Reading File / Novel

NAME: Angela van der Haas FORM: V6 DATE: 29-10-‘20

Title: Emma
Author: Jane Austen
Author’s website: -
ISBN: 9781912714261/ Original publication date: 1815

Points: 5 points (according to the Literature List)

1. TITLE-EXPLANATION: the book is named Emma, which is about a character

named Emma Woodhouse and her romantic misadventures.

2. SETTING & TIME: the story takes place in a fictional village called Highbury and
its surrounding estates of Hartfield, Randalls and Donwell Abbey in the
beginning of the 19th century.

3. MAIN CHARACTER(S):
 Emma: She is about 20 years, beautiful, smart and wealthy. However, she is also spoiled,
meddlesome and self-deluded. She is convinced she will never marry, but believes she is an
excellent matchmaker (which turns out to be very wrong).
 Mr. Knightley: a dear friend of Emma, dashing, cautious, respectable young man. At the end he will
eventually marry Emma.

4. PLOT & STRUCTURE: Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her
life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in
the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and
attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel.
Harriet likes another man, her other protegee for her matchmaking, Jane also likes another man than she
suggested and herself falls in love with her good friend Mr. Knightley and he with her. Eventually they all
get married. Harriet with Robert, Jane with Frank and Emma with Mr. Knightley.
The structure is a character story, it’s about Emma who at first doesn’t want to get married and is
convinced she never will, but in the end she does marry.

5. NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE: Jane Austen’s point of view in this story is the third-person narration, but tends
to confine the narrator’s perspective to Emma’s and occasionally to Mr. Knightley’s thoughts. The narrator
tells us most about what happened and his observations. Austen also makes use of direct narration, the
narrator can talk directly to the reader, he tells us this story from his observations and the thoughts of the
characters in these moments. So this is written with a free indirect speech, where the narrator can write
thoughts. It is written in the past tense, the story is being told from what already happened.

6. GENRE + THEME(S): the book is a roman, it is about Emma, a character, and her actions and changes
throughout the story. And a roman is about the character change of a person and describe what their
actions are. Romans are often fictional, this book is also fictional.
The themes in the book are marriage and social status:
Marriage: The obsession with Emma’s matchmaking was because of a marriage she caused by introducing
them to each other, which leads to wanting to make other fall in love and marry.
Social status: with the matchmaking Emma thinks about the social statuses of a man, which where very
important in that time, during the 19th century. Emma herself has a quite high status because she is quite
wealthy.
7. CLIMAX/TURNING POINT: the turning point in the story is when Emma eventually falls in love with her
good friend Mr. Knightley. At the beginning she is convinced she will never marry and doesn’t want or need
love in her life. Throughout the story she mingles in other persons relationships and likes to make matches,
but after she falls in love to, she gets marries to him and her obsession with matchmaking stops.

8. SHORT SUMMARY: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/emma/summary/

Although convinced that she herself will never marry, Emma Woodhouse, a precocious twenty-year-old
resident of the village of Highbury, imagines herself to be naturally gifted in conjuring love matches. After
self-declared success at matchmaking between her governess and Mr. Weston, a village widower, Emma
takes it upon herself to find an eligible match for her new friend, Harriet Smith. Though Harriet’s parentage
is unknown, Emma is convinced that Harriet deserves to be a gentleman’s wife and sets her friend’s sights
on Mr. Elton, the village vicar. Meanwhile, Emma persuades Harriet to reject the proposal of Robert Martin,
a well-to-do farmer for whom Harriet clearly has feelings.

Harriet becomes infatuated with Mr. Elton under Emma’s encouragement, but Emma’s plans go awry when
Elton makes it clear that his affection is for Emma, not Harriet. Emma realizes that her obsession with
making a match for Harriet has blinded her to the true nature of the situation. Mr. Knightley, Emma’s
brother-in-law and treasured friend, watches Emma’s matchmaking efforts with a critical eye. He believes
that Mr. Martin is a worthy young man whom Harriet would be lucky to marry. He and Emma quarrel over
Emma’s meddling, and, as usual, Mr. Knightley proves to be the wiser of the pair. Elton, spurned by Emma
and offended by her insinuation that Harriet is his equal, leaves for the town of Bath and marries a girl
there almost immediately.

Emma is left to comfort Harriet and to wonder about the character of a new visitor expected in Highbury—
Mr. Weston’s son, Frank Churchill. Frank is set to visit his father in Highbury after having been raised by his
aunt and uncle in London, who have taken him as their heir. Emma knows nothing about Frank, who has
long been deterred from visiting his father by his aunt’s illnesses and complaints. Mr. Knightley is
immediately suspicious of the young man, especially after Frank rushes back to London merely to have his
hair cut. Emma, however, finds Frank delightful and notices that his charms are directed mainly toward
her. Though she plans to discourage these charms, she finds herself flattered and engaged in a flirtation
with the young man. Emma greets Jane Fairfax, another addition to the Highbury set, with less enthusiasm.
Jane is beautiful and accomplished, but Emma dislikes her because of her reserve and, the narrator
insinuates, because she is jealous of Jane.

Suspicion, intrigue, and misunderstandings ensue. Mr. Knightley defends Jane, saying that she deserves
compassion because, unlike Emma, she has no independent fortune and must soon leave home to work as a
governess. Mrs. Weston suspects that the warmth of Mr. Knightley’s defence comes from romantic feelings,
an implication Emma resists. Everyone assumes that Frank and Emma are forming an attachment, though
Emma soon dismisses Frank as a potential suitor and imagines him as a match for Harriet. At a village ball,
Knightley earns Emma’s approval by offering to dance with Harriet, who has just been humiliated by Mr.
Elton and his new wife. The next day, Frank saves Harriet from Gypsy beggars. When Harriet tells Emma
that she has fallen in love with a man above her social station, Emma believes that she means Frank.
Knightley begins to suspect that Frank and Jane have a secret understanding, and he attempts to warn
Emma. Emma laughs at Knightley’s suggestion and loses Knightley’s approval when she flirts with Frank
and insults Miss Bates, a kind-hearted spinster and Jane’s aunt, at a picnic. When Knightley reprimands
Emma, she weeps.

News comes that Frank’s aunt has died, and this event paves the way for an unexpected revelation that
slowly solves the mysteries. Frank and Jane have been secretly engaged; his attentions to Emma have been
a screen to hide his true preference. With his aunt’s death and his uncle’s approval, Frank can now marry
Jane, the woman he loves. Emma worries that Harriet will be crushed, but she soon discovers that it is
Knightley, not Frank, who is the object of Harriet’s affection. Harriet believes that Knightley shares her
feelings. Emma finds herself upset by Harriet’s revelation, and her distress forces her to realize that she is
in love with Knightley. Emma expects Knightley to tell her he loves Harriet, but, to her delight, Knightley
declares his love for Emma. Harriet is soon comforted by a second proposal from Robert Martin, which she
accepts. The novel ends with the marriage of Harriet and Mr. Martin and that of Emma and Mr. Knightley,
resolving the question of who loves whom after all.
9. OPINION/JUDGMENT:
I found this book overall very interesting. There were some parts which would be really long-winded, but I
could get easily past the little bit boring parts. And there where many characters which caused the story to
be more chaotic sometimes and you really needed to pay attention to the relations between all characters,
because they are all connected somehow. The characters are broadly defined, Jane Austen creates the
characters as if they were alive and real. Therefore you can empathize with them and causes the story to
feel almost real. While it is a fictional story, it could have happened in real life, what causes to feeling that
the story is even more real and really experience the book. The book made me ask myself questions about
the life in the 19th century and what it would be like. I really liked reading this book, because it took you
with it to the 19th century, how they lived, what was important and relationships in that timeframe.
I would really recommend this book to other classmates, although it’s quite long, around the 500 pages I
think, it is really worth the time it takes.