Emma

The reader's response to Emma is often a mixture of sympathy and

impatience. Select two episodes and discuss them in regards to this

statement.

Continually throughout Emma the reader feels a mixture of sympathy and

impatience for its main character Emma Woodhouse. The novel

illustrates her vast change in maturity, which occurs in one year. Due

to Emma's personality and disposition she will always get herself into

difficult circumstances, but it is the way she reacts to the

circumstances that broadens and matures her character. The first

episode takes place when she is in the throws of naivety, and the

other is when Emma has begun to mature and grow.

One of the classic episodes in Emma when the reader feels impatience

and sympathy for Emma Woodhouse, is when she gets herself involved in

matchmaking Harriet Smith and Mr. Elton. Throughout this episode the

reader becomes so frustrated with Emma for not noticing certain signs

that seem to be so obvious to the reader and Emma's friend Mr.

Knightley. Emma tricks the idea of matchmaking two people so different

from one another out of her active imagination. When Emma takes

Harriet Smith under her wing she has an almost selfish motive, as she

needs a companion now that her governess has been married. Although

Harriet is the 'natural daughter of somebody,' Emma feels that she can

use Harriet as her project.

Emma implores Harriet to disregard her romance with Mr. Martin and

tells her that Robert Martin is below her and that she must

disassociate herself from any connection that would lower her status

further and feels that 'if she were not taken care of, she might be

required to sink herself for ever.' When Harriet actually gets

proposed to by Mr. Martin, Em...

... middle of paper ...

...rivileged view of observer to all that is going

on; we are able to see the mistakes she makes, able to laugh at her

mischievous plots, while she is unaware of her mistakes. As the novel

progresses, however, the reader comes to take her seriously, because

of the nature of the issues addressed in the novel, and while at times

we may be 'put off' by her snobberies and claims to importance, Jane

Austen has written in such way that the reader feels sympathy for her.

Emma is a character that is not so good as to be uninteresting, nor so

cruel as to forgo sympathy. By presenting things from Emma's point of

view for the most part of the novel, the reader is able to gain an

insight into her inner thoughts and unexpressed feelings. It is

therefore easy for the reader to relate to Emma because although she

seems to have it all, she is a real person who is growing up.