$Unique_ID{bob01239} $Pretitle{} $Title{Works of Jane Austen Essay Questions And Answers} $Subtitle{} $Author{Austen, Jane} $Affiliation{Instructor Of English, Rutgers University} $Subject{emma knightley emma's harriet social jane herself marry reader frank} $Date{} $Log{} Title: Works of Jane Austen Book: Emma Author: Austen, Jane Critic: Fitzpatrick, William J. Affiliation: Instructor Of English, Rutgers University Essay Questions And Answers 1. Show how Jane Austen establishes the connection between moral defects and failures in awareness. Emma is a complex study of human deception and self-deception. Throughout the book, characters are deceived by appearances, fool themselves and others, pretend to be what they are not. Their expectations are mistaken; their actions grounded in false premises. The author reveals the motives and consequences of these failures in perception by having their false understanding culminate in actions whose effects are the opposite of what is intended. The consequent social disorder forces the reader (and some of the characters - especially Emma) to see the moral fault which causes the character to choose to live in illusion. This sharp contrast between thought and truth, between what the characters understand and what the reader understands, between intention or expectation and fulfillment, is sometimes called dramatic irony. Dramatic irony may have an objective or a subjective foundation, or both. Appearances may lie, may suggest the opposite of what actually is. Thus, Frank Churchill uses Emma as a "blind," gives everyone the impression that he is romantically interested in her - even though he suspects that she is aware of his motive. What Mr. Elton intends as compliments to Emma are easily interpreted as being directed at Harriet. And Emma's attentions to Mr. Elton - though intended to make it convenient for him to meet Harriet - are easily mistaken to be encouraging his interest in Emma. Emma's encouraging Harriet to be optimistic about a socially superior match (XL) is interpreted by Harriet as encouraging her to hope for Mr. Knightley; and Harriet's declared interest in a person of higher rank is interpreted by Emma as an interest in Frank Churchill. The story that Miss Bates tells about Jane and Mr. Dixon seems to solicit Emma's interpretation of it (XIX). Emma's harmless flirtation on Box Hill with Frank easily leads Mr. Knightley to conclude that she is in love with him. Everyone expects that Jane Fairfax will have to become a governess. In these and other situations, things are not as they would seem. Reality wears a mask which solicits mistaken judgments. But although there are objective occasions for superficial (and erroneous) opinion, a more cautious scrutiny of the facts would sometimes avoid this discrepancy between estimation and actuality. Mr. Knightley believes that Emma is in love with Frank Churchill. What he takes for the truth (that Emma is in need of consolation because of the news of Frank's engagement to Jane) is directly contrary to the truth (XLIX). : Emma is not in the least in love with Frank, but very much in love with Mr. Knightley. The source of his ironic error, however, lies in the circumstances rather than in himself (the reader will recall that it was after Emma's and Frank's open flirtation on Box Hill that Mr. Knightley ran off to London). On the other hand, Emma is wrong about Harriet's father, about Jane and Frank, about Mr. Elton, about herself, because she has disposed herself to be deceived. Her egotism, her sense of her own superiority, her desire to arrange other persons' lives so she will not have to run any risks herself, her refusal honestly to face her own deepest feelings - all of these moral and psychological failures have blinded her judgment. Things are very nearly the opposite of what she supposes (she is destined to marry within a year rather than not at all [X], and she is being very easily fooled by Frank when she thinks she is being most shrewdly perceptive in detecting Jane's "hidden" romance with Mr. Dixon.) The irony here is compounded because Emma prides herself on her intelligence and perception. ("In one who sets up as I do for understanding" [XLIX].) When ignorance thus pretends to knowledge, it is evidence of a moral failure. When Mr. Elton understands Emma's cordiality as an encouragement to pursue her, his mistake is only partially explained by Emma's behavior. Any honest assessment of their relative social and intellectual places would have concluded that the match was out of the question in spite of Emma's apparent condescension. When Harriet believes that Mr. Knightley wishes to marry her, she is scarcely justified by appearances. (Actually, he merely did what any gentleman should [XXXVIII], and he was inquiring for Robert Martin [XLII].) Her blindness to the plain reality is a comment on her vanity (which Emma has unwittingly cultivated), her exaggeration of her own importance and appeal. In the cases of Emma and Harriet, especially, the ironic misapprehension of reality is a self-deception indicative of a will to live in a flattering or comfortable illusion instead of reality. In order to dramatize comically the sham and pretense of some of the persons in the book, the author juxtaposes their interpretations of themselves and their actual behavior. Emma's and Mrs. Elton's and even Harriet's pride in their social status is shown to be exaggerated to the point of a ludicrous snobbery. The contrast between, for example, Emma's desire to put the Coles in their place (XXIV) and the Coles' consideration for her and her father (to say nothing of Emma's subsequent enjoyment of the party) ironically chastizes Emma's snobbery. The discrepancy between Mrs. Elton's pompous claims to being in possession of a superior social background and her crude and vulgar behavior in interfering in Jane Fairfax's life (XXIV, XLII, XLIV), in putting on airs in public, makes her an ironic figure whose words praise and whose actions condemn herself. And Harriet, who earlier was humble, timid and grateful at the thought that Mr. Elton "who might marry anybody" might marry her, later announces that she (lightheaded, fickle, superficial, without social graces) is above the worthy Robert Martin (and then she marries him anyway). The pretensions of these characters are the inverse of what their behavior shows them really to be. The author frequently calls attention to a character's faults by having him say something in jest which later proves true, or deny something which he later has to affirm. For example, Emma thinks that "it would be safer for both (Harriet and herself) to have the judicious law of her own brain laid down with speed" (XL), and later must admit that her own judgment has been far from judicious and in fact harmful to "both." Early in the novel Emma says to Mr. Knightley (without any seriousness) that "were you ever to marry, she is the very woman for you" (VIII), and later she is desolate at the thought that Mr. Knightley might, in fact, be thinking that Harriet is the "very woman" for him (XLVIII, XLIX). When Harriet says, "Oh Miss Woodhouse, how ungrateful I have been!" (XXXI), we (and Emma) are thereby reminded that Harriet has nothing to be grateful to Emma for - on the contrary! After John Knightley suggests to her that Mr. Elton may be in love with her, Emma is amused by the "consideration of the blunders which often arise from a partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high pretensions to judgment are for ever falling into; and not very well pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant and in want of counsel" (XII). But later (XVI) Emma must apply this speech to herself. Emma frequently thinks that if she were to marry, Frank Churchill was "the very person to suit her in age, character, and condition" (XIV). Later, she comes to judge Frank in harsh terms and finds him very unsuitable indeed (XXXI, LIV). Though the very structure of the action of the novel is ironic, the author bolsters it with numerous mental and verbal speeches which call attention to the ironic action. Because characters take appearances for reality, deceive themselves or are deceived, they act on wrong premises, look forward in error. Things turn out contrary to their anticipations. Their actions produce effects opposite to those intended. Thus Emma repeatedly insists that she will never marry (I, X, XIV, XL, XLVIII) and tries to arrange matches for others. But the only match she succeeds in promoting is her own. She sets out trying to improve the social graces of a girl who is "totally free from conceit" (IV) and induces her to become "vain" (XLVIII). Instead of making her a good match she almost ruins her chances of marrying. While working to encourage Mr. Elton to pursue Harriet, she actually leads him to pursue herself. Emma has all along wished to prevent Mr. Knightley's marrying anyone else but herself, and she almost prevents his declaring his own love for her because she thinks he will speak of Harriet (XLVIX). By allowing events directly to contradict the judgments, expectations, and intentions of her characters, the author clarifies their limitations. If persons create social disorder around them instead of order, it can only be that something is wrong with them - they are either stupid or morally defective. Through dramatic irony the reader (aware of the actual situation) is made to see reality mock and punish egotism, vanity, and failures in awareness. This literary device (which is quite realistic) thus becomes a way of dealing out a kind of natural retribution and of revealing the surprise and complexity of experience. 2. Name the chief outmoded social conventions and attitudes one finds in the novel and explain their significance. There are a number of social attitudes we meet in Jane Austen and in her characters which the contemporary reader often finds strange, incomprehensible, snobbish, or silly. In Emma, the chief of these are: polite society's disapproval of earning one's living in "trade"; the relatively severe attitude to illegitimacy; an approach to marriage based on considerations of money, breeding, and class in addition to "love"; regarding a woman's having to work as "deplorable." It is important to emphasize that the reader should not automatically take an attitude of one of her characters for the author's. Because education and refinement of manners require a certain leisure (therefore, a certain wealth), the coincidence of good breeding and class lines is readily (too readily) assumed. A businessman working all day for money or profit is inferior to a gentleman who spends his time cultivating the mental and social arts. This is the basis for the bias against being "in trade." Thus, one of the items in Emma's catalogue of Mrs. Elton's defects is that she was a daughter of "a Bristol-merchant, of course, he must be called" (XXII). And Emma resents the social aspirations and social success of the Coles who were "of low origin, in trade, and only moderately genteel" (XXIV). But Jane Austen has a more balanced view of the problem than Emma. While she accepts the rational basis for the prejudice (after all, though morality never presupposes leisure, education and the social graces do), she shows that one must not be rigid in one's judgments of the talents and manners of the working middle class. Though Mrs. Elton is indeed crude, vulgar, insulting, ill-mannered, and superficial, the Coles are "friendly, liberal, and unpretending" (XXIV); and the author rebukes Emma for her narrowness by having her, who would teach the Coles a lesson, learn one herself (XXV, XXVII). The reader is thus encouraged to judge persons on their behavior primarily. The contemporary reader may well be struck with what seems an unfair prejudice Harriet must suffer because she was born out of wedlock. Knightley refers to her as "the natural daughter of nobody knows whom, with probably no settled provision at all, and certainly no respectable relations" (VIII). "Men of family would not be very fond of connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity - and prudent men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be involved in, when the mystery of her parentage came to be revealed" (VIII). Robert Martin, the farmer, is the best she can hope for. Emma is far more tolerant than Mr. Knightley of Harriet's obscure birth (IV) until her own interests are threatened. Then, she is forced to acknowledge that "the stain of illegitimacy, unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed" (LV). But Harriet is never excluded from Highbury society because of her birth. And the reader should recall the irony the author contrives in having Harriet behave with more good breeding than Mr. and Mrs. Elton. Mr. Knightley admits that she has qualities superior to those of "better" birth. Again, it is individual worth that counts. The real reason why "the intimacy between her and Emma must sink" (LV) is that Harriet is incapable of operating on the same level of intellect and sensibility - she is her inferior in qualities of mind and emotion and, therefore, an inappropriate "match." Marriage is the social act par excellence. In it, society conserves and revivifies itself (or disintegrates); in it families and fortunes and traditions are joined. There is much more at stake than the pitter-patter of hearts locked in romantic embrace. The richness of Emma derives in part from the author's exploration of the conflicts, the problems, that attend marriage among the middle class of English society at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The ranks, orders and classes of society were acknowledged with greater formality then than now, and the crossing of class lines was a dramatic social event. For many (then as now), marriage was a market place where they must strive to make the best bargain they can in order to conserve or improve their status in life. It is irrational and impulsive to ignore the economic facts of life, to think that the level of living and leisure to which one has been accustomed is not important enough to prevent a marriage. What Jane Austen implies is that economic considerations alone are insufficient to cause a marriage. And it is foolish to marry without considering rank, social duty and status, level of culture, family tradition, and the like. One can hardly blame a man of good family for being careful not to ally himself with relations who might introduce vulgarity and (what is worse) lack of discipline into a family which has striven self-consciously to maintain standards of disciplined conduct. One must realize that marriage is a joining of families, if one wishes to build a family that will maintain a level of achievement. It is only common sense to consider the influence that one family might have on another. Thus, on her visit to Donwell, Emma feels "an increasing respect for it, as the residence of a family of such true gentility, untainted in blood and understanding" (XLII). Thus, one's "connexions" are so talked of - for "connexions" are part of oneself. Even Mrs. Weston, herself a governess, remarks of her stepson's marriage to Jane Fairfax: "It is not a connexion to gratify" (XLVI). When Mr. Elton proposes to Emma, she is insulted primarily because "he wanted to marry well . . . to aggrandize and enrich himself" with "Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds" (XVI). Compared to the Woodhouses, "a very ancient family," the Eltons were nobody "without any alliances but in trade" (XVI). Considerations of fortune, of the money a woman brings to a man, arise inevitably when thinking of her "qualities." Emma concludes (perhaps mistakenly) that Mr. Dixon decided to marry Miss Campbell, for the sake of the future twelve thousand pounds" (XX). Augusta Hawkins is also a "nobody" - aside from her ten thousand pounds (XXII). Here, again, Jane Austen takes a balanced view. The upstart Eltons are contrasted with the Coles. Emma's desire to improve Harriet's social status is inappropriate because Harriet's talents are not sufficient to encourage a man to run the risk of being related to God knows what. Emma's prejudice against the "yeomanry" as represented by Robert Martin is wrong, because he is more than worthy of Harriet and in his own right can claim to be a man of industry, seriousness, and talent. Jane Austen by no means indicates that these various social and economic considerations are irrelevant to choosing one's friends and mates, but she condemns the excess of snobbery whenever it appears: in Emma, in Mrs. Elton, in Harriet. And one of Mr. Knightley's sterling virtues is that he has not a bit of snobbery in him. Jane Fairfax's comparison of working for a living ("the governess trade") to the "slave trade" is not as melodramatic as it might sound. After twenty-one years of leisure for education, for music, for social intercourse, she is faced with the prospect of a radical change in her way of life. The contemporary reader is likely to exaggerate the change in social attitudes since Jane Austen's day. What has changed is Jane Austen's reading public. Most of her readers today do not have the luxury of sharing many of these prejudices. But they are easily to be found if one looks for them. After all, who would become a governess for any other reason than financial necessity? 3. Show how the author has prepared the reader for Emma's discovery of her love for Mr. Knightley. When Emma discovers that "Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself" (XLVII), it comes as only a slight surprise to the reader; for if he has read attentively, he knows that the main plot of the story is the development of the romance between Emma and George Knightley. The author prepares us for the marriage of these two by having Mr. Knightley come into Emma's thoughts frequently - without her being aware of it, by having her indicate her dependence on his approval, by having her compliment him on numerous occasions, by having Mr. Knightley take an inordinate interest in Emma - advising her, rebuking her, training and guiding her; finally, Mr. Knightley shows what might well be interpreted as jealousy of Emma's affection when he criticizes Frank Churchill with such bitterness. Emma is furious at the suggestions that Mr. Knightley might marry Jane Fairfax: "Mr. Knightley must not marry!" (XXVI). Though she pretends that she is really interested in keeping him a bachelor so that her nephew will inherit his estate, the violence of her reaction indicates a deeper, more personal motive. Emma tells Harriet that "you might not see one in a hundred with gentleman so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley" (IV). She admires his person extravagantly at the dance at the Crown Inn: "So young he looked! . . . How gentlemanlike a manner, with what natural grace he moved" (XXXVIII). She continually praises him to others and herself: "unostentatious kindness" (XXVI); "he always moved with alertness of . . . mind" (XLV). Emma feels guilty when he rebukes her: for example, her neglect of Jane Fairfax (XXXIII); her insult to Miss Bates (XLIII). The author sums up this motive in Chapter XLVIII: "Till now that she was threatened with its loss, Emma had never known how much of her happiness depended on being first with Mr. Knightley, first in interest and affection." Also, her criticism of Frank Churchill and Mr. Weston is an implicit praise of Mr. Knightley, who provides the standard by which she judges men. And the reader cannot help suspecting that Mr. Knightley's remark which concludes Chapter XXXVIII ("Brother and sister! no, indeed.") covers a depth of meaning. Nor can Mr. Knightley's numerous strong criticisms of Frank (XVIII) be taken merely at their face value. Their bitterness and sharpness must conceal a more personal motive. Thus, Jane Austen has provided us with a great deal of evidence - evidence that Emma herself long chooses to ignore - of the serious love at the bottom of Emma's relationship with Mr. Knightley. 4. Make a list of the various "mistakes" Emma makes and indicate their source in Emma's psychology. 5. Make a list of every "match" (false and true) in Emma (including the non-romantic matches such as Emma and her father). Explain the thematic function of each. 6. Write a Comment for every chapter that does not have one.