Emma

The Rewarding of the Undeserving

Women are breed in a society where the concept of marriage is interwoven into every aspect of a woman's life. It may be said that the women in today's society are no different or better than those in the early 1800s. Most women allow their lives to revolve around men and pay no heed to fellow sisters they wound in the process. An honest woman will affirm that she despises a devious woman but only because she can not muster the strength, to use such a trait for her own benefit. Jane Austen presents Emma Woodhouse, a manipulative, proud, and vicious woman who gains a happy ending even as her personality should have damned her to the life of a spinster.

Jane Austen introduces Emma as the epitome of women in her era. "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and 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" (Austen 1). The first statement of this book foreshadows the traditional ending in which Austen develops. Though at times it seems as if Austen did not develop this ending but sashayed into it because there was nothing left for the heroine to do. It seems unfair that Emma is granted a happy ending allowing for her misdeeds to go unpunished. Furthermore Austen lulls the reader into thinking Emma's momentary guilt over individuals she meddles with is the maturing of the character, so she may better deserve a happy ending. Alas it is more like the fleeting grief of a spoiled child who has broken a toy and all too soon realized there were many others to play with. Austen allows for the traditional happy ending for Emma but it is not justified.

This novel represents the surface of society. Austen persuades the reader into thinking that life only deals bumps and bruises and not crushing blows that mold or break a person. Through this blasй plot the author flip flops from ideas of fairy-tale contentment with would-be philosophical statements. "But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union" (Austen 328). The reader is told by Austen that Emma shall live happily ever after with Mr. Knightley, when before the narrator who knows the heart of all questioned the trueness in every being. "Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure" (Austen 291). Despite the claims of Emma herself, she has not matured or overcome her own hubris. Austen's development of Emma is shallow, dull and circular just like high society in Austen's Era.

Emma's marriage is likely to be as uneventful as her character's developmental process. The characteristics of Emma and Mr. Knightley work with each other, but not precisely in a positive way. "Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and-thirty...a very old and intimate friend of the family..." (Austen 4). Knightley is instantly mature and regarded highly of while the narrator depicting Emma as argumentative and forever self-indulgent. Emma will likely spend most of this marriage feeling abashed. With Mr. Knightley as sensible and mature and Emma is passionate and emotionally driven, Mr. Knightley assume the position of educator and takes a higher position than Emma in the marriage. "Mr. Knightley, in fact was