What Is The Theme Of Emma In Jane Austen's Emma

Marriage, a broad theme in this book, can be broken down throughout. Emma’s sister has gone off after getting married and left her alone. After her sister’s marriage, Emma proclaimed that she was not destined for love and made herself the town’s unofficial matchmaker. The entire novel is built around relationships and matchmaking, with Emma and Mr. Knightly, Harriet and Robert Martin/ Elton, and Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill.

Emma and Grant. After learning to open back up to his friends and family, he still gives them disrespect. A few pages after Jefferson talks to Grant, Ms. Emma comes to have a conversation with him. After she asks Jefferson how he is feeling, he doesn’t even respond or act like she’s there (page 136), showing how much Jefferson in entrenched into the idea of not finding value in himself. Furthermore, on page 130, while Jefferson talks up to Grant, he tries to anger him by insulting his girlfriend and testing his patience. Both of these interactions take place in cases where Jefferson shows signs of opening up to others, but they are also instances of how little Jefferson loves or cares about those who care about him. On page 139, this is addressed when Jefferson has another conversation with Grant a couple of days later. When talking with Jefferson, Grant tells him, “no matter how bad off we are,’ I said, ‘we still owe something. You owe something, Jefferson. Not to me. But to your godmother. You must show her some understanding, some kind of love.” Then Jefferson tells him, “That’s for youman’s... I ain’t no youman.” Later in the book, Jefferson eventually starts to show love to his loved ones again after having a powerful, life-changing conversation with Grant. After this, he is able to eat Ms. Emma’s food and is able to

1. Things do not go well during the next visit from Miss Emma, Aunt Lou, and the Reverend Ambrose. Why are they upset with Grant?

Although Highbury was just a small population town, the particular social structure was reflecting this type of class structure about Britain. For instance, the love amongst Robert Martin and Harriet was not acceptable in Emma’s eyes. Robert Martin was a successful respectable farmer; Harriet is a friend of Emma and illegitimate of a tradesman nevertheless she received well cared and properly educated. So Emma couldn’t agree while Mr. Martin proposed marriage to Harriet, subsequently Emma Convinced Harriet to Refused to associate with Robert Martin. And try to match Harriet and Mr. Elton who was considered as higher rank of society status, young priest with record of great educating. In Emma describe of Mr. Martin “he may be the richest of the two, but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society.”(Emma, Chapter7, and p.33) it is clear that time, marriage most depended on and compromised with the values of their social status.

“Emma could not resist. Ah! Ma’am but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me- but you will be limited as to number- only three at once”; Emma insults Miss Bates, who is a dear friend, in order to quench her desire for social credit. When Mr Martin’s proposal arrives for Harriet, Emma shakes her head with disdain. Emma has the highest social status, apart from Knightley, and uses this to diminish those of lower class. Chapone asks us to “Observe her manner to servants and inferiors” and whether she treats “them always with affability”, but we know, Emma does not. Emma thinks Mr Martin is a “very inferior creature” and when Harriet asks for advice Emma says “the letter had much better be all your own” but sneaks in “You need not to be prompted to write the appearance of sorrow for his disappointment”. Harriet refuses Martin, and Emma proclaims that Harriet, if she accepted, would have been “confined to the society of the illiterate and vulgar” and “could not have visited Mrs. Robert Martin” since she deems the lower class as unsophisticated primitives. Emma would have lost her latest amusement and her chance to prove her intelligence. Emma’s subtle manipulations illustrates the absence of inner morality, and is thus, an ill-qualified mentor.

The events which serve to refine Emma are witnessed and commented upon by Mr. Knightly, a man who serves at the start of the novel

Goodheart compares seriousness to thoughts, and vanity to behavior. In the instance where Emma tries and fails to match Harriet with Mr. Elton, she is deeply touched by Harriet's forgiveness (seriousness), and yet has the delusional idea that she should match her with yet another person. Emma also has the inability to be melancholy. This is one of many sources that criticized and explained Emma’s personal flaws.

Emma urges Harriet not to write back a favourable letter “You need to be prompted to write with the appearance of sorrow for his disappointment.”(pg. 50)

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

Though instead of being grateful, she listens to Emma and refuses his proposal which is seen as an enormous shock and appalling judgment by her. We are then presented with Miss Taylor, who was a governess for the Woodhouse household. Though Miss Taylor marries, and moves away, she is still considered as a very close relation to the Woodhouse’, which is again an odd case for this society. A

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

Mr. Knightley is a kind and compassionate person who plays an important part in the novel, a high played character and in contrast to Emma's still growing up character. In one of the scences, which displays this is his disappointment when he sees Emma abuse Miss Bates. Mr. Knightley's astonishments of Emma for this contempt also demonstrates his own affection and esteem for her as a friend. Whereas on the other hand, there's another incident which shows his quality is his anger with Emma for persuading Harriet Smith to refuse Mr. Martin's proposal of marriage, Martin being in Knightley's eyes an extremly suitable match for Harriet. Mr. Knightly has said that to Emma, where at the same time, Emma's mind was most busy and with all the wonderful

Mr. Knightley moves first, he can decide to help Harriet with her problem or leave Harriet to deal with it herself. If he decides not to help Harriet, then the game ends, that is where the scene would have ended up. However, Mr. Knightley decides to help Harriet after all and thus the game continues. Then Harriet will move, deciding after Mr. Knightley has helped her, if she wants to tell Emma that she thinks she has feelings for Mr. Knightley or to hide her feelings from Emma. This is where the strategic interaction comes in for Harriet. Harriet has to marry up in status and she is dependent on Emma to help her do that. However, Harriet has to know decide whether to do what she wants or what she knows Emma will want, "Harriet Smith, whom she [Emma] tries to maneuver into a romance, first with the local vicar, and then with Frank Churchill" (Perry, R. (1986). Interrupted Friendships in Jane Austen's Emma.). Harriet will end up

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.

Austen first shows Emma’s childlike nature through her romanticizing of the incident between Frank and Harriet. Beginning with Emma describing Harriet’s near mugging as an “adventure”, Austen sets a fanciful tone bringing to mind fairytales. The connotation of “adventure” is one of wonder and magic. Putting a word with such a connotation at the very beginning of the passage sets a fanciful tone. Interestingly, Emma immediately defends herself for having these thoughts by claiming that it is not just her imagination, but the situation itself is so fairytale-like even “a