Emma: The Typical Jane Austen Novel

431 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Importance of literature in english by jane austen

JANE AUSTEN, who writes the novel Emma, was the greatest novelist belonging to the second Romantic Age. She wrote only six novels of which Pride and Prejudice and Emma are famous.

Jane Austen moved in a limited society. She was familiar only with that. So her novels are domestic novels. She never writes about a world which h she does not know. As such she deals with her story knowingly and confidently. The resultant novels are highly remarkable artistic successes.

The great charm of Austen's novels lies in their truth and simplicity. The society in which Austen lived was a convention-ridden society. Austen holds a mirror to that society in her novels. In the society in which Jane lived, the only aspiration of a young girl is to get married. So Jane Austen selects the theme of marriage in all her novels. Even Emma ends in the celebration of three marriages.

Jane Austen's novels are called drawing room novels. Emma is a typical drawing room novel. Almost all incidents in the novel take a place in the drawing room of Emma. Emma Wodhouse is the daughter of a valetudinarian. Her governess Miss Taylor assumes the role of a guide and friend to her in moments of loneliness.

After a time Miss Taylor gets married to a man called, Mr. Weston and leaves the Wodhouse family.

Then Emma brings to her house a girl called Harriet Smith, a daughter of unknown parents, to keep company with her. She assumes the role of a guardian to Harriet Smith and makes her reject the marriage proposal of a young peasant called Richard Martin, on the pretext that he is below her in rank.

Next Emma takes it upon herself toe marry Harriet Smith in a high place. So she arranges meetings between a vicar called Elton and Harriet Smith to promote a marriage between them. But one day Elton proposes to marry Emma and Emma declines. However, Elton's proposal is not out of love. So he marries another lady who brings him ten thousand pounds.

Later a man called Frank Churchill enters into the lives of Emma and Harriet Smith. Even by that time Frank Churchill was secretly engaged to a girl called Jane Fairfax. Ignorant of this connection, Emma plans to get Harriet smith married to frank Churchill.

Show More
Related

  • Morality In Virginia Woolf's Emma Bovary

    828 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through this prospect, she has internalized the standards in fulfilling the norms. If she does not fulfill it, she creates a sense of futility, an accurate, unvarnished replication of the guilt feelings that she suffers. Emma lives out its real, logical, and bitter conclusion of the emptiness in the traditions of marriage and the masculine customs that go with it. By marriage, a woman, specifically Emma, losses their liberty in all its physical, social, moral and even spiritual consequences. She envies the advantages of a man saying, “...at least is free; he can explore each

    Read More

  • Q&A: Analyzing Emma

    1258 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jane, Austen,. Emma complete, authoritative text with biographical, historical, and cultural contexts, critical history, and essays from contemporary critical perspectives. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.

    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

    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...

    Read More

  • A Women’s Quest for Power in Jane Austen’s Emma

    1563 Words  | 4 Pages

    ... But in fact her powers and beauty cannot change the foundation of her society. Emma’s circumscription within the boundaries of her class kept her world under control. This prevents her from considering another society beyond her existence. The confusion from her failed attempts with Harriet due to her guidance, allows her to embrace reality. Jane Austen uses Emma’s character to reveal the quality in the structures of the nineteenth century society. Based on the conclusion of the novel, when Emma is forced to look beyond the limited power and beauty she has and acknowledge the existing order and structure of the early nineteenth century English society.

    Read More

  • Jane Austen's Influence on Literature: Pride and Prejudice

    1206 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even though today Jane Austen is regarded for her writing, during her time she couldn’t even publish her work under her own name, because it was considered unladylike for women to be intellectual figures. Unlike J. K. Rowling and other English female writers today, who are well known for their works even without using their full names, Jane Austen lived within the sanctuary of a close-knit family and always published her works under a pseudonym that could not be traced back to her (jasna.org). Writing at the time was a male-dominated profession and women depended completely on men for their livelihood. During her upbringing she knew the importance of money to women in a severely classist and patriarchal society, and so marriage was the answer to the survival of women during this time (Helms 32). Even knowing these qualities were important in her life she criticized them.

    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 Comparison of Gustave Flaubert and Madame Bovary

    1428 Words  | 3 Pages

    to see more and more of each other until Charles asks Emma's father for her hand

    Read More

  • Jane Austen: An Analysis of Sense and Sensibility

    1284 Words  | 3 Pages

    Austen was raised in an unusually liberal family where her father was a part of the middle-landowning class. They had a moderate amount of luxuries, but were not considered well off. Unlike many girls of her time Austen received a fairly comprehensive education. She received this mainly through the undivided support of her family. Austen and her sisters, like most girls of their time, were homeschooled. Austen’s zealous parents encouraged the girls to play piano, read and write. Her parent’s encouragement led to her interest in writing. Austen’s father housed an extensive library filled with books which kept Austen occupied for years (“Sense and Sensibility” 119). Through her observant nature and passion to read and write, Austen was able to eloquently write of the many “hidden truths” of social and class distinction during her time. They included daily societal changes some of which foreshadowed future societal leniency. Familial support also extended societal norm of marriage. Her parents attempt...

    Read More

  • Theme Of Friendship In Jane Austen's Emma

    869 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Jane Austen’s Emma, an emphasis is placed on the importance of female friendships. In particular, Austen places a great deal of emphasis on how Emma treats the women she calls her friends. In many ways, Emma manipulates the people in her life to fit her specific expectations for them. This can be seen in her matchmaking, especially Harriet’s relationship with Mr. Martin. Emma’s manipulation of various relationships serves as a way to control the friendships she has with the women in her life. By matching her friends with the men she has chosen for them, Emma can not only elevate their status but also keep these women in her life as well. It is only when her friendships are affected by marriage that Emma re-evaluates the role of marriage in her own life.

    Read More

  • Influence Of Jane Austen On Literature

    1585 Words  | 4 Pages

    Jane Austen was one of the first writers to introduce an entirely new style of writing. Before Austen wrote her novels, the writing was unrealistic, dismissable and unrelatable. The

    Read More

  • Emma by Jane Austen

    2037 Words  | 5 Pages

    As the novel progresses, Emma becomes more mature, and realizes how silly she had been in the past. In the end, she finally stops matchmaking others and marries Mr. Knightley, who was perfect for her all along. Mr. Knightley: Mr. Knightley is another main character in the novel. He is quite a bit older than Emma, at 38. He is also Emma’s brother-in-law.

    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

  • Jane Austen's Writing Style

    571 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jane Austen's writing style is a mix of neoclassicism and romanticism. Austen created a transition into Romanticism which encourages passion and imagination in writing instead of a strict and stale writing style. It is very emotional and follows a flowing not structured form. Mixing these two styles was one of Austen's strongest talents, which gave her an edge in the literary world. No other author in her time was able to create such a strong transition between writing styles. Austen used her sharp and sarcastic wit in all of her writing including in one of her most famous works; Pride and Prejudice. She could create a powerful and dramatic scene and immediately lead it into a satirical cathartic scene. We see these in various locations in Pride and Prejudice. She was able to use her experiences as well as her intense knowledge to create meaningful insights into her words, regardless of what topic she would be discussing. She often talks about marriage, or breaking the roles of what a person should be. She made controversial works that praised imperfections which praised the...

    Read More

  • The Unique Heroine in Jane Austen's Emma

    1856 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about Emma: The Typical Jane Austen Novel

Open Document