Letters and Correspondence in Austen's Emma
Emma as the next step in the epistolary novel
Jane Austen’s novel Emma was written at a time when the epistolary novel had just passed its peak (Cousineau, 32). Not only do letters and correspondence feature heavily in the novel, but according to April Alliston, “elements… characteristic of novels of women’s correspondence recur in Austen” (221). Some examples of these elements that Alliston provides are the existence of young marriageable heroines; deceased mothers, or threatening ones which, in Austen’s novels, have become merely negligent; and substitute mothers who pass advice on to the daughter (221).
As epistolary novels were comprised entirely of letters, early novelists could assert the pretended truth of their work rather than label it as fiction (Cousineau, 28). However, one disadvantage to this practice is that artefacts such as letters are “inscribed in doubleness and contradiction" (Cousineau, 14). Letters serve as a medium between the letter-writers and the reader, a medium which has the potential to warp the truth according to the private and unknown whims of the writers. By adopting an omniscient narration of her characters’ thoughts instead, Austen “[focussed] the reader’s “gaze” on the private space from which the heroine gazes out, thus fixing her more squarely in its exemplary frame than letter fiction ever could” (Alliston, 234). Although this method of narration “sacrifices the “documentary status”… that eighteenth century fiction strove to achieve” (Alliston, 236), Austen’s novels allow us to see directly into a character’s thoughts. This both promises a more reliable version of "truth" by enabling the reader to learn a character’s genuine motivation, an...
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...aults: Correspondences in Eighteenth-Century British and French Women’s Fiction. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1996. 219-241.
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Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1997.
Cousineau, Diane. “Letters and the Post Office: Epistolary Exchange in Jane Austen’s Emma.” Letters and Labyrinths. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Press, 1997. 13-51.
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Jane Austen’s novel, Emma, can be construed as a novel about games; the characters that love to play them and their pitfalls. The importance of games in Emma may not be as intelligible when first reading the novel, like games, their role may appear trivial. On the contrary, scenes in which the characters take part in various games and riddles are some of the more didactic scenes in the text. It is often the case that there is a game played by the characters, within the game or riddle presented in the scene. In Emma, Austen uses games, both physical and mental, as vehicles to expose the flaws and subtext of characters, as well as a means to drive the plot in this dialogue heavy tale. Furthermore, through analysis of the scenes involving Mr. Elton’s riddle, the word game at Donwell Abbey and the conundrum at Box Hill, it can be argued the games and riddles are representative of the mental games played by the characters.
“Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is. It is my intention to write shortly and desire her to come to see me at Madeira…I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave.” (252)
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Jane Fairfax plays a significant role as a rival towards Emma in terms of intelligence and beauty in the novel Emma by Jane Austen. Jane Fairfax is born to Mrs. Bates youngest daughter and Lieut. Fairfax. Jane’s father Lieut. Fairfax died and Jane was left with a widow mother who also died when Jane was three years old. After the death of Jane’s parents, Jane was took care by Colonel Campbell who was a good friend to Mr. Fairfax where Mr. Campbell believed that Mr. Fairfax has saved his life (p.128). Jane was loved by Mrs. and Miss Bates but if she lived with them, she would have had limited opportunities through her education and her social level. From Campbells kindness Jane was educated at high standards in London by Campbells support taught by the first-rate masters. However, because Campbells could not financially support Jane forever as their fortune belonged to their daughter and from Miss Campbell’s marriage with Mr. Dixon, Jane finally comes back to Highbury where her relatives Mrs. and Miss Bates live. Jane is a character in the book Emma as an only character who could be contrasted to Emma through many natures. This essay will discuss the role of Jane Fairfax through issues such as Jane and Emma’s relationship, Jane’s relationship with Mrs. Elton in contrast to Emma’s relationship with Harriet Smith, Jane’s love relationship with Mr. Frank Churchill and discuss why Jane is the conventional heroine where Emma is not.
Another form of Emma’s neglect is one of manipulation, mostly through her control over Harriet Smith. Emma is “willful, manipulative, an arranger or rather a misarranger of other people’s lives. Much of the time she fails to see things clearly and truly, and her self-knowledge is uncertain” (Goodheart)25. “One significant effect of harping on Emma's snobbery is to set in relief her romantic notions of Harriet's origin and destiny” (Brooke)26. Although to Harriet, Emma’s “help” to her is one that will reveal optimistic results and a proper husband, Harriet is incapable to taking up for herself against Emma, but if “[s]he would form her opinions...
Austen, Jane. Emma. Norton Critical 3rd edition, ed. Donald Gray New York and London: Norton, 2001.
In the term of realism, Emma’s society value view represented the problematic old society. Austen was very suspicious to sustain the significance of social class construction in “Emma.” The exi...
In the ordered English town of Highbury in Jane Austen’s Emma, people live a well constructed life, which shapes the views of social classes in their world. Despite the fact that Emma is a nineteenth-century novel, it represents a time when women depended on economic support from men. This method is observed through the main character Emma, who spends a great deal of her time agonizing about wealth and potential power. In the novel, readers are introduced to Emma as a young prosperous woman who manages her father’s house. Since she is younger than her two sisters, she is introduced to various female characters, which influence her social development and exemplify a range of gender roles available to her. In Emma’s household women are superior to men, as her father demonstrates feminine tendencies and the women are portrayed as masculine. This could be the reason Emma prides herself in being an advocate of structuring prosperous relationships within her community. When Emma considers prosperous relationship, she begins by categories people by their power and beauty. In Emma’s mind, power and beauty is the ideal combination to developing a perfect society. In Jane Austen‘s Emma, the main character Emma uses her obsession with beauty and power to create her own utopia. Emma’s utopia reconfigures the social system so that hierarchy is defined by looks and character instead of birthrights. However, when Emma’s attempt to create her own utopia fails, Austen challenges readers to accept the existing order and structure of the early nineteenth century English society.
Letters play a very important role in ‘Pride and Prejudice’. They can tie the story together because letters provide information which we would not have found out from the dialogue between the characters. We can also find out extra background information which can help with the reader’s understanding of characters, the plot and the novel in general. Letters can reveal character’s personalities and how they feel about the other characters in the novel, for example Miss Bingley’s feelings about Jane. Letters are used as a dramatic device in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ to further the plot, link the story and to inform the readers of the character’s personalities.
Jane Austen Society of North America, Inc. A Brief Biography. jasna.org. 26 April. 2014.
113- The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. of the book. Vol.
Within the novel, Jane Austen’s exploits of irony are shown linked throughout Emma’s notions of love and the real within her own society. Emma’s lack of education on the concepts of love is quite evident within her apathy towards Frank Churchill as her opinions are deeply rooted within her own affections, as she states, “Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her being in love. Her ideas only varied as to the how much. At first, she thought it was a good deal; and afterwards, but little. She had great pleasure in hearing Frank Churchill talked of; and for his sake, greater pleasure than ever in seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weston; she was very often thinking of him. But, on the other hand, she could not admit herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to be less disposed for employment than usual; she was still busy and cheerful; and, pleasing as he was, she could yet imagine him to have faults,” (Austen 264). Emma’s sketch of Harriet is another illustration of irony surrounded by Emma’s arrogance as it does not portray an accurate depiction of Harriet as Emma has altered ...
In the novel, Emma, Austen introduced her audience to a new idea of patriarchy. While she is known to satirize society for the “faulty education of female children, limited expectations for girls and women, and the perils of the marriage market” (“Austen, Jane”). Austen expresses the irony of the men of her patriarchal society and proposes the ideal gentleman in Mr. Knightley. In Emma, Austen moves away from “a traditional idea of 'natural' male supremacy towards a 'modern' notion of gender equity” (Marsh). Jane Austen is a revolutionary in the way she transforms the idea of Nineteenth Century patriarchy by not “reinforcing the traditional gender stereotypes” (Rosenbury) but instead challenging the status quo. While her characters still hold some ties to traditional ideals, Austen proves to be ahead of her time, influencing the way gender is regarded today.
...Emma’s voice in order to relate the inside ideology, while simultaneously using a somewhat ironic third-person narrative voice in order to provide critical social commentary on the social attitudes of the Highbury society depicted in Emma. Emma’s voice allows the reader to gain an unadultered insight into the lives of the people of Highbury, providing the narrative with a Austen uses a somewhat similar dichotomous technique in Persuasion, in which she splits the novel into two halves -- one in which advocates for the traditional system of formality, and another that works to eradicate the very same system that she extolled so highly in the first half. Under the deceptive guise of “political inaction,” Austen actually provides commentary on the underlying social and political issues that pervade the novel through the literary technique of heteroglossia (Parker 359).
In Jane Austen's Emma the eponymous heroine is "handsome, clever, and rich" but she also suffers from arrogance and self-deception. With the good judgement of Mr Knightley, and her own self scrutiny, Emma experiences a movement of psyche, from arrogance and vanity through the humiliation of self knowledge to clarity of judgement and fulfilment in marriage. The tone of the novel and the episodes where Emma is self deceived progresses from the light comedy of Mr Elton's gallantry and the eventual mortification to the sombre depression of Emma's belief that she has ruined her own chances of happiness by bringing Mr Knightley and Harriet together. Although at times the reader is able to laugh at her mistakes, as she moves slowly and uncertainly to self knowledge and maturity, the reader, like Mr Knightley, comes to take her seriously, for in the novel serious moral and social issues are dealt with, issues which directly concern her. While we may be 'put off' by her mistakes, and flights of illogical fancy, these are also the very qualities which endear her to us.