Aesthetic Vision and the World of Emma

David Lee Minter

Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Jun., 1966), pp. 49-59.

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 Aesthetic Vision
and the World of
Emma
DAVID L E E M I N T E R

ject" of E m m a is helpful; for it points to the presence in E m m a of

familiar Austenean concerns-concerns, for instance, with man-
ners and decorum, values and principles, social class and eco-
nomic situation, as well as with women and the making of mar-
riages. T h e suggestion, however, is also misleading, not merely
because Emma, as Lionel Trilling has noted, is a complex novel,
but because it is, par excellence, a novel of nuance. Not familiar
concerns per se, but familiar concerns under a certain aspect,
familiar concerns made new by a controlling nuance, a defining
twist, are at stake in the xvorld of Emma.l
In short, if E m m a is a curiously troublesome novel, it is so be-
cause Emma Woodhouse, as Jane Austen anticipated, is a curiously
troublesome character. And if E m m a can be said to have a "sub-
ject," that subject must be Emma herself: Emma is Emma's book
-in a way, for instance, that Sense and Sensibility is not Elinor's
nor Pride and Prejurlice Elizabeth's nor Mansfield Park Fanny's.
T h e opening phrase ("Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and
rich") precisely prepares us for what follows-a full and exact por-
trait in which language and action so clearly focus on, so clearly
define (and are defined by) Emma Woodhouse that the novel itself
Davld Lee Mlnter teaches American literature at the University of Hamburg,
West Germany.
IArnold Kettle, A n Int7oductzon to the English h'ovel (New York, 1960), I, 90.
Lionel Trilling, Introduction, Eminn (Boston, 1957), p. viii. Page references through-
out the paper are to 1RIr. Trilling's Riverside edition of Emma, which in turn follows
the text edited by R. I\'. Chapman and originally published in 1933 by the Oxford
Unibersity Press
50 Nineteenth-Century Fiction

takes shape as a subtle process of defining and redefining what

Emma is and is becoming.
Shifting focus from the subject of marriage to a complex, varied
character will not in itself suffice, however, to bring the trouble-
some aspects of Emma into sharp focus and fine harmony. What,
we must ask, is the trouble with Emma? And in particular, what
is the significance of the ironic incongruity between her active,
clever, talented mind, her quick sensibility, and her prolonged,
deeply misguided misunderstanding of her world and her self?
Early and late Emma persists in misunderstandings-and does so
despite clear warnings from Mr. Knightley (pp. 49-50) and his
brother (p. 86) about Mr. Elton; and from Mr. Knightley about
Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax (p. 274).
Pride and vanity are in part responsible for Emma's troubles.
For Emma is in part a rendering of the self-indulgence of a com-
plexly self-involved self, and especially of the indulgence of that
"very dear part of Emma, her fancy" (see p. 165). T o Arnold
Kettle, for instance, Emma is "not merely spoilt and selfish" but
"snobbish and proud"; and to Wayne Booth, Emma's "chief fault"
is not pride but a "lack of good will or tenderness." Yet, within
the context of a world in which each abounds, Emma's pride and
vanity, as well as her self-indulgence and lack of good will, merely
raise the problem in another form: What precisely is the nature
of Emma's version of these abstract traits? I n a conversation with
Mrs. Weston, Mr. Knightley draws an important distinction:

. . . I do not think her personally vain. Considering how very handsome

she is, she appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies in an-
other way" (p. 28).

What then is the direction of Emma's vanity, and how do her

vanity and self-indulgence differ from Mr. JVoodhouse's and Miss
Bates's, or from Mrs. Elton's and Frank Churchill's? Perhaps
Emma's vanity and self-indulgence appear more interesting and
more attractive than similar qualities in other characters simply
because we see her world much as she sees it. But perhaps, on the
other hand, we can discern a unique pattern in Emma's versioil of
these traits; and perhaps in the process we can illuminate, first
Ibid., p. 95. Wayne Booth, T h e Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago, 1961), p. 263.
Aesthetic Vision i n Emma 51
Emma and the secret recesses of her world, and then what Mr.
Knightley calls "an anxiety, a curiosity in what one feels for
Emma" and for "~uhatwill become of her" (p. 29).

T w o "real evils," we are told, threaten Emma from the outset:

"the power of having rather too much her own way, and a dispo-
sition to think too well of herself" (p. 1). I n part these twin
"evils" find expression in the ordinary tendency to want to be
first and to be admired. But in short order more complex rami-
fications emerge to control the action of the novel. Because she
demands a kind of variety and excitement life cannot supply,
Emma allows her fancy and imagination to shape and distort her
perception of reality; and because she demands harmony and sym-
metry life cannot attain, she permits herself to meddle and inter-
fere with the lives of other people. What Emma consistently de-
sires and frequently demands is not simply that her world admire
her; it also must be as rich and vital and beautiful as she feels
herself potentially to be. Emma accordingly cherishes all of the
beauty of texture and structure which life can command. When
it becomes necessary, however, she sets out "to superintend" the
"happiness" of others. What she demands is that life follo~vher
lead in uniting "the best blessings of existence" and in minimizing
everything which seems only "to distress and vex" (see p. 1). T h e
crux of the matter, then, is the peculiar way in which Emma's life
depends upon and is dedicated to richness and beauty in human
experience. At this point Emma moves far beyond determination
to be one on whom nothing in life is lost: she is also determined
that life shall be-almost in each immediate moment-eminently
worthy of not being lost; that it shall combine harmony, radiance,
and beauty; that it shall couple perfect form within finite con-
tent.
Viewed in this manner, Emma becomes, in essence, a structured
action in which Jane Austen renders both the nobility and the
dangers, the significance and the consequences of Emma's en-
deavor to force an aesthetic ideal upon her world. T h e central
aspect of Emma's drive for richness and style is rendered most
fully through her relation with Harriet Smith. But I want first to
strike a few minor notes.
52 Nineteenth-Century Fiction
Before his first visit to Highbury, Frank Churchill excites
Emma's imagination:

there was something in the name, i n t h e idea of Mr. Frank Churchill,

which always interested her.. . .she had a great curiosity to see him,
a decided i n t e n t i o n of finding him pleasant, of being liked by him to a
certain degree, and a sort of pleasz~rein tlze idea of their being coupled
in their friends' imaginations (pp. 91-92; ernphases added).

As envisaged by Emma, Frank Churchill promises to enrich and

excite the life of Highbury. I n particular, as a suitable (and suit-
ably detached) companion for her, he will foster harmony and
richness by correcting what Emma sees as one of Highbury's faults.
Although it interests, excites, and pleases Emma, her idea of what
Frank Churchill is and means remains the product, and later a
projection, of Emma's mind. For when he arrives, Frank Churchill
becomes a thoroughly unsuitable companion for Emma: first, be-
cause he brings out the worst in her; second, because his apparent
appropriateness is based on deceit; and third, because he disrupts
(though later he furthers) the harmony of life at Highbury.
Several of the more suggestive aspects of Emma's relation to
Frank Churchill come out in the Box Hill episode.

They had a very fine day for Box Hill. . . . [but] there was de/iciency.
There was a languor, a w a n t of spirits, a w a n t of u n i o n , which could
not be got over. . . They separated too much into parties . . .
At first it was downright dzlllness to Emma.. . .
When they all sat down it was better; to her [Emma's] taste a great
deal better, for Frank Churchill grew talkative and gay.. . . and Emma,
glad to be enli-oened, not sorry to be flattered, was gay and easy too.
. . . Not that Emma was gay and thoughtless from any real felicity; it
was rather because she felt less happy than she had expected. She
laughed becaz~se she was disappointed . . . (pp. 287-288; emphases
added.)

Both Frank Churchill's role and Emma's response to deficiency,

to languor, to disunity, and to dullness are central throughout the
Box Hill outing; in particular, they are essential to appreciation
of Emma's rudeness to Miss Bates, which, as Mr. Knightley puts
it, is "wrong," "insolent," and "thoughtless," and which, as he
implies, is vulgar as well. For one implication of the extreme de-
mands Emma makes of life is precisely that she is dangerous-is
a threat both to herself and to others-when she is disappointed
Aesthetic Vision i n Emma 53
and frustrated and bored (see pp. 128-129; 182-185; 268-275;
and p. 2, where we learn that one thing which threatens Emma
from the outset is "intellectual solitude"). Both in this episode and
elsewhere, Emma's extreme demands-her insistent drive toward
the impossible-turn on her to lower rather than exalt her and
to injure rather than benefit those around her.
Miss Bates is a rather nice old lady; and, to be sure, a rather
simple old bore. Neither Mrs. Weston nor Mr. Knightley ever
denies her claim to the latter distinction. Nor, indeed, does Miss
Bates herself. I n the comment which evokes Emma's insufferable
insult-"Oh! very well. . . 'Three things very dull indeed.' T h a t
will just do. . . I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as
ever I open my m o u t h . . ." (p. 290)-Miss Bates exhausts her wit
and reveals both her own self-knowledge and her own peculiar
form of self-indul,o.ence.
Yet the striking thing about Miss Bates is that everyone tolerates
her with more grace than Emma, including people more than
equally vain, self-indulgent, and callous-for instance the Eltons
and Frank Churchill. I n an interesting exchange with Emma, Mrs.
Weston notes that Mr. Knightley would not be much disturbed
by Miss Bates, even as an in-law; "little things," she says, "do not
irritate him" (p. 174). I n this remark we get at the prevailing at-
titude of the novel: that maturity, sensitivity, understanding, and
decency both require and enable people to accept Miss Bates (see
Mr. Knightley's lecture on this subject to Emma, pp. 293-294).
Yet, at this point Emma stands in sharp contrast to her world. Far
from being a matter of one hasty insult, the problem is of long-
standing. Emma has always been "rather negligent" in her con-
duct to lWiss Bates (see p. 117); in fact, she simply finds Miss Bates
"too good natured and too silly" (p. 65). But what is here meant
by "good natured"; and how does it differ from the qualities
Emma consistently admires in the members of her family, Mr.
Knightley, Mrs. Weston, and Harriet? T h e distinctive form Miss
Bates's good nature takes can, I think, be defined; and it is closely
related to the particular form her self-indulgence takes. Com-
placent and uncritical, Miss Bates simply refuses to be demanding
either of self or of life. From first to last she stands as an embodi-
ment of implicit refusal to demand that self and life compel
abundance and style to cohere. From Emma's point of view, Miss
Bates is too good natured precisely because she is content to be,
54 Nineteenth-Century Fiction
like her speech, an undifferentiated "incessant flow" through
which is "lost" the peculiar richness Emma deems most worth
cherishing (see pp. 250-251). T h e deep irony of the situation, of
course, prevails over the endowments which make Emma demand-
ing and impatient. Her demands for radiance not only preclude
that sense of perspective which could place Miss Bates's faults in
their proper context; they also lead her to inflict injury and insult
equaled in vulgarity only by Mr. Elton's deliberate snubbing of
Harriet (see pp. 255-256).
Whatever she is, Jane Fairfax is not a simple bore. Yet neither
Emma's response to Jane nor her preference for Harriet can be
construed as a compliment to Emma's cleverness and quick per-
ceptivity. A partial explanation lies in Jane's association with Miss
Bates, a fact Emma again and again remarks. Of more importance
is Jane's reserve, which even Mr. Knightley finds unfortunate,
and which Emma considers deplorable as well as suspicious. Soon
after Emma has resolved, with "softened, charitable feelings" (p.
128), to "dislike her no longer" (p. 127-128), Jane evades Emma's
queries, thereby thwarting her search for excitement and rich-
ness (see p. 129). Moved first to boredom and then to unfounded,
severe suspicions, Emma finally gives way to thorough irritation:
"Emma could not forgive her" (p. 129). I n her own very special
way, Jane is also a source of frustrating loss for Emma.
I n addition, of course, Emma's vanity is at work.

Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to an-
swer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her
the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought
herself . . . (pp. 126-127).

Though the context suggests that the explanation is not complete,

Mr. Knightley nonetheless reads smoke signs far too reliably to
be dismissed. At the same time, however, it is important to note
that Jane Fairfax's elegance confronts Emma with a dual incon-
gruity doubly threatening to her world-view. For Jane's elegance
points first to an internal incongruity, to a contrast between
Emma's real self and her self-image (what "she wanted to be
thought herself"). I n short, Jane reminds Emma of real failure to
impose perfect style on and to demand perfect richness of her self.
After the party at the Coles's, the author uses almost religiously
Aesthetic Vision in Emma 55
confessional language to render Emma's repentance: Emma "did
unfeignedly and unequivocally regret the inferiority of her own
playing and singing. She did most heartily grieve over the idleness
of her childhood.. ." (p. 178). In addition to the internal incon-
gruity she suggests, Jane Fairfax also stands as a perpetual re-
minder to Emma that the pieces of life's puzzle do not always
permit harmonious and appropriate arrangement. Because Jane
has already found her benefactor, her Emma, in the Campbells,
who "gave a change to her destiny" (p. 124), and because Jane's
natural gifts have already "received every advantage of discipline
and culture" (p. 125), Emma cannot alter what she takes to be
Jane's certain and ~ i t i a b l efate. Emma is accordingly reduced to
watching admiration and genuine "pity" (p. 131), which is to say
that Emma here faces an incongruity she cannot envisage moving.
Cognizance of Jane's dual threat to Emma's world-view does
much to account for Emma's complex and complexly faulty re-
sponse to Jane. For it places Emma's effort to discredit Jane-an
effort limited largely to her own mind-in an altered perspective.
Unable to make Jane's fate commensurate with her worth, Emma
engages in a perverse endeavor to establish harmony, to insure
fitness, and to preclude uneconomical loss by degrading Jane.
Once again irony has its way with Emma and her high demands:
not only are her demands for impossible order and harmony fi-
nally foiled; they also are finally seen to be misguided, vulgar dis-
tortions which obstinately ignore the imperfect order and har-
mony being worked out in the world of the possible.
Constructive, creative design and action, not perverse endeavor,
are finally characteristic of Emma's rage for perfect order. Early
in the novel, shortly before Harriet comes to the fore, Emma de-
cides that she "must look about for a wife for Mr. Elton. There is
nobody in Highbury who deserves him" (p. 8). Emma obviously
means that there is no one in Highbury who is exactly appropriate,
who deserves and is deserved by Mr. Elton. A short time later she
sees a similar inappropriateness, a similar danger of waste, in Har-
riet's situation. Harriet's beauty and natural grace-as Emma sees
it-simply "should not be o n . . . inferior society" that is
"un~vorthyof her" (p. 15). The thought of being able to make
Harriet "quite perfect"-of being able to improve and reform
her-and of being able to place her in a suitable situation strikes
Emma as interesting, kind, and appropriate.
56 Nineteenth-Century Fiction

She was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and listen-
ing, and forming all these schemes in the in-betweens, that the evening
flew away at a very unusual rate. . . . With an alacrity beyond the com-
mon impulse of a spirit which yet was never indifferent to the credit
of doing every thing well and attentively, with the real good-will of
a m i n d delighted w i t h its o w n ideas, did she then do all the honours of
the meal . . . (p. 16; emphasis added).

"Quick and decided in her ways, Emma lost no time" (p. 17):
darkened only by the ominous overtones injected ~ v i t hthe word
"scliemes" (p. 16), Emma's comprehensive design takes shape rap-
idly. And it too is riddled with irony. Harriet is to be made "per-
fect" for Mr. Elton so that a perfect marriage can follo~v.Terms
such as "exact," "precise," and "perfect" characterize Emma's en-
tire endeavor to make real her idea of a marriage that will be
completely commensurate with (her interpretation of) the situa-
tions of both parties.
With skill and dedication Emma begins the task of making life
interesting and orderly, and of making the process of putting
things right rich and exciting in itself. Given her total misunder-
standing of Mr. Elton's intentions and interests and character,
Emma sees little trouble in preparing Mr. Elton for perfect mari-
tal bliss with Harriet. With Harriet, ho~vever,Emma's problem is
more complex. She must not only begin "creating" (p. 30) in Har-
riet admiration and affection for Mr. Elton; she must also make
Harriet equal to the match. T h e full impact of Emma's design is
central to the total language and action of the novel. But the
compelling core of the matter is clearly disclosed in Emma's por-
trait of Harriet.

There was no want of likeness. . . and as she m e a n t t o throw i n a little

i m p r o v e m e n t to the figure, to give a little m o r e height, and consider-
ably m o r e elegance, she had great confidence of its being in every way
a pretty drawing at last, and of its filling its destined place with credit
to-them both-astanding memorial of thk beauty of one, the skill of the
other, and the friendship of both; with as many other agreeable asso-
ciations as Mr. Elton's very promising attachment was very likely to
add (p. 34; emphases added).

Together Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley see what Emma has
done in her portrait: she has given Harriet "the only beauty she
~vanted"and has "made her too tall" (pp. 34-35). Emma, of course,
Aesthetic Vision i n Emma

refuses to admit what she has done in the portrait, just as she re-
fuses to recognize what she is trying to do to life. But Jane Austen
is careful to define what Emma is about. If necessary she will do
violence to life in order to make the relationship between Harriet
and Mr. Elton "shape itself into the proper form"; for she is de-
termined to give love "exactly the right direction" and to send "it
into the very channel where it ought to flow" (p. 57).
Emma's plan fails, of course. Incoercible and unyielding, life
resists Emma's effort to impose her will. Here as elsewhere, irony
runs deep. T h e more Emma endeavors to impose her will and way
on the world, the more that world resists and imposes itself on
her. While she seeks "to superintend" Mr. Elton's happiness, he
is working to botch her whole design. (Later, in a similarly ironic
way, both Frank Churchill and Harriet are arrayed against Emma.)
Intoxicated by her plan, by the beauty of her idea, Emma is led
to persist, despite repeated warnings, in a gross misunderstanding
of her world. And when recognition comes-when reality intrudes
~ v i t hall its matter-of-factness and imposes itself on Emma; when
she suddenly finds "her hand seized . . . her attention demanded,
2nd Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her" (p. 100)-
irritation and disappointment combine with remorse to plunge
her into "perturbation" and "pain and humiliation" (p. 103).
Recognition of involvement, of having committed "the first
error and the worst" (p. 105), and having "made every thing bend"
to her own "idea" (p. 104), evokes a dual response, first of re-
pentance-she'd been "adventuring too far, assuming too much"
(p. 105)-and second of resolution-she would be "humble and
discreet . . . repressing imagination all the rest of her life" (p. 110).
Emma's drive for rich and formal perfection is, of course, not
easily bridled. She promptly sets about correcting the situation
in ~vhichshe has involved Harriet; until that had been accom-
plished "Emma felt. . . there could be no true peace for herself"
(p. 110). I n numerous ways, Emma proceeds to entangle herself in
misunderstandings and distortions. By trying to make life com-
mensurate with her demands, Emma unintentionally contributes
handsomely to a context in which irony multiplies. Once again
reality reverses the process, imposing itself on Emma, proving to
her that she lives and moves in a stubbornly limited ~vorld.
Emma, however, proves less intractable. Her accommodation,
not life's, provides the basis of resolution. Gradually Emma per-
58 Nineteenth-Century Fiction
ceives and accepts what repeated encounters with reality reveal to
her. Once again she learns that her attempts, however well-inten-
tioned (see p. 76), to impose her will and way have led to misun-
derstanding and to injury; and that obstinate devotion to her own
desires and designs has done more than distort perception and
understanding, that it has permitted her world in general and
Frank Churchill in particular to impose themselves on her (see p.
335). Yet neither of these insights is dominant in shaping Emma's
turnabout. Only with knowledge, first, that her preoccupation
with impossible demands has kept her from adequate self-kno~vl-
edge (see pp. 320-325 and 330-334), and second, that she has
almost sacrificed the possible (especially her marriage to Mr.
Knightley and Harriet's to Robert Martin) to the impossible, is
Emma ready to accept her world. Only then can she view the
real world as in its own way admirably rich and ~vorthilyordered,
ho~veverimperfectly, however unideally. And only then is she
ready to accept the task of working out her life in the context of
the possible.
From "her past folly" Emma acquires the only kind of "hu-
mility" that will speak to her kind of vanity and her kind of in-
sensitivity (see p. 374). I n light of her own folly, with new lzu-
mility regarding both the beauty of her own ideas and her ability
to implement them creatively rather than destructively, Emma
moves to a different kind of hope.

the only source whence any thing like consolation or composure could
be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better conduct, and the
hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might be the following
and every future winter of her life to the past, it would yet find her
more rational, more acquainted with herself, and leave her less to re-
gret when it were gone (p. 332).

Within the world of Emma, the alteration disclosed in these lines

constitutes a move to~vard~visdom,a move provides the
only quality Emma needs for marriage to Mr. Knightley.
I11
T h e denouement of Emma constitutes a resolution of the con-
flict between Emma's demands-between her imagination, her
fancy, and her ~villto impose on one side; and her ~vorld,her
stubbornly incoercible, stubbornly limited world on the other.
Both that conflict and its resolution are rendered with consum-
Aesthetic Vision i n Emma 59
mate skill. But in part the beauty of the novel derives from the
beauty inherent in Emma's drive. For that drive points to more
than the vital energy of youth, even to more than profound love
of life. In calling for richness in the texture of life, in demanding
formal harmony, and in insisting that life permit varied possibility
for economical self-assertion and exertion, Emma's struggle gives
expression to perennial human aspiration and to eternal human
longing.
Only the precise form that Emma's vanity and insensitivity take
allo~vsMr. Knightley-~vho "was one of the few people who could
see faults in Emma Woodhouse" (p. 5)-finally to see her as "the
sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her
faults" (p. 340). T h e cosmic irony ~vhichmakes Emma's drive for
beauty self-destructive and world disruptive defies only Emma's
insistent, imprudent will to impose; it does not deny the nobility
and special relevance of the ideal. It is accordingly thematically
necessary-however "unrealistic"-that Emma's world finally dis-
cipline her with a gentle hand. Despite the earnest adjustment her
~vorlddemands of the more Romantic aspects of her sensibility,
and despite the price it exacts for insistent conflict, that world
permits, even encourages Emma to adjust ~vithoutsacrificing her
own integrity and without being totally crushed. While turning
her assault back upon its source, Emma's world does not preclude
tension. T o the contrary, while demanding appreciation, that
~vorldalso permits critical response to its standards and values
(see p. 114); it permits a distinctly personal and individual sense
of "style" (see p. 349); and it encourages the emergence of both a
principled consciousness and an ordered knowledge of self and
world. In this respect, the world of Emnza is hopeful. More than
either Fanny Price or Elinor Dash~vood,perhaps even more than
Elizabeth Bennet, Emma learns to curb, control, and direct, and
yet to retain a strong and lively imagination. By training and yet
retaining that "very dear part of [her], her fancy" (p. 165), Emma
emerges with an imaginative, individual sensibility, which is at the
same time humane and refined, cultured and civilized. In ren-
dering that adjustment, in what is perhaps her most perfectly
achieved work, Jane Austen made the only peace she thought
worth making with the Romantic mind.