Analysis of Characters & Text of Emma

The plan of this research is to analyze the characters of Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Harriet in Jane Austen's novel Emma, and then to do a close textual analysis of the novel.

The opening sentence of Emma goes far to explain the content of character of Austen's heroine, although as the narrative that follows makes clear, Emma is as it were too clever by half and not as predisposed to happiness as she thinks she is. When Austen says Emma "seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence" (Austen 1), she is really providing a clue that the story fills the gap between seem and is. Indeed, Emma's character development is the content of that process. The development is marked by a series of misperceptions, misinterpretations, and social and moral misjudgments, each of which, when corrected, teach Emma a permanent lesson in growing up and each of which amount to an accretion of wisdom. The mistakes are plentiful, and the serious and trivial ones alike are compounded by the confidence with which she makes them. Thus she takes credit for bringing Mr. and Mrs. Weston together, which had no bad consequence, and she takes pride in pushing Harriet toward Mr. Elton, which has a humorous consequence when Mr. Elton misconstrues her efforts. She prefers Harriet, the natural daughter of somebody (= a social inferior), as a best friend over Jane Fairfax, her social and intellectual equal. More seriously, she misjudges Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill, which has the consequence of not prev

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exchange between Emma and Mr. Knightley regarding Harriet that the core of Harriet's character can be discerned. Emma, of course, has overlooked Harriet's illegitimacy, fancying her the natural daughter, not just of "somebody" but of somebody in the nobility, while snobbishly disdaining the proposal of the farmer Robert Martin. Now both Robert and Harriet are the social inferiors of Emma and Mr. Knightley, but the point is that Emma is just plain wrong and Mr. Knightley is exactly right on the question of whether Robert or Harriet are social equals. "No," says Mr. Knightley, dead on about the facts, "he is not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in situation" (Austen 38). Guileless and flattered by Emma's attention, yet not without the ability to form self-interested attachments, Harriet allows herself to be guided by Emma, then takes her cues about romance and society from Emma's authority and Emma's worst faults of perception and snobbery. This explains on one hand why she goes along with Emma's matchmaking in respect of Mr. Elton while turning down Robert Martin as not up to her standard, and on the other why she can so misinterpret Mr. Knightley's pro forma courtesy to her at Box Hill that she conceive

Category: Literature - A