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Digvijay Pandya, Lovely Professional University Unit 10: Emma Characterization and all Major and Minor Themes

Unit 10: Emma Characterization and all Major and Notes

Minor Themes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
10.1 Major Characters
10.1.1 Analysis of Major Characters
10.2 Emma: All Major and Minor Themes
10.3 Summary
10.4 Keywords
10.5 Review Questions
10.6 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:
• Explain the analysis of major characters
• Discuss all the major and minor themes.

Introduction

Jane Austen began writing Emma in 1814, and the book was published anonymously for the
first time in 1816. Anne Taylor, Emma’s governess, who had been extremely close to both
Emma and her father, moves out to live with Mr. Weston. In the absence of this confidante,
Emma looks for a new friend and becomes acquainted with the seventeen years old, illegitimate
girl Harriet. Emma Woodhouse, a twenty-one-year-old girl. She lives with her father, her
mother already died at a very young age. So Emma was raised from the day of her fifth
birthday on by a governess, Miss Taylor. Emma herself says about Miss Taylor that she ‘fell
little short of a mother in affection.’ At the beginning of the novel, however, Miss Taylor has
just married Mr. Weston. So Emma is being left alone after sixteen years of companionship of
Miss Taylor. As much as she dislikes the fact that her governess married it was in fact she who
brought the two lovers together.

10.1 Major Characters

Emma Woodhouse

Emma Woodhouse is the protagonist of the story, is a beautiful, high-spirited, intelligent, and
‘slightly’ spoiled young woman of the age of twenty. Her mother died when she was very
young, and she has been mistress of the house ever since, certainly since her older sister got
married. Although intelligent, she lacks the necessary discipline to practice or study anything
in depth. She is portrayed as very compassionate to the poor, but at the same time has a strong

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