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Victorian Characteristics in Emma
Hi guys,
I need to know the victorian characteristics in "Emma" by Jane Austen. I did look for them but I didn't find anything!! I appreciate your help...
To the poster with the unprounceable name, I would say, first and foremost, that Jane Austen, and all her novels, had absolutely no connection at all with the Victorian era. So "Emma" had no "Victorian characteristics" at all. Jane, and her novels, were essentially part of the Regency/Georgian period of English history (quintessentially English, and furthermore, definitely Southern English). Throughout her life, Jane Austen barely travelled further afield from her roots in Hampshire than Bath (Somerset) or East Kent, or Hertfordshire - basically Southern England.
Her original home at Chawton, near Alton (Hampshire) is now a museum, open to the public, and is so well preserved and maintained much as it was during her lifetime The Victorian era commenced in May 1837, when the young 18yo Princess Victoria, who gave her name to that part of history, acceded to the British throne as Queen. The Victorian era ended in January 1901 when the, by then, old Queen popped her clogs. Jane Austen was born in 1775 and died, aged 42, at Winchester (Hampshire), in July 1817 and she is buried in the Cathedral there. Emma is typical of Jane's novels - in essence, a female oriented one with a female central character - a lassie called Emma Woodhouse. Typically, she was of the upper middle class section of refined Regency/Georgian society, living in a small English village (much like Elizabeth Bingley in Pride and Prejudice). Emma was a very headstrong girl, highly intelligent, with a very high opinion of herself and her capabilities, and regarded herself as some kind of dominatrix in her father's household. She was one of those intensely irritating and exasperating of females who take it upon themselves to organise the lives of others, whether they wanted it or not. You know the type - meddling in other people's business affairs and private lives as only women can with any effectiveness. Emma Woodhouse was one such. If you think that sounds sexist then it most definitely is as Emma acts in just that sort of way which can only be emulated by another woman, and that's a fact of life, making the negative charge of sexism completely invalid, though feminists would, of course, violently disagree, but most feminists are loopy anyway, so what the hell. Emma busies herself matchmaking, and her new friend Harriet Smith finds herself being hauled away from a local farmer type by Emma who considers him "unsuitable" even though the poor guy has the hots for Harriet big time, and Emma then tries to hook her up with the young vicar, Mr Elton. Emma arranges so many situations that would bring these two together, hoping that the vicar and Harriet would end up walking down the aisle, but the vicar falls for Emma instead, which kind of throws her somewhat! Emma, however, has no plans to marry at all - she wants to push others into matrimony instead. Emma is in the happy situation of having a very comfortable home in the village, status in the Highbury village community through family connections, and a substabtial private income in her own right, so she could afford to be as independent as she liked. And she liked. And she liked to run other people's lives for them. Emma does fancy another bloke though - Frank Churchill, the stepson of her fomer governess - a charming and very personable guy. The story becomes a whole lot more complicated thereafter, and an array of other characters become involved in Emma's life - Jane Fairfax (a girl similar in age to Emma but with no financial means at all to her name - remember, life in those days was hard, really hard, if you had little or no money, as this was about 150 years before the Welfare State and social security in Britain). By this time the vicar Mr Elton returns from Bath with his new bride, a sort of rebound from Emma's earlier rejection. The beautiful and gracious spa town of Bath (Aqua Sulis was the name bestowed on it by the founding Romans) with its healing waters and very refined society, features highly in Jane Austen's novels, and she spent a lot of time there. The new Mrs Elton, the vicar's wife, eventually becomes very full of herself in village society and soon antagonises Emma by becoming just as irritating and annoying in her own way, and patronises poor Jane Fairfax and treates her appallingly, but Jane manages to keep her feelings of resentment in check. Emma's feelings for Frank cool down, which is just as well as he has become secretly engaged to Jane. There is one man in the village who really has the measure of Emma - Mr Knightley, and while Emma does her best to push Harriet in the direction of Frank, to spite Jane, but Harriet has other ideas, such as falling for Mr Kinghtley. This all leads to one mighty set-to during a picnic on top of Box Hill, a well known beauty spot near Dorking, in Surrey. All manner of feathers fly, and the whole picture becomes even more convoluted. Cutting the long story short, Emma herself finds that Mr Knightley is the man she eventually falls in love with. Three other couplings take shape, finally, and both Emma and Mr Knightley together become some kind of "wise leaders" overseeing social life and all its twists and turns in Highbury village. On the way to that happy state, sweet little Emma, irritating, aggravating, but nevertheless extrenely loveable little Emma, finds that she has had to learn some really hard lessons, and deal with some very humiliating situations. Emma - only one of Jane Austen's heroines. Jane Austen - a short life she had, but she was about the first of the great female novelists in the world of British literature. Come the Victorian era a few years later, there followed a succession of other female novelists, starting with the three Bronte sisters, all of whom had to write under assumed MALE names in order to secure recognition by publishers, such was the ingrained prejudice against female writers in the early 19th century in this country. Up until that time women were assumed to be incapable of producing literary works of any worth! Jane Austen was the first to prove them wrong. Now she is revered and respected right across the English speaking world. When I was down at her former home at Chawton (while I was at uni) it was absolutely full of people from all over the world. The only people speaking English, it seemed, were the guides, some Americans and, of course, the group I was with from uni. I hope this helps. Have a good weekend. It starts......HERE! :-)
Lol !!! It's me Damian. I don't know what's wrong with m y keyboard!?
Anyway, thank you for your help. Hoping I didn't make you bothered by typing all this long piece;) However, I didn't get what you mean. All what I get is that "Emma" is a feminist novel. My question is to which era Austen belongs to? If she doesn't, what are the literary characteristics she has in her novels? By the way, I admire Jane Austen!
Jane Austen is one of the words novelists in the world. She gave bad reputation to English language literature. Even daytime soap opera scriptwriters from Hollywood are more capable.
Jane Austen is one of the worst novelists in the world. She gave bad reputation to English language literature. Even daytime soap opera scriptwriters from Hollywood are more capable. Avoid at all costs.
Verdict: 0 / 5
I never knew Jane Austen had a connection with Kent. Personally, I prefer the works of the Bronte sisters. My favourite is Wuthering Heights. I love the wild passion of Emily's novel. I'm pretty certain Wuthering Heights is a Victorian novel but perhaps Damien can correct me if I'm wrong.
Sarah, Emma belongs to the Regency/Georgian era. I dont think soap opera scripts compare to Jane Austen. Neither are to my personal taste. I think the lovely Damien needs the love of a good woman -someone who'll organise him and make him into good husband material lol. (Maybe Sarah can help?)
Hello Sarah - Jane Austen's era was pre-Victorian - in other words, the later Georgian period - she lived through the reign of King George III (1768-1820) aka the Regency period, as it was the Prince Regent that effecively ruled during the King's latter years, due to George's acute mental instabilty - he really was bonkers much of the time towards the end, poor bloke.
Being female, naturally Jane Austen's novels are centred on strong female characters, and her novels obviously appeal to women far more than they do to men, as most of the story lines follow pretty much the same theme - the opening lines of of "Pride and Prejudice" more or less sums them up - "A young man in possession of a fortune must surely be in want of a wife......". Jane's novels are full of eligible, mostly handome, young men in possession of fortunes with equally eligible young ladies buzzing round him like bees round a honeypot, or else being thrust towards him by ambitious, gossipy, highly neurotic mothers who can only think of one thing - getting her unmarried daughters off the backs of her and her husband and offloading onto a wealthy bachelor willing to take on the responsibility. The settings for her novels are mostly quaint little villages in the depths of the English countryside, with huge mansions set aside from rose covered little cottages; a vicarage is essential as there is always a vicar knocking around, and just to add additional flavour a dashing young military officer, resplendent in his scarlet and gold braid uniform, white breeches and glossy back knee high boots. Jane Austen must have had some kinky penchant for these guys. Romance of course is the main element throughout, and romance never ever follows an untroubled course does it! A not so deliberate error on my part in my last post....it was, of course, Elizabeth Bennett in "Pride and Prejudice", and not Bingley, as I so stupidly said. I was thinking of the dashing Mr Bingley, the friend of the broody, moody Mr Darcy, aka Colin Firth, he of the skin tight soaking wet shirt and knee high boots emerging from that lake in Derbyshire......voted by UK viewers as one of the sexiest of scenes in British TV drama featuring classical novels. What Jane Austen herself would make of that is anybody's guess. Favourite Victorian novelist? So many to choose from, but it has to be Charles Dickens (he was only 58 when he died in 1870). His imagination when thinking up some of the names of his characters was pretty amazing - some of those names are quite bizarre - Martin Chuzzlewit, Oliver Twist (actually Twist is a surname that does exist), Mr Bumble, Mrs Gamp, the Crummleys (a family) from Nicholas Nickleby, and of course Ebenezer Scrooge - a word that has passed into common usage to describe a mean, miserly person. From the same novel poor little Bob Cratchitt. Most of Dickens' characters have some really weird names unlikely to exist in reality. Dickens gives us all a remarkably clear insight into life and conditions in Victorian London, or Victorian England generally. A period of British history I would least like to have lived in.
Porchia:
Jane Austen did have Kentish connections in that her brother, Edward, married Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Brook Bridges and his wife Fanny, who owned Goodnestone (pronounced as GOON-stun) Park, a few miles inland from Dover, in East Kent. Jane became a close friend to Elizabeth, and she frequently travelled from her home in Hampshire, or even further away in Bath, to stay with the family there. Imagine travelling in those days right across Southern England - by horse and carriage - it must have been quite a trial, especially in wet weather with the roads, such as they were back then, a muddy quagmire. Maybe she didn't go there in winter, and with British winters in those days being considerably more severe than they are now, coaches regularly became stuck in snowdrifts and refuge had to be sought in the nearest inn for the unfortunate travellers and coachmen. Goodnestone Park still exists in all its glory, even though it sustained some damage during WW2 by German shells fired from the French coast, just across the nearby Channel. http://www.goodnestoneparkgardens.co.uk/history.html Wuthering Heights is definitely a Victorian novel - Emily Bronte wrote it in 1847, the year before her death (true to form, all lovers and writers and poets and artists and lovelorn romantics died in their prime didn't they?). In fact, all the Bronte sisters, and also their wastrel drunk and opium eater of a brother Branwell, died before their father, Patrick, who lived to a ripe old age. Their mother had died very early on, soon after moving up to Yorkshire from her home in mild, sunny Cornwall, and she really couldn't adapt to the much colder climate in the North of England so she expired, poor soul. Everyone "expired" in Voctorian times, didn't they? Nobody died - they all expired! There is no evidence at all to suggest that Emily intended to set the novel in any other era than her own, so we can safely assume that Cathy and Heathcliff pursued their affair up there on the moors of Victorian Yorkshire. Wuthering Heights was really Top Withens, an isolated spot on the misty moors above the village of Haworth (pronounced as HOW-uth), where the family lived and where Patrick, their dad, was the local parson. They all lived at Haworth Parsonage, which is now, like Chawton for Jane, a museum and a mecca for all Bronte fans from all over the world. It has not changed a bit since those early Victorian days, and the house is much as it was in the days of the Brontes. As Haworth is not far from Leeds where I was at uni, we went over there twice and both days were brilliant fine and sunny - a bit of a disappointment really as we were hoping for gloom and mist, just to fit in with the whole atmosphere of the Haworth moors in those days, and also to capture the mood of the novel itself (WH). The parsonage itself is set a wee bit above the village, reached by a long walk up the still cobbled step main street of the village, past the still existing Old Black Bull pub where Branwell used to carouse and quaff with his cronies while inflicting irreversible damage on his liver, and the Parsonage is surrounded by sombre gravestones - all grey slate - and yew trees which must have been pretty gloomy on a cold, wet, day, with the fog rolling down from the barren moors immediately behind - so it's little wonder that the three Bronte sisters were all subject to bouts of depression at times. But it fits in perfectly with the atmosphere of the times I would reckon. On the two days my mates and I from uni went over to Haworth we ended the day carousing in the very same pub which Branwell frequented. It was not at all gloomy - in fact it was packed with happy, incredibly rowdy, people all having a bloody good time, and the food there was superb. So was the local ale.......I felt sorry for the coach driver taking us back to Leeds supping only J2Os. With regard to your last paragraph, Porchia - I think I can pretty much look after myself, thanks, and the arrangement you suggested would not really be a viable prospect! Sorry! :-) I'm well set up with someone quite special and it suits me just fine! As for Sarah and me - I like to think we are good friends in here! But thanks very much for your concern.......Best regards! :-)
Thank you Porchia and Damian.
Damian your information helps me alot. I really appreciate what you did for me. I presented my presentation about Emma, and it was good! My dear friend Damian, I agree with you. We have been a good friends in here since three years:-) Thank you Prochia for the nice suggestion;-) Best Regards...
Sarah - hello! Hope all goes well your end. Good for you on the Emma presentation - I knew you'd come out tops.
Is it three years now since we first met up in Coffee Republic? Wow! How time flies. I owe you a cappuchino, by the way! Or would you prefer cuppucino? You choose..... Emma was indeed a complicated character.....someone who you could both love and hate all at the same time.....someone you could find both irrestistibly loveable and excessively irritating...someone who had this frustrating ability to use both charm and venom depending on her own emotions operating at any given moment. |