Question : Essay-type
Comment on Austen’s portrayal of the Highbury social life in Emma.
Introduction
Jane Austen is a novelist worked within very strict limitation. She restricted herself to the area of experience with which she was familiar. She writes to her niece, “3 or 4 families in a country village is a very thing to work on.” Her novels can not be read as dealing with important political or social issues of her time. For example in her novel, ‘Emma’ she deals with the upper middle class society of her time. All the conversations focus merely on the happenings of the town Highbury and its people.
Portrayal of Upper Middle-class Society
Jane Austen deals with the upper middle class in Highbury society. The chief representative of this class show a fairly wide range from the very prosperous and rich Emma to Miss Bates, the widow of a former vicar and now in poor circumstances.
The class structure in Highbury society is a little wider in range than in the other novels. Instead of everybody being more or less well-to-do members of the ‘gentry‘. Some different gradations of the bourgeois appear in the Coles and Mr Perry. Miss Goddard who keeps the school at which Harriet is a boarder, is admitted to Highbury society, but Robert Martin, the young farmer, though sympathetically described, is not. We never see or hear of any village activities except those of social lives and personal gossips.
Women in Society
In this society women have no intelligent interest. Emma draws and sings in an amateur way and is always intending to improve her mind, but has never gone beyond making the list of books to read. Educated women like Jane Fairfax and Emma are restricted to the feminine accomplishments of their time–a through knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and the modern language. Jane Fairfax in spite of her accomplishments has only one option open to her other than marriage and that is of becoming governess. In this social structure women lacked education and economic independence. Their preoccupation with marriages and husband-haunting is natural. Marriage, in the novel, is confirmed in six couples and predicted in many more. The heroine herself is a relentless match-maker.
Limitations
Most of incidents in the book occur in the drawing rooms and gardens of the characters, in the streets of the town etc in Highbury. There are dinner parties and excursions to places like Box Hill, dances at places like Crown Inn, strawberry parties and so on. Conversations centred round engagements, marriages, childbirth etc.
Snobbery of Rank and Importance in Society
A particular aspect of Highbury society is emphasized by the novelist. That is snobbery. Emma‘s mind is obsessed with degrees of rank and importance. She dislikes the visiting of the sociable Bates for fair of ‘being in danger of falling in love with the second rate and third rate of Highbury’. She is convinced that it would degrade Harriet to marry to Robert Martin. When the new Mrs Elton arrives from Bath, Emma dismisses her because Mrs Elton has brought ‘no name, no blood, and no alliance’. That is the trouble with the Coles too. Jane Austen here presents some social attitudes like snobbery of rank and position and then excessive regards for those persons who are outwardly elegant and smart.
Class division and difficulties are stressed in the depiction of Highbury society. Still Mr Knightley is somewhat suspicious of Frank Churchill from the start. Emma expresses to Mr Knightley a good opinion of that young man merely on the basis of hearsay. Mr Knightley on the other hand thinks that Frank must be a proud, luxurious and selfish man. Knightley‘s opposition to Frank may be the result of his unconscious jealousy of Frank. Yet we have to admit that Knightley’s judgement is far more sound than that of Emma.
Emma’s snobbery creates a very bad situation for her when she says something insulting to Miss Bates at Box Hill. Emma has always treated Miss Bates as a person belonging to the second rate and third rate category of persons in Highbury. When she insults Miss Bates, Mr Knightley rebukes her in strong terms and opens her eyes to the cruelty of which she has been guilty in her treatment of Miss Bates. Mr Knightley‘s rebuke makes Emma regret to her error.
Education of Emma
We find that the subject matter of the novel is the learning process which takes place in the heroine. Emma develops from conceit complacency to a happy marriage with Mr Knightley. In this learning process Mr Knightley plays a leading role by his constant advice, warning and even rebukes. Knightley is the chief corrective for Emma. His commentary on Emma‘s errors is a ‘natural expression of his love’.
The cardinal fact about Mr Knightley, of course, is his love for Emma. He has been in love with her ever since she was thirteen years old. But she has never spoken about it to Emma. He keeps a close match upon Emma and tries to analyse almost everything that she does. Emma may be wrong in many other respects but she is perfectly right in her judgement of Mr Knightley. Speaking to Harriet she says, “You might not see one in a hundred, with gentleman so plainly written as in Mr Knightley.”
At last Emma discovers herself. Harriet‘s confession of her love for Mr Knightley leads Emma to realize that she herself has unconsciously been in love with Mr Knightley. No sooner does Highbury suggest a system of interdependence, a community of people all talking to one another, affecting and changing one another. Miss Bates is perhaps the nearest symbol of Highbury. All classes joint and co-operate in her, just as all gossip passes through her vacant mind. Her small apartment joins the older gentry [the Woodhouse‘s and Knightley‘s] and the new rich [the Coles], and the lower middle to lower class town people and clerks. Emma herself is as firmly connected to Highbury as Miss Bates, perceived in her many relationships with others. Emma is seen as daughter, sister, sister-in-law, aunt, companion, intimate friend, patroness and bride.
Conclusion
So we find that the scenes between Emma and Mr Knightley suggest the conflict between sense and sensibility. They are debates between moral obstinacy and moral wisdom. Each time Mr Knightley rebukes Emma for her error of judgment, Emma emerges with with an altered awareness. Our initial dislike for Emma is gradually modified by the improvement which takes place in her to reform. Clearly in this novel the writer’s preoccupation with sense and sensibility is evident. Emma’s education may not be complete, but in her reconciliation between sense and sensibility takes place. She attains a much deeper understanding of life, of human nature and of herself.
