Intentions Destined for Misinterpretation: Emma by Jane Austen

While moral Jane remains an invalid, captive at the Bingleys, her satirical sister Elizabeth walks two miles along muddy roads to help nurse her…While Jane remains at home, lovesick but uncomplaining, Elizabeth accompanies the Gardiners on a walking tour of Derbyshire. Jane’s docility, gentleness, and benevolence are remarkable, for she suffers silently throughout the entire plot… (Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, 65)

Jane Austen originally wrote Pride and Prejudice in 1813 as a novel of manners. Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist, encompasses Austen’s viewpoints on the world, although Austen uses Elizabeth’s transformation through the novel to demonstrate them fully. Included on pages 11 to 12 of the novel is a passage Austen utilizes to depict major themes that recur throughout the novel. She did this by using dialogue between Elizabeth and Jane, as well as Elizabeth’s thoughts. The Bennets have recently met the Bingleys at a very informal ball. During the passage, Jane and Elizabeth discuss Mr. Bingley and his sisters, as well as their opinions of them. Austen uses sentence structure, diction that creates a cynical

Jane Austen’s ideas differed with the patriarchal system of her times. She elicited feminist concepts to contradict of the patriarchal structure; Emma’s first determined not to marry. When Harriet once asked why Emma never thought about marriage, she replied that most women were married because of insufficiently social ranking or money. She certainly had all of these privileges, so she won’t

She is met with Elton’s indignant reply, “Don’t you even know who my father is?”, his shocked tone and rhetorical question emphasises the nonsensical nature of her remark, emulating the social rift between himself and Tai. Elton distances himself from Tai by emphasising his superior status, and reflects upon the contextual importance of adherence to social distinctions when forging relationships, a similarity shared in Emma. In contrast to Clueless is the rigidity of social class in Emma’s time, in which there is a strong regard for birthright, wealth and mannerisms. In chapter 10, Emma says, “A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable, old maid! ...but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable”. A poor, unmarried woman is described as an “old maid”, whereas her wealthy counterpart is “always respectable”. These double standards between single women of high and poor economic status exemplifies the importance of wealth in determining respectability within Austen’s context. Evidently, social hierarchy are strong social values upheld in both contexts, with relationships and societal norms dependent upon an individual’s social class.

Tai and Harriet are not allowed to see certain males in lower social status and should only find men that are suitable for them. In Emma, Harriet begins to fall in love with Mr. Martin a young farmer, however, Harriet allowed Emma to sway her not to entertain Mr. Martin any longer and she should only see Mr. Elton instead-- a man of acceptable social status. Emma wants to see Harriet to be permanently connected to higher status and can be said throughout Austen's narration:

Emma is preparing Harriet for society, she adopts the role of Harriet’s mentor to instruct her in life choices, which is not very difficult with Harriet, who is easily manipulated. Emma has another suitor in mind for Harriet, and her pride will not give in to any other option. This second suitor then turns his attentions to Emma, and she is horrified. Her purposes are being destroyed by others' autonomy. Emma is too ignorant to fully understand why Harriet and Mr. Elton do not want each other. She likes to take the credit

The ensuing disconnect between Emma’s perception and the reality of her surroundings forms the crux of Austen’s novel. Just as Cher convinces herself that Elton loves Tai and Christian loves her, everything that Emma imagines is occurring in her small village turns out to be wrong, and she manipulates people and events with disastrous results. Emma suffers little limitation as she goes to the Cole’s party, to the ball at the Crown, and to the excursion at Box Hill, "provided all was safe at Hartfield." The fact that this represents Emma 's change of response to her father rather than being a change in Mr. Woodhouse himself is made clear by details which would have felt inconceivable in book three, for instance, we casually hear that Emma had replaced the small uncomfortable table at Hartfield with a modern round table sometime in the unspecified past.

The progress between Elizabeth’s and Darcy’s relationship, in Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice (1813) illustrates and explores several the key themes in the novel. Their relationship highlights class expectations, pride and prejudice, and marriage, and how they play a major role in determining the course of their association. These are outlined through their first prejudiced dislike of each other when they first meet, the stronger feelings for Elizabeth that develop on Darcy’s side, her rejection in Darcy’s first proposal, then her change of opinion and lastly the mutual love they form for one another. Pride and Prejudice is set up as a satire, commenting on human idiocy, and Jane Austen

Emma, is the story of the education and growth process of Emma. Throughout majority of the novel, Emma involves herself in bad situations in which she misconstrues facts and blinds herself from the truth, at the expense of others. After Emma has discovered that she has been terribly wrong about Mr. Elton, and she was mistaken to encourage Harriet's affection of him, Emma says, "It was foolish, it was wrong to take so active a part in bringing two people together, it was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what ought to be serious- a trick of what ought to be simple!." Emma

As Mr. Elton’s pride is greatly damaged, he decides to go to bath for a holiday, and returns with an offensive, vulgar woman, who will soon be his wife. Mrs. Elton is a rude, dull woman, but has a high social status, which is the reason Mr. Elton chose her. From this love-match, Austen shows us how wrong it is to marry for anything but love. Though it is a highly amusing situation, and Mrs. Elton herself is a very comical character, it in fact causes very serious and severe circumstances, in which these two people will be unhappily married for most probably the rest of their lives.

Pride and Prejudice portrays many central values that Weldon in Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen an epistolary attempts to put right in the readers mind. The values of the Female Experience, Marriage and social structure and class. Jane Austen portrays issues in some form or another through her characters, but it is through a reading of Weldon’s ‘letters to Alice’ that clarification of these issues is made more apparent. These intertextual connections that Weldon gives to the reader about Austen’s novel helps them understand Austen’s context, views of marriage and the structure and guidelines of the social system. Weldon encourages Alice to think of these themes in context of her own life, to explore the similarities and differences.

[…] [Emma] had a quarter of an hour of the lady’s conversation to herself, and could composedly attend to her; and the quarter of an hour quite convinced her that Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and thinking much of her own importance; that she meant to shine and be very superior, but with manners which had been formed in a bad school, pert and familiar; that all her notions were drawn from one set of people, and one style of living; that if not foolish she was

Though at first glance, Emma appears to be a generic romantic novel about virtue and ladyhood, Austen actually challenges what the meaning of “ladyhood” is to the reader. We view Emma’s follies, trials, and triumphs through the eyes of the omnipotent narrator who first describes Emma as a stereotypical, wealthy young lady who is “handsome, clever…with…a happy disposition” (1). Through the use of irony, Austen employs a series of situations in which Emma, a “lady” of high standing within her community, challenges conventional thinking of what it means to be a young woman in the early nineteenth century, particularly her ideas concerning marriage and

Love comes in many shapes and forms, whether it’s an inanimate object or a person you want to spend the rest of your life with. Jane Austen’s novel, “Sense and Sensibility”, revolves around two sisters who try to find true love, while requiring a balance of reason and emotion. Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are viewed as two completely different people. Elinor is known to represent “sense” while Marianne represents “sensibility.” In the novel, Jane Austen emphasizes two common women’s characteristics, and shows us how Elinor and Marianne both find love and happiness only by overcoming their struggles and learning from one another’s actions and mistakes.

Elizabeth’s snobbish pride hinders her from understanding her friend Charlotte Lucas’s best interests in regard to her desire to marry Mr. Collins. Elizabeth “prides herself on being a perceptive “studier of character,” as Mr. Bingley calls her, but how well does she really know her very good friend Charlotte…” when she “responds with amazement and horror” upon hearing that Charlotte wants to marry a man who is “dull”, “pompous” and “physically unattractive”. Elizabeth’s excessive pride blinds her from recognizing that Charlotte is “not much interested in men and very much interested in marriage” (Moler, 26). Elizabeth could have ruined the prospects of Charlotte’s marriage because of her self-importance in the way she