Emma And Clueless Comparison Essay

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Through the comparison of Jane Austen’s 18th century novel Emma and Amy Hecklering’s 20th century “teen-pic” Clueless, contextual attitudes and values regarding gender and class can be seen to have maintained to large extent in both texts. The adaptation from Emma to Clueless, from the peaceful, country village of Highbury, to the bustling, microcosm of modern Beverly Hills, allows insight into the shifting attitudes and values towards gender and class over the last two centuries to be seen. A range of literary techniques and visual techniques are employed to demonstrate that in both texts while various attitudes and values of society have undergone changes, others still remain the same.
Emma and Clueless reflect the prevalence of patriarchal forces within marriage and relationships. In Emma, Mr Knightley is one example of this, and can be seen from his admonishment of Emma at Box Hill after she mocks Miss Bates: “I will tell you truths while I can, satisfied with proving myself your friend by faithful counsel, and trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now.” Mr Knightley is the voice of reason and maturity, and is able to reprimand Emma here, and suggests that a woman cannot achieve her full potential without a man beside her to guide her on the right path. Similarly, in Clueless, after the reckless driving situation on the highway, and Dionne realises how much she needed Murray, who here would be a masculine force for Dionne’s guidance, Cher states via voiceover: “I realised how much I wanted a boyfriend of my own.”, which also suggests that there is a need for female dependence on the male in relationships. However, in the kiss scene between Cher and Josh, they are on equal standing, ey...

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...s that the rigidity of the class hierarchy must be maintained for the social order, which is what Emma realises in her maturation. In Clueless, at the wedding, Tai and Cher are in close proximity in the shot and highlights the social harmony felt now that Tai and Cher are back in their previous positions of the social hierarchy. This shows that the idea that class status must be enforced for social harmony has been kept in both texts.
Through the comparison of Emma and Clueless, the similarities and differences with contextual attitudes and values of gender and class in the Regency period and a postmodern setting can be seen. Thus, this allows insight into the shifts in contextual values and attitudes, and it then can be seen that contextual values and attitudes surrounding gender and class have been maintained to large extents in some aspects and altered in others.

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