probably unreasonably) hating the main character.

But if I had to pick one heroine that I identify the most with, for worse and for better, it’s Emma.

I feel like she’s got a bit of that “only-child” syndrome (despite not actually being one). She’s headstrong, and self-assured, and like a lot of people, definitely thinks she could run other people’s lives better than they could. Unlike Emma, I’m not comfortably wealthy (or, at least, I wasn’t brought up wealthy). So my machinations have mainly been contained to complaining archly to my boyfriend. But, I don’t know, there’s just something about me that loves Emma’s silliness, loves how she really does think she’s doing the right thing, and how she learns to finally actually do it.

Her relationship with Mr Knightley can seem a little bit weird to a modern audience. He’s a bit older than her, and he can tend to be a bit paternalistic towards her. What I liked about their relationship, though, and why I tend to be forgiving towards it, is that it has a naturalness and, in particular, an honesty which I felt was refreshing. Mr Knightley is never double-faced to Emma (or at least not intentionally. It’s arguable that his jealousy of Frank led him to criticise him more strongly than was necessary to Emma, but I’d wager that was not consciously done, as such). He tells her what he thinks because he respects her enough to know that she can handle it. In a lot of ways, he does actually treat her as an equal – he knows the upstanding kind of person she can be and he expects her to live up to that. Mr Knightley would never be rude or sullen in the mode of a Mr Darcy.

One thing I enjoyed even more this time around was the relationship between Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill. Because I was properly watching out for it this time, I noted a lot more of the clues from before Mr Knightley airs his first suspicions of the truth. I enjoy Frank’s enthusiasms, even though they don’t always come from a place of sense. And I like Jane a lot more than I did previously. Also, this book has some of Austen’s best side characters – Mrs Elton is a particular treat. She’s so excruciating that I couldn’t help but cringe every time she opened her mouth.

Emma has had several modernisations recently, including the Austen Project one I mentioned earlier, but probably more notably the Emma Approved series brought to you by Pemberley Digital, the Youtube channel that created The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. It’s not as good as LBD – the characterisation and cast weren’t quite as on point – but it’s definitely worth a watch if you enjoy Austen and like modernisations of her work. In particular, the actors who play Emma, Mr Knightley, and Frank, are really interesting, fun interpretations of what the characters could be in a modern day setting. Harriet is a bit one note, and I had a strong dislike for their characterisation of Jane Fairfax, but I think that was mainly due to the slight change to the nature of her relationship with Emma which I felt made it deeply inappropriate for her to behave as she did.

There’s very little for me to say about this book that hasn’t been said already. I’d encourage anyone who’s read Pride and Prejudice to go here next. Emma is a deeply flawed heroine, but I think that’s why I love and identify with her so much – even the most flawed of us can come good. Even the most flawed of us can be loved.

I give Emma ten out of ten. show less

This is my fourth reading of Emma. My appreciation for Emma seems to grow with every reading. I started out on the Kindle but ended up listening to the last part on audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson. Let me just add a note on the humor in Emma. I appreciated it more this time.

Like Mr. Wodehouse, the hypochondriac, and his diet plans:

"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg better than any body. I would not recommend an egg boiled by any body else; but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you see—one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a little bit of tart—a very little bit. Ours are all show more apple-tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to half a glass of wine? A small half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could disagree with you."

And Juliet Stevenson take on Mrs. Bates is fantastic. So funny how a simple question by Emma (how are you?) end up with an account of the whole day's minor details. I laughed a lot. Also the foolishness of Mrs. Elton and her meddling. show less

This was a re-read for the Bucket List Book Club, and I find that each time I dive into this novel, I enjoy it more. The story, centered around a young, privileged, yet naïve woman, is endlessly charming. I find Emma herself to be a deeply interesting character, flawed but not malicious—her tendency to misjudge the feelings and intentions of others is a delightful source of humor. Many members of our book club, particularly those reading it for the first time, were surprised by the humor Jane Austen infused into the novel. They weren’t expecting the lightheartedness that is so central to the book’s appeal. Emma’s comedic misunderstandings and her journey of self-awareness never get old. It's a perennial favorite for me.