About the Author:
The novel is narrated in the third person by a narrator who tells us what
individual characters think and feel, and who also provides insight and
commentary. For the most part, the narrator relates events from Emma’s
perspective, but at times she enters into the thoughts of other characters.
Chapter 41, for example, is narrated from Mr. Knightley’s perspective.
About the Book:
The novel is narrated in the third person by a narrator who tells us what
individual characters think and feel, and who also provides insight and
commentary. For the most part, the narrator relates events from Emma’s
perspective, but at times she enters into the thoughts of other characters.
Chapter 41, for example, is narrated from Mr. Knightley’s perspective.
About the Plot:
This book is undoubtedly one of Austen's most promising genius. It takes
time to get into the tone of the novel, but hold on! It is worth it. It is a
little difficult to catch and even appreciate the subtle humour, irony and
wit that characterises her writing style but it gradually falls in line. The
characters in Emma are life like and extensions of the society we inhabit.
They are good natured people and not entirely flawless. As for the
protagonist, she is wonderfully alive, mischievous
About the Characterisation
George Knightley
Jane Fairfax
Frank Churchill
Mr. Elton
Mrs. Weston
Mr. Weston
Mrs. Elton
Harriet Smith
Mr. Woodhouse
About the themes:
Emma is a novel written by English author Jane Austen. It is set in the
fictional country village of Highbury and the surrounding estates.
About Overall analysis
Emma Woodhouse friend and former governess, Miss Taylor, has just
married Mr. Weston. Having introduced them, Emma takes credit for
their marriage and decides that she likes matchmaking. After returning
home to Hartfield, Emma forges ahead with her new interest against the
advice of her friend Mr. Knightley, whose brother is married to Emma's
elder sister, Isabella. She attempts to match her new friend, Harriet
Smith, to Mr. Elton, the local vicar. Emma persuades Harriet to refuse a
marriage proposal from Robert Martin, a respectable young farmer,
although Harriet likes him. Mr. Elton, a social climber, mistakenly
believes Emma is in love with him and proposes to her. When Emma
reveals she believed him attached to Harriet, he is outraged, considering
Harriet socially inferior. After Emma rejects him, Mr. Elton goes
to Bath and returns with a pretentious, nouveau-riche wife, as Mr.
Knightley expected he would do. Harriet is heartbroken, and Emma feels
ashamed about misleading her.
Your Opinion:
In Emma, Austen did a great job of creating a lovable character with
flaws. Emma is smart, caring, rich, and beautiful, but she also snobby,
self-centered, and too often only able to see what she wants to see.
Another character I loved in Emma is Mr. Woodhouse (Emma dad)
because he reminds me SO much of my grandpa.
Compare with Similar works:
When comparing characters from Jane Austen Emma to other
novels, the most striking similarity is often seen with other privileged
female protagonists who initially display a degree of self-assuredness
and misjudgment, but eventually undergo a personal transformation
through humbling experiences, like Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and
Prejudice
Appreciation/ Critique:
One of the most prominent themes in the text is class. Harriet and
Emma are from different social classes, and Emma uses her higher status
to try to help Harriet. She sees Harriet as being worthy of a higher class,
and hopes to find her a husband. Because Emma asserts such an aversion
to marriage at the novel beginning, and because she understands her
independence and pride as mutually exclusive from marriage, feminist
critics have sometimes seen her agreement to marry Mr. Knightley after
her “education” as a submission to society& expectations of women.