Emma Gets Schooled

complete odds with how others receive that version in reality. Austen bends the rules of narration and uses free indirect discourse, a narrative technique in which the third person ceases to be omniscient and is invaded by the thoughts and feelings of individuals. We see this from the jump. Returning to that famously flattering opening line, it is not merely Austen telling us that Emma is “handsome, clever, and rich.” Emma herself is speaking to readers here. As Austen works out this middle voice throughout the novel, Emma’s façade unravels, revealing that one’s desire to control selfpresentation is simply an illusion.

Emma cannot see that even a carefully crafted presentation of herself does not guarantee that others will readily accept her as she wishes. Austen illustrates this gap in understanding in the Box Hill episode. Box Hill, a real park just outside of London, was a destination for daytrippers to escape the city rush and enjoy views of the countryside. Moreover, the wooded areas provided opportunities for wandering young couples to escape the gaze of chaperones. Emma and her party of eligible friends and older adult companions go on a highly anticipated outing to Box Hill for a picnic. In the early 1800s, picnicking was a relatively new phenomenon. Bringing a meal outdoors was a fashionable and almost scandalous pleasure party. The act of eating outside without the fineries and constraints of a table setting was a thrilling proposition. As a site of social disorder, Austen uses the picnic gone awry to reveal to readers, and Emma herself, that even a sterling self-presentation fails.

Ahead of the outing, Emma has carefully plotted and schemed how she would like the picnic to play out, but when the group arrives, characters splinter off in different groups than Emma had engineered in her mind. She is confronted with a reality that is different from her imagination. Emma is left with the homely and poor Harriet Smith, a pawn in many of Emma’s games, and Frank Churchill, the attractive but vain suitor. Annoyed, Emma rebuffs

Frank’s flirtations as an overly aggressive show of courting. When the larger group eventually comes back together, unprompted, Frank tells the party that Emma wants to know what everyone else has been thinking. Publicly attributing ideas to Emma that she does not actually have not only goes against her careful self-presentation, but offends social shan’t I? … Do you not all think I shall?” Miss Bates’s seemingly casual response actually demonstrates a significant amount of vulnerability and selflessness in her desire to save Emma from further humiliation. Keen readers will notice her wit, too; she has said exactly three rather dull things, offering herself up for ridicule. sensibilities. This is a shocking remark that is deeply embarrassing for Emma. Frank quickly tries to save the moment by saying Emma actually wants to play a game: everyone needs to go around and say “one thing very clever, or two things moderately clever; or three things very dull indeed.” Miss Bates, a middle aged spinster with nothing to her name but good nature, jumps right in to save the moment: “‘Oh! Very well… That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth,

Emma should be relieved to fade off into the background of the conversation after the spotlight shifts to Miss Bates’s silly remark. But, teetering on the precipice: “Emma could not resist.” Here again, Emma’s impulse slips into Austen’s narration: short but forthright, this simple observation is full of high drama. Emma cannot resist showing off and clapping back to re-establish dominance. She jumps in and berates Miss Bates: “‘Ah! Ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me—but you will be limited as to number— only three at once.” Emma one-ups Miss Bates in a show of power and control, desperately clinging to her ideal vision of herself.

The picnic ends awkwardly. On the way back to Highbury, Emma gets a dose of reality from the landowner and bachelor Mr. Knightley: “Emma…How could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her character, age, and situation?--Emma, I had not thought it possible.” Emma blushes and tries to laugh it off, but Mr. Knightley continues: “She is poor; she has sunk from the comforts she was born to…Her situation should secure your compassion. It was badly done, indeed! …[to] in thoughtless spirits, and [in] the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her–This is not pleasant, Emma.” Mr. Knightley’s admonishment underpins how Emma could operate for good. He points out that Emma’s desire to display herself as superior does not only insult Miss Bates, but actually counters the good effects that Emma could have, given her social position. Emma is for once forced to come to terms with the shallow nature of her desires: “Never had she felt so agitated, mortified, grieved, at any circumstance in her life. She was most forcibly struck. The truth of his representation there was no denying.”

Austen makes it clear that Emma’s sterling self-presentation lacks a vital component: empathy. Even after Mr. Knightley expressly instructs her to think about Miss Bates, Emma is “agitated, mortified, grieved” for herself, not for poor Miss Bates. Emma visits Miss Bates the next morning to smooth things over, but never attempts an outright apology. Emma believes her mere presence is enough to repent for her misgivings at Box Hill. She leaves without mentioning the faux pas and as she walks home, thinks, “[she] could not regret having gone to Miss Bates, but she wished she had left ten minutes earlier.” As the novel progresses, Emma’s marriage plots and schemes for her friends and herself fail spectacularly, undermining her position as the puppeteer of Highgrove snob-ciety.

Austen’s critique, then, is that selfimage crafted upon the perceived authority of social status—merely because that is the way things have been—renders Emma heartless and cruel. Without the capacity to understand others or act in a way that would benefit others at no expense, Emma has no authority, real or imagined. By allowing Emma’s thoughts and impulses to invade the narration, Austen’s critique becomes personal. Readers have an intimate view of Emma while also having the ability to see the entire tableau of Highbury. Providing this dual view gives readers a wider scope, which in turn creates an opportunity for reflection: how does the desire to hold tight to our own idea of selfimage stand up against the reality of human nature?