Jane Austen's Emma - Research Paper Example

? EMMA Summary and Characterization Like every of Jane Austen's narratives, Emma is a work of fiction of courtship andsocietal manners. The preponderance of the volume centers on the query of matrimony: who will Wed who, in addition to what motives do they have for marriage: love, realism, or inevitability? At the core of the recitation is the heading personality, Emma Woodhouse who is an heiress residing with her widowed vicar at their domain, Hartfield. Renowned for her lovely looks and shrewdness, Emma is fairly wasted in the little community of Highbury other than assumes an immense deal of conceit in her matchmaking talents. Inimitable among other ladies of her age, she has no meticulous reason to wed: she is in the exceptional circumstance of not requiring a husband to provide her luck. At the commencement of the narrative, Emma's instructor, Miss Taylor, has presently married Mr. Weston, a well-off man who possesses Randalls, a close by estate (Aiken, Jane and Joan, 89). Devoid of Miss Taylor as a friend, Emma feels a sudden friendless and chooses to concur to Harriet Smith who was an orphan as her responsibility. Harriet resides at a close boarding institution and discerns nothing regarding her folks. Emma decides that Harriet's father ought to have been a respectable man and counsels the guiltless Harriet in almost all things, as well as her preference to society. She proposes that Harriet does not expend any more moments with the Martins, a confined family of cultivators whose son, Robert concentrates so much on Harriet. As a substitute, Emma arranges to act as a matchmaker for Harriet in addition to Mr. Elton, the cleric of the Highbury church (Chastain, 244). The acquaintance connecting Emma and Harriet does no better for whichever of them, an actuality that Mr. Knightley, a neighbor who is also an old ally, without delay notices. Harriet panders to Emma's nastiest qualities, providing her chance to interfere and serving merely to cajole her. Emma sequentially populates Harriet Smith with splendid pretenses that do not go with her low condition in culture and society. In the event Robert Martin suggests to Harriet, she rebuffs him due to Emma's guidance, viewing that he is excessively common. Mr. Knightley condemns Emma's matchmaking since he perceives Robert Martin to be higher than Harriet; whilst he is decent, she is from vague origins. Emma's beloved sister termed as Isabella, and her companion, Mr. John Knightley, go on vacation to Highbury, and Emma utilizes their vacation as a chance to square with Mr. Knightley subsequent to their dispute over Harriet. Hitherto, she still deems that Mr. Elton is an outlying more appropriate hope, as opposed to Robert Martin. Initially, Emma appears to have some victory in her efforts to get Harriet and Mr. Elton to be one. The three uses up an impressive deal of holiday time collectively, and he appears amenable to all of Emma's propositions. When Harriet is not capable to go to the Westons' social gathering on Christmas Eve, nonetheless, Mr. Elton centers the entire of his concentration exclusively on Emma. In the event of their journey home by coach from the merrymaking, Mr. Elton admits his high regard for Emma and discharges the thought that he would eternally Wed Harriet Smith. Mr. Elton aims to elevate in the social order and is concerned in Emma chiefly for her societal class and affluence. Emma quickly rebuffs Mr. Elton, who is exceedingly upset and quickly departs Highbury for a hang about in Bath. Another personality who engrosses Emma's thinking is Jane Fairfax, who is a granddaughter to Mrs. Bates, the deprived widow of the previous cleric, in addition to Miss Bates’ niece, a chattery unattached who resides with her mother. Jane is identical to Emma in each reverence, (attractiveness, education, flairs) not including rank and provokes covetousness in Emma (Grossman and Deborah, 78). Jane will before long take a trip to Highbury since, the well-off family who raised her subsequent to her folks' demise has gone on holiday. In the interim, Mr. Elton is from Bath with hearsay that he is connected to Miss Augusta Hawkins. This hearsay, together with an uncomfortable convention with the Martins, humiliates poor Harriet. Frank Churchill lastly takes a vacation to the Westons, making Emma satisfied to find out that he achieves her hopes. Emma and Frank commence to expend time jointly, but she perceives that he appears to be rather flimsy and immature (Stafford, 90). He creates a day journey to London for the solitary motive of grooming; an action that surprisingly Emma admits is shallow. While Frank and Emma carry on to expend more moments in each other’s friendship, Mr. Knightley turns into being rather jealous. He condemns of Frank, persuaded that his is never to be believed, particularly with Emma’s compassion. Emma sequentially becomes envious as she believes that Mr. Knightley could be hooked to Jane Fairfax. Emma’s companionship with Frank Churchill is boosted by his apparently shared contempt for Jane Fairfax. Frank verifies Emma’s doubts that Jane could be engrossed with Mr. Dixon, a wedded man, although this is merely idle hearsay. Soon later, Jane Fairfax gets a pianoforte from London, after which Emma and Frank judge that it was propelled to her through Mr. Dixon. Frank Churchill hurriedly leaves Highbury in the event he establishes that his aunt is ill. She is an unbearable woman, arrogant and ineffective, and she uses absolute power over her nephew (Brownstein, 12). Believing that Frank is prepared to process his adoration for her, Emma concurs herself that she is hooked to him but is unsure the manner to tell if her emotions are genuine. Lastly, she comprehends that she has to not be hooked to him since she is as contented with him missing as to when he was present. Mr. Elton gets his fresh companion yet again to Highbury. She is an insipid name-dropper, who contrasts all to the allegedly grand way of life of her relations and tackles her new-fangled peers in Highbury through a surprising lack of procedure. Emma assumes an immediate abhor to her, and upon understanding this, Mrs. Elton as well assumes detest to Emma (Lambdin, 9). When Frank Churchill comes back, he and Emma fund a ball at the Crown local. It is normally understood that the two have established a connection, but Emma has by now stopped to envisage Frank as her personal suitor and seen him as a probable companion for Harriet. In the ball, Mr. Elton uses the chance to humble Harriet, explicitly ignoring her before the other visitors. Mr. Knightley destabilizes this societal slight by amiably boogieing with Harriet in Mr. Elton’s place. A precise sensible note coming from Frank to Mrs. Weston clarifies his demeanor at Highbury plus his and Jane's requirement for confidentiality. Emma is alleviated, but she is not able to concentrate in regards to Harriet, who presently goes to take a vacation to the John Knightleys who live in London. Emma and Jane happen to be reunited as pals; George Knightley chooses that, because Emma can never depart her father, he would study with them. After that it assumes the merged influential strengths of Emma, Knightley, in addition to the Westons, to find Mr. Woodhouse to concur to the matrimony. When Harriet chooses to wed Robert Martin finally; Emma feels open enough that, subsequent to some tiny delaying ploys by Mr. Woodhouse, she and Knightley are hitched in ideal happiness (Kantor, 34). Emma’s Attitude to Feudalism The book Emma was written in a period when there were complex social-political factors that affected the society. This mostly affected women and the low class, since social and political destinies, were determined by the powerful nobles and aristocrats. Emma belonging to the privileged class was advantaged but her being a yeoman in this era also put her at a disadvantage due to the social-political situation during the eon. Emma, however, displays characteristics that stand pout despite the factors that were present in the society. The character of Emma stands out from the women in the era. In this period, women had little influence in the social and political arenas in society. This situation did not only affect the local women citizens but was also evident in the affluent classes. Emma, however, who had family ties to the nobility in England, showed a liberalized mind that was not common among women in this era. She exhibits this through her position of supporting the marriage between Miss Harriet and nobles who included at first Mr. Elton and afterwards frank Churchill. She took this move despite her knowledge that Miss Harriet came from a lower social class. This in that age was an impediment since it was not encouraged that the noble class to intermarry with the common citizens. This showed that Emma was strong willed in that she was not frightened to rebel against the feudal laws that were being practiced at the time, and pushed for practices that are more liberal in the society. She dares to go against the social norms of the society through her endorsement of the marriage (Lambdin, 37). This would have put her in a compromising situation with the society she was living in, since her actions contravened the social norms of practiced in the society. In this scenario, she is seen as chivalrous since she seems to be fighting for the rights of the commoners from the injustices of feudalism that were evident in the era. She is, however, seen to be on the other end of the stick when she rejects the union between the yeoman Robert Marin, and Harriet in favor of the nobles. She ignores the honor that bound yeomen through her actions. This shows her negative side of chivalry in that she ends up practicing feudalism by denying the yeoman his rights to marry Harriet in favor of the nobles. She shows a disregard for the commoners that was evident among the aristocrats class. This is because she is indifferent to the feelings of the yeoman by disclaiming Roberts’s interest to marry Harriet. She only seeks to do her bidding without any considerations. She seems selfish and inconsiderate to the aspirations of the commoners when they are in conflict with her desires. This was common during feudalism where the ruling class determined the destiny of the commoners. Emma, though she is kind to the commoners, she appears to take pride in her nobility a character that was synonymous with the noble class. She embraced her aristocratic status and had a disposition of dignity and prominence. Emma was a beautiful girl and her father was significantly wealthy due to the huge tracts of land that the family owned. In the era of feudalism, wealth was synonymous with land; hence, the more land an individual has the wealthier they were (Lambdin, p42). The character of Emma represents a girl coming from an aristocratic family who was surrounded with abundance and opulence. This was in contrast to Miss Bates who despite coming from a family with noble ties was extremely poor. This showed that nobility meant little when individuals did not have wealth in the society and that privilege, either political or social was merited by wealth as in the case of Emma. Was Jane Austen a feminist? Jane Austen depicts her leading character Emma as a strong, spirited, independent and free thinking woman. Her stories are meticulous and narrated the daily living conditions of females, in the epoch of late 19th and initial 20th century. She truthfully and honestly narrates the desperate strive of women, whose main agenda was to marry well if they were to secure a better life. The women of this period were mostly interested in getting decent husbands who were wealth and could offer them a life full of luxury and well being ((Stafford, p55). As noted in her novel, pride and prejudice, she applies the ridiculous of the disposition of Mr. Collins, to ascertain a point about the preposterousness, of the decree of the time. None of the sisters is allowed to be part of the inheritance of the family estate, since they were considered as mere females; thus the inheritance was to be handed to their male cousin, whom they have never encountered before, in their lives. In her writing, Jane highlights the issue of marriage as most of her leading personality’s evidence hoe the other women around them tend to get married mostly for reasons that are wrong, since they have limited choices during that period. Contrary, to the other women the main character normally does not settle for anything of lesser quality but always end up marrying for love at the very least. If one were to analyze Jane critically, it will seem that she is cautious, as she aims to impress the readers, while cleverly and procedurally tackling the critical matters that women encounter, in their lives. Issues such as property requirement rights, restricted or no proper control and management of their resources and money and marriage was regarded as a necessity, rather than their own choice (Stafford, p55). For instanced in the novel Emma, the leading character Emma woodhouse was fortunate to posses more choice than the other main women because of her family’s enormous wealth thus ensuring that marrying a man for money was unnecessary in her situation. She highlights a clear meaning mostly in Emma that the custody of money and assets is integral in offering people wealth. It elucidates that although women lacked the rights to possess property or control money, the few who managed to attain wealth or accessed a fortune enjoyed an advantage of much greater choice, involving the liberty to of marrying or not to marry, such as in the case of Emma. All these cases of her leading characters, are clear evidence that although the regulation of Jane’s writing period restricted women from enjoying the benefits and rights that are witnessed in the contemporary period, there were a few who managed against the norm. This was mostly necessitated with the possession of wealth and other resources since they could afford to evade the laid procedure using their influential wealth. Although some may argue that Jane was not a feminist, these cases highlight her as a feminist, who was a gifted story-teller, and likeable person. Woolf’s analysis of Austen as not being a feminist is misplaced as most of Austen’s works evidently comprised of a feminine element, which was outstanding. To a larger extent it is true that Austen internalized patriarchal ideology, more so the socio-political ideology of the elite and powerful persons in society; nonetheless wolf’s criticism was not on point since it is inevitable that people historicize events within the period of their work. Thus, it will be incorrect to draw judgment of past historical writings using the current standards of feminism; however we must appreciate the power of the social norms that mystify and confound (Stafford, p56). Although Austen was not an outright feminist whose activism was easily noticed, she was a voice that called for women freedom, although in her own way. Just like Wollstonecraft, Austen was intrigued by the prominent issue of society during her epoch; the women role in society. This indicates that Austen was aware of the works of Wollstonecraft’s literary work although she does not relate to her works directly. The Austen-Wollstonecraft connection is intriguing because it assists the readers to situate Austen in the context of initial, proto-feminism. Since most of Austen’s heroines usually married, most critics argue that, this was because she was utterly endorsing the conventional social norm. Nonetheless, it can be concluded that she was a forerunner of the feminists of later times. There is a clear indication that her heroines were not purely interested in marriage, and siring children; however these were the established career norm laid by society. For instance, Emma explains to Harriet that it is not necessary for to get married since, according to her women who are wealth earn respect because of the richness. Furthermore, Elizabeth refuses two proposals because she wishes to get hitched for love contrary to riches. This is an indication of a case of choice for her, as she is determined to go against the established tradition, to make her own selection. Austen further uses a heroine who is educated and enjoy studying, the only access that the women had during those periods. Although Austen was not an active feminist, she opened a leeway for women, to advocate for feminism. Works Cited Aiken, Joan, Jane Austen, and Joan Aiken. The Watsons: And Emma Watson: Jane Austen's Unfinished Novel Completed. Naperville, Ill: Sourcebooks Landmark, 2008. Print. Austen, Jane, and R W. Chapman. The Novels of Jane Austen: The Text Based on Collation of the Early Editions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print. Brownstein, Rachel M. Why Jane Austen? New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Print. Chastain, Emma. Literature. New York, NY: Spark notes, 2004. Print. Grossman, Debra, and Deborah Forbes. Emma, Jane Austen. New York: Sparks Pub, 2002. Print. Lambdin, Laura C. A Companion to Jane Austen Studies. Westport, Conn. [u.a.: Greenwood Press, 2000. Print. Kantor, Elizabeth. The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After. Washington, D.C: Regnery Pub, 2012. Print. Stafford, Fiona J. Jane Austen's Emma: A Casebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. Read More