“Is he . . . a tall man?”
“Who shall answer that question?” cried Emma. “My father would say ‘yes,’ Mr. Knightley ‘no;’ and Miss Bates and I that he is just the happy medium.”
‘Facts’, in fact, are relative and everything depends on viewpoint. People see the world through their own eyes and interpret events independently. How the world is viewed even shifts within the same person depending on circumstance.
‘He had found her agitated and low.—Frank Churchill was a villain.—He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill’s character was not desperate.—She was his own Emma, by hand and word . . . and if he could have thought of Frank Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow.’
If Emma was named after its theme, the title of the book would be Viewpoints.
Jane Austen, in the same manner as Dickens, examines her theme using virtually all of the book’s many characters.
Mrs Elton, arrogant and self-important, tries to force her own point of view on everyone else. ‘She thought herself coming with superior knowledge of the world, to enliven and improve a country neighbourhood.’ Not content with merely offering advice, she attempts to impose it.
She ignores the opinion of others (except when fishing for compliments) and so is incapable of improvement.
Harriet Smith is Mrs Elton’s polar opposite. She has ‘a very humble opinion of herself’ and no confidence in her own judgement, so, to a ludicrous decree, she adopts other people’s viewpoint. When shopping she’s ‘swayed by half a word’. Harriet ‘stood anxiously watching [Emma] for her opinion’ because Emma’s opinion is more important than her own. “Dear Miss Woodhouse, do advise me.” “What would you advise me to do?” “But if you would just advise me what I had best do.” “What do you advise?”
Emma claims she’s never going to marry. Harriet is shocked and incredulous. “But . . . you will be an old maid—and that's so dreadful!” Later in the book, however, [despairing of Mr Knightley] ‘Harriet say[s] in a very serious tone, “I shall never marry”’. Emma subsequently changes her mind . . . and Harriet promptly follows.
On Mr Elton: “There cannot be two opinions about him.” Oh, yes, there can. And she later adopts it.
The most extreme example in the book of a unique point of view is Harriet’s regard for Mr Elton’s pencil and court-plaster. To everyone else on the planet, the leadless pencil is useless junk and the plaster of utilitarian value only, but to Harriet, for a few months, they’re her ‘most precious treasures’. (The central theme is touched on again when the girls recollect the breaking of the pencil: Harriet can recall only Mr Elton’s position and Emma only Mr Knightley’s.)
Mr Woodhouse lacks the imagination to put himself inside other people’s heads and so projects his own viewpoint onto everyone else. He expresses intense concern for others but he lacks empathy (his own worldview is the only one that exists) so his compassion is twisted and blinkered.
‘His own stomach could bear nothing rich, and he could never believe other people to be different from himself. What was unwholesome to him he regarded as unfit for anybody.’ So he compassionately tries to stop everyone else from eating normally.
Mr. Knightley puts himself in other people’s shoes and imagines the world from their perspective. This gives him delicacy and consideration when dealing with others, and admits of tolerance for their weaknesses and failings. He’s not always successful in his empathy—partly because bias creeps in occasionally—but he manages it better than anyone else.
Emma: “. . . you have not an idea of what is requisite in situations directly opposite to your own”. Yes, he does.
Mr Knightley: “My dearest Emma, do not pretend, with your sweet temper, to understand a bad one”.
Mr Knightley: “You may be sure that Miss Fairfax awes Mrs Elton by her superiority both of mind and manner; and that, face to face, Mrs Elton treats her with all the respect which she has a claim to”. This is utter nonsense, but Mr Knightley is too gentlemanly himself to understand Mrs Elton fully. Emma predicts her behaviour to Jane far more acutely.
And again, this time in reference to Frank Churchill: “Respect for right conduct is felt by everybody”. No, it’s not.
Mrs Weston: “Mr. Knightley, I shall not allow you to be a fair judge in this case. You are so much used to live alone, that you do not know the value of a companion; and, perhaps no man can be a good judge of the comfort a woman feels in the society of one of her own sex, after being used to it all her life”. Generally, a woman can more easily empathise with a woman, and a man with a man, as less of an imaginative stretch is called for. On the other hand, judgement is more likely to be biased. Thus Mr Knightley is prejudiced against Frank while Emma is unjust to Jane Fairfax.
Mrs Weston: ‘I was quite surprised . . . Such a very kind attention—and so thoughtful an attention! [of Mr Knightley to arrange for his carriage to convey Jane Fairfax and Miss Bates to and from the party]—the sort of thing that so few men would think of’. This is typical of Mr Knightley’s general understanding and gentlemanly behaviour. “This is coming as you should do,” said [Emma]; “like a gentleman.”
Jane Fairfax, modest and reserved, refuses (for most of the book) to express her viewpoint at all. There’s good reason for her reticence but lack of openness is still a flaw in her character.
‘There was no getting at her real opinion. Wrapt up in a cloak of politeness, she seemed determined to hazard nothing.’
“I gave what I believed the general opinion.”
Miss Bates can’t keep her thoughts to herself and they all pour out in a torrent. Amusingly, and endearingly, she can’t even tell a little white lie, but blurts out the truth in an instant. Consequently, everyone knows her viewpoint on everything.
Miss Bates views the world in an upbeat, uncritical fashion and thinks the best of everything and everybody, so the world at large views her positively. In other words, her own good-hearted, cheerful viewpoint is reflected back at her and her felicitous perspective on life is self-fulfilling. “She is a standing lesson of how to be happy.”
Frank Churchill plays fast and loose with the truth and his expressed views are frequently false.
1) He moulds his opinions to fit in with whatever suits his selfish purpose.
“I agree with you exactly. A crowd in a little room—Miss Woodhouse, you have the art of giving pictures in a few words . . . Still, however, having proceeded so far, one is unwilling to give the matter up . . . and altogether . . . I am rather of opinion that ten couple might stand here very well.”
Secretly attached to Jane Fairfax, he uses Emma as a blind to deflect suspicion, and doesn’t worry about breaking Emma’s heart because Emma, he conveniently deludes himself, has managed to suss out the truth. (Everyone, to a certain extent, projects their own viewpoint onto others, and Frank is no exception: “Fancying you to have fathomed his secret. [said Mr Knightley] Natural enough!—his own mind full of intrigue, that he should suspect it in others.”)
2) He amuses himself by deliberately adopting false stances.
“And, seriously, Miss Fairfax is naturally so pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill health.—A most deplorable want of complexion.”
3) He pretends to have a Harriet-like disposition and gently sends Emma and Harriet up.
“I have so little confidence in my own judgment, that whenever I marry, I hope somebody will choose my wife for me.”
“Your reasonings carry my judgment along with them entirely. At first, while I supposed you satisfied that Colonel Campbell was the giver, I saw it only as paternal kindness . . . But when you mentioned Mrs. Dixon, I felt how much more probable that it should be the tribute of warm female friendship. And now [after Emma has shared her suspicions about Mr Dixon] I can see it in no other light than as an offering of love.”
4) He flatters others (as in the quote above) quite shamelessly.
Miss Taylor’s viewpoint is that Emma is faultless, and so, by indulging her favourite and failing to criticise, ensures that she isn’t. Mrs Weston is highly impressionable and adopts other people’s general viewpoint and outlook on life. In short, Miss Taylor tailors her personality to fit in with others.
To Emma: “I have made a match between Mr. Knightley and Jane Fairfax. See the consequence of keeping you company!”
Along with her husband, she also matchmakes between Emma and Frank.
Furthermore, as just noted above, she shares Emma’s own high opinion of herself.
Mr Woodhouse’s influence is also apparent: “I did not quite like your looks on Tuesday . . . and though you will never own being affected by weather, I think every body feels a north-east wind”. And: ‘Mrs. Weston was afraid of draughts for the young people in that passage’. And: ‘There were Mr. and Mrs. Weston . . . very busy and very happy in their different way; she, in some little distress; and he, finding everything perfect’. Mr Woodhouse, too, enjoys his little distresses, so that ‘he had the pleasure of returning for answer, that they were all very indifferent’.
Mrs Weston debates with Mr Knightley and Emma in exactly the same fashion as they do themselves. She tries to put herself in another’s place to try to understand and explain their viewpoint. ‘Mrs. Weston laughed, and said [that Frank, who adjudged that Mr Elton’s house had ‘ample room in it for every real comfort . . . if it were to be shared with the woman he loved’] did not know what he was talking about. Used only to a large house himself, and without ever thinking how many advantages and accommodations were attached to its size, he could be no judge of the privations inevitably belonging to a small one.’
Mr Weston is outgoing and loves socialising (‘one cannot have too large a party’) while John Knightley has ‘reserved manners’ and loves staying in. Jane Austen extracts much comedy from these sharply contrasting viewpoints:
“I know nothing of the large parties of London, sir—I never dine with anybody.”
“Indeed! (in a tone of wonder and pity,) I had no idea that the law had been so great a slavery. Well, sir, the time must come when you will be paid for all this, when you will have little labour and great enjoyment.”
John Knightley is clever and insightful, but an outlook on life so contrary to his, renders empathy impossible, and Mr Weston’s extrovert behaviour is beyond his comprehension.
“One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”
On other matters, John Knightley’s understanding compares favourably with his brother’s: “You need not imagine Mr Weston to have felt what you would feel in giving up Henry or John.”
From Mr Elton’s standpoint, he’s wooing Emma “Everything that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You cannot really, seriously, doubt it. No!” and he’s outraged when he finds that Emma has paired him up with the lowly Harriet Smith.
From Emma’s perspective, Mr Elton is wooing Harriet Smith “I have been in a most complete error with respect to your views” and she’s outraged when she finds that he’s dared to set his sights on herself.
And the whole novel revolves around such varied and faulty viewpoints.
The picture above sums Emma up: some people see a young lady, some an old hag—and the way people view things in multiple ways is what the book is all about.
‘Emma, in the many, very many, points of view in which she was now beginning to consider Donwell Abbey . . .’
Emma is famous for its innovative use of free indirect discourse which unobtrusively (and sometimes almost imperceptibly) mixes in other characters’ point of view with the omniscient narrator’s voice. What obviously inspired, and to a degree dictated, this technique is that viewpoints is the theme of the novel.
A book so obsessed with point of view, inevitably plays games with the reader’s perspective. On first perusal, most people are only slightly more prescient than Emma, and along with her, misread almost every situation. On rereading, however, surprise is supplanted by understanding and from the reader’s new, omniscient viewpoint, a stream of ironic insights light up the text. By deliberately creating this contrast between first and subsequent readings, Jane Austen brilliantly dramatises and illuminates her thematic point.
A single example: when Jane arranges Frank’s letters to form the word Dixon and then pushes them away ‘with even an angry spirit’, her reaction appears to confirm Emma’s suspicions—there must have been an illicit connection between her and Mr Dixon.
Later, however, we learn that there was no romantic entanglement and the pianoforte came from Frank, so when we’re told that Jane comprehends ‘the covert meaning, the superior intelligence, of those five letters so arranged’, what is she comprehending? Mr Dixon’s ‘love’ was all in Emma’s head.
The answer, of course, is that Frank must have blabbed and told Jane every detail of Emma’s guess. It’s Emma, therefore, who’s the butt of the joke—though Jane doesn’t share Frank’s amusement. Just the fact of being thought guilty makes Jane blush, she’s annoyed at Frank for making a joke of it, and angry at herself as she dislikes deception and knows that she’s laid herself open to such charges through her secret engagement to Frank.
To learn why the picnic in Emma is set on Box Hill click here.
Emma on Jane: “She is a riddle, quite a riddle!”
Mr Woodhouse is obsessed with the following riddle:
Kitty, a fair but frozen maid,
Kindled a flame I still deplore;
The hood-wink’d boy I call’d in aid,
Much of his near approach afraid,
So fatal to my suit before.
At length, propitious to my pray’r,
The little urchin came;
At once he sought the midway air,
And soon he clear’d, with dextrous care,
The bitter relicks of my flame.
To Kitty, Fanny now succeeds,
She kindles slow, but lasting fires:
With care my appetite she feeds;
Each day some willing victim bleeds,
To satisfy my strange desires.
Say, by what title, or what name,
Must I this youth address?
Cupid and he are not the same,
Tho’ both can raise, or quench a flame—
I’ll kiss you, if you guess.
The answer is chimney sweep.
The verse, in other words, is written from the perspective of a fireplace—about as odd a viewpoint as you can get! And people with dirty minds and knowledge of old slang, might view the verse from yet another angle still.
Additionally, when Mrs Elton quotes:
And when a lady’s in the case,
You know, all other things give place.
she’s expressing the viewpoint of a bull. (Jane Austen is also having fun at Mrs Elton’s expense because Mr Perry uses the same phrase about Mr Elton when he’s eagerly pursuing Emma Woodhouse’s purse and heart: ‘he was very sure there must be a lady in the case’ or Mr Elton wouldn’t willingly, and for the first time ever, have missed out on his whist-club night.)
