JANE AUSTEN AND HER WORKS ARE GENERALLY

CONSIDERED representative of the late eighteenth-century classical world view and

its valuesjudgment, reason, clarity of perceptionthose of the Age of Reason. In
its best sense, this is a moral world view, reflecting the values of the Enlightenment.
Austens values represent order in the face of disorder, but her concept of order
embodies what is true, organic, living, not the static order imposed merely on the
exterior, from society or the church, for example. Austens attitudes actually differ
in subtle ways from the conventional manifestations of the classical attitudes and forms
of the late eighteenth centuryof the excesses of classicism that the Romantics rebelled
against so vehemently. However, Jane Austens novels can also be called anti-Romantic
in that they counter the extremes of the Romantic imagination epitomized by the Gothic
novels so popular during her time, and satirized by Austen in Northanger Abbey.
In Emma she also satirizes romantic excess, particularly in the character of Harriet Smith
who, in a sense, enshrines Mr. Elton by keeping as her most precious treasures relics
of a scrap of court plaister he handled and an old pencil piece that had belonged to
him.
The ordered society in Austens world is one in which people live in authentic harmony
socially, economically, emotionally, and ethically. Balance, order, and good sense
exist in the face of too much sensibility; a balance of intellect and emotion, thought and
feeling, outer and inner experience, society and the interior life, is the key to
understanding Austens schema of meaningful experience and right relationships.
Throughout Emma we are part of the energy of the novel leading toward the fulfillment
of this ideal in the vitality of the characters.
In all of Austens novels, the idea of truth, of perceiving the truth, is of supreme
importance. Mark Schorer points out that Emma might have been called Pride and
Perception or Perception and Self-Delusion (98). The work moves from delusion to
self-recognition, from illusion to reality; numerous images of sight and blindness
reinforce thisthe lack of sight, the necessity for insight. Emmas blindness to the
real nature of Mr. Elton, of Harriet, Robert Martin, Jane Fairfax, Frank Churchill, Mr.
Knightley, and of course herself, shows her unknowing errors of judgment, her
fundamental lack of self-understanding. She is deceived as to the nature and reality of
the world around her, as well as to the nature of her own emotions. When the truth of
human situations and feelings is not perceived accurately, disorder and unhappiness
result. Unethical, even immoral behavior is fostered through ignorance, and is only
rectified when the truth emerges, allowing ethical behavior to predominate.
The novel Emma is a one of courtship and marriage; it begins with a marriage (Miss
Taylor and Mr. Weston), and ends with three others, as well as observing in action those
of Emmas sister Isabella and John Knightley, and of Mr. and Mrs. Elton, definitely a
negative role model. According to Jane Austen, for marriage to be successful it must be

an intrinsic part of, and connected to the fabric of the genuinely ordered society, and
thus represent a true moral and ethical reality. We recall her well-known statement in a
letter in 1814 to her niece Fanny Knight that anything is to be preferred or endured
rather than marrying without Affection. Nothing can be compared to the misery of
being bound without love (18 November 1814), a point expressing a most basic value
of Austens view of marriage. It must never occur just to fulfill societal and economic
structures, which would be highly unethical as well as lead to personal misery. Instead,
there has to be genuine Affection, or a true attachment, as she was so fond of
saying, which engenders genuine ethical and moral behavior.
The marriage theme in the Austen novel is fulfilled by the good match; society
coalesces around the well-matched couple, and moral integrity, equality of being
(though limited by the patriarchal structure of the time), and spiritual insight are the
result. The characters become more fulfilled, and the heroine becomes what she should
be in moral terms as well as in her personal happiness. The basis for a moral equality is
found between the heroine and the hero, and in a sense a new order of society is formed,
outside of and counter to the hierarchical, striving, and unethical elements of
conventional society. In Emma Mrs. Elton represents this position to the extreme. Some
who misread Austen may think that she merely endorses and reinforces the conventional
structures of society, but such is not the case; the necessity for inner truth and reality is
implicit behind the outer social structures. But Emma does not easily reach this stage of
being, for she makes many errors of judgment in her journey toward maturity. For
example, in her role as social snob, she is condescending and looks down on and
inaccurately perceives a character such as Robert Martin, but hers is a false perception
of class structure. She fails to understand and acknowledge the fine qualities that would
make him the right mate for Harriet, something Mr. Knightley knows all along. She
strives too hard to make matches and in the process is mistaken and does wrong
even does evil, in her convoluted matchmaking for Harriet: there was still such an
evil hanging over her in the hour of explanation with Harriet, as made it impossible for
Emma to be ever perfectly at ease (139). Her errors involve not only Harriet, but all
the other major characters, including Mr. Knightley, and most of all, and most
unknowingly, herself. The result is chaos and confusion.
This, then, is the dilemma of Emma: she is a victim of her own illusions and creates a
world of her own fancy, but it is not the real world, according to Andrew Wright, who
notes Emmas supreme self-confidence and serene delusion (135). Emma is so
engrossed in herself that she radically misconceives even her own attachment to Mr.
Knightley. Her fancy, her imagination, and her manipulation of peoples lives are all
based on a false perception of reality, despite her grandiose trust in her own judgment.
She is referred to as an imaginist, a word created by Jane Austen in this instance. At
the very beginning of the novel we learn that Emma has an exalted and vain view of
herself; the real evils of Emmas situation were the power of having rather too much

her own way and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the
disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments (5). This statement
suggestively foreshadows her coming tribulations. She must learn that people have an
inner life of their own, apart from her perception of what she thinks that inner life should
be. With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybodys
feelings, with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange everybodys destiny (41213).
When Emma actually sees her mistakes and the harm they have caused others, as well as
herself, she finally begins to attain a new level of insight and maturity. The moral
development in the novel suggests the need for the diminishment of Emma in the social
sphere, a new position for her, but an appropriate place in the scale of value, rather than
one defined by her self-aggrandizing ego. When Emma grows in a moral way as a result
of her recognition of objective truth, she evolves into a more integrated person, a better
person, and in the process gains what is truly right for her as an individual. The
significance of the moral aspects of the novel is addressed by Arnold Kettle: the
prevailing interest in Emma is not one of mere aesthetic delight but a moral interest,
and Austens ability to involve us intensely in her scene and people is absolutely
inseparable from her moral concern. The moral is never spread on top; it is bound up
always in the quality of feeling evoked. . . . [T]he delight we find in reading Emma has
in fact a moral basis (114, 119).
In addition to understanding the novel as an in-depth study of a single character, its
moral aspects can be viewed within a larger context, set within a more comprehensive
scopein relation to classical Greek tragedy; in the context of a Christian spiritual
world view; in the comic tradition brought to its height by Shakespeare, and in a
psychological perspective, particularly from the point of view of Carl Jung. In all of
these approaches moral and ethical issues are implicit, and spiritual evolution is the
outcome of the process of internal change.
Classical tragedy embodies the concepts of hubris, the excess of self-pride that brings
about a tragic fall; hamartia, the error or mistake of the tragic hero; and
finally anagnorisis, the self-recognition of that error by the heroall concepts named
and analyzed by Aristotle in the Poetics. The character of Emma manifests these ideas,
for she has too much self-pride for her own good. One critic speaks of her enchanting
hubris (Harris 169), another of the distorting power of her egoistic imagination (Litz
140). She does harm through her mistakes as well as through her misperceptions of
others and of herself. Finally, she experiences a true recognition of her own errors after
the Box Hill incident when she is soundly rebuked by Mr. Knightley for insulting Miss
Bates for being dull. Miss Bates represents, in the words of Darrel Mansell, the simple
unintelligent world that Emma has been disdaining in favour of her own heightened
imagination (169); her disdain of and impertinence toward Miss Bates suggest

excessive self-pride, a sense of hubris. From the Box Hill experience Emma begins to
grow morally, but then her understanding of her own feelings is dramatically enhanced
when she realizes with horror the possibility of Harriets marrying Mr. Knightley. Such
an elevation on her side! Such a debasement on his! (413). It darted through her with
the speed of an arrow that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself (408). This
realization breaks the closed narcissistic system in which the world always gives back
to her a flattering image of herself, perfection achieved, and she comes to see, as we
have seen, the real evils of thinking too well of herself and always having her own
way. . . . Emma displays for us her faults and the serious moral consequences of her
misguided actions (Crosby 90-91).
In Greek tragedy the hero with too much hubris perceives the truth, but it is too little,
too late, as discovered by Oedipus in Oedipus Rex and Creon in Antigone. Growth
through suffering occurs in the tragic hero, but he is destroyed as a result of error. The
tragic fall occurs, and unhappiness, disaster, and complete disruption of the social order
result. Happily, Emma and her friends are spared this fate, though Emmas errors do
create unhappiness, disunity, disruption, and mismatched couples. But led by Mr.
Knightleys patriarchal guidance, she realizes her errors; the plot is unscrambled and we
have the delightful comic ending, with each person rightfully restored to his or her
true mate.
Before this natural pairing can occur, however, Emma must experience what could be
identified as the Christian cycle of sin, repentance, redemption, and grace. Religion and
the church are not present as an overt positive influence in Austens novels; indeed, they
are notable for their absence. The only representative of the church in Emma, Mr. Elton,
is distinguished by his secular, decidedly unspiritual demeanor, and by his social
climbing and materialistic wife, an absurd caricature of the traditional ministers wife.
Austens novels lack religious or specific spiritual energy; rather, their power lies in the
values, ethics, and moral force present in each of the works. Emma, according to Jesse
Wolfe, seems to argue a Christian ethic, but not a personal God (111); it is a secular
Christian ethic. Such an ethic sees pride as the primal sin, and the human condition as
fallen, i.e., inevitably self-centered (117). Despite the lack of conventional religious
aspects, the values and the process of recognition of wrongdoing, and the ultimate
insight that results, can be interpreted as traditionally Christian in nature. I believe that
Austen was profoundly Christian in her value system, though she never directly calls it
that, and that she understood the path of inner enlightenment in terms of Christian
principles, though perhaps not in terms of spirituality in its highest mystical sense.
In Emmas process of inner revelation, she literally undergoes a conversion; she must
suffer the dark night of the soul, as identified by the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic,
St. John of the Cross, and she must repent in order to come into a state of grace,
harmony, and right relationships. When Mr. Knightley reprimands Emma for her rude

treatment of Miss Bates at Box Hill, an incident that has been called one of the most
intense moments in the whole of Jane Austen (Lerner 145), he says to her, I will tell
you truths while I can (375). She was vexed beyond what could have been
expressed, and then she weeps. Emma felt the tears running down her cheeks almost
all the way home, without being at any trouble to check them, extraordinary as they
were (376). Emmas tears show her painthe beginning of her self-recognition, her
anagnorisis. The next day she plans to visit Miss Bates and apologize, and here
Austen actually uses the Christian terms of contrition and penitence: In the
warmth of true contrition she would call upon her the very next morning, and it should
be the beginning on her side of a regular, equal kind of intercourse. . . . She would not be
ashamed of the appearance of the penitence so justly and truly hers (377-78).
This scene is reminiscent of an earlier one in which Emma must undergo the necessary
penance of communication (141) and tell Harriet the truth about Mr. Elton. The
Christian, moral vocabulary is also evident in this passage with the use of the words
confession, shame, and the expression to be in charity with herself: The
confession completely renewed her first shameand the sight of Harriets tears made
her think that she should never be in charity with herself again (141), a phrase implying
being morally and spiritually reconciled with what is true, what is right. But at this point
Emma has not truly repented her manipulative deeds; shortly thereafter when taking
Harriet for a visit to the Martins that turns out to last fourteen minutes, she still
maintains her erroneous class bias by lamenting that the Martins were not of a
little higher rank; as it was, how could she have done otherwise?Impossible!She
could not repent. They must be separated; but there was a great deal of pain in the
processso much to herself at this time . . . (187). At the end of the novel, when
Emma has to inform Harriet of yet another confusion, the truth that Mr. Knightley is not
available for her, she felt for Harriet with pain and with contrition (431). Fortunately,
Harriet is saved any long-lasting pain when shortly thereafter she is reconciled with
Robert Martin.
Only when Emma suffers herself and realizes that she might lose Mr. Knightley can she
genuinely transform. Her dark mood is reflected in the unsettled weather, just as in the
Greek tragedies and Shakespeares plays, stormy weather mirrors the disruptive nature
of human relationships that are out of sorts: The evening of this day was very long and
melancholy at Hartfield. The weather added what it could of gloom. A cold, stormy
rain set in, and nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the wind was
despoiling, and the length of the day, which only made such cruel sight no longer
visible (421). When the weather clears, the stage is set for the transformation leading
to the resolution of the novel; the secret engagement of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax
is revealed, Mr. Knightley appears, and Emma acknowledges that she seem[s] to have
been doomed to blindness. . . . My blindness to what was going on, led me to act . . . in a
way that I must always be ashamed of, and I was very foolishly tempted to say and do

many things which may well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures (425, 426). Also,
the error of Mr. Knightleys perception that Emma cared for Frank is rectified. In his
recognition that he has been jealous of Frank and in love with Emma, Mr. Knightley
undergoes a spiritual discovery that is faintly like Emmas own (Mansell 174). Mr.
Knightley declares his intentions to Emma, and, within a half hour, all is well and
happy: This one half hour had given to each the same precious certainty of being
beloved, had cleared from each the same degree of ignorance, jealousy, or distrust
(432).
Truth emerges from concealment; insight and understanding replace blindness and
delusion; redemption and a state of grace conquer sin and the darkness of the soul.
Happiness, the right social order, and true affection reign. This comic ending is in the
tradition of Shakespeares comedies such as Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, As
You Like It, and A Midsummer Nights Dream, when mismatched couples are restored to
their rightful mates. In an insightful analysis documenting the parallels
between Emma and Shakespeares great comedy of romantic mischief, A Midsummer
Nights Dream, Jocelyn Harris notes that they are alike in several ways: the hot pursuit
of lovers through a midsummer landscape, matching and mismatching of couples,
female friendship and its betrayal, and the movement toward tolerance, forbearance and
generosity at the end (174). In the midsummer madness of Shakespeares play, and
in Emma, one finds confusion and delusion, the blunders and blindness of love. The
unraveling occurs swiftly, and we have the joyful ending of love and harmony in the
now appropriately matched mates. At the end of Emma mistakes are acknowledged and
obstacles overcome, even Mr. Woodhouses opposition to marriage; he is the anti-comic
influence in the novel, in terms of being anti-marriage, though he is comical or
amusing in his opposition and extreme hypochondria. After the forces blocking the
three primary relationships are removed, we have a flurry of weddingsmarriages that
are socially suitable and based on love, on a true attachment, and therefore meet Jane
Austens criteria for a good match: Jane and Frank, Emma and Mr. Knightley, and
Harriet and her first and best suitor, who never flagged in his love, Robert Martin, and
whom Mr. Knightley knew all along should marry Harriet.
If we look back from Shakespeares comic works to the origins of comedy in the ancient
Greek period, we find the beginnings of comedy in the fertility rituals for the god
Dionysus, or Bacchus, the deity of wine, vegetation, fruitfulness, sexuality, and
reproduction. These rites were revel songs and dances dramatizing the joys of renewal,
the triumph over obstacles, the rebirth of life through vegetation and procreation. And,
at the conclusion of Emma, we have fertility celebrated, not only with the plethora of
marriages, but also with the arrival of Mrs. Westons baby.
The comic tradition from Shakespeares time expresses and celebrates love and
marriage, and suggests a bounteous and prosperous vision of life. Tragedy moves from

good fortune to disaster; comedy develops from some kind of minor disaster and ends in
good fortune and prosperity. And, of course, prosperity, both emotional and economic,
is the key to Austens world; it is the rightness of the matches in her novels in all ways
socially, economically, and psychologicallythat make us take such satisfaction and
pleasure in her characters and plots. By implication, these relationships are based on
moral and ethical rightness, which is what fosters true happiness in the inner life of each
individual.
In terms of individual development, we can view Emma as a character in the context of
modern psychoanalytic theory, specifically that of C. G. Jung. We follow the
development of Emmas personality, her psyche, and see her human growth and
development as she progresses slowly, often reluctantly, from her extreme selfabsorption toward self-knowledge and integrity. Integrity suggests the integration of the
personality, the unifying of the disparate, fragmented parts of the psyche into an
integrated whole, a maturing of the psyche. Of course, Emma is youngnearly twentyone years old (5)and the time span of the novel is very short, but in that period we
have a forceful character development that keeps us with Emma through all her trials.
Austen reveals her understanding of psychological behavior and principles long before
they were named and codified by modern psychoanalysis.
In Jungian terms, we can observe Emmas development as an example of the process of
what Jung called individuation, of becoming an in-dividual, a person undivided within
him or her self, an integrated whole. Emmas dilemma of finally understanding herself
and the world around her, of trying to separate illusion from reality, and of moving
toward a recognition of truth from a false posture of delusion and self-centeredness
these are all intrinsic to the psychological portrait of Emma Woodhouse. Austen shows
the process of the inner life at work when Emma comprehends the very real possibility
of losing Mr. Knightley to Harriet. After a meditative period of self-examination, she
begins to perceive more clearly, and a major change occurs:
Emmas eyes were instantly withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating, in a
fixed attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient for making
her acquainted with her own heart. . . . Her own conduct, as well as her own
heart, was before her in the same few minutes. She saw it all with a
clearness which had never blessed her before. (407, 408)
The use of the word blessed here is significant, implying a spiritual component to the
nature of self-enlightenment. Becoming acquainted with her own heart also leads
Emma to realize the moral implications of this situation, that if she lost Mr. Knightley,
no matter what, she must improve her behavior. She connects this improvement to selfknowledge:

the only source whence anything like consolation or composure could be

drawn, was in the resolution of her own better conduct, and the hope that,
however inferior in spirit and gaiety might be the following and every
future winter of her life to the past, it would yet find her more rational,
more acquainted with herself. (423)
Becoming acquainted with herself, with her own heart and mindthis is our hope for
Emma as she engages in the process of individuation and emerges a more integrated,
and, in the process, a more moral person.
Emmas relationships with the other characters show insights into the psychological
process; each of these individuals offers aspects of experience and reality that enhance
both our understanding of Emma and her understanding of herself. The negative female
images of Miss Bates, who carries the stereotype of the chatty woman to a ludicrous
extreme, and of the intrusive Mrs. Elton, may suggest a dark side of Emma, the
shadow in Jungian terms. Emma often talks too much for her own good, as does Miss
Bates, and, like Mrs. Elton, Emma interferes in everyones affairs. When Emma spends
a quarter of an hour alone with Mrs. Elton she is convinced that Mrs. Elton was a vain
woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and thinking too much of her own
importance (272). Does this sound like Emma herself? Austen is showing us
something here: the shadow figure that embodies the negative qualities of the psyche,
Mrs. Elton as an extreme of Emmas flaws. In contrast, Jane Fairfax is a positive female
image, but one that Emma rejects. Though poor, Jane is a superior being, well-educated,
talented, disciplined, in contrast to Emmas desultory, dilettantish approach to learning
and accomplishment. As noted by Mr. Knightley, Emma had been meaning to read
more ever since she was twelve years old (37). Emma has the advantage of wealth and
social position, but Jane is the more highly evolved person. Emma is competitive with
Jane and jealous of her talents, such as her excellent piano playing and singing. In
contrast, Emmas association with the undeveloped and dependent Harriet Smith may
suggest her own intellectual and personal limitations. Alison Sulloway calls attention to
Emmas intellectual poverty and other social deformities that have engendered her
outrageous behavior (135), and that perhaps explain her fixated friendship with Harriet.
Finally, it is Mr. Knightley who vehemently calls Emmas attention to her outrageous
behavior with Miss Bates and makes Emma see herself as she is. Early in the novel we
hear that Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults in
Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them (11), he also makes her
know her own heart when she finally realizes her feeling for him. As A. Walton Litz
points out, Mr. Knightley speaks not only for the author, but for Emmas heart, and
when he reprimands her, it awakens part of herself and comes as the voice of her own
conscience (141). Thus, this rather pompous patriarch teaches Emma about herself,
which is what he has been doing throughout her life. Mr. Knightley has the advantage of

age, and thus perspective, a perspective both critical and rational, but also empathetic. It
may be that with the integration into Emmas psyche of a strong male influencethe
masculine, or animus in Jungian termswe can finally see the emergence of an
integrated personality in the character of Emma Woodhouse. But Emma will have an
on-going challenge to maintain her new-found moral understanding; as noted by Jesse
Wolfe, salvation in Austen can only be partial. Emmas pride never disappears. . . . The
ego may be defeated temporarily, but not permanently (115).
Jane Austen has created a novel that, though centered in her late eighteenth/early
nineteenth-century world of society and relationships, gives us a much larger perspective
on her meaning, if we closely examine the ideas intrinsic to the work. A broader context
of the ancient classical tragic and comic traditions, parallels to the Shakespearean comic
world, the Christian world view, and a more modern psychological perspectiveall in
relation to the moral, ethical and spiritual values implicit in the novelenhances the
experience of readingEmma. We are personally enriched by Austens novel, as we are
by all of her works, but because of the constant focus on the character of Emma, we are
even more enriched by this work. We partake in Emmas quest for wholeness, selfunderstanding, integrity, and spiritual insight. In a sense, the dilemma of Emma is also
our dilemma, as we work to move toward integration, self-realization, truth, and reality.