Emma

Rating:
Summary: Shot by Emma's Arrow
Review: "Fffftt!" Cupid's arrow, once again, pierces the hearts of two unsuspecting people. Causing two people to fall in love, Cupid is known for his matchmaking. Similarly, Cupid is portrayed through Jane Austen's Emma. The protagonist, Emma, tries to find her best friend, Harriet, a husband. Emma is a well thought out, insightful novel. Despite the time gap between the time that Austen composed this novel and present day, the reader can still relate with characters. By developing a setting for Emma, Austen uses a realistic setting. For example, in the village of Highbury, class rank, reputation, and family background are major factors in marriage arrangements, which was a harsh reality during those times. Austen also develops Emma really well through her actions and decisions. Because Emma is a life-like character, she too makes mistakes. In addition, Emma also chooses to make decisions that make readers love and despise her. Creating unique love triangles, they contribute to the interesting and complex plot. For instance, Harriet has affections for Mr. Elton, however Mr. Elton has feelings for Emma, and Emma is trying to set up Harriet and Mr. Elton together. Using symbols, Austen is able to help readers recognize affections between characters. Showing his love for Emma, Mr. Elton keeps Emma's portrait of Harriet and makes a riddle for Emma and Harriet. However, Emma interprets Mr. Elton keeping the portrait and the riddle as his love for Harriet, but in fact symbolizes feelings for Emma. Also, Austen's themes are well carried out in arrogance and self-deception, and marriage. Thinking she's a perfect matchmaker, Emma is constantly proud of herself and her setups. However, she is unable to realize that marriage can't be playing around with. Ultimately, Emma was a very good book because of its great setting, characters, plot, symbols, and themes.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating!
Review: Perhaps what attracts most readers to Jane Austen's works is their divine sense of naivety. This sentiment holds true for her novel "Emma." It is so peaceful on the surface: no racial prejudices, terrorists, warring countries or incurable fatal diseases. However, if you delve beneath the surface calmness, you will always discover a period-related turmoil. For most young women in Austen's time, the turmoil related to marriage. Consequently, the novel "Emma" deals with this subject as well, told as usual in Austen's charming and witty voice.

The title character Emma is rather irked by the thought of marriage, which is also coupled with her devotion to her father. She is much happier to arrange marriages for others that to relate any such arrangements to herself. At the same time, being a member of the upper class entitles Emma to condescend to the less fortunate. This "duty" throws Emma in the path of poor young Harriet Smith, who unwittingly plays a great role in future events concerning such handsome gentlemen as Mr. Elton and Mr. Knightley.

Thusly, "Emma" ends up being a very charming novel, and a worthy escape from the difficulties of today. It is easy to get lost in Austen's language and the captivating characters, events, and places that are in this novel. I do have to give it 4 stars though, because the reader is led to believe that Emma is truly a strong, independent lady, but she ends up falling victim to the usual fate of women in this time period. I hope that I did not give too much away with that last statement, but then again, so much else goes on in this novel that I have not even hinted at!

Rating:
Summary: Emma - Noteable for dubious reasons
Review: There is one principle reason that Emma is remembered. It was written by a woman. If Jane Austen had been a man, her works would be regarded as banal and inconsequential works of little literary merit. The work is impressive considering that Austen came from a culture that repressed women (a characteristic that most female authors share), but beyond that it is a poor work.

There is a profusion of works of greater literary merit by women than what Austen offers, Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein", Kate Chopin's "The Awakening", Alice Walker's "The Color Purple", "Nectar in a Seive" by Kamala Markandaya, or a very fine piece "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston. All of these works have better characteristics than "Emma", and prove to be superior to all of Austen's writings.

Trust me, "Emma" is a waste.

Rating:
Summary: Mistakes, Misunderstandings, Misadventures
Review: I would classify this book as my favorite out of all the Jane Austen novels. It makes me cry everytime I finish it, because of The beautiful artwork of Austen's writing. Making all of Emma's mistakes seem so real, and her triphums seems as though they are your's. I see such a realism that only Austen seems to have mastered in her characters. Thought it always finishes with a happy ending, it gives hope that even as clueless (not meant to be a pun) as Emma is and how many stupid mistakes she made her efforts are rewarded with all of her matchmaking adventures coming to an end and everyone who was caught in the confusing love web being freed.

Rating:
Summary: I Doat - Doat - I Say, on Jane Austen!
Review: I am a burgeoning literary scholar, so it may be rather unfashionable, as I am told, to say that I am a Janeite - though I have never gone so far as to throw a tea-party in her honour, I will say that I am exceeding fond of her novels, her style, her characters, and her corrective social satire. If she were not dead, lo, these last 185 years, I would positively send her an elegantly written letter declaring my love. At any rate.

"Emma" is a fine novel, as though it lacked only my approbation to make it so. In it, Austen explores the vagaries of the marriage plot in the way only Austen can, with all the humour and satiric bite of which she is capable. She imagines a solipsistic community, Highbury, "a crowd in a little room," if you will, where everyone knows everyone else's business, and Emma Woodhouse, the 21 year old mistress of Hartfield, presides socially over all. Through and around Emma's point of view, Austen examines the various social, class, and economic relationships that hold the community together.

"Emma" begins with a very Doodian rhexis - the cut - Emma Woodhouse and her sedentary old father's society is broken up by the marriage of Emma's governess/best friend, Miss Taylor. Creating a sort of void in Emma's life, a newcomer to Hartfield, a 17 year old girl named Harriet Smith, becomes the intimate friend and a reclamation project of sorts for Emma. Emma, convinced the "natural daughter of somebody" must be, like Fielding's Tom Jones, related to someone of wealth and influence, tries tirelessly to play the matchmaker, filling Harriet's head with delusions of grandeur. Throughout the novel, Emma must face the chastisements of her landed neighbour, Mr. Knightley, the quiet support of Mrs. Weston (Taylor), and the temptations of a relationship of her own, while learning the limitations of her own understanding of the world in which she lives.

As in most of Austen's novels, "Emma" focuses on the changing nature of the English economy, and how it trickles into even the most secluded of English towns, forcing a reckoning and acknowledgment of the shift in English society from primarily aristocratic hierarchy to the moneyed-middle classes. That Emma is a young woman indicates that the transition must happen immediately, with the present generation, which is difficult, especially from Emma's privileged, though not exactly aristocratic vantage point, to understand and accept. The intrusion on Emma's peace by such characters as the young, ambitious vicar of Highbury, Mr. Elton, the up and coming interests of the merchant Cox family, the industrious farmer, Robert Martin, and the incessant bombast of Miss Augusta Hawkins (and her associations with Bristol, epicenter of the British slave-trade) provide a range of perspectives on the possibilities of the rising and increasingly influential middle classes - and the impact they have, even in so small a village as Highbury. Austen asks us to read the microcosm as in some ways, importantly representative of the macrocosm of England.

I think in all of these points of interest, at least to me, I've forgotten completely to say how deftly Austen presents these critical issues with such decided humour, grace of style, and flawless execution of plot and character development, as to make the most glaring philsophical and social issues seamlessly blend into the comic forefront of the novel! One finds it difficult not to laugh straight through the first three or four chapters altogether. Her characters, from the delightfully disturbing hypochondriac Mr. Woodhouse, to the initially unreadable Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax (who must foreshadow Jane Eyre), and the irrepressibly vociferous Miss Bates - are all well drawn and memorable. This review is getting really long and pretentious now, so I'll stop - go, start reading "Emma" this instant.

Rating:
Summary: Correction--This is NOT the Stevenson book.
Review: This is the great Jane Austen novel "Emma" (ISBN: 0553212737 for paperback), NOT the children's book written by the great James Stevenson, so please be careful when ordering this.

Though not his best, Stevenson's book is another fun tale by the renowned author/illustrator, and tells the story of a witch who discovers that magical power can be achieved with creativity and friendship. The two older witches are a bit too mean-spirited for my taste, but kids will have fun with Emma's clever solution. 4* for the Stevenson book, 5 for the more famous "Emma!"

Rating:
Summary: Best Jane Austen book I've read so far
Review: I've read Sense and Sensability, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, and most recently Emma, and while all of them are wonderful, this one was, to me, the most engaging. The characters are all really well developed, especially Emma, who is portrayed as incredibly human. You always like and sympathize with her, but sometimes you want to slap her. The story is, briefly, about Emma, who lives with her father Mr. Woodhouse. She has vowed herself never to marry, but loves to play matchmaker. She has just matched her former governess, "Poor Miss Taylor," up with Mr. Weston, and is quite proud of her success. Mr. Knightly, a neighbor and the brother of her older sister's (Isabella) husband (Mr. John Knightly), warns her about meddling, but she doesn't take him seriously. Soon Emma befriends a young girl of unknown parentage (she is illegitimate and her father, while providing for her care, remains anonymous) named Harriet. Harriet is in love with a farmer named Robert Martin, but Emma thinks that he is beneath her, so manages to talk her out of accepting his marraige proposal. Instead, thinking that she would be a perfect match for Mr. Elton, another local gentleman, encourages Harriet to set her sights on him. Harriet actually talks herself into being in love with him, until everything is ruined because Mr. Elton turns out to be in love with Emma instead. She turns him down and he leaves town, soon returning with a wife, whom no one likes.

Meanwhile, Mr. Weston's son (Mr. Frank Churchill), who was sent to be raised by his aunt when his mother died, comes to visit his father and flirts constantly with Emma, who is flattered and flirts back. She begins to think she might be in love with him, but when he leaves town again to go back to his aunt and uncle, her feelings cool down. Another out of town visitor, Jane Fairfax, who is the niece of the rather irritating Mrs. and Miss Bates, has also come. Jane is destined to become a governess because she does not come from a wealthy family. Emma and Frank had been speculating about her, because Emma thought she was secretly in love with her friend's husband and that was the reason for her coming, and Frank said he agreed. Emma is jealous of Jane anyway because she is more talented and accomplished than Emma, but whenever she says anything against her to Mr. Knightly, he defends her. Mrs. Weston tells Emma that she thinks Mr. Knightly is in love with Jane, which horrifies Emma because if Knightly marries, then her nephew would no longer be the heir of his estate. Meanwhile Frank Churchill returns and Emma thinks that Harriet is now in love with him. Harriet does say that she has feelings for a certain gentleman that they both know, and that she thinks Emma knows the one she means, and asks for advice about whether she has a chance and should persue it. Emma encourages her, and meanwhile realizes that she has feelings for Mr. Knightley. Then another problem arises. I don't want to say too much more because I don't want to spoil the story if you don't know it, but the plot becomes even more complicated before everything is resolved. But it's a great book and if you are only going to read one Jane Austen novel, this is the one to pick.

Rating:
Summary: enjoyable escape
Review: This was the first Jane Austen book I read and while not being in my opinion the best of her works it whet my appetite. The picture Jane Austen paints of Regency England is surely idealised but then I prefer books that give you a break from reality. Despite her very obvious faults I cannot say I found Emma to be as unlikable as she is often portrayed. One or two episodes made for rather tedious reading but they were short enough not to spoil the overall enjoyment.

Rating:
Summary: One of the least likable characters in literature.....
Review: True to Jane Austen's prediction that with the creation of her character Emma was a person that not many people would like, Emma is one of the least likable characters in British literature.

This snobby, rich and manipulating heroine was despicable to the end, yet the book was hilarious to read. The characterizations were complete and read like real and interesting people. There were the irriating Bates', the hypochondriac Father, the dashing and elegant neighbor and brother-in-law, the accomplished Jane Fairfax that Emma is fiercely jealous of, and the fawning lower class friend Emma wants to "set up."

The comic exchanges between characters, the complexity of the plot and the witty back-and-forth between the "players" makes reading Emma a lot of fun indeed. You don't have to like or agree with Emma the character to enjoy this great piece of literature. If not for Jane Austen's intriguing use of the English language that just sucks you in and holds you captive, I could have never gotten through this book with so much joy and entertainment for my clear disdain of the puppeteer Emma.

However, that's what makes the book a masterpiece and why we still enjoy it 200 years later. For a more true, well-rounded heroine, I prefer Anne of Persuasion and Elizabeth of Pride and Prejudice. Both novels have likable leading characters created by Jane Austen.

Emma is rich with complexity and rife with interesting, funny interludes and dialogue between the characters. Depite it's flawed main character, it was highly enjoyable to read.

Rating:
Summary: A Testament of Genius
Review: Because of its popularity, I believe the literary merits of "Emma" are perhaps overlooked. So much more than a mere "romance" novel, it is also one of the most humorous works of fiction ever written, rife with some of literature's most memorable and beloved characters. "Emma" remains my favorite of Austen's books and is a testament to my opinion that she is one of the greatest novelists of all-time, male or female.