Jane Austen's "Emma"

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews Jane Austen's "Emma", a didactic novel whose chief lesson is that, although society as it was constituted at the time was well ordered, it was up to the individual to make more or less of her/his position within that order. It examines how Emma Woodhouse, with all her advantages, was simply not ready to marry until she learned how to learn, although conventionally Emma was fully ready to marry. Emma was unready because she was unable to accept guidance. The paper analyzes the guidance she receives from Mr. Knightley and others and how she learns to be a lady during the course of the novel.

From the Paper:

"But the model of the lady Emma is to become does not exist at Highbury. There are a number of women who should either function as models or be fellow pupils in the art along with Emma but none of them suffices: not Miss Bates, Mrs. Elton, Mrs. Weston, Harriet Smith, nor even Jane Fairfax. In part this is the result of circumstance. Emma's mother is dead and her sister, never a strong influence, lives far away. Mrs. Weston was always "a rational, unaffected woman" as Knightley notes, but as Miss Taylor, Emma's governess and companion, she had been more dedicated to pleasing Emma, as he also notes, than to curbing her independence (Austen 11). "

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• Film Review # 128711 : "Clueless" nee Jane Austen's "Emma"

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