Some of the most important themes depicted in Jane Austen’s novel Emma is social class and hierarchy, parents’ role and the position of women in society. The following section discusses them comparing the book to the Miramax film adaptation directed by Douglas McGrath.
Parents’ role and influence is shown at the example of two couple who cannot marry until their parents approve their decision: Emma and Mr. Knightley, and Jane Fairfax and Mr. Churchill.
Emma is very close with her father, she understand that he is distressed by the fact that his daughter Elizabeth and his governess Miss Taylor are both married and have left his house. Consequently, Emma made a “resolution of never quitting her father… While he lived it must be only an engagement” …show more content…
The first information readers get about the novel’s world is that Emma Woodhouse is “with a comfortable home and happy disposition” (Austen 1815: 7). Nevertheless, Ruth Perry is uncertain whether Jane Austen “consciously mapped out the material and paternal lineage of her characters or calculated their social power within their families… But she was a creature of her society and well-attuned to gradations of material advantage and social power” (qtd. in Johnson 2009: 323). From the other perspective Mona Scheuermann claims that “from the very first page Austen sets up the social grid of the novel” and the next few chapters are “devoted to carefully placing almost all… characters in the book on the social scale” (2009: …show more content…
Emma tries to be patient to Miss Bates, however, she does not like “to visit Mrs. and Miss Bates because she finds them boring. But in not paying them the proper respect she is much in the wrong, just because their social position is so fragile” (Scheuermann 2009: 127). Emma’s “moral fault” when she insults Miss Bates is even more striking “because Emma and Miss Bates are of the same class (daughters of gentlemen) yet so far removed in fortune that Emma must be especially careful to protect her” (Scheuermann 2009: 129). Not only the social status, gained at birth, plays a significant role, but “the crossing point on a grid of wealth and class” (Scheuermann 2009:
Parents’ role and influence is shown at the example of two couple who cannot marry until their parents approve their decision: Emma and Mr. Knightley, and Jane Fairfax and Mr. Churchill.
Emma is very close with her father, she understand that he is distressed by the fact that his daughter Elizabeth and his governess Miss Taylor are both married and have left his house. Consequently, Emma made a “resolution of never quitting her father… While he lived it must be only an engagement” …show more content…
The first information readers get about the novel’s world is that Emma Woodhouse is “with a comfortable home and happy disposition” (Austen 1815: 7). Nevertheless, Ruth Perry is uncertain whether Jane Austen “consciously mapped out the material and paternal lineage of her characters or calculated their social power within their families… But she was a creature of her society and well-attuned to gradations of material advantage and social power” (qtd. in Johnson 2009: 323). From the other perspective Mona Scheuermann claims that “from the very first page Austen sets up the social grid of the novel” and the next few chapters are “devoted to carefully placing almost all… characters in the book on the social scale” (2009: …show more content…
Emma tries to be patient to Miss Bates, however, she does not like “to visit Mrs. and Miss Bates because she finds them boring. But in not paying them the proper respect she is much in the wrong, just because their social position is so fragile” (Scheuermann 2009: 127). Emma’s “moral fault” when she insults Miss Bates is even more striking “because Emma and Miss Bates are of the same class (daughters of gentlemen) yet so far removed in fortune that Emma must be especially careful to protect her” (Scheuermann 2009: 129). Not only the social status, gained at birth, plays a significant role, but “the crossing point on a grid of wealth and class” (Scheuermann 2009: