Universal Themes

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Page 8 Universal Themes

In the novel Emma there are themes that are specific to the story and themes that could work for anything. A universal theme is one that can work for more than one story. The first universal theme in Emma is romance. Romance is found in many books and movies. In Emma romance occurs multiple times. On page 410 it reads, “Harriet Smith marries Robert Martin.” The majority of the romance involves Harriet because Emma tries to make different matches for her. She tried to pair up Mr. Elton and Harriet and then Harriet decided she fancied Mr. Knightley. Both these predicted romances by Emma or Harriet failed because Mr. Elton and Mr. Knightley like Emma not Harriet. Before these relationships were attempted …show more content…

It is a common tale of who likes who and everyone's feelings get confused. Romance applies to all because almost every story has some sort of romance in it. Simply swap out the character's names and it starts to sound like another familiar story. Another universal theme of Emma is foolishness. Various authors choose to include foolishness in their stories through a character or through a character’s actions. There are a handful of foolish instances in Emma. On page 62 it states, “Nonsense! My dear Harriet, what are you thinking of?” Harriet can be very foolish and oblivious. Emma on the other hand is very bright but she never applies herself like she should. Harriet is a real fool as Emma and her try to decipher a charade. On page 130 it says, “Tiresome women.” Emma thinks of Miss Bates as a foolish and annoying women. She believes she is very silly and talks too much. Miss Bates like Harriet is oblivious and foolish most of the time. These two foolish characters relate to other stories because almost every story has a person that does something foolish and most often times that is how the stories conflict

What Points was Amy Heckerling Trying to Make when She Transformed Emma into Clueless
1323 Words | 3 Pages
Emma a widely recognized novel written by Jane Austen, Clueless a modern movie adaption of the novel. Both focusing on the lives of privileged and wealthy girls who have limitless boundaries. Emma Woodhouse lives in nineteenth century England, whilst her counterpart, Cher Horowitz lives in modern and upscale Beverly Hills. The literary text, Emma, is set in a time that is culturally, socially and historically different to Clueless. Clueless is set in a time where plastic surgeries are a routine thing and replicating another person’s clothing is an offense punishable by intense social judgement. Whereas Emma is set in a time where being alone with a boy is seen as culturally wrong and marriages are usually only solely based on convenience depending on the social status and wealth of your partner. Prominent themes that enhance Heckerling’s purpose of transforming Emma into Clueless involve importance of class, wealth, marriage, relationships, self-development and transformation between the two characters.
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Universal Themes
629 Words | 2 Pages
Are classic novels still being referred in modern society? Yes. Yes they do. – David Ngo claims
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Importance of Social Status in Emma and Clueless
846 Words | 2 Pages
Emma's arrogance shines through when she brags that she is exceptionally skillful at matching couples. She believes that she is in control of fate and must play matchmaker in order for couples to discover their true love. Austen confirms, "The real evils indeed of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself" (Austen 1). Although Emma is so spoiled and overbearing, she truly doesn't realize this fact.
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Emma And Clueless Comparison
852 Words | 2 Pages
The process of transformation of Jane Austen’s nineteenth century novel Emma to Amy Heckerling’s film Clueless has been sensational yet it retained the essential contexts of the original text. This means that while the original plot of Emma has been altered the themes in Clueless remain the same. Relationships and the significance of social structure are still palpable in both texts albeit some differences due to the time periods they were set in. Heckerling’s characters may use the language and slang of the 1990s and have modern-day hobbies and occupations, but they portray similar types of people with a semblance of Austen’s characters: they express egotism, vanity and practice deception, but also demonstrate bildungsroman and perceptive
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Similarities Between Emma And Clueless
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Throughout Austen’s novel, Emma demonstrates different qualities that her particular society valued. These include morality and charity, as well as marriage.
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Theme of Transformation in Emma
1224 Words | 3 Pages
Another form of Emma’s neglect is one of manipulation, mostly through her control over Harriet Smith. Emma is “willful, manipulative, an arranger or rather a misarranger of other people’s lives. Much of the time she fails to see things clearly and truly, and her self-knowledge is uncertain” (Goodheart)25. “One significant effect of harping on Emma's snobbery is to set in relief her romantic notions of Harriet's origin and destiny” (Brooke)26. Although to Harriet, Emma’s “help” to her is one that will reveal optimistic results and a proper husband, Harriet is incapable to taking up for herself against Emma, but if “[s]he would form her opinions...
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Emma: the Turning Point at Box Hill
1324 Words | 3 Pages
Emma's personality is largely shaped by the nature of her upbringing. Emma had no motherly figure guiding her as she grew up, due to the fact that her mother passed away at a young age, and her governess, Miss Taylor, became her best friend instead of an authority over her. At the start of the novel Miss Taylor gets married to Mr. Weston, leaving Emma with her despondent and hypochondriac father, Mr. Woodhouse. Although Mr. Woodhouse often confines Emma to the house because of his paranoia of her being harmed, he gives her little guidance. Emma becomes accustomed to being the "princess" of her house, and she applies this role to all of her social interactions, as she develops the ability to manipulate people and control them to advance her own goals. Emma views herself with the highest regard, and feels competition and annoyance with those who threaten her position. Emma has much resentment toward Mrs. Elton, as Mrs. Elton becomes a parody for Emma's mistakes and interactions. Mrs. Elton's attachment to Jane Fairfax is much like Emma's attachment to Harriet Smith; both Mrs. Elton and Emma attach themselves to young women and try to raise their...
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A Comparison of Gustave Flaubert and Madame Bovary
1428 Words | 3 Pages
to see more and more of each other until Charles asks Emma's father for her hand
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Mary Crawford: The Satisfying Heroine
1633 Words | 4 Pages
In Mansfield Park, Jane Austen presents her readers with a dilemma: Fanny Price is the heroine of the story, but lacks the qualities Jane Austen usually presents in her protagonists, while Mary Crawford, the antihero, has these qualities. Mary is active, effective, and witty, much like Austen’s heroines Emma Woodhouse and Elizabeth Bennet. Contrasting this is Fanny, who is timid, complacent, and dull. Austen gives Mary passages of quick, sharp, even occasionally shocking, dialogue, while Fanny often does not speak for pages at a time. When she does, her speeches are typically banal and forgettable. In Mansfield Park, Austen largely rests Fanny’s standing as protagonist on the fact that Fanny adheres to the moral standards of Austen’s era. Mary Crawford makes a more satisfying and appealing heroine but due to her modern-era sensibility and uncertain moral fiber, she cannot fulfill this role.
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A Comparison of Escape in Madam Bovary and Anna Karenina
1527 Words | 4 Pages
Emma's active decisions though were based increasingly as the novel progresses on her fantasies. The lechery to which she falls victim is a product of the debilitating adventures her mind takes. These adventures are feed by the novels that she reads. They were filled with love affairs, lovers, mistresses, persecuted ladies fainting in lonely country houses, postriders killed at every relay, horses ridden to death on every page, dark forests, palpitating hearts, vows, sobs, tears and kisses, skiffs in the moonlight, nightingales in thickets, and gentlemen brave as lions gentle as lambs, virtuous as none really is, and always ready to shed floods of tears.(Flaubert 31.)
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A Character Analysis Of Jane Austen's Emma
1464 Words | 3 Pages
Emma Woodhouse tries to use her influence to manipulate everyone around to her likings, and she only accepts the advice of mentors who agree with her. Emma knows that she is clever, and, having grown up as the smartest person among in Hartfield, she is continually being praised for her wit. As Mr. Knightley told Mrs. Weston, “Considering how very handsome she is, appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies another way” (33). She believes herself to be in the right without considering any other possibilities, or she rationalizes those possibilities away. More often than not, she is wrong.
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Emma by Jane Austen
2037 Words | 5 Pages
Emma Woodhouse: Emma is the main character of the novel. She is a beautiful, smart, and wealthy 21-year-old woman. Because of her admired qualities, Emma is a little conceited. She is the daughter of Henry Woodhouse. Since her mother has died, Emma has taken the role of taking care of her father, who is old and often sick. Because she feels she is obligated to stay by his side, Emma decides not to marry. Emma believes that she is a good matchmaker, and tries to put together several couples throughout the novel. Emma believes that social classes are very important and refuses to see anyone cross over to marry someone lesser than themselves In chapter 8-page 52, Emma is talking about Harriet’s situation with the farmer with Mr. Knightley. She says, “Mr. Martin is a very respectable young man, but I cannot admit him to be Harriet’s equal. As the novel progresses, Emma becomes more mature, and realizes how silly she had been in the past. In the end, she finally stops matchmaking others and marries Mr. Knightley, who was perfect for her all along.
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The Timeless Truth of Madame Bovary
1609 Words | 4 Pages
Soon after Emma marries Charles, she finds that she is not satisfied with her new life, due to Charles' lack of romantics. Emma thinks to herself early on in the marriage, "A man, . . . should he not know everything, excel in the manifolds activities, initiate you into the energies of passion, the refinements of life, all mysteries? But this one [Charles] taught nothing, knew nothing, wished nothing. He thought her [Emma] happy; and she resented this calm, this serene heaviness, the very happiness she gave him" (54). Her need for Charles to be more romantic and his ignorance of her feelings lead her to despise him.
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Analysis Of Emma Bovary
1006 Words | 3 Pages
The men in Emma’s life are subpar: her father essentially sells her so he can live comfortably without thinking about her needs, Charles, her husband is bland and inattentive to her needs, Rodolphe, her first lover is a player and uses her for sex even though he knows she is in love with him, Leon, her other lover satisfied her only for a short amount of time and then could not keep her interested. Because of the disappointing men in her life, Emma must turn to novels to encourage her will to live. She clings to the romance shown in fiction because she cannot find any in her own life. Whenever Emma indulges herself and dreams of romance, she has just been heartbroken. The first scene is after Rodolphe breaks up with Emma, she goes to the theatre and thrusts herself into a dreamed life with the main character of the play: “she tried to imagine his life…the life that could have been hers, if only fate had willed it so. They would have met, they would have loved!” (Flaubert, 209). In order to help herself get over Rodolphe, she has to reimagine a life with another man. The second follows Emma fretting breaking up with Leon, as she no longer tolerate him. As she’s writing another love letter to Leon, she creates an imaginary lover to write to. Creating a man from her favorite novels, a man so perfectly imagined she could practically feel him.
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Timeless Themes
753 Words | 2 Pages
Most universal themes in novels are sometimes considered to be timeless themes since they are widely relatable and last through the times. Universal themes appeal today because they are relatable and cunning. Timeless themes are not that different from universal themes, but for the fact that they happen at a certain time, but do not affect everyone. There are a few universal and timeless themes in this novel such as 'identity' and 'hopes and dreams'. Also, some other universal and timeless themes are 'sacrifice' and 'revenge', which seems to be a lot of it in the fastidious novel.
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Universal Themes

What Points was Amy Heckerling Trying to Make when She Transformed Emma into Clueless