What particular points was Amy Heckerling trying to make when she transformed Emma into Clueless?
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.
A theme of wealth, importance of class and class-consciousness is easily recognized during the opening montage of the film. The montage shows Cher and friends, laughing, relaxing, shopping, partying and generally living a better standard of life than a typical teenager. Within the first 2 minutes of the movie we are shown Cher’s opulent house, her own jeep and a huge wardrobe. The theme is confirmed in the first paragraph of Austen’s novel as it states ‘ Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one y...
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...ught across an idea of self-development and initial discovery within ones self.
In just a mere 97 minutes, Amy Heckerling manages to cleverly raise and interpret the themes within the 495 page book by Jane Austen. She manages to convey the themes of social class and wealth, marriage and self development for a modern audience to recognize and relate to. The transformation of the movie stays steadfast to the novel with the addition of witty and humourous characters and contemporary issues that deal with twentieth century teenagers. Heckerling saw the same issues discussed in Emma, present in modern day society and decided to translate them in altered medium of film to present them which worked effectively as the precise components of the book emerged through the performances.
Works Cited
http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/12/05/nar.gkt1208
The film Clueless praises the white rich feminine voice. The film begins with high school students from Beverly Hills shopping, partying, and spending money as the kids in America. This economic capital is unrealistically flaunted as the normal life of a teenage girl. Cher’s father, as a lawyer, earns $500 per hour. His occupation allows Cher to have a jeep, designer clothes. Her economic status puts her at the top of the academic social hierarchy. Her persuasiveness and popularit...
The concept of social division conveyed in Jane Austen’s novel Emma (1815) are creatively reshaped through the change of context and form in Amy Heckerling’s bildungsroman film Clueless (1995). The transformational text encourages a clearer understanding through a sense of relateability for a contemporary audience. The notions of class hierarchy and the role of women in society are refurbished in the film to the context of a modern society - Los Angeles in the 1990’s - thus allowing for the audience to affirm and create connections with new insights on social division that have evolved.
Jane Austen’s Emma and the Romantic Imagination "To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour." —William Blake, ‘Auguries of Innocence’ Imagination, to the people of the eighteenth century of whom William Blake and Jane Austen are but two, involves the twisting of the relationship between fantasy and reality to arrive at a fantastical point at which a world can be extrapolated from a single grain of sand, and all the time that has been and ever will be can be compressed into the space of an hour. What is proposed by Blake is clearly ludicrous—it runs against the very tide of reason and sense—and yet the picture that the imagination paints of his verse inspires awe. The human imagination supplies the emotional undercurrents that allows us to see the next wild flower we pass on the side of the road in an entirely different and amazing light. In Austen’s Emma, the imagination is less strenuously taxed because her story of sensibility is more easily enhanced by the imagination, more easily given life than Blake’s abstract vision of the great in the small because Emma is more aesthetically realistic. However, both rely on the fact that "[t]he correspondence of world and subject is at the center of any sensibility story, yet that correspondence is often twisted in unusual and terrifying shapes," (Edward Young, 1741). The heroine of Austen’s novel, Emma Woodhouse, a girl of immense imagination, maintains it by keeping up with her reading and art because, as Young contends, these are the mediums through which imagination is chiefly expressed by manipulating the relationships between the world and the subject at hand. However, even in this, Emma’s imagination falls short. "The soul might have the capacity to take in the ‘world’ or the ‘atom’ if it weren’t for the body’s limitations getting in the way," (Joseph Addison, 1712). As Addison supposes, the limitations of Emma’s body keeps her from seeing the truths that her soul, if let free, would show her. One of these is that Frank Churchill, a handsome and well-bred man, is insincere and fake, while Mr. Knightley truly loves her like no other. In Emma’s love theme, Austen shows us how emotions and imagination can augment each other. "[I]t was…sensibility which originally aroused imagination;…on the other hand…imagination increases and prolongs…sensibility," (Dugald Stewart, 1792).
Emma Woodhouse of the Jane Austen novel Emma, is part of the rich, upscale society of a well off village in nineteenth century England, while Cher Horowitz the main character of the movie version Clueless, lives in the upscale Beverly Hills of California. The Woodhouse family is very highly looked upon in Highbury, and Cher and her father are also viewed as the cultural elite. The abuse of power and wealth, arrogance, and a lack of acceptance all prove that the class status of these families plays a significant role in the shaping of both the novel and the video.
It is known that not all films adaptations closely follow the novel that it is adapting. A lot of times film adaptations create something new and unique while still using novels to help. The 1995 film Clueless is an example of this as it used elements from Austen’s novel Emma. Clueless was released in theaters on July 19th 1005 and was directed and written by American director Amy Heckerling. In the film, Heckerling used characters and plot elements from Austen’s novel Emma while building something original and unique. William Galperin says that Emma’s courtship narrative is free standing throughout, whereas the story in Clueless focuses on language and fashion. Actress Alicia Silverstone plays the main character in Clueless
... But in fact her powers and beauty cannot change the foundation of her society. Emma’s circumscription within the boundaries of her class kept her world under control. This prevents her from considering another society beyond her existence. The confusion from her failed attempts with Harriet due to her guidance, allows her to embrace reality. Jane Austen uses Emma’s character to reveal the quality in the structures of the nineteenth century society. Based on the conclusion of the novel, when Emma is forced to look beyond the limited power and beauty she has and acknowledge the existing order and structure of the early nineteenth century English society.
Johnson, Claudia Durst, ed. Issues of Class in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Emma also transforms into a proper woman through correcting her original neglect. Trollope states that “[i]n every passage of the book she is in fault for some folly, some vanity, some ignorance, or indeed for some meanness” (7)19. Because of her ignorance toward attitudes of her neighbors, Emma interferes through their lives in a way that makes them unhappy, for “she had often been negligent” (Austen 359)20. Mr. Knightley predicts the outcome of Emma’s plans in the beginning of the novel when he states that “[y]ou are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than good to them by interference” (Austen 8)21 and also that “[v]anity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief” (Austen 53)22. Not only is Emma stubborn toward her actions, but she is also negligent to herself when she convinces herself “I cannot really change for the better” (Austen 73)23. On other matters about her plans for others, Emma’s consideration falls short through her own selfishness and withholding of her pride, for “[t]he longer she considered it, the greater was her sense of its expediency” (Austen 27)24.
Emma, a novel by Jane Austen, is the story of a young woman, Emma, who is rich, stubborn, conniving, and occupies her time meddling into others' business. There are several recurring themes throughout the novel; the ideas of marriage, social class, women's confinement, and the power of imagination to blind the one from the truth, which all become delineated and reach a climax during the trip to Box Hill. The scene at Box Hill exposes many underlying emotions that have been built up throughout the novel, and sets the stage for the events that conclude it.
The theme of social status and society is prevalent in the novel of Emma, through the characters Emma, Mr. Knightley, Mr. Churchill, and their situations and perspectives on life. Austen describes Emma as, “handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her” makes her outlook disparate from characters such as Harriet (Austen, Emma 3). Immediately through her description, Austen indicates Emma’s haughty perspective on society through her referencing her friends as “first set” and “second set.” Through Emma’s classification of her friends by their social status and importance, first set being the superior and second set being the inferior and locum, the reader is able to have a glimpse of Emma’s outlook on society and it’s classes. Knowledge Notes -.
Austen was raised in an unusually liberal family where her father was a part of the middle-landowning class. They had a moderate amount of luxuries, but were not considered well off. Unlike many girls of her time Austen received a fairly comprehensive education. She received this mainly through the undivided support of her family. Austen and her sisters, like most girls of their time, were homeschooled. Austen’s zealous parents encouraged the girls to play piano, read and write. Her parent’s encouragement led to her interest in writing. Austen’s father housed an extensive library filled with books which kept Austen occupied for years (“Sense and Sensibility” 119). Through her observant nature and passion to read and write, Austen was able to eloquently write of the many “hidden truths” of social and class distinction during her time. They included daily societal changes some of which foreshadowed future societal leniency. Familial support also extended societal norm of marriage. Her parents attempt...
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.
In Jane Austen’s social class and coming of age novel, Emma, the relationships between irony, insight and education are based upon the premise of the character of Emma Woodhouse herself. The persona of Emma is portrayed through her ironic and naive tone as she is perceived as a character that seems to know everything, which brings out the comedic disparities of ironies within the narrative. Emma is seen as a little fish in a larger pond, a subject of manipulating people in order to reflect her own perceptions and judgments. Her education is her moral recognition to love outside her own sheltered fancies and her understandings of her society as a whole.
In the term of realism, Emma’s society value view represented the problematic old society. Austen was very suspicious to sustain the significance of social class construction in “Emma.” The exi...
...Emma’s voice in order to relate the inside ideology, while simultaneously using a somewhat ironic third-person narrative voice in order to provide critical social commentary on the social attitudes of the Highbury society depicted in Emma. Emma’s voice allows the reader to gain an unadultered insight into the lives of the people of Highbury, providing the narrative with a Austen uses a somewhat similar dichotomous technique in Persuasion, in which she splits the novel into two halves -- one in which advocates for the traditional system of formality, and another that works to eradicate the very same system that she extolled so highly in the first half. Under the deceptive guise of “political inaction,” Austen actually provides commentary on the underlying social and political issues that pervade the novel through the literary technique of heteroglossia (Parker 359).