Emmas Humour through the Portrayal of Human Folly - Essay Example

Emma’s humour through the portrayal of human folly. Humour, in literary practices, has been a method of projecting a two-way meaning of the said text. Its primary motive seems to make the reader laugh, but it also aims at creating an awareness of a wrong-doing through the portrayal of a character, deed or a situation that is ludicrous. This projection of human absurdity through the portrayal of their manners has been popularly called the ‘Comedies of Manners’. Jane Austen’s Emma is an example of the same. The novel makes use of people and their manners to make readers laugh at them, while the motive of the writer for creating such material is to make them laugh not just at the character, but their hilarious, silly and oftentimes unwise behaviours. In a way, works such as Emma, makes a person laugh at oneself, for the actions of the text is a representative of every human’s manners. In this paper we shall argue that the novel is a presentation of a satirical humour that aims to induce laughter in the readers by the portrayal of human actions that the readers are led to believe are our foolishness. We shall see that the laughter the novel sets is based on our knowledge that the actions made by the characters are erroneous. This is possible by making the characters perpetrate repeated actions the inappropriateness of which are realized by the readers as and when the characters themselves realize the same. Our aim in the paper therefore, is to check the deeds, behaviours, attitudes and manners of the characters in the novel that induce laughter to the readers. That laughter is, we shall argue, a criticism of larger human follies that were prevalent in the psyche of the social set-up that existed during the time of Austen. The incongruity theory of humour, the most popular among others, suggests that we laugh at things that are inconsistent with our expectation and when things are strange as against the standard that is considered usual. John Morreall argues that “we live in an orderly world, where we have come to expect certain patterns among things, their properties, events, etc. We laugh when we experience something that doesn’t fit into these patterns (15-16). He also quotes Pascal to make the concept clearer: “Nothing produces laughter more than a surprising disproportion between that which one expects and that which one sees (16). It therefore becomes simple to create laughter in people – by creating things, objects, and behaviours that are either unwise or inconsistent with the expected standard. Nothing different seems to be the pattern in which Austen expects her readers to laugh while reading the novel. By making Emma commit mistakes that are unusual and out of the trend of regular practices such as that of ‘matchmaking’, Austen purposefully makes it unavoidable for the readers to judge her as unwise and immature. That is because our standard of wisdom is in not doing and appearing to be everything that Emma does. Another example is that of Harriet, Emma’s friend. By making her listen to the foolish claims of Emma against her own will that Mr. Martin is no good a partner for her, Austen throws the light of ‘incongruity’ in Harriet that is indeed laugh-inducing. These and all the other mistakes of Emma that follows, aim at one thing – the final resolution or realization. The purpose of the entire creation of the humour in Emma therefore, seems to make the readers realize that all of us, the human beings are funny after all. We know how to laugh at people with unwise and absurd actions, but we do not know that all of us have been and are ourselves, the perpetrators of similar actions in our lifetime. The rationale that Austen bases her writing on, therefore, is the existence of these human follies and the need to eradicate them. We shall now evaluate the depiction of each folly of the characters in Emma and how they are humorous. Emma’s habit of matchmaking has one harsh consequence each time she does that: its utter and brutal failure. This failure is not just the failure of ‘matchmaking’ as such; it is the malfunction of her judgement. Austen’s portrayal is that of a character who does not know how to see things the way they are. She fails to understand people’s genuine feelings. She fails to determine the true meaning of human intimacy. James Thompson argues: The process by which false intimacies are exploded and true intimacies are disrupted is fully worked out in Emma, in which Austen appears to be exploring most consciously and carefully the dangers of false intimacy and the value of true intimacy (113) Emma’s misconstrued image of herself is as faulty as any of her other mistakes. She considers herself a good matchmaker only to realize later that all she can do is misjudge. She believes that she is the best interpreter of other’s feelings while she utterly fails to understand anyone of her acquaintances. She fails to understand firstly, her own friend Harriet and her actual wish to reciprocate Mr. Martin’s feelings. She remains unsuccessful in understanding that Mr. Elton’s interest is on her and not on Harriet. She could never understand the true feeling of Khightley towards her and what more, she does not know that she is herself in love with him. Austin projects two extreme contrast in ‘what actually exists’ and what one feels exist, that is - the extreme blindness of Emma to see things as they are, and the extreme overconfidence in which she feels she can do the same. Only the inevitable consequences of her deeds cause her realize her mistakes. Paul H. Fry has an interesting analogy: Emma is clearly comic, no matter what one’s definition of comedy may be, and it is almost as apparent that the novel has georgic qualities, if we understand ‘georgic’ to mean the teaching of useful and sociable skills against the backdrop of a farm…Jane Austen’s values that the community discovers by locating itself firmly in the nature it cultivates, reaping as it sows (166). Emma’s misjudgement about Jane and the possibility of her relationship with Mr. Dixon is another grave mistake. She fancies herself having an ability to see more than the obvious, a secret or a truth that is hidden. But indeed, she only fancies the truth because what she fancies is not the truth. Her fancies, moreover is a representation of her eagerness to find fault with people the reason being, either jealousy or to prove that she knows more than others. Jane as we know is a pretty girl well accomplished in music and a matter of admiration for many. Emma’s habit of thrusting her opinion to people can not be worked with Jane. In occasion of such kind Emma can only resort to jealousy which is manifested by her fault-finding in Jane. When it comes to herself too she fails in love. She is not clear whether she likes Frank. What follows is the most hilarious moment when she tries to love him and later realizing that things did not work, makes attempts to pair Harriet with him. Any reader is made to infer that by all reasons and circumstances Emma utterly and entirely fails in the matter of love, the thing she is ironically most confident about. Bruce Stovel justifies: Emma’s unrecognized love is the cause of her foolish mistakes over Harriet Smith and Mr. Elton, over Mr Dixon and Jane Fairfax, and so on: these mistakings provide a screen of romantic fantasies which disguise her real interest in love form herself. Emma, after all, is preoccupied with affairs of the heart – affairs of other people’s hearts, that is; she can see clearly and act decisively when love is not involved (22-23). Her inability to decipher and explore the hidden relationship between Frank and Jane is also a failure of her belief that she knows more than what is seen. It is a failure to deduce the truth or to discover the reality. This is also documented in her inability to recognize her own feelings towards Knightley. Austen gives an extreme height of immaturity to Emma since only Jealousy towards Harriet makes her realize that she is actually in love with Knightley – contrary to her claims that she could independently understand feelings. Her failure to understand her own self beings forth the biggest question of irony: how could she have ever understood others? D. A Miller has a deeper analysis of Emma’s relationship with Knightley: Emma’s initial reluctance to hear what Knightly has to say and her speedy acceptance of his proposal have produced an ‘inconsistency’ of conduct. Although Emma could easily have accounted for it ( by revealing Harriet’s newly revealed attachment to him and her own newly excited fears of his returning it), she choosed to let it stand. In the place where her explanation ought to be, an aphorism announces the omission of explanation (69). We now come to the primary discussion of our thesis question: What does all these behaviour portrayed in Emma represent and symbolize in their humour? The mistakes of Emma and all the state of affairs that ensues, firstly hold the purpose of depicting the failure of all humans to understand this world in its genuine form. Austen had to do this by the method of humour that demonstrates human folly, that is, by making her characters fail in all affairs they think they are good at. This is especially true for Emma. As for the character of Harriet, she symbolizes the changeability of humans- the effects with which people can easily be swayed by the other’s influence. She accounts for the lack of strength, decision-making and individuality that prevailed especially during 19th century in which the writings of Austen emerged. In fact, it is quite true that the humour that she gives in her novel such as Emma is a satire for the manners of the people living during her time depicted. We can also see the prevalence of inferiority complex and the tendency to rank oneself above the station of another person throughout the novel. But if one is found to be inferior to the other like Emma finding herself lower than Jane in beauty and talents, one finds way not to accept that fact, by indulging into fault-finding. It is a result of jealousy and lack of self-introspection. Mr. Elton is offended by the rejection that he faced form Emma, and the way he decided to rebuild his shattered ego is by avenging her. He chooses to show off his worth by marrying another woman even if she happens to be vulgar and nasty. On the other hand, when Harriet looses both her own suitor Mr. Martin and Emma’s mistaken choice for her, Mr Elton; Emma tries to explain her that Mr Elton was beneath Harriet’s strata after all. Arthur Calder-Marshall explains: When Emma finds that Mr. Elton has been nice to Harriet only because he aspires to marry not Harriet but herself, she is as much outraged by Mr. Elton’s presumption to look above his station as Mr. Elton is at Harriet’s. This tendency to divide people into strata based on class was indeed prevalent in the 19th century England or before which Austen critiques about. A popular way of compartmentalizing people was firstly based on social and financial set-up. A grave human folly that Austen seems to critique on, however, is the trend of elevating oneself from others based on one’s ego. What results however, as portrayed in the novel, is an utter failure either to understand one’s own self or to know others. Everything that is inferred by human ego seems to be a misconstrued and misunderstood truth. This stupidity of human is what Austen makes her reader laugh at by rendering them their crucial consequences. Another social construct that Austen condemns is an obsessive preoccupation with the need of marriage. The novel and the characters in it revolve around actions for finding partner either for oneself or other. Emma’s habit of matchmaking seems to stem form a compulsive need for a good marriage perspective and every sequence of the plot has a single goal – an ending with everyone being paired. Beatiece Marie’s analogy is remarkable: An Austen novel resembles a chess board on which the unattached characters are free to interchange themselves within a fixed number of positions. Any young man is a potential husband for any young woman, and play will end when all the players have been appropriately paired. It is the distinguishing characteristic of Emma that its groupings are not binary, but triangular. In general, Austen’s heroines love romantically, that is, against, rather than according to, the valuation of society (53) The obsession with marriage however, would not be too incorrect if it had not been at the cost of an inability to cherish any other relationship. The behaviours of Austen’s characters seem to be obsessively inclined towards finding partners. Every deed, behaviour and the whole plot of the novel has one goal: successful marriages. There is no motherhood, fatherhood, sisterhood or other relationships such as friendship that they could attach importance to: (Emma’s) obsession with arranging marriages blinds her to other relational possibilities- including the possibility of friendships in which one is neither patron nor dependent. Grateful as she is to her governess/friend Mrs Weston for her guidance and education, this connection was never based on equality. And the great attraction of Harriet Smith, beyond her blonde beauty and pliant temper, was that ‘everything’ could be done for her. Emma’s subsequent failure to connect with Jane Fairfax…taken together with her enthusiasm for these other unequally structured relationships, might be interpreted in the light of her preoccupation with the marriage plot (Perry, 133). Thus, we have evaluated in this paper the reasons for the humour depicted in Jane Austen’s Emma. We have seen that all events in the novel follow a set pattern of humour that makes people laugh at the incongruity of the actions performed by the characters – consistent with the ‘theory of incongruity’ which suggests that our laughter is based on our evaluation of a person or a behaviour that is strange as against a set standard. This is done by making the characters; chiefly Emma, fail in all their endeavours such as ‘matchmaking’ which is considered by readers as hilarious. This and other portrayal of failures is an attempt to create a humour that critiques human folly. And as we have said, since these follies are prevalent in every individual, every reader is made to laugh at oneself. The hilarious, yet, erroneous happenings of the plot include a misconstrued image of oneself as well as a lack of ability to delve into the feelings of others. It is in the failure to accomplish the things that one is most confident about. Austen critiques her contemporary people’s tendency to put oneself socially or financially above another. An inability to project oneself better results in an acute inferiority complex that makes a person indulge into fault finding. The obsession with marriage negates a possibility of the growth of any other relationship. All these follies of human kind are made vivid by Austen through the use of one simple technique: humour. Works Cited Fry, P. H. (1992). Georgic Comedy: The Fictive Territory of Jane Austens Emma. In D. Monaghan (Ed.), Emma: Contemporary Critical Essays. LOndon: Macmillian Press Ltd. Marie, B. (1992). Emma and the Democracy of Desire. In D. Monaghan (Ed.), Emma: Contemporary Critical Essays. London: Macmillian Press Ltd. Marshall, A. C. (1956). Introduction. In J. Austen, Emma. Pan Classics. Miller, D. A. (1992). Emma, Good Riddance. In D. Monaghan (Ed.), Emma: Contemporary Critical Essays. LOndon: Macmillian Press Ltd. Morrieall, J. (1983). Taking Laughter Seriously. Albany: State University New York Press. Perry, R. Interrupted . Perry, R. (1992). Interrupted Friendsips in Jane Austens Emma. In D. Monaghan (Ed.), Emma: Contemporary Critical Essays. LOndon: Macmillian Press Ltd. Stovel, B. (1992). Comic Summetry in Kane Austens Emma. In D. Monaghan (Ed.), Emma: Contemporary Critical Essays. London: The Macmillian Press Ltd. Thompson, J. (1992). Intimacy In Emma. In D. Monaghan (Ed.), Emma: Contemporary Critical Essays. London: Macmillian Press Ltd. Read More