English Classics: Emma

I just finished reading Emma, a novel by English author Jane Austen, first published in 1815. Known to be the longest by word count (over 160,000 words) of Austen's novels and the last published in her lifetime, Emma was the fifth Austen novel I have read, after Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park.

Set in the English village of Highbury, the novel revolves around the life of its protagonist, Emma Woodhouse, and explores the comedic and romantic entanglements of Emma as she endeavors to play matchmaker for her friends while remaining oblivious to her own feelings. The story unfolds in the Regency era in England, providing a vivid portrayal of the social customs and expectations of the time. Emma’s character is both charming and flawed, and her journey towards self-awareness and personal growth is the main plot of the novel. 

Emma is a comedy of manners, featuring a free indirect discourse style, of which Austen was a pioneer. Various themes and motifs are explored throughout the novel; among them, I was most impressed by "the confined nature of women’s existence". With its limited, almost claustrophobic scope of action, the work imbues readers with a strong sense of the confined nature of a woman’s existence in early-nineteenth-century rural England. Emma possesses a great deal of intelligence and energy, but the best use she can make of these is to attempt to guide the marital destinies of her friends, a project that gets her into trouble.

The second theme that intrigued me was "the blinding power of imagination". In this connection, personal biases, jealousy, or desires blind objective judgment, resulting in many misunderstandings between the main characters and their subsequent humorous behaviors. In the falling action of the novel, a series of realizations allow each character to make fuller, more objective judgments.

The third theme I found significant was "the obstacles to open expression". The misunderstandings that permeate the novel are created, in part, by the conventions of social propriety. To varying degrees, characters are unable to express their feelings directly and openly, and their feelings are therefore mistaken. In this regard, Austen seems to prefer those characters with tactful, although restrained, expressions to those with overly gregarious commentary. As a result, the latter characters’ contrived speech represents a misleading influence on the story as a whole.

Finally, I was amused by the rich conversational subtexts hidden throughout the book. Much of the dialogue in Emma has double or even triple meanings, with different characters interpreting a single comment in different ways. Sometimes these double meanings are apparent to individual characters, and sometimes they are apparent only to the alert reader.

The protagonist of the story, Emma Woodhouse is a beautiful, high-spirited, intelligent, and somewhat spoiled young woman from the landed gentry, who is nearly twenty-one when the story opens. Her mother died when she was young, so she has been mistress of the house (Hartfield) since her elder sister got married. Although intelligent, she lacks the discipline to practice or study anything in depth and has a strong sense of class status. On the other hand, she is compassionate to the poor, and her affection for and patience towards her hypochondriac father are also noteworthy. Due to her lack of experience and her conviction that she is always right, Emma makes some serious mistakes. She has vowed to never marry but she delights in making matches for others. By the end of the novel, however, Emma realizes that she loves Mr Knightley.

Aged 37 years, Mr Knightley is Emma's neighbour and close friend. Owning Donwell Abbey, which includes extensive grounds and farms, Mr Knightley is also the only critic of Emma. Mr Knightley is considerate, hardworking, aware of the feelings of the other characters, and always exhibits good behavior and judgment. Mr Knightley is angry after Emma persuades Harriet to turn down Mr Martin, a farmer on the Donwell estate; he warns Emma against pushing Harriet towards Mr Elton, knowing that Mr Elton seeks to marry for money. He is suspicious of Frank Churchill and his motives; he suspects that Frank has a secret understanding with Jane Fairfax. He and Emma confess their love to each other only in the final chapters of the book.

Jane Fairfax is an orphan whose only family is her aunt, Miss Bates, and her grandmother, Mrs Bates; and the three of them together now share genteel poverty. She is a beautiful, resourceful, bright, and elegant woman, with impeccable manners and a strong moral compass. The same age as Emma, she is well-educated and talented at singing and playing the piano, and is the only person whom Emma envies. Her secret engagement with Frank Churchill goes against her principles and distresses her greatly, but it ends well and the two are among the three happy couples that the story ends with.

Frank Churchill is Mr Weston's son by his first marriage. He is an amiable young man, who, at age 23, is liked by almost everyone. After his mother's death, he was raised by his wealthy aunt and uncle, the Churchills, at the family estate of Enscombe in Yorkshire. To please his aunt he assumed the name Churchill upon reaching his majority, so that he might inherit her estate in that name.  Frank is given to dancing and living a carefree existence, and become secretly engaged to Miss Fairfax at Weymouth, although he fears his aunt will forbid the match because Jane is not wealthy. He manipulates and plays games with the other characters to ensure his engagement to Jane remains concealed. Finally, he confesses his impropriety  and is pardoned by all characters, including his true love, Jane Fairfax.

Harriet Smith is a young friend of Emma, just seventeen when the story opens. A beautiful but unsophisticated girl, Harriet has been a pupil at a nearby school, where she met the sisters of Mr Martin. As a parlour boarder at the school, she now helps supervise younger pupils. Emma takes Harriet under her wing early on, and she becomes the subject of Emma's misguided matchmaking attempts. She is revealed in the last chapter to be the natural daughter of a decent tradesman, and marries Mr Martin. 

Robert Martin is a well-to-do, 24-year-old tenant farmer who, though not a gentleman, is a friendly, amiable, and diligent young man. He becomes acquainted and subsequently falls in love with Harriet during her two-month stay at Abbey Mill Farm, which was arranged at the invitation of his sister, Elizabeth Martin, Harriet's school friend. His first marriage proposal, in a letter, is rejected by Harriet under Emma's direction and influence. Emma had convinced herself that Harriet's class and breeding were "above associating with the Martins, much less marrying one". His second marriage proposal is later accepted by a contented Harriet and approved by a wiser Emma; their joining marks the first of the three happy couples to marry in the end.