The Women in Austen's Emma (Part Two)

Austen’s female characters in Emma are complexly diverse in matters concerning fortunes, marital status, personal independence, and personalities. For example, Mrs. Weston is mild tempered, while Emma is independent and headstrong. Jane Fairfax is elegant but poor and extremely reserved. Harriet Smith is sweet but naive, Miss Bates good-hearted -- if not annoying, and Augusta Elton pretentious and vulgar.

The three women I would like most to focus on is Emma, Harriet, and Jane. Jane Fairfax is introduced in the second volume of Emma. She is the orphaned child of Mrs. Bates’s daughter and Lieutenant Fairfax, and is described as being elegant, beautiful, but reserved.

Critics claim most authors would have made Jane the heroine of this novel, but Austen chooses Emma for several reasons. First of all, Jane is involved in an intrigue which causes her to take a more passive role in the story. She is the only female character who would be considered the most virtuous by readers excepting the shadow that is cast by this secret that she is harboring.

But the main reason Austen chooses Emma as her heroine is to satirize late eighteenth century English social mores which valued a superficial sense of worth and importance based purely on wealth and gentility. Emma’s character fully embodies all the qualities of that society which Austen both admires and intensely dislikes. She dislikes the social snobbery yet she greatly admires the true elegance and refinement of her era. Therefore Emma symbolizes this society fully and completely; the good and the bad sides.

As I stated earlier, each female character in the novel represents a distinct social class. It is interesting to note here that with the exception of Robert Martin, all the male characters are of gentility.

Jane, Harriet, Mrs. Bates, and Miss Bates are all poor. But Jane and Harriet have more in common by the fact that both are about the same age, beautiful, of good character, and orphans. They are each in a very precarious state in that if they do not marry above their social ranking, then they will live in poverty and at the mercy of others. Jane has an advantage of being well educated thanks to a kind friend of her father’s who has basically made her a part of his family in every way except fortune. She has been trained to be able to make a living for herself by becoming a governess.

There is no doubt that Harriet will eventually find someone to marry her, but because Emma has interfered in Robert Martin’s proposal to her, she may end up in less than ideal marriage. She has become convinced, by Emma, that she is superior to the man who truly loves her. Robert Martin is a good and honest man with a decent amount of money, but Emma looks down on him because he is not a “gentleman.” And so Harriet foolishly sets her sights first on Mr. Elton, and then Mr. Knightley, neither who have the slightest romantic interest in her. Harriet is in great danger of completely throwing her one chance at true love and happiness. And so we are able to get a clear idea at what life is like for the women who are in the “lower” social stratum.

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