ENGL20031 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Emma Woodhouse, Jane Austen, Austenite
11 May 2018
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EMMA – JANE AUSTEN
▪ Criticised for its inaction and eulogised for its accurate depiction of everyday
life in the 19th century.
▪ Emma is a potentially subversive text, although it does tend to adhere to the
moral values of the time period.
▪ Emma contains many non-fictional and imaginary places that may be
considered accidental metaphors.
▪ Variations between dramatic monologues and staccato exchanges.
▪ Explores the difficulties of women living in Georgian-Regency England.
▪ The dialogue contains subtext and the dangers of ornate speech.
▪ Highbury is a system of interdependence.
▪ Combined social realism and moral seriousness, the activities that characters
indulge in are activities of everyday life.
▪ Psychic space of the heroine.
▪ The conversations are incredibly realistic – characters stumble in their speech
and speak over one another.
▪ Characters are fodder for Emma’s creative imagination.
▪ Austenite.
▪ Emma is the ‘surrogate author’.
▪ In Emma, we see the most gender equal society.
▪ Highbury is a microcosm of Austen’s social world.
▪ Vacuous, Beverly Hills babes.
▪ Class and cliques.
Matrimony and Social Status
▪ Inherited property runs through the male line, a woman may be born into
affluence but that does not follow her through life. The only way to secure it is
through marriage.
▪ Carriages were status symbols, horse-drawn vehicles were expensive.
Emma is structured around a number of marriages recently consummated or
anticipated, and, in each case, the match solidifies the participant’s social status. In
Austen’s time, social status was determined by a combination of family background,
reputation, and wealth—marriage was one of the main ways in which one could raise
one’s social status. This method of social advancement was especially crucial to
women, who were denied the possibility of improving their status through hard work
or personal achievement.
In terms of class, the highest in Highbury’s circle is Mr. Knightley of Donwell Abbey.
Next is Mr. Woodhouse of Hartfield; it’s a gentleman’s residence with a farm
attached. But, because Emma is the heiress of thirty-thousand pounds, it is evident
that their income stems from investment. Mr. Weston (as a Captain in the militia) is
considered below the gentry of the Churchills.
The Confinement of Women
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▪ Dance law allows for men and women to experiment – it was a chance to flirt
and be more serious. But, it was a limited kind of freedom because the dances
are highly stylised.
▪ There is actually an inverted gender role in Emma. Mr. Woodhouses’ sickness
is also described as hypochondria, which is usually associated with women.
▪ Word and games are Emma’s defense against banality.
▪ Imagination is unfeminine.
The novel’s limited, almost claustrophobic scope of action gives us 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 alternative pastimes depicted in the book—social visits, charity
visits, music, artistic endeavours—seem relatively trivial, at times even monotonous.
The novel focuses on marriage because marriage offers women a chance to exert their
power, if only for a brief time, and to affect their own destinies without adopting the
labors or efforts of the working class. Participating in the rituals of courtship and
accepting or rejecting proposals is the most active role that women are permitted to
play in Emma’s world.
Conversational Subtexts
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 novel does actually conclude by unraveling all the various
subtextual plots, etc.
▪ Emma regards herself as an imaginist, believing that she has a rare insight into
the world and with regards to social interactions than others. The novel is
driven by two imaginings: Emma’s desire to see Harriet married off to Mr.
Elton and the private and forbidden narrative she constructs between Jane
Fairfax and Mr. Dixon.
▪ Her imaginings are part of the spectrum of social game-playing that is one of
the novel’s principal metaphors.
Actions determined by Situation
▪ Emma’s mindset changes while her situation remains constant. It is because
she ceases her schemes that determine the alteration of her mindset.
▪ Intrinsic value, “worth for which there is no monetary equivalent” or
instrumental value, “the exchange rate at which material goods may be
purchased” (The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, 1776).
▪ Emma is an artist who manipulates people as if they were characters in her
own stories.
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Emma is at first inclined to seek out others instrumental value without taking their
intrinsic worth into consideration. This inclination leads her, in turn, to overvalue
Harriet Smith, Frank Churchill, and Mr. Elton—whose material features play well
into her schemes—and to undervalue Miss Bates, Jane Fairfax, and Robert Martin,
whose moral virtues are worthy in and of themselves, but have no concrete place in
her designs.
Mr. Elton and Mrs. Elton serve as a valuable instrument in the one another’s private
schemes—to gain either money or security, or both.
VOLUME ONE
Chapter 1.
▪ We are sympathetic towards Emma because her life experience is very
limited.
▪ Emma thrusts herself into the novel through its title and the first sentence.
▪
Summary
At the beginning of the novel, the readers are introduced to Emma
Woodhouse. Miss Taylor, Emma’s governess, just left Hartfield, the estate of
Emma and Mr. Woodhouse, to marry a widower named Mr. Weston, and
Emma is left without a companion. Her sister’s husband’s brother, Mr.
Knightley visits and affirms the appropriateness of the match between Mr.
Weston and Miss Taylor and gently chides Emma when she claims credit.
Emma declares that she will repeat her matchmaking success by finding a wife
for Mr. Elton, the village rector.
“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and happy
disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived
nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her” (pg. 7).
The principal verb in this sentence, ‘seemed’ foretells the probability that the
narrative will afflict Emma – that she will become both distressed and vexed by
existence. Emma’s ‘world’ is also very restricted to one county in England, Highbury
and she rarely strays from her own estate of Hartfield. What she knows is constricted
to a village and mutual acquaintances.
Emma’s Character
She is spoiled (e.g. “very little to distress or vex her” pg. 7), headstrong, and self-
satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the
dangers of meddling in other people's lives; and her imagination and perceptions often
lead her astray. Beginning with the introduction of her character establishes the novel
as one that is concerned with relationships etc. She is a very selfish character,
believing that, “Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for them” (pg. 9)
and does not think of others wellbeing above her own.
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Document Summary
In emma, we see the most gender equal society. Inherited property runs through the male line, a woman may be born into affluence but that does not follow her through life. The only way to secure it is through marriage: carriages were status symbols, horse-drawn vehicles were expensive. Emma is structured around a number of marriages recently consummated or anticipated, and, in each case, the match solidifies the participant"s social status. Austen"s time, social status was determined by a combination of family background, reputation, and wealth marriage was one of the main ways in which one could raise one"s social status. This method of social advancement was especially crucial to women, who were denied the possibility of improving their status through hard work or personal achievement. In terms of class, the highest in highbury"s circle is mr. knightley of donwell abbey. Next is mr. woodhouse of hartfield; it"s a gentleman"s residence with a farm attached.
