preview

Emma by Jane Austen Essay

Good Essays

Emma is more unpleasant than appealing. Discuss with reference to the first 9 chapters

Essay: ‘Emma’

The first line of the novel ‘Emma’, by Jane Austen, claims Emma to be
‘handsome, clever, and rich’, this sums up Emma’s character completely. It is important to list these first of all, for fear of the reader to immediately dislike her. Indeed, later on-on the first page, Emma’s faults are listed, claiming her to have too much of her own way and herself thinking very highly of herself. Emma’s stubbornness and vanity is mostly the centre of a majority of the novels conflicts, as throughout the novel, Emma attempts to develop emotionally. Austen also portrays Emma’s weaknesses in more subtle ways, she says although …show more content…

Apart from feeling upset that Miss
Taylor has left, Emma is also upset for her own sake, she is upset that she has no companion in the house and, believes that her father-the only other person that lives in the house-cannot stimulate
Emma in conversation mainly because he is senile and doesn’t meet Emma at an intellectual level.

The description of Emma in the beginning of this novel can instantly, for the reader, decide whether they are going to like her or not, obviously as her mannerisms are unveiled throughout the first three or so chapters, but the first description of Emma is enough to decide ones mind of her instantly. The fact that she is beautiful, clever and rich leads the reader to image Emma Woodhouse as being fairly high in society, but yet, her real self is not revealed. Emma’s real self however, is described perfectly with the line

‘…did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her’

Here, Austen uses her subtlety to tell the audience that, Emma, for all her graces, cannot see her faults.

Austen’s technique makes comments like the one previously mentioned, seem less vulgar and striking. In stead of saying plainly that Miss.
Smith is simply dim, or thick, Austen will use a much more subtle approach, saying that she is not of an advanced mind or that she was not the cleverest person, this alternative to the direct word would

Get Access