Paola Arevalo Ms. Borgonia English 4 March 6, 2014 Emma vs.

Clueless Good looks, intelligence, money, and affectionate parents; throughout history, most women have worried about having is these four important aspects in their lives. Jane Austens, Emma, is another outstanding novel that depicts women as needing those characteristics in their lives. Emma is about a beautiful and smart young girl around twenty years old who is very spoiled by her father and thinks she is the perfect matchmaker. Though she believes that she will never marry, Emma Woodhouses adventures with her matchmaking expertise leads her to help her friend, Harriet, fall in love as well as herself. She learns a lot through her life experiences and matures a lot throughout the way. Austens work has been examined on whether the talented author is an 18th century feminist of if her heroine fits the busy-body/trophy-wife persona. Her work has also been created into many movies, filming rich and pretty girls in their everyday lives. These films include Clueless and the direct film adaptation, Emma. Both movies have many similarities to the novel, as well as many differences. Though both film versions are great movies, the movie Emma is a better representation of Austens original because of the time frame and environment, and the illustration of the plot. In Jane Austens novel, Emma, the main character lives in a small village named Highbury, only a few miles away from London. It is set around the 18th century. One of the similarities between the two film versions of the novel is that the two main characters are very well off. Though they take place in two different eras in history, money still makes a big

difference in their everyday lives and allows them to live the lives many girl their age wish to be living. Just like the novel, Emma the film is also set around the 18th century and Emma Woodhouse lives in England. Clueless, on the other hand, takes place around the 20th century in the United States. The main character in this film, Cher, lives in the rich city of Beverly Hills. "Last year's Clueless, which shamelessly transferred Austen's plot-line to present-day Beverly Hills, caught more of its real spirit." (Cunneen 15). Though Clueless is more modern and caught more peoples attention, the setting of these films makes a big difference when comparing the novels. Since Clueless takes place in the 1990s, Cher has an expensive car, expensive clothes, and a huge mansion. In the film Emma, Emma is smart, pretty, elegant, and charismatic. Though she does not have all the expensive luxuries that Cher has, Emma has everything a young woman in the 18th century would want. This difference between Emma and Cher makes the film Emma more loyal to Austens original because it is more parallel to those details in the setting of the novel. Emma in the novel and Emma in the movie are more relatable to each other because of the era they live in and because of their environment. In the novel and in the movie Emma, Emma believes that she does not want to get married. As time goes on, she thinks she is falling in love with Mr. Frank Churchill. To her dismay, Emma find out that her lover is already engaged to another woman. As the novel goes on, Emma realizes that the person she is actually falling for is her brother-in-law, Mr. George Knightley. Clueless, on the other hand, is a bit different from the Austens novel. Like Emma, Cher also falls for the wrong guy at first. She falls for Christian, and unfortunately he turns out to be gay. By the end of the movie, Cher realizes who she is actually in love with, which is her step-brother, Josh. By making Christian gay and Josh Chers step-brother, Clueless becomes less

loyal to the novel. Though the changes that are made to Clueless are minor, Emma the movie is more faithful to Austens original. Though one of the most obvious and main differences between the films Clueless and Emma is that Cher is only sixteen while Emma is twenty, both character greatly mature by the end of the novel due to the different adventures life takes them through during the films. One of the more evident reasons why both of the young women mature is because they both are motherless. They are solely dependent on their father. Most girls in the 18th century had both parents, it may have impeded with their social status if they only had a father. In both movies, girl their ages do not have to depend just on one person which causes them to mature more rapidly. Another reason Cher and Emma they mature rapidly throughout the movies is that despite the fact that money plays a big part when it comes to the people that both of the main characters hang out with, Emma and Cher both experience becoming friends with a person in a social status below them. For Emma is it a young girl named Harriet, and for Cher it is a young girl named Tai. This helps Emma and Cher mature because they get to see through the eyes of their new friends what it is like to have that title of belonging to a class lower than the upper class. Both characters jump into their matchmaking role and begin to try to find someone for each of the girls, also raising their friends social statuses at the same time. The difference in this aspect that makes Clueless a bit less faithful to Austens novel is the change in name of the character. In the 18th century, the common woman was most likely married off. Along with being married off, they would usually stay at home, cook, clean, and take care of the children. Women were seen as the minority, rarely educated. In the novel, Jane Austen portrays Emma as being an

"intelligent, strong, mature, and admirable in many ways" (Rapping). Austen is an 18th century feminist. Unlike most women living in her time, Emma is very well off and owns many luxurious things. Due to the fact that she is very wealthy, it is in Emmas power to decide whether or not to marry. This is shown in the beginning of the novel. Emma at first believes that she does not want to marry. Though at first she thinks that she does not want to marry, her belief is changed by the end of the novel when she marries Mr. George Knightley. The independence that Emma has when it comes to having the power to decide if she wants to marry allows her to break away from the typical 18th century woman. Austen also does not make her main character financially dependent on a man. Emmas independent way of thinking is also shown when she tells Harriet not to marry Mr. Martin, the poor farmer. By Emma giving this advice to her friend, she shows that she believed that women have the power to decline or accept a proposal, which was not usually the case in this time in history. Though in the end Harriet marries the poor farmer, it is still in her power to make the decision to accept the proposal from Mr. Martin. All the power that Austen gives her main character helps break the stereotype of women in the 19th century. Clueless and Emma are both great representations of Jane Austens original novel. They both show woman as beautiful, intelligent, charismatic, independent, and financially stable. They portray woman an equal to men, portraying women the way Austen portrayed Emma in her novel. They show differences when it comes to location and time but are still relatable to each other. Though the movies are a like in many ways, the minor changes in Clueless make Emma more loyal to the novel.

Works Cited Cunneen, Joseph. "Emma." National Catholic Reporter 20 Sept. 1996: 15. Questia School. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. Despotopoulou, Anna. "Girls on Film: Postmodern Renderings of Jane Austen and Henry James." Yearbook of English Studies 36.1 (2006): 115+. Questia School. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. Galperin, William. "Adapting Jane Austen: The Surprising Fidelity of Clueless." Wordsworth Circle 42.3 (2011): 187+. Questia School. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. Leland, John. "Clueless." Newsweek 24 July 1995: 52+. Questia School. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. Rapping, Elaine. "The Jane Austen Thing." The Progressive July 1996: 37+. Questia School. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. Thornell, Kristel. "Film Adaptations of Emma between Agency and Submission." Mosaic (Winnipeg) 43.3 (2010): 17+. Questia School. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.