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Emma And Clueless Comparison Essay

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Though written over two centuries apart, the protagonists in Jane Austen’s Emma and Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, are very much alike. They are strong female characters of a certain social standing, that are expected to abide by a particular set of rules and adhere to societal norms. Unlike most young women, Austen’s Emma and Heckerling’s Cher are able to disregard social expectations¬ — like Emma’s idea of marriage, and Cher’s idea of sex — simply because they are privileged and socially stable enough to do so. In this way, both young women simultaneously embrace and reject the principles of female social expectations of their specific time periods. Both Austen and Heckerling confront the belief systems of their readers and viewers through characters that do not act “appropriately” within their respective social environments. 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

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