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Unit 10: Emma Characterization and all Major and Minor Themes

Mrs. Bates Notes
Mrs. Bates is the widow of a former vicar of Highbury and the mother of Miss Bates. She is
considered a harmless old lady and is largely ignored by Highbury society.

Robert Martin
Robert Martin is a likable farmer who lives on Mr. Knightley’s estate. Emma convinces Harriet
to reject his first proposal of marriage because she believes that he is too coarse. He marries
Harriet at the end of the novel.

Mrs. Goddard

Mrs. Goddard is the mistress of a Boarding school where girls might be sent to receive a little
education. One of her former students is Harriet Smith, who now assists her.

10.1.1 Analysis of Major Characters

Emma Woodhouse

The narrator introduces Emma to us by emphasizing her good fortune: “handsome, clever,
and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition,” Emma “had lived nearly twenty-
one years in the world with very little to distress or vexes her.” But, the narrator warns us,
Emma possesses “the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to
think a little too well of herself.” Emma’s stubbornness and vanity produce many of the
novel’s conflicts, as Emma struggles to develop emotionally.
Emma makes three major mistakes. First, she attempts to make Harriet into the wife of a
gentleman, when Harriet’s social position dictates that she would be better suited to the
farmer who loves her. Then, she flirts with Frank Churchill even though she does not care for
him, making unfair comments about Jane Fairfax along the way. Most important, she does not
realize that, rather than being committed to staying single (as she always claims), she is in
love with and wants to marry Mr. Knightley. Though these mistakes seriously threaten Harriet’s
happiness, cause Emma embarrassment, and create obstacles to Emma’s own achievement of
true love, none of them has lasting consequences. Throughout the novel, Knightley corrects
and guides Emma; in marrying Knightley, Emma signals that her judgment has aligned with
his.
Austen predicted that Emma would be “a character whom no one but me will much like.”
Though most of Austen’s readers have proven her wrong, her narration creates many ambiguities.
The novel is narrated using free indirect discourse, which means that, although the all-knowing
narrator speaks in the third person, she often relates things from Emma’s point of view and
describes things in language we might imagine Emma using. This style of narration creates a
complex mixture of sympathy with Emma and ironic judgment on her behavior. It is not
always clear when we are to share Emma’s perceptions and when we are to see through them.
Nor do we know how harshly Austen expects us to judge Emma’s behavior. Though this
narrative strategy creates problems of interpretation for the reader, it makes Emma a richly
multidimensional character.
Emma does not have one specific foil, but the implicit distinctions made between her and the
other women in the novel offer us a context within which to evaluate her character. Jane is
similar to Emma in most ways, but she does not have Emma’s financial independence, so her

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