Austen gives a sceptica or even sour impression of women’s destiny as the nurturer of children.

“Poor
animal’

Novel has self-conscience design, operates to decenter Emma’s love life.

Xi Novel structure

3 volumes, 18 chap each with a 19 chap in the 3 rd volume.

Austen more loyal to courtship plot than leading contemporaries but teases us during much of Emma
with delusory love affairs. Xii

Her unwillingness to show us the heroine reciprocally in love

Of all austen’s novel, Emma is by far the freest agent. Xiii

Last para: Emma

After xiii Inner speech

Highbury Xvii

Austen is famous for omitting the lang of lovers.

Sexual significance of marriage and motherhood.

One of the important themes in Emma is the class distinctions in a closedcommunity. The Knightleys in
Donwell Abbey are the top of the hierarchy in Highbury with their aristocratic background; Mr Knightley
gets his income from his lands. Thus, from the very beginning the reader has an image of Mr.Knightley in
his/her mind, and as the narrator’s and Emma’s comments add up, it becomes clear that Mr. Knightley is
a distinguished person in his environment, and that we can trust upon his judgements for he is the only
person who seesthe people of Highbury from a distance above in his house, Donwell Abbey. AsEmma
feels important to mention, Woodhouses are in no way inferior to Don-well Abbey’s owner.
Woodhouses, second in rank, also belong to aristocracy,they are long been established in Hartfield,
theirs is a respectable and a richfamily. Thus, Emma, unaware of her awareness of her state, in a way
reclaimsher superiority over others, she is the most distinguished and well-off femalein Highbury, and
she lets the readers meet with her arrogant self, too. While MrElton is the vicar of the vicarage of
Donwell Abbey, who is most probably havearistocratic ties but no inheritance, he is in need of a wife as
long as she has agood dowry. Mr Weston is a middle class man, who was once Captain Westonand
married to Miss Churchill who was an aristocrat, yet after his wife’s deathand sending his son Frank
away to his uncle’s, Captain Weston quits the armyand engages in trade and becomes Mr Weston,
makes his fortune and begins to lead a comfortable life at Randalls:

Some scruples and some reluctance the widower-father may be supposedto have felt; but as they were
overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the care and the wealth of the Churchills,
and he had only his owncomfort to seek and his own situation to improve as he could.A complete
change of life became desirable. He quitted the militia and engaged in trade, having brothers already
established in a good way in London,which afforded him a favourable opening. It was a concern which
brought just employment enough. He had still a small house in Highbury, where most ofhis leisure days
were spent; and between useful occupation and the pleasures of society, the next eighteen or twenty
years of his life passed cheerfully away. (14-5)

Thus, Austen depicts the rise of bourgeoisie; a middle class man is able to raise his fortune by trade. His
second wife and Emma’s late governess MrsWeston (Miss Taylor) can be considered as an in-between
charcter she worksas Isabelle and Emma’s governess for sixteen years, and she also becomes amember
of the family. As for her class, it can be said that she belongs to lower gentry, who without an income
has to choose being a governess, and her marriageenables her to establish a bond with the middle class.
The same in-betweenedness is existent for Mr. Weston’s son, too. Although Mr. Weston makes his
fortune,he never takes his son back, thus, his son Frank is middle class by birth, yet bycarrying his
mother’s family name Churchill and being the only inheritor ofChurchills’ fortune, he is a member of the
gentry. This ambiguity also leads toan ambiguity in his character; one cannot label him as good or bad
because herequires a study of his aims and actions from the reader. Mrs and Miss Bates follow Westons,
who fell from a better state, Mrs Bates being the wife of a teacher, knowing Mr Woodhouse from long
before, stands as a respected yetthe poor family of Highbury. Martins on the other hand continue an old
habit;they are a farmer family, who live on the land they rented from Mr Knightley,and work upon it, yet
at the same time, as Knightley says, Robert Martin is a respectable, fine man who is above Harriet.
Harriet, “being the natural daughter of somebody” (22) is educated by Mrs Goddard to a degree and is
employedas “a parlour border.” (22) In the community of Highbury she is without fam-ily, status and
economic power, thus she lacks a certain identity which will bereadily created by Emma herself.

an active community, with its members watching one another and exchanging opinions over such
matters as Frank's London haircut, Jane's piano, and Mr. Elton's courtship of Emma.

MARRIAGE

Marriage or having her own fortune were a woman's best options. Emma was fortunate in being an
heiress whose lack of paternal control or direction had given her control over her life (or did she have
only apparent control?). For Emma, marriage was a question of love, not financial pressures. In
explaining to Harriet why she would not marry, Emma enumerated the advantages of her life—her
freedom, her active life, her fortune, her status, and her father's love. She repudiated the idea that she
would be an old maid, like Miss Bates:

it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman with a very
narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable, old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls; but a
single woman of good fortune is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody
else. (p. 93)
Is there irony in this passage, in the phrases "a generous public" or "the proper sport of boys and girls"
and in Emma's acceptance of the public's abusive treatment of a poor unmarried woman? If so, is the
irony directed at Emma, society, or both? and whose is the irony, Emma's or the narrator's or both?

Whatever the reader may think of the irony in this passage, Emma's underlying view of marriage as
financially and socially advantageous for women was confirmed by Mr. Knightley. He saw Miss Taylor's
marriage as a "question of dependence or independence!" (p. 31), and her social status obviously rose
with her marriage. The same considerations entered into Emma's thoughts on Harriet's marriage to Mr.
Martin:

Emma had no doubt of Harriet's happiness with any good-tempered man; but with him, and in the home
he offered, there would be the hope of more–of security, stability, and improvement. She would be
placed in the midst of those who loved her and who had better sense than herself; retired enough for
safety and occupied enough for cheerfulness. She would be never led into temptation nor left for it to
find her out. She would be respectable and happy. (p. 410-11)

Additionally, marriage offered Harriet protection against dangers, and living with people more sensible
than she was would improve her.

VOCABULARY

Emma uses the term elegant as high praise. Often it means elegance of mind, or a sensitivity to human
values. Elegance also indicates a polished manner and appearance.

Mr. Knightley expressed his disapproval of Frank's behavior and Emma's vision of him by contrasting
what he called French amiableness with English amiableness. He was distinguishing between superficial
manners and moral principle. To use definitions from Johnson's Dictionary, Frank was "pretending" to
concern for others; he was not being "pleasing" because he had a genuine consideration for the others,
as did Mrs. Weston.

CIRCULAR STRUCTURE

The novel opens with one wedding and closes with three weddings. Also, it both opens with Emma, Mrs.
Woodhouse, and Mr. Knightley together at Hartfield and closes with them together at Hartfield. Is the
ending suggested by the beginning?

The chosen and the best

Austen’s satire is most subtle in Emma, where it is the heroine herself who is the greatest snob. Emma
begins the novel confident that she knows who are ‘the chosen and the best’ in Highbury (to be treated
as equals) who are the ‘second set’ (characters like Miss Bates, to be summoned at will to divert Emma’s
father) and who are beyond the pale (like the farmer, Mr Robert Martin) (ch. 3). By the end of the novel
she has been mortified and made to contemplate the real possibility that the gentlemanly Mr Knightley
might want to marry Harriet Smith, the illegitimate daughter of ‘somebody’. Mr Knightley himself enjoys
the company of Mr Robert Martin, in whom he finds ‘true gentility’ (ch. 8). Luckily for Emma, Harriet will
eventually marry Mr Robert Martin and Emma, taught a stern lesson, will think with ‘great pleasure’ of
getting to know him (ch. 54).