Short Paper #3 Assignment

Short Paper #3: Emma and the “Voyage of Discovery”

In his essay, “Regulated Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen,” D.W. Harding writes that “The impression of Jane Austen which has filtered through to the reading public, down from the first-hand critics, through histories of literature, university courses, literary journalism and polite allusion, deters many who might be her best readers from bother with her at all” (Norton, 378).  Yet Harding argues that the popular conception of Austen (as a calm symbol of a bygone age) belies the true power of her art, which he sees most completely in a novel like Emma, where Austen “offers her readers every excuse for regarding as rather exaggerated figures of fun people who she herself detests and fears” (Norton, 380). 

Many writers, as “The Reception of Jane Austen, 1815-1950” attests, had strong reactions to Emma, seeing it either as Austen’s “Hamlet” or her most confusing, diffuse (and even boring) work.  And indeed, Emma is one of the first works she wrote in her confident, late period when she was settled with a home and a ‘room of her own’ at Chawton.  So for your third short paper, I want you to examine what makes Emma so different from the earlier works?  Is Emma still a satire of rural society, class pretensions, and the marriage market?  Is she merely expanding upon old themes, reworking them, and stretching them to their absolute limits?  Or does Emma represent a new departure, a darker, more mature look into the life of men and women in the early 19^th century?  Is the reason so many people argue about the merits of this novel (see Austen’s own records of her friends’ reactions on pages 363-364) due to something “Shakespearean” in its form and content?  Do we get a glimpse here of Woolf’s statement that “was she not beginning …to contemplate a little voyage of discovery?” (Norton, 375)

In thinking about Emma’s unique qualities, consider the numerous opinions in “The Reception of Jane Austen,” and quote/discuss at least one of them for support.  Also consider some of the following ideas:

• Dialogue and conversation
• Characterization of men and women
• Satire and types: the “Wickham,” “Collins,” “Catherine de Bourgh”, etc.   
• Discussion of the outside world: the conditions of governesses, slavery, etc. 
• View of class: old money and new money, class pretensions
• Women and education
• Matchmaking and the marriage market
• The narrative voice
• The role of mothers or fathers
• Conventions of the novel

 REQUIREMENTS:

• 3-4 pages, double spaced
• at least one source from “The Reception of Jane Austen” (363-382)
• Due Tuesday, November 13, by 5pm