Emma Blog #2

For the past week we have been analyzing Jane Austen’s Emma, and the regency era. Personally Jane Austen is my favorite author and I absolutely love the time period that she is trying to present through her writings. I love reading about the elegant parties and the romantic life that the people lived (of course only the people of wealth lived this way). There are many aspects about Emma’s life that intrigues me. She is very different from many of the women at this time; one of the debates that we had in class during our seminar was about whether or not Emma was an activist ahead of her time or if she chooses to act the way she does just for personal gain. Emma is also very open about her wealth, meaning that she isn’t afraid to flaunt it and she doesn’t have any fear of losing it. She differs in what she wants out of life as well, most ladies in this time were looking for a husband so they could fulfill their societal needs and hopefully makes some money for their families when they married, but Emma she doesn’t want anything to do with finding a partner for herself. She doesn’t really have any goals for herself as well, she only plays matchmaker because she is either bored, or she doesn’t have any inclination of what she wants to do with her life.

One take on Emma is that she is an activist way ahead of her time, the way she acts makes her seems like an independent woman who is interested in herself in the present rather than the uncertainty of what her future brings. Emma seems a lot like a feminist, she is all about herself being free willing and self empowering, but in order to do this she makes other people, especially her lady friends, feel powerless and encourages them to take the easy way out by marrying and taking the social expectations. Emma obviously doesn’t want to settle with married life, she wants to amused with her childish games and hopes of becoming a widower. Emma I think just wants to stay a child forever and doesn’t want to live in a world where she will have to give up her freedom, her voice, her immaturity, and her innocence. This is a power struggle between Emma and the social expectations on that time, because she wants to be one thing, but her society wants her to fulfill the gender roles of what is expected of her. Emma though is very different in respects to Harriet and the other women who she is involved with, because she has money, not her family has money, and she is going to be guaranteed $30000 dollars when her father dies. So Emma is trying to decide whether she feels obliged to meet the social expectations because her friends tell her she should or should she flaunt her right to be free and not conform to the social standard.