NOVEL

Jane Austen belongs to the tradition of the novel. Novel is definitively an aesthetic product of the 18th century. It is an accurate and authentic depiction of everyday life.

Realism is one of the defining characteristic of novel. It attempts to portray all the varieties of human experience.

Novel arose in a period whose general intellectual orientation was most decisively separated from its classical and medieval heritage by its rejection of universals. So, in the novel there is the rejection of universals, classes or abstractions  and the emphasis on particulars, concrete objects of sense-perception which are the true "realities".

Modern realism ,of course, begins from the position that truth can be discovered by the individual through his senses and from the novel's use of non-traditional and fixed plots because individual  experience is always unique and therefore new.

The way through which the novelist typically indicates his intention of presenting a character as a particular individual in the contemporary social environment is by naming him in exactly the same way as particular individuals are named in ordinary life.

In addiction to it, time is conceived as the shaping force of man's individual history.

A novel is one of the mixed genres: in the novel you can find influences from poetry, drama, theatre or comic attitude.

The novel parodies other genres. It exposes the conventionality of their forms and their language. Incorporates them into its own peculiar structure, re-formulating and re-accentuating them.

Jane Austen is one of the most important neo-classical novelists but she is sometimes romantic. On the one hand she is so clear, so ordered and controlled but at the same time we have definite references to other attitudes of the century, for example sensibility and romance.

We may conclude that she uses the novel but also the romance even if she parodies it. In this sense she is neoclassic. ( She was born in 1775 and died in 1817)

EMMA

Emma was published in 1816 and there was a dedication to the prince regent.

SOCIAL-HISTORICAL  APPROACH

The text is historically significant. It describes the 18th century society which is socially changing. There is a new middle class made of tradesmen, professionals, industrials. Mr. Weston is the representative.

Mr. Knightley is a gentleman who has understood the importance of trade. He is a business man.

Mr. Weston once was a captain, then he changed his profession to trade. He is a typical tradesman who builds his fortune through business.

Mr. Woodhouse is the real gentleman because he doesn't work.

The main important values of this society are: respectability, good sense, gentility, good manners, decorum, decency, social aspirations, authority. All these values pass through land. The real property is the landed-gentry.

All text is about the relevance of rank ( pride was one of the main characteristics of high rank people) and the necessity of social nobility. Nobility can be accepted when there is moral superiority of conduct (obliging, sensitive, sensible conduct).

So, superiority in social position is different from superiority in conduct.

In the society depicted by Austen there is a social ladder made of:

ARISTOCRACY.

SQUIERARCHY: little aristocracy, religious representatives (the Churchills).

LANDED GENTRY: the gentry of the country who have wealth in land (Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Knightley).

UPPER-MIDDLE CLASS: industrialists, professionals, tradesmen (Mr. Knightley, Mr. Weston, Mr. Elton ).

MIDDLE-MIDDLE CLASS: teachers, tenant farmers (Mr. Martin).

LOWER-MIDDLE CLASS: craftsmen, people who built houses, made furniture .

WORKING CLASS: people who left the countryside and decided to settle in the town: typical urban phenomenon.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS: people who cultivate land.

LABOURING POOR: people who don't work steadily.

THE POOR: people who don't work at all.

PSYCHOLOGIC NARRATION, INTROSPECTIVE DISCOURSE

Emma is an heroin within an individual approach. She is a tragic and a comic hero.

Emma was an orphan , she was brought up by a governess, Emma loved her, had much affection her. Emma wasn't educated in some strict way, so, Miss Taylor, the governess, didn't have any authority over her.

Emma is a realistic but also too romantic character.

She is benevolent, happy, naturally generous. She appears as an idealized heroin.

Emma doesn't perceive any danger in her attitude and her approach to life.

She lives as if she is in a state of blindness, she dreams a lot, there is a train of desires in her mind, she transfers her dreams in the reality. She is egocentric, she believes to be a match-making because she thinks that she has promoted the match between Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston.

She is closed, sealed but, above all, she is constantly supported by her father who considers her a perfect creature even though she can't talk with him.

Emma's father was a valetudinarian, concerned about other people's health, he is eccentric, a typical character of the comedy of humors.

He is nervous, weak, sensitive, he has a lot of fears. He is closed in his beliefs. He always groans and says "poor" referring to everything.

As her father, Emma is full of pride because she belongs to the highest level of society. She despises tradesmen and denies a change. She has got a lot of prejudices because she is romantically blind and also because she is weak and frail, she doesn't have the right knowledge and experience of people and of world.

Emma chooses for a friend not her equal but the soft, stupid Harriet Smith. Emma is conscious of being morally and socially superior, knows she has to be respected. Emma wants to protect her and Harriet would be grateful to her. But this is not a friendship, this is the pleasure of management.

She romances reality but accuses the others of exaggeration. She misunderstands people, and sees only what she wants to see with her imagination. The writer immediately repudiates her.

Emma must come out from this closed and fantastic world of her own, she needs the direct contact with the whole universe of society to grow and to understand the real needs of people. In this way we have the so-called "dialectic": individual-society.

Finally we can say that in this novel, the hero is not portrayed as an already completed and unchanging person but as one who is evolving and developing, a person who learns from life.

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

Now the particular structure of communication between author and reader is changed.

In Emma, Jane Austen employs the FREE INDIRECT SPEECH ,a way in which the narrator expresses characters' feelings, emotions.

The official speaker is the narrator but the thoughts belong to the characters, they judge according to their social values. Jane Austen tries to be objective but she isn't.

Thanks to this technique the text becomes more dramatic and theatrical because the distance between the reader and characters is shortened.

Another particular feature of novel is the CONVERSATION  which comes from theatre.

In Jane Austen the conversation is functional to the plot, to the characters and to the exation of the social and historical background.

There is a CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF EVENTS except for few flashbacks and few flash forwards.

2) DURATION: there is a SCENIC REPRESENTATION OF REALITY (thanks to conversation and dialogue).

3) FREQUENCY: there is a PRESENTATION OF SINGLE EVENTS (one-to-one), there is NO REPETITION OF THE SAME EVENT.

4) FOCALIZATION: it is the choice of specific point of view. We have NARRATOR'S VOICE, CHARACTERS' VOICES AND FREE INDIRECT DISCOURSE (narrator narrates events from the characters' point of view).Characters' values are different from narrator's values. It is up to the reader to choose between these two perspectives.

Each character is viewed from a specific point of view:

*MR WOODHOUSE: paternalistic, egoistic, narcissist, conservative.

*MR KNIGHTLEY: active, believes in progress, doesn't want an interfering conduct. He is the voice of good sense.

*MR WESTON : responsible, pragmatic, sensible person.

*MR ELTON : vicar, looks for a marriage of interest.

*MR MARTIN: tenant farmer, active and pragmatic. He represents British progress values.

MISS TAYLOR ♥ MR WESTON ( once with MISS CHURCHILL)

FRANK CHURCILL (Mr. Weston's son was adopted by his aunts) ♥ JANE not EMMA

HARRIET SMITH ♥ MR MARTIN not MR ELTON

EMMA ♥ MR KNIGHTLEY

Emma who wanted to manipulate people, is thus manipulated and from an author of plots she becomes the victim of the plot. But Emma's love for Knightley is not romantic; it more or less proprietary.