Book Review - Jane Austen's Emma
Emma by Jane Austen
Published by: Max Press
Publication Date: 1815
Format: Hardcover, 240 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
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(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.
Emma lives a very cloistered life in Surrey. The fictional town of Highbury and her home of Hartfield are her entire world. A trip to Mr. Knightly's house is a big to-do. It's literally a half a mile away from Hartfield and Mr. Knightly visits Emma and her father daily and yet she hasn't been to Donwell Abbey in over two years! With these locations being in a small fixed sphere and fictional you might think that there's no way to "play the tourist" for Emma, but you'd be wrong. Because there is Box Hill! Box Hill is a very real place and if you think visiting Donwell Abbey is a big endeavor, just think about what going to an actual tourist site means for Emma? But it's just not the fact that Emma gets to see a glimpse of the wider world which makes Box Hill so important, it's that it's during this trip that everything comes to a head narratively speaking. During this trip Jane Fairfax decides to leave Highbury, Mr. Knightly gives up hope of winning Emma because of the display her and Frank Churchill put on, but most importantly this is where Knightly gives his "badly done Emma" smack down which makes her start to reflect inwardly and finally grow into the woman who would marry Mr. Knightly. Box Hill doesn't just command gloriously epic views of Surrey, it's an epic place psychologically for all our characters. Seriously, Box Hill is the linchpin of Emma. 
And while the excursion for our beloved characters mights not have gone to plan, that doesn't mean you should skip this destination spot which is 
