Emma (novel)
Emma is a novel written by English author Jane Austen. It is set in the fictional Surrey village of Highbury and the surrounding estates of Hartfield, Randalls, and Donwell Abbey, and involves the relationships among people from a small number of families. The novel was first published in December 1815, although the title page is dated 1816. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian–Regency England. Emma is a comedy of manners.
Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." In the first sentence, she introduces the title character by stating "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." Emma is spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives; and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray.
Emma, written after Austen's move to Chawton, was her last novel to be published during her lifetime. The last complete novel Austen wrote, Persuasion, was published posthumously.
Emma has been adapted for a number of films, television programmes, and stage plays.
Plot summary
Emma Woodhouse's 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 vicar of Highbury. 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.Frank Churchill, Mr Weston's son, arrives for a two-week visit. Frank had been adopted as a boy by his wealthy and domineering aunt and has had few recent opportunities to visit. Mr Knightley tells Emma that, while Frank is intelligent and engaging, he has a shallow character. Jane Fairfax also arrives to visit her aunt, Miss Bates, and grandmother, Mrs Bates, for a few months; intending then to find a governess position, as she is now twenty-one and determined to support herself. She is the same age as Emma and has received an excellent education through her father's friend, Colonel Campbell, but intends not to depend on the Campbell's good nature indefinitely. Emma has remained somewhat aloof from Jane because she envies her and is annoyed by everyone, including Mrs Weston and Mr Knightley, praising Jane. Mrs Elton seeks to take Jane under her wing; announcing - before it is wanted - that she will find her a governess post.
Emma decides that Jane and Mr Dixon, Colonel Campbell's new son-in-law, are mutually attracted, and that is the reason she arrived earlier than expected. She confides this to Frank, who met Jane and the Campbells at Weymouth the previous year; he apparently agrees with Emma. Suspicions are further fuelled when a gifted piano, sent anonymously, arrives for Jane. Emma feels herself falling in love with Frank, but it does not last. The Eltons treat Harriet poorly, culminating in Mr Elton publicly snubbing Harriet at a ball. Mr Knightley, who normally refrained from dancing, gallantly asks Harriet to dance. The day after the ball, Frank brings Harriet to Hartfield, as she fainted after a rough encounter with local gypsies. Emma mistakes Harriet's gratitude to Frank as Harriet being in love with him. Meanwhile, Mrs Weston wonders if Mr Knightley is attracted to Jane, but Emma dismisses the idea. When Mr Knightley says he notices a connection between Jane and Frank, Emma disagrees, as Frank appears to be courting her instead. Frank arrives late to a gathering at Donwell, while Jane departs early. The next day at Box Hill, a local scenic spot, Frank and Emma are joking when Emma thoughtlessly mocks Miss Bates's loquaciousness.
When Mr Knightley scolds Emma for making fun of Miss Bates, she is ashamed. The next day, she visits Miss Bates to atone for her bad behaviour, impressing Mr Knightley. During the visit, Emma learns that Jane has accepted a governess position from one of Mrs Elton's friends. Jane becomes ill and refuses to see Emma or receive her gifts. Meanwhile, Frank has been visiting his aunt, who dies soon after his arrival. He and Jane reveal to the Westons that they have been secretly engaged since autumn, but Frank knew his aunt would disapprove of the match. Maintaining the secrecy strained the conscientious Jane and caused the couple to quarrel, with Jane ending the engagement. Frank's easy-going uncle readily gives his blessing to the match. The engagement is made public, leaving Emma annoyed to discover that she had been so wrong.
Emma believes Frank's engagement will devastate Harriet, but instead, Harriet says she loves Mr Knightley, and though she knows the match is too unequal, Emma's encouragement and Mr Knightley's kindness have given her hope. Emma is startled and realises that she is also in love with Mr Knightley. Mr Knightley returns to console Emma about Frank and Jane's engagement, thinking her heartbroken. When she admits her foolishness, he proposes, and she accepts. Harriet accepts Robert Martin's second proposal, and they are the first couple to marry. Jane and Emma reconcile, and Frank and Jane visit the Westons. Once the mourning period for Frank's aunt ends, they will marry. Before the end of November, Emma and Mr Knightley are married with the prospect of "perfect happiness." They will live at Hartfield with Mr Woodhouse.
Principal characters
Emma Woodhouse, the protagonist of the story, is a beautiful, high-spirited, intelligent, and somewhat spoiled young woman from the landed gentry. She is nearly twenty-one when the story opens. Her mother died when she was young. She has been mistress of the house since her elder sister got married. Although intelligent, she lacks the discipline to practise or study anything in depth. She is portrayed as compassionate to the poor, but at the same time has a strong sense of class status. Her affection for and patience towards her valetudinarian father are also noteworthy. While she is in many ways mature, Emma makes some serious mistakes, mainly due to her lack of experience and her conviction that she is always right. Although she has vowed she will never marry, she delights in making matches for others. She has a brief flirtation with Frank Churchill; however, she realises by the end of the novel that she loves Mr Knightley.Mr Knightley, aged 37 years, is Emma's neighbour and close friend. He is her only critic. Mr Knightley owns Donwell Abbey, which includes extensive grounds and farms. He is the elder brother of Mr John Knightley, the husband of Emma's elder sister Isabella. Mr Knightley is considerate, hardworking, aware of the feelings of the other characters, and always exhibits good behaviour and judgment; but is a very busy man. Mr Knightley is angry after Emma persuades Harriet to turn down Mr Martin, a farmer on the Donwell estate; he warns Emma against pushing Harriet towards Mr Elton, knowing that Mr Elton seeks to marry for money. He is suspicious of Frank Churchill and his motives; he suspects that Frank has a secret understanding with Jane Fairfax. Mr Knightley is the local magistrate and is the leading figure of the parish select vestry which meets regularly at the Crown Inn, and which is in all practical respects, the governing authority of Highbury; having statutory responsibility for the collection of rates, the registration of births, marriages and deaths, the upkeep of the church, school, roads and bridges, the appointment of the parish constable and overseer of the poor, the employment of the parish schoolteacher, and the operation of the House of Correction and Poorhouse.
Frank Churchill, Mr Weston's son by his first marriage, is an amiable young man, who, at age 23, is liked by almost everyone. Mr Knightley, however, thinks him immature and selfish for failing to visit his father after his father's wedding. After his mother's death, he was raised by his wealthy aunt and uncle, the Churchills, at the family estate of Enscombe in Yorkshire. To please his aunt he assumed the name Churchill on his majority, so that he might inherit her estate in that name; but while she still lives - and she is in poor health - he remains entirely dependent on her continued approval to maintain his expectations. Frank is given to dancing and living a carefree existence, and became secretly engaged to Miss Fairfax at Weymouth, although he fears his aunt will forbid the match because Jane is not wealthy. He manipulates and plays games with the other characters to ensure his engagement to Jane remains concealed.
Jane Fairfax is an orphan whose only family is her aunt, Miss Bates, and her grandmother, Mrs Bates; and the three of them together now share genteel poverty. She is a beautiful, resourceful, bright, and elegant woman, with impeccable manners and strong moral compass. The same age as Emma, she is well-educated and talented at singing and playing the piano; and is the only person whom Emma envies; indeed in any other Jane Austen novel, she - not Emma - would be the female protagonist. Colonel Campbell, an army friend of Jane's father, had felt responsible for Jane, and provided her an excellent education while she had shared his home and family from age nine; but she has now determined to support herself. Her only realistic option is to become a governess – an unpleasant prospect, but for unmarried girls of good family and education but no fortune, there was little other choice. Her secret engagement with Frank Churchill goes against her principles and distresses her greatly.
Harriet Smith, a young friend of Emma, just seventeen when the story opens, is a beautiful but unsophisticated girl. She has been a pupil at a nearby school, where she met the sisters of Mr Martin. As a parlour boarder at the school she now helps supervise younger pupils. Emma takes Harriet under her wing early on, and she becomes the subject of Emma's misguided matchmaking attempts. She is revealed in the last chapter to be the natural daughter of a decent tradesman, although he is not a gentleman. Harriet and Mr Martin are wed. The now wiser Emma approves of the match.
Robert Martin is a well-to-do, 24-year-old tenant farmer who, though not a gentleman, is a friendly, amiable and diligent young man, well esteemed by Mr George Knightley. He becomes acquainted and subsequently smitten with Harriet during her two-month stay at Abbey Mill Farm, which was arranged at the invitation of his sister, Elizabeth Martin, Harriet's school friend. His first marriage proposal, in a letter, is rejected by Harriet under Emma's direction and influence. Emma had convinced herself that Harriet's class and breeding were above associating with the Martins, much less marrying one. His second marriage proposal is later accepted by a contented Harriet and approved by a wiser Emma; their joining marks the first of the three happy couples to marry in the end.
Reverend Philip Elton is a good-looking, initially well-mannered, and ambitious young vicar, 27 years old and unmarried when the story opens. He is respectable and conscientious in his religious duties and care for his parishioners, and in his responsibilities in the administration and governance of the parish. He is well aware of his good looks and status, and it is only when he is around other men that he shows his true colours and reveals his intention to marry a wife with a significant private income. Emma wants him to marry Harriet; however, he aspires to secure Emma's hand in marriage to gain her dowry of £30,000. Mr Elton displays his mercenary nature by quickly marrying another woman of means after Emma rejects him.
Augusta Elton, formerly Miss Hawkins, is Mr Elton's wife. She has 10,000 pounds "or thereabouts", but lacks good manners, committing common vulgarities such as using people's names too intimately. She is a boasting, pretentious woman who expects her due as a new bride in the village. Emma is polite to her but does not like her and the two instantly become passive-aggressive enemies. She patronises Jane, which earns Jane the sympathy of others. Her lack of social graces shows the good breeding of the other characters, particularly Miss Fairfax and Mrs Weston, and shows the difference between gentility and money. Mrs Elton repeatedly makes contradictory and unbelievable declarations about her background, such as exaggerated claims of the similarity between Emma's estate, Hartfield, and her brother-in-law's manor, Maple Grove, revealing her dishonesty and enforcing the idea that she is a scheming parvenu trying her utmost to conceal her lower origins.
Mrs Weston was Emma's governess for sixteen years as Miss Anne Taylor and remains her closest friend and confidante after she marries Mr Weston. She is a sensible woman who loves Emma. Mrs Weston acts as a surrogate mother to her former charge and, occasionally, as a voice of moderation and reason. The Weston and the Woodhouse families see each other almost daily. Near the end of the story, the Westons' baby Anna is born.
Mr Weston is a widower and a businessman living in Highbury who marries Miss Taylor in his early 40s, after buying a house called Randalls. By his first marriage, he is father to Frank Weston Churchill, who was adopted and raised by his late wife's brother and his wife. He sees his son in London each year. He married his first wife, Miss Churchill, when he was a captain in the militia, posted near her home. Mr Weston is a sanguine, optimistic man, who enjoys socialising, making friends quickly in business and among his neighbours.
Miss Bates is a friendly, garrulous spinster whose mother, Mrs Bates, is a friend of Mr Woodhouse. Her niece is Jane Fairfax, daughter of her late sister. She was raised in better circumstances in her younger days as the vicar's daughter; now she and her mother rent rooms in Highbury. One day, Emma humiliates her on a day out in the country, when she alludes to her tiresome prolixity.
Mr Henry Woodhouse, Emma's father, is always concerned for his health, and to the extent that it does not interfere with his own, the health and comfort of his friends. He is a valetudinarian. He assumes that a great many things are hazardous to his health, especially draughts of wind. Emma gets along with him well, and he loves both his daughters. He laments that "poor Isabella" and especially "poor Miss Taylor" have married and live away from him. He is a fond father and fond grandfather who did not remarry when his wife died; instead he brought in Miss Taylor to educate his daughters and become part of the family. Because he is generous and well-mannered, his neighbours accommodate him when they can. Although his Hartfield estate is relatively modest, Mr Woodhouse owns substantial other property which provides him with an income scarcely less than that of Mr Knightley at Donwell Abbey, but he does not play any part in the public governance of the village.
Isabella Knightley is the elder sister of Emma, by seven years, and daughter of Henry. She is married to John Knightley. She lives in London with her husband and their five children. She is similar in disposition to her father, and her relationship to Mr Wingfield, mirrors that of her father's to Mr Perry.
John Knightley is Isabella's husband and George's younger brother, 31 years old. He is a lawyer by profession. Like the others raised in the area, he is a friend of Jane Fairfax. He greatly enjoys the company of his family, including his brother and his Woodhouse in-laws, but is not a very sociable man. He is forthright with Emma, his sister-in-law.