Feminism and Jane Austen's Emma

In eighteenth century which feminist in social status was not popular by that time, author can only through literature to express her thought and discontented about society. Jane Austen’s Emma advocates a concept about the equality of men and women. Also satirizes women would depend on marriage in exchange to make a living or money in that era. By the effect of society bourgeois, Emma has little self-arrogant. She is a middle class that everyone could admire, “Young, pretty, rich and clever”, she has whatever she needs. She disdains to have friends with lower levels. However, she is soon reach satisfaction with matchmaking for her friend. Story characterizes a distorted society images and the superiority of higher class status. It brought out the importance of class divided over that time. Story Emma is female bildungsroman. In this thesis will explore the essentials of old society, feminism and the fear of marriage and how main character’s spiritual growth to transform distorted ethic on social value and value of marriage.

The essentials of old society

The literature output in Jane Austen’s creation is full of realism and irony. Janet Todd once asserted that "Austen creates an illusion of realism in her texts, partly through readably identification with the characters and partly through rounded characters, which have a history and a memory.” (Todd, The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen, 28.) Her works are deeply influenced between by late eighteenth-century Britain rationalism phenomenon and early nineteenth-century of romanticism.

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...

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...es are restricted by social ranking. And mostly depends on the wealth and status. It is an economic base decides everything. In social value, money plays a more and more important role. In Jane Austen's novels, she put the real situation of the times of eighteenth, expectation to women's rights, and the evolution of love and deeply evoke in her works.

Work Cited:

(1) Janet Todd, the Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen, Cambridge University Press, 2006, P.114

(2) Jane Austen, Emma, May 25, 2008, P.5-74 (eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net)

(3) Shannon, Edgar F. `Emma: Character and Construction', Jane Austen: Emma, (130-147) London: MacMillan & Co. Ltd., 1968.

(4) Minma, Shinobu. "Self-Deception And Superiority Complex: Derangement Of Hierarchy In Jane Austen's Emma" Eighteenth Century Fiction 14.1 (2001): 49. Academic Search Complete. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. Merely