This essay will analyse the relationship between Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley in the text Emma from a feminist perspective. The relationship in general contains two different personalities. Emma is one who believes that she can create the ‘perfect couple’, which gives her the belief of ‘knowing everything’. George Knightley is more of a moral compass for Emma, and he usually displays his approval and disapproval of her actions. Before the relationship is examined; it would be insightful to reflect on the social context that the text is set in like the system of patriarchy, and the expectation of women from certain wealthy families.
The Elizabethan era was marked by the rule of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). This era in English history has often been regarded as a golden age of the time. This was due to ideas of national pride, many reforms in areas of society, and the use of theatre alongside William Shakespeare (1564-1616). This society was however set within the confines of patriarchy.
Emma is also set within the confines of a patriarchal Elizabethan era society. Even though the text was written after the time of Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare because Jane Austen lived about 100 years after the two (1775-1817). The idea of patriarchy was one notion that continued. Patriarchy is defined as, “A system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line”. The father has control over the
Jane Austen provides her readers with insight into marriage and English society within the 1800’s. In Emma, the story establishes the idea that society could not function without marriage and how the institution of marriage defined one’s social status.
Austen’s views within Emma are a reflection of the prevailing views in the Regency Era, as the upper classes often abused their wealth and influence to ensure that their descendants would be wealthy like them. The rigidity associated with the class structure within the Regency era is initially reflected when Emma is characterised as, “handsome, clever and rich with a comfortable home and a happy disposition”. The fact the sentence specifically mentions her assets definitely emphasises how her inherited wealth is the major (if not only) factor accounting for her high status. This classist structure is later reflected with the gentry’s interactions of those below their social class. Emma’s arrogant tone when she teaches Harriet “the yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I can feel I can have nothing to do” is indicative of the inflexible nature of the class system during that era. It was acceptable to feel superior due to being of a higher class. Her view symbolises that of the upper classes’ patronising attitude to the lower classes, and thus emphasises the omnipresent nature of the class system within the United Kingdom. Hence, Austen’s heavy emphasis on the class system within Emma is a stark reminder of how our behaviours have not developed over the
The Elizabethan Era was a time where everything flourished. After the Black Plague, England entered a time called the Renaissance. Family life during the time was simple and on a routine. Each day seemed more and more liked the day before. Each member of the family had a different impact on the community and society. Ordinary life in England consisted of being with family, working everyday, going to school, and eating food.
Due to her greatly influential decisions, “the latter half of the sixteenth century in England was known as the Elizabethan Age” as quoted from A1. During her reign, she improved many of the government functions by adding trusted advisors, and made strict decisions that helped the workforce run more efficiently. William Cecil was one of Elizabeth’s closest advisors due to
Queen Elizabeth came to be known as one of the greatest rulers of the English empire. Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a more efficient government was created. The church was unified, the English empire was expanded, and language, literature, and theater flourished to a greatness that would be impossible for almost any other period of English history, or any other European empire, for that matter, to match. Although there was a great rise in literature,it was theater that catapulted to greatness during Elizabeth's reign. Out of Elizabeth's era came Elizabethan theater. Elizabethan theater has such a variety of topics, that would make it virtually impossible to talk about in ten pages.
The Elizabethan Era is noted as the golden age reigned by the Tudors more specifically, Queen Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth was the only person who historians are sure is at the top of the social hierarchy but there are different variations of the next upper, middle and lower classes. The basic outline of the social structure in the 15th and 16th century was the monarch, the nobility, gentry, merchants, yeomanry, and laborers. For each of these classes, there were very specific rules for what they were allowed to do and who they were allowed to treat as a lesser. Though the rules were very strict it seems that some of the common people had discourteous feeling towards the Queen, there were also cases where the
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
Mary Poovey’s “The True English Style” is an easy to follow analysis of the themes and philosophical difference between marriage and love, particularly in the regency era, from Jane Austen’s novel Emma. Immediately Poovey states her thesis which does away with a presentism reading and discuss social/moral issues in the era of Jane Austen also known as the regency era.
Jane Austen’s novel 'Emma' and Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, as significant and satirical reflections of Regency England and postmodern America respectively, indicate how the transformation process can shape and improve literacy, intertextual and logical importance. The transformation is evident in the compositions Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ and Amy Heckerling’s ‘Clueless’ enabling us to investigate the assortment of logical subjects. Regarding ‘Emma’ the perspective throughout the Regency time frame examines the strict values of love and marriage inside the inflexible social hierarchy. Austen’s advances the significance of etiquette throughout the text. Austen reveals a neo-women’s activist perspective, shown in the female protagonist revealing the female protagonists’ scholarly capacity and social equity in an otherwise patriarchal society. However, the close resemblance of the story; ‘Clueless’, Heckerling composition conveys entirely transformed values, reflected through the actions of the current upper-working class of contemporary Los Angeles. The critical analysis of commercialism in the informal social class system of modern America reiterating social expectations of gender and social characterisation within the microcosm of the typical American educational system. The transformation in attitudes of Austen, reveals an exhaustive utilisation of setting, a close examination of dialect and various artistic procedure.
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.
The role of women in a patriarchal society is one of the most heavily enforced themes in ‘Emma’ and ‘Clueless’. Austen places great emphasis on how the dominance of men over women was of great importance within the patriarchal social structure of the regency period. Heckerling reimagines ‘Emma’, to show the ways that this perspective has been altered over the next century. Emma and Cher are both products of their own patriarchal, class-driven societies; they are affluent and repressed as women, which leads Emma Woodhouse- the heroine of Jane Austen’s “Emma”- to turn to charity and match-making to fill in her time along with domestic chores, painting and playing the piano, and Cher Horowitz - the
Emma Woodhouse, who begins the novel "handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition" (Austen 1), suffers from a dangerous propensity to play matchmaker, diving into other’s lives, for what she believes is their own good. Despite this, she is a sympathetic character. Her matchmaking leads only to near-disasters and her expressions of remorse following these mistakes are sincere and resolute. Jane Austen's Emma concerns the social milieu of a sympathetic, but flawed young woman whose self-delusion regarding her flaws is gradually erased through a series of comic and ironic events.
In Emma Jane Austen exposes the limitations of the role of women in her society. Examine Austen’s presentation of what is called in the novel, women’s usual occupations of eye, and hand, and mind. Emma – Role of Woman In Emma Jane Austen exposes the limitations of the role of women in her society.
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
Marriage has no always been about the love and happiness two people bring eachother; instead it was concidered to be more of a business transaction. Emma by Jane Austen takes place during the early twentieth century, this time period was completly absorabed in social classes and had a much different view on marriage than today. Through the young, bold, wealthy, and beautiful character Emma Woodhouse, Jane Austen exposes the protocol of marriage as well as the effects marriage held based on social standing during the early twentieth centuery.