A
disturbing pattern exists in Austen’s portrayal of romantic relationships
in her novels, the significance of which is difficult to discern. A
young woman of intelligent, creative mind, personal resourcefulness and
energy sets off on a heroine’s adventure; by the end of her story, a man
of superior wisdom and either superior age, income, or both, has worn her
into submission. She has lost a significant
part of her former charm--her dynamic self-assurance–and been transformed
into the conventional subservient wife represented by secondary female
characters in her story. What appears
on the surface to be a Bildungsroman of a woman’s growth and character
development seems to be, at its core, an account of the gradual degeneration
of her ego-integrity. Think of Henry
Tilney purging Catherine Morland of her silly imagination in Northanger
Abbey; Colonel Brandon guiding and protecting a chastened Marianne
Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility; and Darcy shaming Elizabeth Bennet
out of confidence in her own judgment and awing her with his wealth in
Pride
and Prejudice. Why does Austen
seem to kill her heroines’ verve in marriage? Why
does she choose husbands for her heroines who are more like fathers than lovers?
Austen’s association of love
with paternity is nowhere more prevalent than in Emma. The
overwhelming assertion of the novel’s introduction is that the heroine
needs a man to rein her in and create boundaries to her will and desire. We
learn that Emma “had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very
little to distress or vex her” (5). Her
early loss of a mother and, to a larger extent, her father’s weakness contribute
to this problem. She possesses “a
most affectionate, indulgent father, and had . . . been mistress of his
house from a very early period” (5). Emma’s
governess, Miss Taylor, became a sisterly companion rather than an authority
figure in her life: “the mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her
to impose any restraint; and the shadow of authority being now long passed
away, they had been living together as friend and friend very mutually
attached . . . Emma doing just what she liked” (5). Emma
requires mastering because from early youth she has assumed the role of
mistress and exercised the independent will of a male adult. The
narrator announces the heroine’s danger on the first page: “The real evils
indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much her
own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself” (5). The
novel’s suspense generates from the concern evoked by the “problem” of
Emma’s too-great liberty and self-love; we wonder how these tragic flaws
will lead to “evils” and in what manner those evils will be resolved.
Ultimately,
they are resolved by the intervention of a fatherly lover. The
first and most important man in Emma’s life is her biological father, Mr.
Woodhouse. In a striking reversal,
she functions as his parent, caring for his needs and guiding him with
her superior understanding and emotional strength. “He
was a nervous man, easily depressed . . . hating change of every kind” (7).
Though much older than his daughter,
Mr. Woodhouse “could not meet her in conversation, rational or playful” (7).
Every way Emma’s inferior, he
cannot provide her with the figure of authority, wisdom, and strength that
the narrator asserts she so desperately needs. Instead,
he looks to her for leadership and comfort. In
short, “his talents could not have recommended him at any time” (7).1 Enter,
Mr. Knightley. He represents everything
that Mr. Woodhouse lacks, including physical and mental strength, action,
social savvy, and assertiveness. “Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and-thirty, was not only
a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly connected
with it as the elder brother of Isabella’s husband” (9). This
introduction to Mr. Knightley contains three references to his age. His
older-ness stamps him with the mark of a desirable sense and maturity,
where it marked Mr. Woodhouse with fussy absurdity and inertia. Knightley’s
“cheerful manner” (9) delights others while Mr. Woodhouse’s depressiveness
oppresses them. Thus, he seems a
more suitable father figure and role model for Emma than her biological
father is. With the approximately
seventeen-year age difference between himself and Emma, he bridges the
gap between her and her father, arguing with and scolding her in a manner
suggesting that of an older brother. As
Emma observes, “‘Mr. Knightley loves to find fault with me you know’”
(10). The
narrator adds that he was one of the few people who could see faults in
Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them: and though
this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew it would
be so much less so to her father, that she would not have him really suspect
such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by every body. (11) In
the role of teasing older brother or even well-wishing second father, Knightley’s
relationship with Emma seems satisfactory. We
know that “steadiness had always been wanting” (44) in her character and
that no one else really challenged her to grow and improve as he did. However,
there is a sadistic strain in Knightley’s hunger to dominate Emma and show
her every flaw he perceives in her ideas or actions, and a bizarre sexual
tension in his references to observing and participating in her growing
up.[2]
She
does not wish her father to know the paternal authority Knightley assumes
in judging her character and behavior. Indeed,
her biological father seems, in his confidence of Emma’s perfection and
indulgence of her wishes, more of a lover type than Knightley does. Meanwhile,
Knightley appoints himself the traditional fatherly roles of teacher and mentor.
He instinctively longs to
mold and control his protégée and rationalizes this impulse
as a generous desire to improve his beloved little Emma’s character. He
cannot help but remind her that his greater age signifies greater judgment:
“‘I was sixteen years old when you were born. . . . I have still the advantage
of you by sixteen years’ experience, and by not being a pretty young woman
and a spoiled child’” (99). Knightley treats Emma like a “spoiled child,”
but also continually admires and subconsciously desires the grown woman’s
sexualized body. His admission to
Mrs. Weston exposes this tension: “‘I confess that I have seldom seen a
face or figure more pleasing to me than her’s. But
I am a partial old friend. . . . I love to look at her’” (39). He
attempts to chasten his confession with a reference to his identity as
a paternalistic “old friend,” but his continual emphasis on the age difference
serves only to suggest the sexual voyeurism of his ongoing observation
of Emma’s developing physique. Even
when he finally proposes to her, he confesses, “‘I . . . have been in love
with you ever since you were thirteen at least’” (462). He
had begun to desire her before she was socially or physically a licit love
object. Significantly,
Emma’s relationship with Harriet manifests a similar dynamic, in which
Emma assumes the same role toward Harriet that Knightley had assumed toward
herself. She considers herself superior
to her beloved protégée, whom she strives to direct and influence.
Harriet
assists her project by possessing “a sweet, docile, grateful disposition
. . . only desiring to be guided” (26). Emma
also admires Harriet’s physical beauty: “She was a very pretty girl, and
her beauty happened to be of a sort which Emma particularly admired. She
was short, plump and fair, with a fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair” (23).
Harriet
is a fatted, docile calf to be fed and led around by Emma. Emma
both dominates and is attracted to Harriet, and becomes her father figure
as well as admirer.[3] Knightley
dislikes the intimacy between Emma and Harriet from the first. He
claims to both Mrs. Weston and Emma that his disapproval emanates from
social pragmatism and the instincts of foresight. In
actuality, he dislikes Emma’s assumption of the role of alpha male over
another when he longs to overpower her himself. Knightley
desires Emma’s subjection to someone, expressing regret for her mother's
death only because Emma “‘must have been under subjection to her’” (37).
It
maddens him that Emma is, as Mrs. Weston reminds him, “‘accountable to
nobody but her father’” (40), who grants her total license. Initially,
he denies and simultaneously admits his suppressed passion for Emma: “‘I
should like to see Emma in love, and in some doubt of a return; it would
do her good’” (41). He desires the
emotional control over Emma that she possesses over him. Perhaps
he recognizes the parallel between himself and Harriet as Emma’s subjects,
and wishes to terminate the women's friendship in order to eradicate the
reflection of his own subjugation. Yet Knightley
easily conflates the position of subjugation with the position of wife.
He reminds Mrs. Weston of her submission to Emma’s influence when she was
Miss Taylor, the governess-companion:
“‘you were receiving a very good education from her, on the very
material matrimonial point of submitting your own will, and doing as you
were bid; and if Weston had asked me to recommend him a wife, I should
certainly have named Miss Taylor’” (38). This
passage reveals Knightley’s view of the role of wife as one of obedience
and submission, and his conviction that Emma needs to be taught to obey
her own lesson. Knightley parades
himself as the personal authority on Emma, and assigns himself the task
of completing the unfinished girl’s training, while subconsciously striving
to prepare her to be a suitable wife for him. Emma
identifies and exposes Knightley’s patriarchal vision of marriage. She
mockingly suggests he marry Harriet (her wife of choice), who would provide
him with what all men desire--a beautiful, submissive woman of inferior
intellect who seeks to please and is willing to be molded: “‘I know that
such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every man delights in--what at once
bewitches his senses and satisfies his judgment. . . . Were you, yourself,
ever to marry, she is the very woman for you’” (64). Knightley
had himself spoken patronizingly of Harriet as in need of molding, but
had conceded to Robert Martin's plan to marry her because he “‘was willing
to trust to . . . her having that sort of disposition, which, in good hands,
like his, might be easily led aright and turn out very well’” (61). As
a fellow alpha male, Emma instinctively perceives the nature of men’s desired
romantic relationship with women, because it mirrors her own. The
only woman she dislikes is the one she cannot consider her inferior, Jane
Fairfax; the two women she loves most dearly submit the most to her sway.[4] Emma
has herself resolved not to marry, perceiving Knightley’s attitude as the
norm: “‘few married women are half as much mistress of their husband's
house, as I am of Hartfield; and never, never could I expect to be so truly
beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man’s eyes
as I am in my father's’” (84). One
might argue that all ends well–Knightley makes himself vulnerable to Emma
and recognizes her merit when he proposes. Emma
reciprocates his love and “submit[s] quietly to a little more praise than
she deserved” (475), rather than confessing her complete botchery of Harriet’s
concerns. Knightley and Mr. Woodhouse
have reversed roles again: the former becomes the admiring lover and the
latter regains the throne of the patriarch, in that Emma chooses her father
over her fatherly lover. “While her
dear father lived, any change of condition must be impossible for her.
She could never quit him” (448). Knightley
physically and symbolically submits to Mr. Woodhouse’s and Emma’s preeminence
by moving into their home.[5] However,
Knightley’s love itself seems inspired by Emma’s obedience to his will
and pleasure. His first romantic
impulse toward her–to kiss her hand–occurs when he discovers she has followed
his “faithful counsel” (375) in penitently reconciling with Miss Bates.
Moreover,
his marriage proposal itself seems prompted by her confession of blind
foolishness with regard to Frank Churchill. Perhaps
he longs to reward Emma for her obeisance to his greater insight. “‘I
have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman
in England would have borne it’” (430), Knightley avers, revealing that
he chose for a wife the woman most likely to submit to his authority. Indeed,
Austen seems to equate Emma's ultimate destiny with Harriet’s. Emma
has “but to grow more worthy of him, whose . . . judgment had been ever
so superior to her own” (475), while Harriet relies on a husband “who had
better sense than herself. . . . She would be never led into temptation,
nor left for it to find her out” (482).The
men love the women; the women defer to the men’s higher wisdom.[6] Emma
is structured such that each of the central characters feels a romantic
desire toward another character that either fulfills a significant paternal
function for him or her, or reminds him or her of someone who does. Thus,
Harriet develops an attraction to Knightley because he is the closest representative
of her social mentor and substitute father, Emma. Emma herself yearns for
Knightley because he represents an extension of her biological father;
while Emma simultaneously attracts Knightley because for him, she represents
an extension of her biological father, Knightley’s social patriarch. Austen
develops and critiques several profiles for potential fathers and lovers,
theorizing, in both contexts, the desirability of different degrees of
instructiveness, protectiveness, nurturance, egotism, and beneficence. From a feminist perspective, the question of who “wins” (man or woman; father, lover, or beloved) remains ambiguous throughout the novel. Scholars continue to struggle and fail definitively to determine the extent to which Austen satirizes or reinforces the gender status quo. One can at least conclude that in Emma, Austen explores the connections between socially imposed gender roles and personal aspirations to social influence. “Love” becomes a metaphor for social self-referentiality and parasitism. Characters begin with and return to their roots, whether of gender, class, family, or place, and to the familiar psychic essence of selfhood that these elements collectively represent. The only characters who earn true happiness are those who have learned enough to evolve while traversing this cycle of self. Notes [1]Katherine
Sobba Green argues that Austen offers “alternatives to the subject positions
society made available to women in her period” (153), citing Mrs. Bennet
and Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice as examples
of “maneuvering women [who] body forth patriarchy against their sex, for
in the absence of strong male characters, it is their business to manage
the traffic in women” (154). Emma
seems to pursue this role of substitute patriarch. Nonetheless,
both Emma and Pride and Prejudice suggest that women can
maintain such power and significance only by remaining single and lacking
“strong male characters” in their immediate households.
[2]Knightley
and Emma even discuss the brother-sister possibility, and reject it. Emma
clarifies their romantic potential as she accepts Knightley’s encouraged
invitation to dance: “‘You have shown that you can dance, and you know
we are not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper’”
(331).His emphatic response is “‘Brother
and sister! No, indeed’” (331).
[3]Gloria
Grass makes the persuasive claim that Emma “projects her [own] sexual fantasies
about . . . men onto her friend Harriet in order to avoid acknowledging
them in herself” (25).
[4]Susan
Korba analyzes this pattern in the novel, in which “power and sexuality
are inextricably linked” (145), and perceives Emma’s participation in the
patriarchal relational model of dominance and submission as manifested
through her matchmaking efforts (146), through which she exercises control
over women’s sexuality.
[5]Mary
Waldron interprets Emma’s marriage optimistically as one of continued argumentation
and negotiation, and as the romantic relationship in the novel that “holds
the possibility of becoming a balance of opposing but equal forces, rather
than the subjection of one personality to another’s” (156).
[6]Korba
holds a skeptical view of the novel’s outcome, arguing that Emma’s real
sexual desire is for women, and because lesbianism is not an option, she
resigns herself “to play woman and wife, to submit in her turn” (160).While
I am not persuaded of Emma’s lesbianism, I agree with Korba that Emma “is
able to take an erotic sort of pleasure in exercising mastery” (146).
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