Emma by Jane Austen Case

Emma: Enriched Classic. Jane Austen. New York: Pocket Books, 2005. 520.

Marriage is Serious Business

Jane Austen wrote several novels, whose titles people recognize easily: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park. Several have been edited to become movies, which almost seems to be the only way people ever learn about the classics in literature anymore. Regardless, Emma is often referred to as Austen's most difficult and most brilliant work of her writing career. With its constant focus on marriage, class structure, and relationships it gives the reader a very picturesque and realistic view of Austen's time.

As Lionel Trilling, a noted critic of Austen's work has agreed that Emma is a difficult novel to read and understand. Trilling goes on to explain that the reasons for the difficulty are not because of the language or plots, but because it is so very simply written. As with any work, if it is too simple most people do not look further for the underlying tensions or issues. With so many issues to be found, and such simplicity from Austen with this story, many things are often overlooked, and are only found after repeated readings of Emma. Some readers, who do know that Emma is a literary work and not a commercial piece, often find themselves seeking out resources to help them understand the novel. Cliff notes are but one way to help a reader understand the deep, underlying tensions in the novel. The enriched edition is quite popular since it contains definitions for unfamiliar phrases, notes explaining certain details, and questions that cause the reader to search out the answer thereby finding the deeper meanings that Austen provided in her work.

Most, if not all, of the issues in Emma revolve around marriage and engagements or class structure and expectations. The novel opens with Emma's former governess getting married, and it seems that Emma is only concerned with how it affects her. Being bored with her companion gone, Emma decides to take on the role of matchmaker for Harriet Smith, wishing to help Harriet improve herself through marriage. Rather than allow Harriet to be Harriet, Emma convinces Harriet to be more like her through her own ideas of the hierarchy of classes and what is expected in the way of character for each level. Emma shows Harriet that her taste in literature is unrefined and that liking any many who likes her is not the smartest way among other things. Emma also convinces Harriet to set her cap for Mr. Elton, only to have that backfire in her face causing hurt and embarrassment to all parties involved.

With the arrival of Frank Churchill in the novel also comes the arrival of Jane Fairfax. Emma is not happy about the arrival of Miss Fairfax. This is mainly due to the fact that Miss Fairfax has relatives who constantly annoy, and is accomplished. Emma chooses