Emma in Jane Austen's Emma

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Emma in Jane Austen's Emma

For the greater part of the book, Emma is allowed a much greater level

of social and moral freedom than any other character in the book. As

the opening chapter has it, 'the real evils of Emma's situation were

having rather too much her own way.' For Austen, the use of the word

evil is not as a throwaway term, it is meant to give a very strong

impression of how the heroine is trapped by her freedom into becoming

arrogant and interfering.

Emma indulges herself considerably, her response to learning of how

disastrous her attempt at making a match between Harriet and Mr Elton

is immediately to think of a match between Harriet and William Cox and

although she 'stopped to blush at her own relapse.' Soon continued in

the same vein.

Emma sets then manages to make Harriet consider Mr Knightly. It could

be argued here that Austen is giving the lead character too much

freedom. Austen professed to be creating 'a heroine who no one but

myself will much like' and it is clear that she is very fond of Emma.

Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax, through their one secret become

objects of mortification for whose conduct 'impropriety is too calm a

censure.' Miss Bates is repeatedly made to look a fool by her inane

and painfully scattered speeches, Mr Woodhouse by his preoccupation

with thoroughly boiled eggs and the dangerous qualities of damp.

Austen pokes fun at every character by accentuating their

peculiarities, Mrs Elton's stupidity and snobbery is shown by her

almost religious fixation with the 'Barouche Landau.' But although

Emma makes herself look foolish, there are very few points in the

novel where Austen s...

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...genre showing in Austen's work. Emma is a comedy, and

if Harriet were shown to have suffered lasting damage after being

exposed to Emma's pride, it could not be. If Emma had warped Harriet

enough in the long term, then she would not have been deserving of the

way that Knightly feels about her, thus turning the entire book into a

tragedy. The heavy handed way in which Emma's folly with Harriet is

expedited, the way that 'it becomes known' that the girl has a large

amount of money, can however be seen as a clear example of

overindulgence on Austen's part. In the main, however, even those

devices used by Austen that streach the reader's belief in the

patience of the characters is essential to the novel. Emma is

certainly very self-indulgent, but Austen does not indulge her to the

extent that her character is not credible.

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