more emma
People in Highbury profess Christian virtues of charity and humility, but it is really a Nietschzean world of a ruthless struggle for power and self-assertion.
Frankchurchill is 'very weak young man' - Mr Knightley
Jane Fairfax is oppressed by Mrs Elton and remains an outsider?
K Kuwahara
the novel's close parallels a social and political order based on empire building, conquest, political power...by exploring themes of subjugation, slavery and a women's helplessness in face of limited choices (referring to Jane/A.Elton!)
-ironic as Jane is to inherent Aunt's Jewels.
-Jane has known pvery and therefore has higher morals than Emma, which is what Mr Knightley saw in her. 'Morally superior'
Emma is an example of being 'socially devisive', 'destabilizing effect effect of women who lacks discipline'
http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol25no1/lee.html
M Lee
...the term Aristos(john fowle)...refer to characters who exhibit certain qualities of individual superiority. Rather than family name, property, wealth, or social standing...criteria such as integrity, compassion, mental and emotional strength, innate intelligence, an existential sense of responsibility, and high moral standards to measure a character’s worth, a natural aristocracy rather than a social hierarchy imposed by civilization.
-ie, Emma or rather Jane Austen bases a person by Aristos. Personal merit is greater than your background and is seen through Emma/Jane Fairfax contrast. Jane is 'remarkably elegant' and nowhere in the novel do we see Austen criticize/make satire of her. Infact, it is Frank Churchill marriage to Jane which redeems his behaviour with Emma and concealing the truth with such slippery character.
Emma must achieve balance through understanding rather than fancies and delusions and true to form of Aristos novels, there is the moral mentor, Mr Knightley
To a lesser degree, Jane Fairfax functions as Frank Churchill’s mentor, and both Robert Martin and Emma serve as guides to Harriet.
-Knightley is furious to learn that Emma has instructed Harriet to decline Robert Martin's proposal and even says that Mr.Martin is 'superior in sense as in situation’. He realizes that both Harriet and Emma do not see this. Also cognizant of Mr.Elton's greed, not blinded by his fanciful words and manners.
As a Weston and a Churchill, Frank is of a lofty social order, but Jane is of common birth, has little or no income, and must be dependant upon the charity of others for her livelihood. Despite this obvious disparity in their classes, Jane’s intellectual and moral superiority elevate her over Frank. As Mr. Knightley remarks, “‘He may yet turn out well.-With such a woman he has a chance’” (428). Frank’s dishonesty about his engagement, his avoidance of his aunt’s displeasure at the expense of visiting his father, and his cheerful disregard for other people’s feelings clearly mark him as a non-Aristos character. Jane’s influence on him, however, brings him much closer to this state by the end. He owns up to his mistakes and apologizes to his family and friends for his dishonesty and insensitivity. Once Frank begins to move closer to the Aristos, he and Jane can freely consummate their relationship.
FC - has been dishonest etc., also he fuels Emma's speculation that Mr Dixon 'had the misfortune of fall[ling] in love with [Jane Fairfax]'. His remarks that 'I smile because you smile...suspect whatever I find you suspect' is simply massaging Emma's ego. Not good.
-From chapter 22: "Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of."
, ie, when Mr Elton marries a person from Bath, then everyone is immediately on to it. Also, when mrs Churchill dies, people say nice remarks
-Mr. Knightley points out Mrs. Elton’s deficiencies as he compares her to Harriet: “‘Harriet Smith has some first-rate qualities, which Mrs. Elton is totally without. An unpretending, single-minded, artless girl-infinitely to be preferred by any man of sense and taste to such a woman as Mrs. Elton’” - Elton's foil Aristos.
Susan Rogers
AT BOX HILL
Frank makes Emma the focus of everyone’s attention with an unexpected show of gallantry. With Frank, Emma has attempted the fantasy of Romantic heroine, determining before she met him that they were perfectly suited to each other, in part because the people of Highbury expected the match. Privately Emma realized somewhat quickly that she was not in love with Frank... They continue to enjoy each other’s company as well as the attention they generate within the Highbury set.
Emma KNOWS that flattery FC offers = hollow...
'Frank Churchill grew talkative and gay...not that Emmwas gay and thoughtless from any REAL felicity...she laughed because she was disappointed and though she liked him for his attentions...they were not winning back her heart'
done to maintain their attention winning status in Highbury as a notable 'couple'.
Power of man over women - Frank over Emma - diverting attention from his engagement with Jane Fairfax.
emma = narcissist?
Suzanne Juhasz
Frank Churchill not only does he manipulate others to take part in his plot, but he is far less kind in doing so. Emma tries to write a plot for him. He will make a good lover, ..."‘My idea of him is, that he can adapt his conversation to the taste of every body, and has the power as well as the wish of being universally agreeable.’" To which Mr. Knightley famously and "warmly" replies, "‘And mine is, that if he turn out anything like that, he will be the most insufferable fellow breathing!’" (150). But Frank needs to use Emma on his own behalf: as a beard, a cover, to protect his secret romance with Jane Fairfax.
“At this moment, an ingenious and animating suspicion enter[ed] Emma’s brain with regard to Jane Fairfax, this charming Mr. Dixon” - !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IRONIC REVERSAL in EMMA
Emma 'seemed' to 'unite some of the best blessings in existence'
Verbal Irony = inherent meaning differing from ostensible content
J V Ward
‘command visits’ but only of his ‘little circle’ and his ‘intercourse with families beyond that circle’ was ‘not much’. He dines with ‘the chosen and best’ but this is ‘not unfrequently’ and only ‘through Emma's persuasion’ and ‘there was scarcely an evening in the week’, ‘unless he fancied himself .... unequal to the company’ that Mr Woodhouse did not stay at home and play cards. From these pithy statements the reader may deduce that 'Mr Woodhouse was fond of society in his own way’ means that Mr Woodhouse was not fond of society in any way shape or form.
-harriet the 'daughter of somebody' = daughter of nobody.
Mr Woodhouse's exaggerated conservatism
Irony - Miss Bates reveals lots but we skip her sections.
Implied irony. Emma intensely dislikes Mrs Elton yet we see a similarity with their inability to keep mouths shut, interfering in affairs of others and snobbish behavior. 'pert pretension and underbred finery'/intelligence is the only thing that separates the two.
FEMALE POWER - feminist view by Mary Wolstonecraft etc/ Claudia Johnson.
For in Emma woman does “reign alone . . . . All of the people in control are women,” including Mrs. Churchill, Emma, and, to a more limited extent, Mrs. Elton. Emma explores female power. Johnson says that Mr. Knightley is “not nearly as wise as he seems to think.” He is “fretfully minute” in his criticisms of Emma’s assertion of feminine reason (Women, Politics 121-43).
Highbury 'afforded her no equals] - woodhouses and emma a top!
Bruce Stovel
1) Emma Woodhouse is a split character, with two very different sides;
2) Emma often does not attend to, or become conscious of, thoughts and feelings that are in her mind;
3) The change in Emma’s character is gradual and not instantaneous or total;
4) Mrs. Elton arrives providentially during the second half of the novel, so that she can embody in external form, and so exorcise, Emma’s own worst qualities;
5) The changes within Emma during the novel are mirrored by great changes within Harriet and Mr. Knightley, the two characters Emma is most dependent upon;
6) Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax, whose love story is counterpointed with Emma’s own, triumph by good luck; Frank, however, remains inwardly unchanged, unlike Emma.
IRONY - splattered all over the place. When Ch 28, after the Coles' party - Emma visits Miss Bates to find Jane + Churchill. The conversation is riddled with irony and ambiguity.
“If you are very kind,” said he, “it will be one of the waltzes we danced last night;-let me live them over again. You did not enjoy them as I did; you appeared tired the whole time. I believe you were glad we danced no longer; but I would have given worlds-all the worlds one ever has to give-for another half hour.”
She played.
“What felicity it is to hear a tune again which has made one happy!-If I mistake not that was danced at Weymouth.”
JANE She looked up at him for a moment, coloured deeply, and played something else. He took some music from a chair near the pianoforté, and turning to Emma, said...
Emma wished he would be less pointed, yet could not help being amused; and when on glancing her eye towards Jane Fairfax she caught the remains of a smile, when she saw that with all the deep blush of consciousness, there had been a smile of secret delight, she had less scruple in the amusement, and much less compunction with respect to her.-This amiable, upright, perfect Jane Fairfax was apparently cherishing very reprehensible feelings. (242-43)
Emma assumes that Jane has no idea what's going on and that her reactions are because of the mentioning of campbell - she feels victorious, and thinks she and Frank are co-conspirators. The irony of situation/verbal etc is that it's the opposite. Frank is the one who is manipulating a two sided conversation and it is Emma who is the outsider on this occasion.
Lynda A Hall
Frank is "self-indulgent, narcissistic, and an outright liar", ..." even those who understand why Emma is not in love with him, are often ready to forgive him since, in the end, he “does right” by Jane Fairfax.
define - free indirect discourse.
difference between SATIRE and CRITICISM
values and conventions - linked?