‘EMMA’ AND ‘THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST’- REVISON PACK
AOS
AO5 Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations.
AO4 Explore connections across literary texts.
AO3 Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the
contexts in which literary texts are written and received.
AO2 Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in literary texts.
AO1 Articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using
associated concepts and terminology, and coherent, accurate written expression.
‘Emma’ by Jane Austen
Aspects of Comedy
(OVERVIEW) Emma is a comedy of manners, the plot based on deception,
misunderstanding, courtship and marriage. The eponymous heroine has so little
to do in Highbury she busies herself with matchmaking. Her scheming- built on
her confidence in her match between Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston- causes
unrealistic expectations on Mr Elton and Harriet smith. Until the final comedic
resolution when the young people find their right partners without Emma’s
interference. It seems Emma is destined to create misery rather than joy. True
love however conquers all, most significantly with Emma and Mr Knightley.
(EMMA AS COMIC HEROINE) Austen suggested that in Emma she created a
character that only herself would like. And it established that Emma has many
benefits and privileges. Austen describes Emma to “think a little too well of
herself” showing her high self-opinion. Despite Emma’s belief she understands
the world she is naïve, arrogant and wilful. Emma is not only in control of her
father’s household but her friend group. Emma only interferes in love because
she is bored and unchallenged, and whether readers symathise or condone her
what is clear is her actions are used by Austen to disrupt harmony (KEY ASPECT
IN COMEDY). The narrative follows Emma’s blindness to acknowledging her
mistakes. She is finally rewarded with a deeper sense of happiness than she
enjoyed at the beginning of the novel.
(EDUCATION AND LEARNING) Emma begins the novel believing she knows all, but
she is emotionally and sexually naïve. Majority she has no personal interest in
love and marriage, believing she will never marry; she then receives several
shocks that cause her to confront her own feelings. She misjudges the intentions
of social climber Mr Elton; she fails to see that Frank Churchill is only flirting with
her as a blind and is secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax. And most importantly she
does not realise her feelings to Mr Knightley until late.
Emma must also develop a moral conscious. For most of the novel, she is
dismissive of others, rarely respecting them (seen with Box Hill). In box hill
,Emma does immediately understand the pain she caused, but after Knightley’s
stern rebuke, she then redeems herself through her repentance.
(DISGUISE AND DUPLICITY) Unlike ‘The Importance of being Earnest’ there is no
literal disguises in Emma. However, Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax concealing of
their engagement could be an example of disguise. As Frank Churchill is not what
he seems, the story he tells his aunt and her state of her health is slippery, his
commitment to his father is dubious, as he is disguising his engagement. When
the truth unfolds, Frank’s reason for his duplicity is explained but are not
convincing. Until then, Frank’s fliting towards Emma is confusing to the reader,
largely because Emma is the centre of consciousness, therefore the reader is
duped because she is.
Mr Elton cannot be argued as duplicitous due to his attention towards Harriet, as
he only praises Harriet as he is secretly complimenting Emma. As he really
praising the education Emma has given her. Emma may not see this but
understanding Austen’s irony- readers can. Elton is shrewd and calculating.
(MISUNDERSTANDING) Misunderstanding is central to the comedy of the novel.
Her list of errors is long: She believes Mr Elton to be in love with Harriet, but also
Mr Martin to be unworthy of her friend; she deludes herself to believing Harriet is
the neglected daughter of a man of status to romanticises her illegitimate
position; she believes Jane Fairfax and Mr Dixon have formed a liaison; she
believes Frank is in love with her. Emma further fails to recognise her love for Mr
Knightley.
(ORDER AND DISORDER) Marriage and the quest for a match is what causes the
most disruption to harmony. For instance, Mr Woodhouse’s sadness for Miss
Taylor. However, the disorder is often seen negatively however can be positive as
it ignites life into Highbury.
There is disorder in terms of social class too, seen by Emma’s plans to elevate
Harriet’s social sphere, potentially ending in disaster. The disorder Frank brings
comes to head during Box hill, a microcosm of sorts. As the picnickers become
discontent and ill at ease. For some time, only frank and Emma are talking, the
seven others are silent. Later Miss Bates gets humiliated, and Jane Fairfax suffers
acutely. And more importantly for Emma, Mr Knightley gets cross with her.
However, because it is a comedy, disharmony is only temporary, and
unhappiness is short-lived. Any deeper misery (for Jane) is averted by the death
of tyrannical Mrs Churchill.
(COMIC VILLIANS) The Eltons are key comic villains. With Mr Elton is often absurd,
full of excessive flattery. He is an obvious social climber, seen by him trying to
court and marry Emma. However, his behaviour is not always comic- with his tie
alone with Emma, drunk in the carriage appears vaguely threatening. He gets his
comeuppance through his marriage To Augusta Hawkins with her £10,000 (a step
,down from Emma’s £30,000). Then his comic role is less prominent, he is now
bitter and cynical.
After her arrival in the novel, Mrs Elton becomes a significant figure of fun with
her comedically excessive language. Often misquoting literature and her
incorrect use of Italian (calling her husband “caro sposo”). However, she is
scheming and ruthless, interfering with the life of Jane Fairfax (like Emma’s
interference with Harriet).
Mr Churchill has the hallmarks of comic villain in the way he creates disruption.
He is a menace to disorder, his main villainy being deception.
(COMIC CHARACTERS) Austen creates characters purely for amusement. Mr
Woodhouse, the over-solicitous invalid, obsesses over health is comic because of
his hatred of marriage; never ceases to refer to poor Miss Taylor and poor
Isabella whose conditions he sees have worsened by marriage.
Mr John Knightley is used for different comedic purposes, he is without grace and
courtesy of Mr Woodhouse. He is slightly cruel to Mr Woodhouse in torturing
about the snow, ‘Another hour or two's snow can hardly make the road
impassable; and we are two carriages; if one is blown over in the bleak part of
the common field there will be the other at hand'.
Miss Bates’ comic value is seen through her comedic chattering, being irritating
and extremely dull. She is full of trivial communications and harmless gossip. No
wonder Emma finds her tiresome.
(WORDPLAY AND GAMES) Austen’s style contributes comedy to the novel; she
employs irony and satire. The narrator’s pronouncements aid this; at times the
narrator is emotionally detached, other times speaks Emma’s consciousness. The
novel is structured around games and wordplay. Emma’s matchmaking begins
and ends the novel, but embedded throughout are games and puzzles. Mr Elton’s
riddle to Emma and Harriet, is easily decoded as ‘courtship’ (a wider riddle in the
novel and is a central comedic aspect). It is ironic as Emma does not unravel the
rest of the riddle of courtship until the end of the novel.
Frank Churchill is the novel’s keenest games player. He introduces many word
games and he himself is a puzzle. Jane Fairfax also being a conundrum,
described by Emma as “a riddle quite a riddle”. They riddle is their secret
engagement.
(RESOLUTION) Emma ends with three marriages that resolve most of the
confusions, as expected through a romantic comedy. The misconduct of Emma
and Frank is forgiven; Mr Woodhouse’s anxieties are soothed by Knightley;
everyone’s place in society is restored. Word games are now at an end. The fact
Mrs Elton doesn’t approve of the weddings prove the fitness of things.
, However, like other comedy’s, some dark issues remain, Mr Woodhouse’s hatred
for change. While comic is also sinister and threatening. His hatred of marriage
being fuelled by fear rather than desire for his daughter’s happiness.
The issue of Frank Churchill. He is a child of fortune suggested by Mr Knightley.
He gets money and a talented woman. Jane however is not rewarded, but her
lack of wealth means she cannot be selective of her partners like Emma. He then
gets a better deal than she does.
Context (AO3)
Jane Austen, whom some critics consider England’s best novelist, was born in
1775 in Steventon, England. The seventh of eight children, Austen lived with her
parents for her entire life, first in Steventon and later in Bath, Southampton, and
Chawton. Her father was the parish rector in Steventon, and, though not wealthy,
her family was well connected and well educated. Austen briefly attended
boarding school in Reading but received the majority of her education at home.
According to rumour, she had a brief love affair when she was twenty-five, but it
did not lead to a marriage proposal. Two years later she accepted and then
quickly rejected a proposal. She remained unmarried for the rest of her life.
Austen died in 1817, at age forty-one, of Addison’s disease.
Austen began writing stories at a very young age and completed her first novel
in her early twenties. However, she did not publish until 1811, when Sense and
Sensibility appeared anonymously It was followed by Pride and Prejudice in 1813
and Mansfield Park in 1814. Emma, which appeared in 1816, was the last novel
published during Austen’s lifetime. Two other Austen novels–Northanger Abbey
and Persuasion–were published posthumously.
Austen’s novels received little critical or popular recognition during her lifetime,
and her identity as a novelist was not revealed until after her death. As admired
as Austen’s novels later became, critics have had a difficult time placing them
within literary history. She is known for her gently satirical portraits of village life
and of the rituals of courtship and marriage, but she wrote during the Romantic
period, when most major writers were concerned with a very different set of
interests and values. Romantic poets confronted the hopes and failures of the
French Revolution and formulated new literary values centred on individual
freedom, passion, and intensity. In comparison, Austen’s detailed examination of
the rules of decorum that govern social relationships, and her insistence that
reason and moderation are necessary checks on feeling, make her seem out of
step with the literary times. One way to understand Austen’s place in literary
history is to think of her as part of the earlier 18th century, the Age of Reason,
when literature was associated with wit, poise, and propriety. Her novels
certainly belong to an 18th-century genre, the comedy of manners, which
examines the behaviour of men and women of a single social class.
Rather than dismiss Austen as a writer who shunned the artistic and political
movements of her time, it is perhaps more useful to think of her as an early
feminist. Critics have pointed out that the Romantics, who were almost
exclusively male, offered a poor model of literary fulfilment for the ambitious
woman of the time. While male writers such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord
Byron possessed the freedom to promote their own individuality through wide
travel and sexual and military adventurism, women were largely denied these
AOS
AO5 Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations.
AO4 Explore connections across literary texts.
AO3 Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the
contexts in which literary texts are written and received.
AO2 Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in literary texts.
AO1 Articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using
associated concepts and terminology, and coherent, accurate written expression.
‘Emma’ by Jane Austen
Aspects of Comedy
(OVERVIEW) Emma is a comedy of manners, the plot based on deception,
misunderstanding, courtship and marriage. The eponymous heroine has so little
to do in Highbury she busies herself with matchmaking. Her scheming- built on
her confidence in her match between Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston- causes
unrealistic expectations on Mr Elton and Harriet smith. Until the final comedic
resolution when the young people find their right partners without Emma’s
interference. It seems Emma is destined to create misery rather than joy. True
love however conquers all, most significantly with Emma and Mr Knightley.
(EMMA AS COMIC HEROINE) Austen suggested that in Emma she created a
character that only herself would like. And it established that Emma has many
benefits and privileges. Austen describes Emma to “think a little too well of
herself” showing her high self-opinion. Despite Emma’s belief she understands
the world she is naïve, arrogant and wilful. Emma is not only in control of her
father’s household but her friend group. Emma only interferes in love because
she is bored and unchallenged, and whether readers symathise or condone her
what is clear is her actions are used by Austen to disrupt harmony (KEY ASPECT
IN COMEDY). The narrative follows Emma’s blindness to acknowledging her
mistakes. She is finally rewarded with a deeper sense of happiness than she
enjoyed at the beginning of the novel.
(EDUCATION AND LEARNING) Emma begins the novel believing she knows all, but
she is emotionally and sexually naïve. Majority she has no personal interest in
love and marriage, believing she will never marry; she then receives several
shocks that cause her to confront her own feelings. She misjudges the intentions
of social climber Mr Elton; she fails to see that Frank Churchill is only flirting with
her as a blind and is secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax. And most importantly she
does not realise her feelings to Mr Knightley until late.
Emma must also develop a moral conscious. For most of the novel, she is
dismissive of others, rarely respecting them (seen with Box Hill). In box hill
,Emma does immediately understand the pain she caused, but after Knightley’s
stern rebuke, she then redeems herself through her repentance.
(DISGUISE AND DUPLICITY) Unlike ‘The Importance of being Earnest’ there is no
literal disguises in Emma. However, Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax concealing of
their engagement could be an example of disguise. As Frank Churchill is not what
he seems, the story he tells his aunt and her state of her health is slippery, his
commitment to his father is dubious, as he is disguising his engagement. When
the truth unfolds, Frank’s reason for his duplicity is explained but are not
convincing. Until then, Frank’s fliting towards Emma is confusing to the reader,
largely because Emma is the centre of consciousness, therefore the reader is
duped because she is.
Mr Elton cannot be argued as duplicitous due to his attention towards Harriet, as
he only praises Harriet as he is secretly complimenting Emma. As he really
praising the education Emma has given her. Emma may not see this but
understanding Austen’s irony- readers can. Elton is shrewd and calculating.
(MISUNDERSTANDING) Misunderstanding is central to the comedy of the novel.
Her list of errors is long: She believes Mr Elton to be in love with Harriet, but also
Mr Martin to be unworthy of her friend; she deludes herself to believing Harriet is
the neglected daughter of a man of status to romanticises her illegitimate
position; she believes Jane Fairfax and Mr Dixon have formed a liaison; she
believes Frank is in love with her. Emma further fails to recognise her love for Mr
Knightley.
(ORDER AND DISORDER) Marriage and the quest for a match is what causes the
most disruption to harmony. For instance, Mr Woodhouse’s sadness for Miss
Taylor. However, the disorder is often seen negatively however can be positive as
it ignites life into Highbury.
There is disorder in terms of social class too, seen by Emma’s plans to elevate
Harriet’s social sphere, potentially ending in disaster. The disorder Frank brings
comes to head during Box hill, a microcosm of sorts. As the picnickers become
discontent and ill at ease. For some time, only frank and Emma are talking, the
seven others are silent. Later Miss Bates gets humiliated, and Jane Fairfax suffers
acutely. And more importantly for Emma, Mr Knightley gets cross with her.
However, because it is a comedy, disharmony is only temporary, and
unhappiness is short-lived. Any deeper misery (for Jane) is averted by the death
of tyrannical Mrs Churchill.
(COMIC VILLIANS) The Eltons are key comic villains. With Mr Elton is often absurd,
full of excessive flattery. He is an obvious social climber, seen by him trying to
court and marry Emma. However, his behaviour is not always comic- with his tie
alone with Emma, drunk in the carriage appears vaguely threatening. He gets his
comeuppance through his marriage To Augusta Hawkins with her £10,000 (a step
,down from Emma’s £30,000). Then his comic role is less prominent, he is now
bitter and cynical.
After her arrival in the novel, Mrs Elton becomes a significant figure of fun with
her comedically excessive language. Often misquoting literature and her
incorrect use of Italian (calling her husband “caro sposo”). However, she is
scheming and ruthless, interfering with the life of Jane Fairfax (like Emma’s
interference with Harriet).
Mr Churchill has the hallmarks of comic villain in the way he creates disruption.
He is a menace to disorder, his main villainy being deception.
(COMIC CHARACTERS) Austen creates characters purely for amusement. Mr
Woodhouse, the over-solicitous invalid, obsesses over health is comic because of
his hatred of marriage; never ceases to refer to poor Miss Taylor and poor
Isabella whose conditions he sees have worsened by marriage.
Mr John Knightley is used for different comedic purposes, he is without grace and
courtesy of Mr Woodhouse. He is slightly cruel to Mr Woodhouse in torturing
about the snow, ‘Another hour or two's snow can hardly make the road
impassable; and we are two carriages; if one is blown over in the bleak part of
the common field there will be the other at hand'.
Miss Bates’ comic value is seen through her comedic chattering, being irritating
and extremely dull. She is full of trivial communications and harmless gossip. No
wonder Emma finds her tiresome.
(WORDPLAY AND GAMES) Austen’s style contributes comedy to the novel; she
employs irony and satire. The narrator’s pronouncements aid this; at times the
narrator is emotionally detached, other times speaks Emma’s consciousness. The
novel is structured around games and wordplay. Emma’s matchmaking begins
and ends the novel, but embedded throughout are games and puzzles. Mr Elton’s
riddle to Emma and Harriet, is easily decoded as ‘courtship’ (a wider riddle in the
novel and is a central comedic aspect). It is ironic as Emma does not unravel the
rest of the riddle of courtship until the end of the novel.
Frank Churchill is the novel’s keenest games player. He introduces many word
games and he himself is a puzzle. Jane Fairfax also being a conundrum,
described by Emma as “a riddle quite a riddle”. They riddle is their secret
engagement.
(RESOLUTION) Emma ends with three marriages that resolve most of the
confusions, as expected through a romantic comedy. The misconduct of Emma
and Frank is forgiven; Mr Woodhouse’s anxieties are soothed by Knightley;
everyone’s place in society is restored. Word games are now at an end. The fact
Mrs Elton doesn’t approve of the weddings prove the fitness of things.
, However, like other comedy’s, some dark issues remain, Mr Woodhouse’s hatred
for change. While comic is also sinister and threatening. His hatred of marriage
being fuelled by fear rather than desire for his daughter’s happiness.
The issue of Frank Churchill. He is a child of fortune suggested by Mr Knightley.
He gets money and a talented woman. Jane however is not rewarded, but her
lack of wealth means she cannot be selective of her partners like Emma. He then
gets a better deal than she does.
Context (AO3)
Jane Austen, whom some critics consider England’s best novelist, was born in
1775 in Steventon, England. The seventh of eight children, Austen lived with her
parents for her entire life, first in Steventon and later in Bath, Southampton, and
Chawton. Her father was the parish rector in Steventon, and, though not wealthy,
her family was well connected and well educated. Austen briefly attended
boarding school in Reading but received the majority of her education at home.
According to rumour, she had a brief love affair when she was twenty-five, but it
did not lead to a marriage proposal. Two years later she accepted and then
quickly rejected a proposal. She remained unmarried for the rest of her life.
Austen died in 1817, at age forty-one, of Addison’s disease.
Austen began writing stories at a very young age and completed her first novel
in her early twenties. However, she did not publish until 1811, when Sense and
Sensibility appeared anonymously It was followed by Pride and Prejudice in 1813
and Mansfield Park in 1814. Emma, which appeared in 1816, was the last novel
published during Austen’s lifetime. Two other Austen novels–Northanger Abbey
and Persuasion–were published posthumously.
Austen’s novels received little critical or popular recognition during her lifetime,
and her identity as a novelist was not revealed until after her death. As admired
as Austen’s novels later became, critics have had a difficult time placing them
within literary history. She is known for her gently satirical portraits of village life
and of the rituals of courtship and marriage, but she wrote during the Romantic
period, when most major writers were concerned with a very different set of
interests and values. Romantic poets confronted the hopes and failures of the
French Revolution and formulated new literary values centred on individual
freedom, passion, and intensity. In comparison, Austen’s detailed examination of
the rules of decorum that govern social relationships, and her insistence that
reason and moderation are necessary checks on feeling, make her seem out of
step with the literary times. One way to understand Austen’s place in literary
history is to think of her as part of the earlier 18th century, the Age of Reason,
when literature was associated with wit, poise, and propriety. Her novels
certainly belong to an 18th-century genre, the comedy of manners, which
examines the behaviour of men and women of a single social class.
Rather than dismiss Austen as a writer who shunned the artistic and political
movements of her time, it is perhaps more useful to think of her as an early
feminist. Critics have pointed out that the Romantics, who were almost
exclusively male, offered a poor model of literary fulfilment for the ambitious
woman of the time. While male writers such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord
Byron possessed the freedom to promote their own individuality through wide
travel and sexual and military adventurism, women were largely denied these
