Physical union with Martin would be unthinkable for Emma; with Elton it might be grotesque and

disagreeable but not impossible. Elton, handsome, obliging, and flattering, isa more likely candidate
for Emma (and, therefore, for Harriet); but Emma tires of him-though Harriet does not-before the
affair runs to its climax. In every respect the experiment with Elton is a disappointmento Emma and
at last a disaster. Elton, heated by wine, considers the intimacy of the carriage a propitious setting
for coming to terms with the woman of his choice. After the revelation, each regards the others for
their plans, as a hateful and subversive plotter against status in a rigidly stratified society; and the
angry silence which follows their recriminations for mutual treachery leaves " no room for the little
zig-zags of embarrassment. h. When Emma reflects the next day on the clergyman's presumption-
the Eltons were nobody and the Woodhouses, " the younger branch of a very ancient family "-she
understands (and this is what is most provoking) that Elton does not even love her and that his
proposal was merely an act of " self-aggrandizemen. t." This is the final turn of the screw in the
comedy of errors: not only had Emma become directly involved where she had intended to
supervise. Before Frank appears in Highbury, a scene between Emma and Knightley establishes the
polar extremes from which each views the young man whom they know only by report: Emma
yearns toward her day-dream lover from outside Highbury and Knightley is alarmed by a portending
rival who may push, besides the advantage of novelty, the claims of youth upon Emma. Knightley,
whose life embodies the practice of eighteenth century enlightened benevolence, magisterially-and
quite unkindly-attempts to chart for Emma the compass points of right conduct which even so young
a man as Frank ought to follow. The heat of their conversation rises until Knightley announces that
Frank's letters " disgust" him. Emma sums up her image of what she expects Frank to be like. The
situation is a tense and ironic one. Emma believes precisely what she wants to believe about Frank,
and so does Knightley. That Emma predicts the appearance Frank assumes before the world, and
Knightley the reality underneath the appearance, is no credit to the prescience of either. For once
the " no-nonsense " facade that Knightley maintains collapses into folly. The neolithic structure at
once so formidably and so sensibly put together has no protection against the corrosive effects of
unreasonable jealousy. On the other hand, Emma's blankness over the intensity of Knightley's
feeling underlines her absorption in an illusion so strong that she is blind to the powerful reality
which surrounds her. When Frank does arrive, he creates the expected tremor of satisfaction in
Highbury. To say that Frank is a clever and agreeable young man is to understate the case. Frank is
an archetype of all clever young men who live by their wits and their charm, whose amiability and
good looks are their chief commodities, whose end in life is pleasure, and who do not flinch at
swindle in order to attain this end. He is a paragon of confidence men who apparently is destined to
obtain as much from the world as he chooses to demand of it. It is an ironical reward for Emma,
after her handling of Harriet, to be matched against such a master performer as Frank. The only
point at which she is his equal (it is her salvation) is that her egotism is as massive as his. Frank's
entry into Highbury complicates the comedy of illusion and reality of which Emma is the central
performerand chief victim. The " real " romance between Jane and Frank is concealed at Jane's
expense (Jane is the bereaved and silent lover), and the flirtation between Emma and Frank occupies
the attention not only of themselves but of all the interested observers of Highbury. . Jane watches
and is grieved; Knightley watches and is aggravated; the Westons watch and smile aproval. Always a
serious and fascinated student of her own psyche, Emma discovers that she is still more interesting
to herself now that she has achieved an attachment. First she confers upon Frank " the distinguished
honor which her imagination had given him, the honor, if not of being really in love with her, of
being at least very near it, and saved only by her own indifference . . ." (Chapter 25). Later, at a time
when Frank is on the verge of admitting his connection with Jane Fairfax and Emma wards off what
she suspects is a proposal, she decides that she must be in love with him " in spite of every previous
determination against it. she decides that she has exhausted the possibilities. of love without having
ventured into an area of excessive excitement; she " rationally " makes up her mind that the affair
will go no further; and she reassures herself about Frank that though his feelings are warm they are
changeable and he will not suffer too greatly from the loss. Finally, as a means of accomodating her
erstwhile lover, she hits upon the notion of accomodating Harriet as well and of effecting an
engagement between the two. All the while, the relationship between Jane and Frank moves toward
the crisis that brings about publication of their engagement. The announcement of Frank's
engagement and Harriet's revelation of her feelings toward Knightley follow close upon each other
(Chapters 46 and 47). The double surprise leaves Emma stranded in a condition of shocked isolation
amid the wreckage of her illusions. Emma cries fraud with a long, resounding wail when she learns of
Frank's long-standing connection with Jane Fairfax. They have all been duped, she says, by " a system
of hypocrisy and deceit, espionage and treachery " (Chapter 46). At the moment when she had
supposed the problem of the still inconveniently unattached Harriet to have been solved, Emma
finds out that she has been taken in by cleverness superior to her own. She cannot, however, find a
scapegoat outside of herself when Harriet informs her that since she has been taught the propriety
of seeking a socially superior husband, her once timid affections are now drawn upward to the
region inhabited by Knightley. " ' 0 God! that I had never seen her! "' is Emma's fervent but vain
ejaculation -the desperate wish of a no longer innocent young woman. Now every vestige of fancy is
effectively dislodged from her mind and she is left face to face with the significant reality-her love for
Knightley. After groping about after prismatic reflections of her own imagining, she is now caught,
surprised, with her hands outstretched and empty. The image Emma sees of herself is appalling:
except her feeling for Knightley, "every other part of her mind was disgusting" (Chapter 47). It is a
time of overwhelming moral defeat for Emma, the defeat of innocence before the unforeseen
hardship of reality. As in a fairy-tale where blessings are bestowed without any reference to the
merits of the recipient but according to the whimsy of an eccentric superior being, Emma is given
the reward she in no way deserves. Reality now is fantastic and the way of right reason Emma plans
to follow does not prepare her for Knightley's proposal. Jane Austen arranges the setting with an eye
for the magical distribution of gifts: after a morning of sullen weather the clouds are dispersed and
the sun appears. At this late stage of the novel Emma may not be a better woman than she was at
the beginning, but she is a different one. She has recognized her passion for Knightley as a force
qualitatively and quantitatively quite distinct from her indulgence in vicarious courtship or from her
flirtatious play with Frank. Her flirtation with Frank Churchill was an act of the will, an eccentric
compound of desire and imagination. Frank's charm is vast and surrounds Emma as late as their last
meeting before their respective marriages; but his shallowness is exhaustible whereas Emma is
confounded by the depth of Knightley's character. . Her affinity for Knightley is a movement of her
nature that operates uncontrollably in subterranean regions as well as on the surface. Nevertheless
when the challenge is most critical-when she believes she has lost Knightley-Emma responds most
effectively: not nobly but with a fixed purpose of settling her own future. During their walk in the
garden Emma resolves to hear her own fate, which is, she thinks, to lose Knightley to Harriet.
Ironically the reality she now determines to face is one of her last delusions. The unexpected
proposal she does hear staggers Emma, but not so much as to leave her incapable of viewing her
triumph with satisfaction. The connection between Knightley and Harriet, which had shortly before
seemed a logical possibility, now appears in its true perspective as so unequal and degrading a
match as to be unthinkable. In the sense that Emma has not only been awakened to an awareness of
what life has to offer but is even close to achievement. the novel has run its course. In addition,
there is the disposal of Harriet who is given over to the persistent farmer Martin and assigned a
position in society appropriate for the illegitimate offspring of neither nobility nor great wealth. And
Frank Churchill succeeds in winning over all the world of Highbury by his protestations of good intent
and by his fluent self-abasement. In her last meeting with Frank, Emma is in high spirits and it is clear
that though she favors Knightley, she is still excited by Frank's charm. She suggests to the young man
that he enjoyed his masquerade in spite of its inconveniences. In part Emma's ingenuousness causes
her to make the first. There is simply too much evidence of her virtue planted through the novel for
her to be regarded as a person of completely ruthless behavior: her piety toward her father is in
itself a singular example of devotion. In part, however, Emma makes an accurate hit. Pleasure in
power, which is a form of egotism, links these two characters. Emma is chiefly a novel of character -
the story of a heroine whom Jane Austen anticipated "no one but myself will much like.".
Nevertheless, the novelist has endowed Emma with good qualities and has provided firm basis in her
character for eventual redemption. "Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor
were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her counsel and her patience, as
from her purse. She understood their ways, could allow for their ignorance and their temptations,
had no romantic expectations of extraordinary virtue from those, for whom education had done so
little; entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and always gave her assistance with as much
intelligence as good-will".Moreover, it is Mr. Knightley's suggestion that he and Emma live at
Hartfield, not, as Mudrick asserts, a condition to marriage set by Emma, which removes the obstacle
of her father's comfort?"such an alternative as this had not occurred to her" . Jane Austen's skill is
patent. Emma's character develops and matures, perfectly within the credible limits of her nature as
established at the outset and maintained throughout the novel. There is no sudden, unconvincing
conversion, no "flood of repentance" that may be expected soon to recede (Mudrick, p. 200). After
the turning point of Emma's attitude and her genuine contrition following Box Hill, she undergoes an
extended process of chastening and illumination before she attains redemption. In Emma, she has
undertaken the much more difficult task of incorporating and correcting snobbery within the
character of the heroine herself. Emma's entering upon "a regular, equal, kindly intercourse" with
Miss Bates heralds the purgation of her snobbish flaw; her revised attitude toward Harriet and
Robert Martin evinces its completion. Nobility and wealth in Harriet's lineage represent figments of
Emma's imagination proved false by sober fact. Emma's opinion of Robert Martin sustains a similar,
though opposite, reversal. Whereas formerly she held him as beneath her notice (29), "a very
inferior creature" (33), "a completely gross, vulgar farmer" (33), by the close of the book, she can see
he is an "unexceptionable young man" (413). Now she assures Mr. Knightley that in her previous
objections to Martin, she "was a fool" (474); now, "It would be a great pleasure to know Robert
Martin" (475). And when he is introduced at Hartfield "she fully acknowledged in him all the
appearance of sense and worth which could bid fairest for her little friend. Still, by bringing Harriet
into equilibrium with Robert Martin, Jane Austen has not been betrayed by the beliefs of her own
time. Emma has none of her prior illusions about ceasing to be acquainted with the wife of Robert
Martin. Jane Austen unfolds the reorientation of Emma's character, just traced by means of a
rhythmic structure of situation and incident. h an event is no longer the melancholy one it was
exactly a year before. And Emma's having declared then that she would never accept a husband
ironically emphasizes the transformation she has undergone. Mr. Knightley, who brings comfort to
Mr. Woodhouse and wisdom and contentment to his daughter is, as twice formerly, present; but this
time he will not have to leave them at the end of the evening. Tranquillity has replaced the stress
created by Emma's misguided opinions and willful behavior. It is an artistically satisfying and
realistically acceptable conclusion. . She demonstrates that we cannot escape the consequences of
our acts, that love is not an emotion to be tampered with, and that marriage is not a game. Such
truths she inculcates objectively through Emma's progress from self-deception and vanity to
perception and humility.