80 pages • 2 hours read
Jane AustenA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
20-year-old Emma Woodhouse is atypical for a woman of her time because she does not wish to marry. Having been mistress of her widowed father’s house “from a very early period” owing to her mother’s death and her sister’s marriage, Emma stands to gain neither wealth nor status from marriage (). Having an appearance that is “loveliness itself,”, in addition to intelligence and confidence, adds to the blessing of her situation.
However, Emma’s complacency proves to be a danger in itself. Surrounded by flatterers who tell her she is perfection; Emma imagines that she has no more to learn now that her governess is gone. She decides that she therefore ought to put her ample leisure time towards the improvement of others, who are not as fortunate as herself. Austen leaves the reader in no doubt that Emma’s motives are largely selfish. When Emma proposes to form Harriet’s “opinions and her manners” and thereby model Harriet on herself, she considers it an “undertaking […] highly becoming her own situation in life, her leisure, and powers” (17). Beneath the rhetoric that Emma uses to convince herself of the kindness of her scheme, there is the self-knowledge that the undertaking will also benefit herself.
By Jane Austen
Lady Susan
Lady Susan
Jane Austen
Mansfield Park
Mansfield Park
Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey
Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen
Persuasion
Persuasion
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Seth Grahame-Smith, Jane Austen
Sanditon
Sanditon
Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection