This post contains major spoilers.
Emma is the second Jane Austen novel for me. This book has so much to recommend and it is so many things. The characters are expertly crafted, and the story is fun and meaningful. Austen often writes effective satire and easily amuses. It includes complex commentary on the English class system of the time. It is full of insightful wit and wisdom. This is another novel that is so beloved by readers that it is almost a paragon in the eyes of its fans. My contention is that it does indeed deserve much of the praise that it has garnered.
The book’s namesake is Emma
Woodhouse. Emma is intelligent, lively and often kind and
supportive of her friends. At the same time, she is deeply flawed. She is socially
and intellectually snobbish. She looks down on the majority of her acquaintances
and neighbors. While she tries to be helpful and generous to the people whom
she likes, she is hypercritical of those who she does not approve of. She seems
to lurch between states when she is self-aware and other periods where she
seems blind to her own vices.
With all of this, Emma, even at her worst, is not an unpleasant character
to read about. She is so humorous, witty
and engaging. Austen’s words that describe even her foibles are a pleasure to
read. Despite her flaws, her redeeming qualities are also numerous. She is ultimately
a marvelous literary creation.
There are several additional wonderfully drawn characters. George Knightley
is a good friend who is never afraid to point out Emma’s bad behavior. He is also
quick to criticize others, but he also shows a core of decency.
Jane Fairfax is a young woman of whom Emma is
initially unfairly critical. This is in contrast to Harriet Smith, another young woman who Emma takes under her wing and attempts to find a
husband for. In the course of this attempted matchmaking, Emma does more harm
than good.
Mr. Frank Churchill is a
young man who presumably shows romantic interest in Emma as well as in other
young women in the circle.
Through much of the narrative, Emma declares that she is not interested in
marriage. Nevertheless, the plot involves Emma and her friends’ romantic
entanglements, all aimed, of course, at finding spouses.
In this this post I focused on how in Pride and Prejudice, Austen explored the concept of human perception in very
sophisticated ways. Reading Emma, I see a similar
theme. The author plays with the concept of perception and individual bias
quite a bit in this novel. Emma herself is both the perpetrator and the victim
of her own mischaracterizations.
In some ways, this novel can be described as a misreading of
the world based upon Emma’s incorrect perceptions. Like Pride and Prejudice, this
work is written in third person, but it is mostly written from the main
character’s, in this case Emma’s, point of view. Not only does Emma see the
world from a distorted vantage point, her misperceptions take the reader along
for the ride.
As noted above, Emma attempts to assist Harriet Smith in procuring a husband. Early on,
Emma becomes convinced that an attractive young man, Philip Elton, is in love
and about to propose marriage to Harriet. Emma’s certainty on this issue
convinces Harriet of Elton’s affections. I was similarly taken along with Emma’s
theory, adding to the effect for me.
Emma is subsequently shown to be completely wrong
when Elton professes his love for Emma herself, and he declares that he is
uninterested in Harriet. Needless to say, Emma spurns Elton’s proposal in what
is a very bad scene for both of them.
Later, a similar process occurs when another
young man, Frank Churchill, comes into the picture. At first, Emma believes
that Churchill is enamored with herself. Declaring to herself that she is
uninterested in his affections, she subtly steers Frank toward Harriet. Our
heroine once again becomes convinced that she has helped create a match for
Harriet. Once again, this proves to be a miscalculation when Frank declares
that he has been secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax. To add
insult to injury, Emma is shocked when Harriet declares that she was never
interested in Frank. She instead reveals a budding interest in George Knightley, who Emma comes to realize
that she herself is in love with.
Emma’s belated self-acknowledgement of her love
for Knightly, someone that she has known for years, may be the ultimate flaw in
perception. Emma comes to understand that she has been in love with the man for
some time, yet never admitted this to herself.
At the moment when Harriet informs Emma that she
has fallen for Mr. Knightly, and that it seems
that Knightly has fallen for her, the revelation comes upon Emma,
All of this makes the novel a brilliant study in
human perception and misperception. By including the reader in some of the
confusion, Austen adds another level to what is, in a way, a case study into a
certain aspect of human psychology.
There is a lot more going on in this book than commentary on
people’s tendency to perceive the world incorrectly. As I pointed out above,
there is a lot to recommend in this novel. It is a must read for anyone who
likes other Austen books or English literature in general. Emma is both a high artistic achievement and a very fun read.
