Book Review - Jane Austen's Emma
Emma by Jane Austen
Published by: Max Press
Publication Date: 1815
Format: Hardcover, 240 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy
(different edition than one reviewed)
Emma Woodhouse is the center of her world. Looked upon by all in her small community as the perfect woman, the doting daughter, the charitable neighbor, the ideal future wife. Yet little do they realize that she is the spider at the center of a web thinking everyone is there for her amusement. They are mere playthings to her and she has just lost her most favorite toy. Her governess Miss Taylor has married and become Mrs. Weston, thus constricting Emma's household to just her and her father and the occasional visits from Mr. Knightly. Therefore, despite Mr. Knightly's stern warnings, Emma finds herself a new favorite to play with. And what better game than matchmaking? Harriet Smith is a nobody, her parents having given her away. Emma has fanciful notions of whom Harriet's parents could be and therefore eschews Harriet marrying the kind farmer Robert Martin and sets Harriet on the path to conjugal bliss with the vicar Mr. Elton. But Mr. Elton is a social climber and fancies that he is worthy of Emma's hand. Once aware of her mistake you'd think that Emma would have taken the hint and stopped her matchmaking, but she soldiers on. Mr. Weston's son, Frank Churchill, soon arrives on the scene to pay his respects to his new mother, and while first marked out for Emma, Emma soon thinks that happy is the man who changes Emma for Harriet. In all her ploys Emma never really sees that she is being callous and her jokes are at the expense of others, such as the poor Miss Bates and her niece Jane Fairfax, and have real world consequences. She lives in a bubble that desperately needs to be burst, and no matter how hard Mr. Knightly tries he can't seem to get through to Emma. In fact it's her favorite new toy, Harriet, who wields the needle and pops the bubble, opening Emma's eyes while also taking the shine off herself. Will Emma be able to fix what her childish games have wrought? Or will she lose her happily ever after?
There are things I can't help but question on every reading of Emma... mainly the Mr. Knightly/Emma age gap. I totally agree with Andrew Davies that having a man sixteen years older than you saying he first loved you when you were thirteen is more than a little icky. If Mr. Knightly had just refrained from saying that and a few other choice lines he wouldn't have come across as the Humbert Humbert of his day. Because really, when you think of it, a sixteen year age difference isn't that creepy. In fact there's far more than sixteen years between Marianne Dashwood and Colonel Brandon, and there's eighteen between me and Colin Firth, not that I've counted that often... But what I found interesting this time is that this creep factor wasn't so much there for me anymore. Perhaps it's because I have found far bigger creeps in this book, I'm sorry Frank Churchill, you're an irredeemable psychopath. Or perhaps it's because I see why Emma falls for Mr. Knightly. It's not his superiority above all others, it's the fact that Emma has Daddy issues. Serious Daddy issues. Issues that lead her to basically marry her "other" father. Are we to blame Mr. Knightly for taking advantage of the situation and forming Emma into the perfect woman? Or should we just say Emma needs therapy? My vote is for therapy. In fact, while Jasper Fforde perfectly parodied a group therapy session in the Thursday Next books for the characters of Wuthering Heights, I think the residents of Highbury need some counseling too. Emma for her Daddy issues, Mr. Knightly for grooming. And then look to Emma's treatment of Harriet. She bullies her, ghosts her, and then badmouths her. Oh, and Frank Churchill, he will need his own breakout session. Who flirts with other women in front of their fiance? Sure, she's a secret fiance, but still, how could Jane take that? Of all Austen's books Emma is the one I sometimes just can't deal with.
While "I Am Sure They Were Talking of Me" might be my most straightforward use of media, being nothing more than gesso and pencil, I really spent a lot of time thinking about the meaning behind my color and media choice as well as figure placement. I started with the blue paper, which one obvious interpretation is I chose it because of the rain that forced this meeting between Harriet Smith and Robert Martin and his sister Elizabeth in Ford's, but the secondary reason is because of the depressed spirits of all involved. Harriet and Robert and Elizabeth are all seeing each other for the first time since Harriet rejected Robert's marriage proposal, so you can imagine their barely concealed feelings. Which brings me to the fact that you can patently see that Harriet isn't even in this piece. I have completely removed her. The reasoning behind this is twofold, one, Elizabeth at first ignores her, but more importantly can you imagine how much Harriet just wanted to disappear? We have all had instances when we dread running into someone after a fight or a split, where we see them for the first time from a distance and just hope and pray fervently that they won't see us. This is the first time I really felt the humanity of Harriet, she is a real person versus Emma's plaything. This moment, more than any other in Emma, shows Harriet's humanity and insecurity. By eliminating her as the object of the two figure's focus I have given her her heartfelt desire to just disappear into the background. I have removed her from the situation entirely while her presence is still so obviously felt. But more than that, by having Robert looking not at a figure but into the distance I can feel hope that he has an inkling of his and Harriet's happily ever after, even if he's currently a little spiky, hence his angular lines. 
