Emma by Jane Austen

Emma is more unpleasant than appealing. Discuss with reference to the

first 9 chapters

Essay: ‘Emma’

The first line of the novel ‘Emma’, by Jane Austen, claims Emma to be

‘handsome, clever, and rich’, this sums up Emma’s character

completely. It is important to list these first of all, for fear of

the reader to immediately dislike her. Indeed, later on-on the first

page, Emma’s faults are listed, claiming her to have too much of her

own way and herself thinking very highly of herself. Emma’s

stubbornness and vanity is mostly the centre of a majority of the

novels conflicts, as throughout the novel, Emma attempts to develop

emotionally. Austen also portrays Emma’s weaknesses in more subtle

ways, she says although befriending Miss. Smith as good for Emma

because she has someone to talk to and to keep her company, but then

hints that it would have been better for Emma to have had a governess,

or a friend that met her intellectually, because Miss. Smith cannot

meet her in intellect, it is, Emma’s ability to mould her new friend.

This is one of Austen’s techniques; this will be discussed later in

this essay.

In the first chapter, when her governess leaves the household when she

marries, Emma has mixed feelings on the subject, on one hand, she

feels she has lost a best friend, as the person who has acted more as

her mother, than any other, has left; Miss Taylor’s attitude towards

Emma, was as quoted,

“…and who had such an affection for her as could never find fault”

This just goes to show where Emma would get her selfish mannerism

from. It was a very close relationship the two shared, secrets were

told and friendship and trust was passed between the two. This would

show Emma as being human, at leas...

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...ther characters feelings in the novel, toying with

their emotions and trying to set them up with each other, all of these

far outweigh her pleasantness as a character, yes she does care for

Miss. Bates and her mother, yes her heart is sometimes in the right

place when matching two friends up, but from seeing her point of view

in the novel, the reader cannot help but feel that the young lady is

shallow and her blindness to her actions. But then If Jane Austen had

made this character as a nice, pleasant well mannered human, neither

wishing pain nor suffering on any living sole, it would be rather

dull, there would be no huge blunder to read through, and only be able

to gasp in awe at how much embarrassment this is probably creating for

this character. After all, it is a love story, and love stories cannot

be complete without a few love mismatches on the way.