A Review of Emma

A Review of Emma

I’ve read Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and most recently Emma. All of them are wonderful, and I can never decide which one is my favorite book by Jane Austen. But definitely Emma is, to me, a very engaging one.

I have no special feeling about this book at first glance. Because of Jane Austen, I choose it and take some patience to read. And finally, the patience is greatly rewarded. Emma is a timeless story which is both funny and compelling. The characters are all really well developed, especially Emma, a 21-year-old girl, who is portrayed as incredibly human.

The story is, briefly, about Emma, who is young, beautiful, rich and witty and lives with her father Mr. Woodhouse. She has vowed herself never to marry, but loves to play a matchmaker. She has just matched her tutor, Miss Taylor, up with Mr. Weston. She is quite proud of her success and finds satisfaction in it. In her arrogance, she believes that she knows what is right for everyone, and determined to appoint herself Cupid for all of her friends. Mr. Knightley, a neighbor and the brother of her older sister’s husband, warns her not to meddle in the other’s affairs, but she doesn’t take it seriously. She takes care of a young girl of unknown parentage named Harriet. Harriet is in love with a farmer named Robert Martin, but Emma thinks that he is beneath her, so she encourages Harriet to set her sights on Mr. Elton, a local vicar, as a future husband. Poor Harriet is completely bowled over by Emma. But unfortunately, everything goes to the opposite side, and finally Emma knows the fact that Harriet and Mr. Elton are completely unsuited, and that Harriet and her farmer are made for each other. Through a lot of hilarious scenes, Emma comes to realize that she doesn’t know as much as she thinks, and learns that it’s better to let other people manage their own lives.

As the other works of Jane Austen, Emma describes the ordinary person and trivial matters. The plot develops around the activities of choosing spouse for the heroines. It reveals the bad habit that people regarded marriage as the economic insurance to woman at that time. In order to raise the economic position, they emphasized the family status but ignored women’s feelings and rights. The main female characters in Emma all seek the equal communication with man, they demand the equal rights in the social position, and insist on the freedom of observing and choosing spouses.