Emma: A Character Study

488 Words1 Page

Nikki Giovanni once expressed that "mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to error that counts." Emma Woodhouse, the title character of Jane Austen's Emma, emotionally blossoms by learning from her mistakes. At age twenty-one, Emma has lived a life of very little vexation and because of her high status in society; she has been raised to think very highly of everything about herself including overestimating her cleverness. Emma creates many blind follies that along with damaging her friend's heart, leaves Emm2a vulnerable to new revelations about herself. On this bumpy path Emma changes her opinion of herself.

At the age of twenty-one, Emma enjoys a life of privilege that indulges her clever nature and compliments her every endeavor. "One matter of joy to" Emma is using her cleverness to find "match[es]" for people. This talent, so recently discovered, becomes the item of her thoughts. On finding Harriet, a slow yet pretty girl, Emma decides to "improve her, introduce her into good society," and find her a husband. Emma feels this is the kindest undertaking she has ever begun and intends to use all her wits to accomplish making this match. Emma has enormous ideas, but in the past her "steadiness has always been wanting." Many of the projects Emma has taken on, such as "drawing [or] music" never lasts long, because the spark that fuels her work never stays lit.

Emma's endeavor to take Harriet under her wing is a project propelled by good intentions. However, even with these good intentions, the outcome deeply hurts Harriet. Emma finds a man who has feelings for Harriet and she endeavors to put them together. When the man proposes marriage to Emma instead of Harriet, the matchmaker realizes it was all a "fancy encouraged by her own emotions" that led her to believe the suitor cared for Harriet. It isn't until the gentleman falls for Emma that she notices the extent of her folly. Emma, feeling terrible about leading her intimate friend Harriet on, soon finds another man she deems proper for Harriet's new social position. Once Harriet becomes excited about this new admirer, the gentleman reveals that he "has been privately engaged to" marry another young lady for the duration of their acquaintance. This once again broke Harriet's heart and added to the list of mistakes Emma makes on Harriet' behalf.

Show More
Related

  • Symbolism In Como Agua Para Chocolate

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rather than only with a man, Emma has illicit relationships with several men. When Rodolphe, one of her sweethearts, first begins the affair with her, Emma is filled with contentment and satisfaction, and “at last she was going to know the joys of love, the fever of the happiness she had desperate of” (Flaubert 190). For Emma, the romance is a break from the miserable marriage life. Before the appearing of Rodolphe, she can only swallow her dissatisfaction while still acting as a dutiful wife taking cares the household. The amorous connection between the lovers ignites her heart to reveal the enduring desire and hope for dramatic love; because Rodolphe’s flamboyance disparages Monsieur Bovary’s seriousness and reticence, Emma is blind with the superficial pleasant, does not penetrate one’s true character, and fools with the novelty. She has been tired of herself as a mother and wife, sacrificing all the time and energy to the family; inside of her, she always wish to be a free woman who can experience different kinds of men and love stories, but the cultural conventions bury her unorthodox wishes. Emma chooses commit adultery for the sake of declaring she hates to be the “perfect” housewife and craves to be

    Read More

  • Importance of Social Status in Emma and Clueless

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emma's arrogance shines through when she brags that she is exceptionally skillful at matching couples. She believes that she is in control of fate and must play matchmaker in order for couples to discover their true love. Austen confirms, "The real evils indeed of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself" (Austen 1). Although Emma is so spoiled and overbearing, she truly doesn't realize this fact.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Vulnerability To Error In Jane Austen's Emma

    1261 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emma by Jane Austen is usually stereotyped as a novel of manners involving a young girl who has been fortunate enough to have little to vex her, and who allegedly has a forte for matchmaking those around her not realizing the mistakes she is making along the way seeing as she is not really helping anyone so much as hurting them and herself. Although, “A more adequate answer might be that Emma is about the process by which Emma Woodhouse, motivated by love of power and pride in her own intellectual and social superiority meddles arrogantly and ignorantly in the affairs of various people both in her circle and out of it, at the risk of their happiness and ultimately

    Read More

  • Lisa Lionheart Gender Stereotypes

    1219 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emma holds her stance with the ideals of a true man through her rejection of many of the eligible bachelors. Emma wants to marry and find love, but she does not want to confine herself to the dainty role of an Elizabethan housewife. During this era, Emma ultimately must surrender to this role and marry. Emma tries to adapt to this new role through her painting. But she found herself getting frustrated and abandoning her work without finishing it.

    Read More

  • Analyzing Emma

    836 Words  | 2 Pages

    When Emma Goldman is searched, there is usually one word associated with her. The word most commonly seen is Anarchism. Emma Goldman was an Anarchist, and that title along with other details about Goldman affected and followed her for the rest of her life and even afterwards. Goldman’s gave a speech titled “Address to the Jury” on July 9, 1917, and this address became one of her most remembered speeches. Goldman’s gave “Address to the Jury” because of her history and Anarchism, and she used the speech to share her point of views.

    Read More

  • Emma: the Turning Point at Box Hill

    1324 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emma, a novel by Jane Austen, is the story of a young woman, Emma, who is rich, stubborn, conniving, and occupies her time meddling into others' business. There are several recurring themes throughout the novel; the ideas of marriage, social class, women's confinement, and the power of imagination to blind the one from the truth, which all become delineated and reach a climax during the trip to Box Hill. The scene at Box Hill exposes many underlying emotions that have been built up throughout the novel, and sets the stage for the events that conclude it.

    Read More

  • Theme of Transformation in Emma

    1224 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emma also transforms into a proper woman through correcting her original neglect. Trollope states that “[i]n every passage of the book she is in fault for some folly, some vanity, some ignorance, or indeed for some meanness” (7)19. Because of her ignorance toward attitudes of her neighbors, Emma interferes through their lives in a way that makes them unhappy, for “she had often been negligent” (Austen 359)20. Mr. Knightley predicts the outcome of Emma’s plans in the beginning of the novel when he states that “[y]ou are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than good to them by interference” (Austen 8)21 and also that “[v]anity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief” (Austen 53)22. Not only is Emma stubborn toward her actions, but she is also negligent to herself when she convinces herself “I cannot really change for the better” (Austen 73)23. On other matters about her plans for others, Emma’s consideration falls short through her own selfishness and withholding of her pride, for “[t]he longer she considered it, the greater was her sense of its expediency” (Austen 27)24.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Jane Austen´s Emma

    1252 Words  | 3 Pages

    As President Lincoln once said, “Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing,” too often mankind are too quick to judge others by their appearance rather than who they truly are (Good Reads). Often times, people judge one another not solely by their character that is the true indicator of who they are but by their reputation or appearance. Throughout the novel, Emma, by Jane Austen the themes of appearance vs. reality, marriage and confinement of women, and social status are portrayed through characters such as Emma, Harriet, and Mr. Knightley.

    Read More

  • A Character Analysis Of Jane Austen's Emma

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emma Woodhouse tries to use her influence to manipulate everyone around to her likings, and she only accepts the advice of mentors who agree with her. Emma knows that she is clever, and, having grown up as the smartest person among in Hartfield, she is continually being praised for her wit. As Mr. Knightley told Mrs. Weston, “Considering how very handsome she is, appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies another way” (33). She believes herself to be in the right without considering any other possibilities, or she rationalizes those possibilities away. More often than not, she is wrong.

    Read More

  • A Comparison of Escape in Madam Bovary and Anna Karenina

    1527 Words  | 4 Pages

    Emma's active decisions though were based increasingly as the novel progresses on her fantasies. The lechery to which she falls victim is a product of the debilitating adventures her mind takes. These adventures are feed by the novels that she reads. They were filled with love affairs, lovers, mistresses, persecuted ladies fainting in lonely country houses, postriders killed at every relay, horses ridden to death on every page, dark forests, palpitating hearts, vows, sobs, tears and kisses, skiffs in the moonlight, nightingales in thickets, and gentlemen brave as lions gentle as lambs, virtuous as none really is, and always ready to shed floods of tears.(Flaubert 31.)

    Read More

  • Jane Austen's Emma

    933 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Jane Austen’s social class and coming of age novel, Emma, the relationships between irony, insight and education are based upon the premise of the character of Emma Woodhouse herself. The persona of Emma is portrayed through her ironic and naive tone as she is perceived as a character that seems to know everything, which brings out the comedic disparities of ironies within the narrative. Emma is seen as a little fish in a larger pond, a subject of manipulating people in order to reflect her own perceptions and judgments. Her education is her moral recognition to love outside her own sheltered fancies and her understandings of her society as a whole.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Emma Bovary

    1006 Words  | 3 Pages

    The men in Emma’s life are subpar: her father essentially sells her so he can live comfortably without thinking about her needs, Charles, her husband is bland and inattentive to her needs, Rodolphe, her first lover is a player and uses her for sex even though he knows she is in love with him, Leon, her other lover satisfied her only for a short amount of time and then could not keep her interested. Because of the disappointing men in her life, Emma must turn to novels to encourage her will to live. She clings to the romance shown in fiction because she cannot find any in her own life. Whenever Emma indulges herself and dreams of romance, she has just been heartbroken. The first scene is after Rodolphe breaks up with Emma, she goes to the theatre and thrusts herself into a dreamed life with the main character of the play: “she tried to imagine his life…the life that could have been hers, if only fate had willed it so. They would have met, they would have loved!” (Flaubert, 209). In order to help herself get over Rodolphe, she has to reimagine a life with another man. The second follows Emma fretting breaking up with Leon, as she no longer tolerate him. As she’s writing another love letter to Leon, she creates an imaginary lover to write to. Creating a man from her favorite novels, a man so perfectly imagined she could practically feel him.

    Read More

  • Theme of Lies in Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

    818 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout this passage, Emma remembers her past, a time when she was more innocent and perhaps less preoccupied with her troubles. She remembers her time in the convent as a young girl (a time when she was happy and passionate about life). As time perished, she grew bored of the ordinary life of a student in a convent. At this point, stories of love and passion called to her more than ever.

    Read More

  • Emma by Jane Austen

    2037 Words  | 5 Pages

    Emma is the main character in the novel. She is a beautiful, smart, and wealthy 21-year-old woman. Because of her admired qualities, Emma is a little conceited. She is the daughter of Henry Woodhouse. Since her mother died, Emma has taken the role of taking care of her father, who is old and often sick.

    Read More

  • Emma Wuthering Heights And Jane Eyre Character Analysis

    1164 Words  | 3 Pages

    A total of ten characters are mentioned by name in the first chapter of Emma, though of these only three speak, the dialogue of each of the three serving to reinforce the description of each which is given in the narrative (Austen 362-67). Emma, the eponymous character, is introduced in the first sentence of the novel as being a young woman who is “handsome, clever, and rich,” a character who seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence” (Austen 362). But though the author describes her character with such glowing terms,, she is not ideal, much less perfect: the fourth paragraph opens by saying that “the real evils, indeed, of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think

    Read More

More about Emma: A Character Study

Open Document