Ebs-Thesis 21.Mdi
A STUDY OF CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS OF “VICTORIAN SOCIETY” AS REPRESENTED BY CHARACTERS IN JANE AUSTEN’S EMMA
A Thesis Presented to the Graduate Program in English Language Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Magister Humaniora (M.Hum.) in English Language Studies
By:
Eko Budi Setiawan Student Number: 026332009
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2007
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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
This is to certify that all the ideas, phrases, and sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the ideas, phrases sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full consequences including degree cancellation if he took somebody else’s ideas, phrases, or sentences without proper reference.
Eko Budi Setiawan
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE …………………………………………………………………….. i Statement of Thesis Approval ...………………………………………………… ii Statement of Thesis Defense Approval ………………………………………….iii Statement of Originality ………………………………………………………… iv Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………v Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………..……… vii Abstract …………………………………………………………………………viii Abstrak ……………………………………………………………………………x
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study……...……………………………………….….1 B. Problem Limit ation……...……………………………………………….. 5 C. Problem Formulation………...………………………………………..…..5 D. Research Goals……………………………………………………….…....6
CHAPTER II : REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE, THEORETICAL
REVIEW, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
A. Review of Related Literature..…..………………………………………...7 B. Theoretical Review……………………………………………………....12 1. Marxism in Literature………………………………………………....12 2. The Definition of Class………………………………………………..14 3. Frederick Jameson’s Marxism………………………………………...16 4. Victorian Era…………………………………………………………. 21 a. Victorian Era in England ………………………………………….. 21 b. The Values of Victorian Era in Emma .…………………………. 25 5. Hegemony of Victorian Era in Emma ………………………………. 25 6. Contradiction ……………………………………………………….…26 C. Theoretical Framework…..……………………………………………....29
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Subject Matter…………………………………………………………....32 B. Research Procedure……………………………………………………....33 C. Data Analysis…………………………………………………………….34 D. Research Sources………………………………………………………...34
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CHAPTER IV: THE ANALYSIS OF CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS OF “VICTORIAN SOCIETY” AS REPRESENTED BY
CHARACTERS IN EMMA
A. The Economic Base as the Foundation of Class Formation….…………36 1. The Dominant Class………………………………………………...…37 a. Emma Woodhouse…………………………………………...…..…38 b. Mr. George Knightley…………………………………..…….…….47 2. Class between the Dominant and Laboring Class ……………………52 3.Laboring Class………………………………………….……………...55 a. Miss Bates ……………………………………………..…………...56 b. Robert Martin………………………………………………...……..57 B. Ideology as a Means to Maintain Class Status……………….……….…60 1. The Dominant Class…………………………………………………...60 a. Emma Woodhouse ..………………………………………………..61 b. Mr. George Knightley ………….………………………………….64 2. The Laboring Class …...……………………………………………....67 a. Mr. Robert Martin …………..……………………………………...68 b. Miss. Bates …………..……………………………………………..70 C. The Class-Contestation in Emma ……….………………………………72 1. Conflicts between the Dominant and Laboring ………………………73 a. The Conflicts between Emma Woodhouse and Robert Martin……75 b. The Conflicts Between Emma Woodhouse and Miss. Bates…….... 80 2. Conflicts within the Dominant………………………………………...80
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusions………………………………………………………………86 B. Suggestion……………………………………………………………..…88
BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………….. 89 APPENDICES: 1. The Synopsis of Emma ………………..……………………………………..91 2. The Biography of Jane Austen ………………………………………………. 97
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Acknowledgements
I thank Jesus Christ for blessing me and guiding me in conducting this research. His love and guidance have helped me and motivated me to accomplish this thesis. I believe in Him because He exists in my life.
Second I would like to appreciate Dr. St. Sunardi, my advisor for patiently giving me help, great and insightful ideas as well as encouragement. Then, I would also like to say much thank to Dra Sri Mulyani, M.A. and Drs. Fx. Siswadi,
M.A. who have also given me comments, inputs, references and constructive encouragement in the writing process. Furthermore, I will remember all lecturers’ kindness and love at my class (the students of 2002) in ELS.
I offer special thanks to B.Justisianto, Pr.Lic.Phil., the Rector of the
University of Widya Mandala Madiun for pursuing a higher level of education and for your financial assistance (via APTIK) and chance for my better merit.
Next, My gratitude goes to Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, M.A., the Head of English
Language Studies of Sanata Dharma University. Thanks are also due to my classmates in ELS. Their advices, jokes have been appreciated.
Accordingly, my super thanks deliver to my lovely wife, Yohana and my beloved daughters, Icha and Anggie. We are the happy family and some of our dreams will come true.
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ABSTRACT
EKO BUDI SETIAWAN, S.S. (2007). A Study of Class Consciousness of Victorian Society as Represented by Characters in Jane Austen’s Emma. Yogyakarta: The Graduate Program in English Language Studies, Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta.
This study discusses a novel entitled Emma written by Jane Austen. Emma portrayed the lives of different classes in Victorian society through its characters. This classification of people is due to some factors such as economics, ideology, taste, hegemony and language. Each character in Emma is the representation of the classes exists in the novel. Each class member could attend the same balls without being really interfered by their different social classes. In this novel, of which the perfection of balance and style reflects the ultimate searching for elegance, everyone has her or his place, and everybody ultimately stays in it. In order to maintain their class status, each character uses different way. In doing so, there are some conflicts between and within characters. The conflicts, then, create a new atmosphere that forces each character to realize her or his class existence. The explanation above has evoked the writer’s curiosity to find out the class consciousness of Victorian society as represented by the characters in Emma. Three problems related to the topic of this thesis are: (1) How is the class- distinction of Victorian Society depicted in Emma?, (2) How do the bourgeoisie and proletariat maintain their social status in Victorian Society as represented by characters in Emma?, and (3) How is the contestation of class interest of Victorian Society in Emma? In order to answer the problems, a Marxist theory by Jameson is employed. In his theory, Jameson argues that the needed utopian ideology must be not only economic but also, indeed supremely, social and cultural. The utopian ideology needs not only plans for the egalitarian reorganization of economic production, such that people’s material needs are met, but also plans for new forms of affective and aesthetic life, such that people's emotional and spiritual needs are met. This theory is applicable in Emma, since the characters are engaged to each other not only based on the economic as a means of production, but also on the ideology, social and cultural aspects. Based on the analysis, the class formation in Emma is not only based on the economic of each character, but also based on the ideology, taste and hegemony, and language. They, altogether, form classes and influence the characters in maintaining their class status. People who possess huge economic base are the representation of the dominant class, whereas the others represent the laboring class. Because of their economic base, Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley could have comfortable lives. Therefore, they are the representation of the dominant class. On the contrary, Miss Bates and Robert Martin have hard lives and they are the representation of the laboring class. Each member of the class tries to climb their status, unexceptionally Emma Woodhouse and George
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Knightley. They act differently in order to maintain their class status. Emma Woodhouse is said to be snobbish, vain, manipulative, power-hungry, self- deluded, often indifferent to the feelings of others, and on at least one occasion scathingly cruel, whereas George Knightley was said to be a sensible gentleman. In the relation between characters, some conflicts arise between and within the members of classes. The conflicts between classes are shown by the relationship among Emma Woodhouse, Robert Martin, and Miss Bates. The conflict within class is shown through the relationship between Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley. These conflicts finally bring each character into class consciousness.
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ABSTRAK
EKO BUDI SETIAWAN, S.S. (2007). A Study of Class Consciousness of Victorian Society as Represented by Characters in Jane Austen’s Emma. Yogyakarta: Program Pasca Sarjana Kajian Bahasa Ingris, Universitas Sanata Dharma , Yogyakarta.
Penelitian ini mengulas sebuah novel berjudul Emma yang ditulis oleh Jane Austen. Emma menggambarkan kehidupan kelas-kelas yang ada pada masyarakat Victorian melalui karakter-karakternya. Pengkotak-kotakan masyarakat ini dikarenakan beberapa faktor seperti ekonomi, ideologi, hegemoni rasa, dan bahasa. Setiap karakter di Emma adalah perwakilan dari masing-masing kelas. Setiap anggota kelas dapat menghadiri sebuah jamuan tanpa benar-benar terganggu oleh perbedaan kelas diantara mereka. Di novel ini, yang mana kesempurnaan bentuk dan gaya merupakan tujuan akhir sebuah kemewahan, setiap orang mempunyai tempatnya masing-masing dan setiap orang tetap pada kelasnya. Untuk memelihara status kelas mereka, setiap karakter melakukan hal yang berbeda-beda. Pada pelaksanaannya, ada beberapa konflik yang muncul antara karakter dan intern karakter. Konflik-konflik itu kemudian menciptakan suasana baru yang memaksa setiap karakter untuk menyadari keberadaan kelasnya masing-masing. Penjelasan diatas menggugah keingintahuan penulis untuk menemukan kesadaran kelas yang ada pada masyarakat Victorian seperti yang ditunjukkan oleh oleh karakter-karakter di Emma. Ada tiga masalah yang berhubungan dengan dengan topik thesis ini: (1) Bagaimana perbedaan kelas dalam masyarakat Victorian digambarkan dalam Novel Emma?, (2) Bagaimanakah kaum kaya dan kaum miskin memelihara status sosial mereka di masyarakat Victorian seperti yang direpresentasikan oleh karakter-karakter di Novel Emma?,dan (3) Bagaimanakah persaingan kepentingan kelas di masyarakat Victorian dalam Novel Emma? Untuk menjawab masalah-masalah tersebut, digunakanlah teori Marxist yang ditulis oleh Jameson. Jameson beralasan bahwa kebutuhan ideologi masyarakat utopia bukan hanya dalam hal ekonomi tetapi juga sosial budaya. Ideologi masyarakat utopia membutuhkan bukan hanya rencana untuk persamaan ekonomi, misalnya terpenuhinya kebutuhan ekonomi semua orang, tetapi juga rencana untuk kehidupan estetika yang baru., misalnya kebutuhan emosional dan spiritual masyarakat terpenuhi. Teori ini dapat dipakai untuk menganalisa Emma karena setiap karakter berhubungan satu demngan yang lainnya bukan hanya berdasarkan ekonomi sebagai sarana produksi, tetapi juga berdasarkan pada aspek ideologi, sosial dan budaya. Berdasarkan analisis, pembentukan kelas di Emma bukan hanya berdasarkan pada tingkat ekonomi setiap karakter, tetapi juga berdasarkan ideologi, hegemoni rasa, dan bahasa. Mereka bersama-sama membentuk kelas dan mempengaruhi karakter dalam usahanya mempertahankan status kelas mereka. Orang yang memiliki dasar ekonomi yang sangat banyak merupakan perwakilan
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kelas dominant, sedangkan yang sebaliknya mencerminkan kelas pekerja. Karena dasar ekonomi mereka, Emma Woodhouse dan george Knightley menjalani kehidupan yang nyaman. Oleh karena itu mereka berdua dikategorikan dalam kelas dominant. Sebaliknya, Miss Bates dan Robert Martin menjalani kehidupan yang susah dan mereka cerminan dari kelas pekerja. Setiap anggota kelas berusaha untuk menaikkan status mereka, tak terkecuali Emma Woodhouse dan George Knightley. Mereka bersikap berbeda. Emma Woodhouse dikatakan bersifat manja, sombong, suka mengatur, haus kekuasaan, suka berkhayal, acuh tak acuh terhadap perasaaan orang lain, dan kejam, sedangkan George Knightley dikatakan sebagai pria yang bijaksana. Dalam hubungan antar karakter, muncul beberapa konflik intra dan inter karakter. Konflik intra karakter ditunjukkan oleh hubungan antara Emma Woodhouse, Robert Martin, dan Miss Bates. Konflik dalam kelas ditunjukkan oleh hubungan antara Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley. Konflik-konflik ini pada akhirnya membawa setiap karakter menuju kesadaran kelas.
xi CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
In our everyday lives, many of us use the language of class to refer to a social hierarchy and knowing your place within it. Scott (1999: 1) states that class is a matter of breeding and of social background. It is reflected in our attitudes and our lifestyles, our accents, and our ways of dressing. Class distinctions are tied to a world of tradition and subordination that no longer exists and the language of class is incompatible with contemporary attitudes and values.
Throughout history, men and woman have expressed their dissatisfaction with their present condition through written and spoken words. In Britain, as in other countries, writers have often questioned the values held dear by the majority of their country people. Thinkers in a society, writers among them, are the persons most likely to examine prevailing values and to discern flaws in the social structure before these flaws have been recognized by society as a whole.
Williams (2001: 63) states that cultural history must be more than the sum of the par ticular histories, for it is with the relations between them, the particular forms of the whole organization, that it is especially concerned. Furthermore, he defines the theory of culture as the study of relationships between elements in a whole way of life. It can be concluded that analysis of the culture is the attempt to discover the nature of the organization, which is the complex of these relationships.
1 Jameson (1981) provides a model for literary-historical analysis which emphasizes the function of literary genres in ideology production and which places genres in their contemporary social formations. Jameson asserts an inevitable interrelationship between the aesthetic value and the specific historicity
(seen in terms of ideological function) of the literary text. Additionally, Jameson
(1981: 79) suggests that from this perspective, ideology is not something which informs or invests symbolic production; rather the aesthetic or narrative form is to be seen as an ideological act in its own right, with the function of inventing imaginary or formal solutions to irresolvable social contradictions.
Jameson attempts, in symbolic struggle between textual typifications of the bourgeoisie and the nobility, to ask how the force necessary to bring about a return to the old order can be imagined without severe social disruption ( 1981:
173). Jameson’s notion of ideology thus has a strong narrative component.
Textual interpretation is a matter of symbolic acts of a novel or romance, which represent the imaginary resolution of a real contradiction in social relations. Texts become, as it were, optional trial runs on a historical problem, daydreams about the nightmare of history (1981: 174).
The conflict of social classes establishes the reasons upon which ideological conflicts arise (Paris, 1978). Literature and art belong to the ideological sphere, but possess a relationship to ideology which is often less direct even than is found in the case of religion, legal and philosophical system
(Brooker, 1997: 89). Langland (1948: 7) clarifies that literature can mean something beside itself as soon as an author makes selection arrangement, and
2 organization of the desperate elements of culture; the arrangement takes on meaning and value. Different authors may depict society differently but society plays essentially the same formal role that is antagonist to individual protagonist.
Society becomes a context to the characters’ growth and self-realization.
McKernan (1993: 7) says that Jane Austen writes about a world long gone and regretted – a golden age of leisured gentlemen and ladies, comfortable, elegant, redolent of a vanished simplicity and taste. She provides for some an escape from the bleakness of time. Austen writes about a world that is insular, middle-class and deadly. McKernan (1993: 10) also states that class, the great winnower, is the major preoccupation of Emma. In this novel, whose perfection of symmetry and style reflects the ultimate quest for elegance, everyone has their place, and everybody ultimately stays in it.
Emma as one of Jane Austen’s novels dramatizes the tensions between a pre-capitalist, feudal order in which status hierarchies are strictly maintained and a capitalist order in which vertical social mobility is more possible through merit.
These tensions are embodied in the figure of Mr. George Knightley. He criticizes
Emma’s attempts to raise Harriet Smith out of her station and his estate of
Donwell Abbey represents a fixed, stable, stratified and coherent order associated with this vision of society as inherently hierarchical. He fails to see either that this social mobility is the very thing which capitalism makes possible, or that by reinvesting his profits on the land at Donwell Abbey.
Mr. George Knightley is a personification of the agrarian capitalist, who spends the little spare money, he has frugally and who sensibly reinvests his
3 profits in the farm. He prefers looking to his accounts than dancing and recognizes in his tenant Robert Martin a man who shares his own values, despite their differences in rank. The character of Mr. George Knightley, then, can symbolically resolve the determinate contradictions, which are registered within the novel. He combines the elegance and refinement of the natural aristocrat with the moral, capitalist virtues of industry and thrift. This symbolic act is possible within Austen’s notorious limit of three or four families in a country village.
Emma portrayed the lives of different classes in Victorian society through its characters. There are upper class, middle class and lower class people who could attend the same balls without being really interfered by their different social classes. However, there is still a feeling of superior towards others as represented by the characters of Emma Woodhouse when she deals with Miss Bates and
Robert Martin.
The Victorian Age, which spans from 1837 to 1901, is chronologically divided into three, namely early, middle, and late Victorian Age. Although Emma was written in 1816 (the early of nineteenth century), Jane Austen has successfully foreshadowed the early Victorian Age. The characters and society in
Emma depict the early Victorian Age. This can be seen from the balls that the characters held, from the clothes they wear, from the speech and action they conduct, and from the relationship between characters. Accordingly, this research focuses on Austen’s work to Victorian society not based on the chronology but some shared values aspects in Emma and Victorian Age.
4 Based on the above facts, the writer is inspired to conduct a research focusing on class-consciousness of Victorian society in Emma.
B. Problem Limitation
This research focuses on Jane Austen’s Emma. The analysis will be concentrated on the Victorian society’s class-consciousness interpreted by characters. In order to make this writing focus on the main problems, issues of social status in Emma are covered. Secondly, the writer of the thesis also depicts the class-distinction and class interest of Victorian Society as portrayed on the char acters through their dialogues or conversations and all statements stated by the narrators in Emma. Thirdly, the depiction of bourgeoisie and proletariat maintain their social status will be interpreted. Those aspects will be analyzed in this research. The study also tries to describe the cultural background of the novel besides the biographical data of the novelist. Although the dialogues and conversations in the novel indicate colloquialism and their local color, all of these linguistic features will not be analyzed as an independent aspect since they belong to certain class of society, which in this research will be included in the analysis of cultural aspects.
C. Problem Formulation
Having considered the problem limitation of the thesis, some questions are raised. There are three questions, and all are based on class-consciousness of
5 Victorian Society in Emma. Then, those questions will be answered in the analysis of the thesis. Those questions can be stated as follows:
1. How is the class-distinction of Victorian Society depicted in Emma?
2. How do the bourgeoisie and proletariat maintain their social status in
Victorian Society as represented by characters in Emma?
3. How is the contestation of class interest of Victorian Society in Emma?
D. Research Goals This thesis tries to explain Emma as an evidence of British culture, especially in Victorian Era of the British history. Those main objectives are formulated in the following statements.
1. To depict the class-distinction of Victorian Society in Emma.
2. To present how bourgeoisie and proletariat maintain their social status in
Victorian Society as represented by characters in Emma
3. To describe the contestation of class interest of Victorian Society in Emma.
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REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE,
THEORETICAL REVIEW, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
A. Review of Related Literature The focus of research and criticism relating to Austen’s works, as one might imagine, has fluctuated somewhat over the years, particularly as it relates to
Emma. When Austen wrote Emma, her contemporary critics were trying to discern its meaning, and scholars today are still laboring over what Austen might have been trying to say. As might be expected, critics of her day and the years immediately following saw this work as belonging in the genre of the romantic novel; possible complex properties or abstract meanings were not analyzed. Many of the recent criticisms, however, have focused on the feminist and ironic qualities of Austen’s work; others deal with the different aspects of Austen’s innovative method of alternating narrative consciousness and voice.
This latter group examines Austen’s technique for allowing the reader to become intimately acquainted with her main character. However, even older critics, that was Wayne Booth (1960s), studied and analyzed her method of narrative consciousness. Although the center of Booth’s work deals with Austen’s control of distance in the minds of her characters, he, too, discusses the reader’s increasing intimacy with the protagonist. One narrative technique discussed is the free indirect style of narration and how it creates for the reader an illusion of entry into the consciousness of fictional characters.
7 The criticism by Austen’s contemporaries reveals that some features of
Emma, as a romantic novel, were valued while others were not. In the Quarterly
Review for 1815, Sir Walter Scott declared that there was really not much substance to Emma. (Scott, 1972: 52)
Scott (1972: 12) abbreviated the list of the cast of characters, and took the story at face value, equating unassuming and unpretentious with inconsequential.
Accordingly, he has not attributed any of the features of Austen’s style of writing to the purpose of the novel. Nor does he consider any of the implications of the placement in society of Austen’s characters. It should be pointed out that Scott made a telling shift from plot to character in his review.
When viewed in today’s context, these particular remarks might be termed as damning with faint praise. He delves not into the development of Austen’s characters, but, rather, treats them as static, arbitrary, familiar figures. He has, with a few words, marginalized Austen’s Emma as a shallow, non-taxing fable.
His reading of the novel has touched only the surface of her text. (Scott, 1972:
151)
Years after that, Casey Finch and Peter Bowen in their article “The Tittle-
Tattle of Highbury: Gossip and the Free Indirect Style in Emma (1990),” quote from a study by V. N. Voloshinov and Mikhail Bakhtin that essentially deconstructs the free indirect style:
….. any utterance in free indirect style is treated by the narrative machinery “as an utterance belonging to someone else, an utterance that was originally totally independent, complete in its construction, and lying outside the given context.” From its “independent existence,” this utterance is transposed into an authorial context
8 while retaining its own referential content and at least the rudiments of its own linguistic integrity. “Paradoxically, the free indirect style enables the representation of a seemingly private, independent subject—able to speak his or her own mind at any time—even as it guarantees public access to any character’s private thoughts. Indeed, the dual nature of each character’s interiority—at once perfectly private and absolutely open to public scrutiny—is ensured by the un-nameable and un-locatable nature of the narrator’s voice. It is by thus keeping secret the source of community concern—for we can never know precisely who speaks in the free indirect style— that the novel makes public the private thoughts of individual characters. (Finch, 1990: 5)
This is a thorough explanation of the complex process the reader faces as he reads Emma—the reader does not always know who is speaking. Finch and
Bowen go on to compare Austen’s technique with her eighteenth-century predecessors. They name and expand upon the various forms of narrative those predecessors used, namely, the subjective novel, whose first-person narrator is obviously announced; and the objective novel, with its confessed narrator. Both forms of narrative supply an identifiable source of authority. Emma falls under neither of these categories. Such a specific diviner does not exist in Emma, where the narrative authority of the novel is both nowhere and everywhere.
Finch’s and Bowen’s (1990) noted the theory on the way that Austen uses her narrative style to reflect both individual and collective opinion. They said that
Austen disseminates her narrative authority among her characters:
……then equally the novel’s deployment of free indirect style (which Austen first brought to fruition) has the effect of naturalizing narrative authority by disseminating it among the characters [. . .] so the development in Austen’s hands of free indirect style marks a crucial moment in the history of novelistic technique in which narrative authority is seemingly elided, ostensibly giving way to what Flaubert called a transparent style in which the author is “everywhere felt, but never seen.” (Finch, 1990: 3)
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Finally, Johnson credits the Revolution in France with the rise of the novel of crisis in England, in which she indicates the “structures of daily life are called into doubt” (Johnson, 1988: 26). Of Austen’s novels, she says:
The novels of Jane Austen focus on the discourse rather than the representation of politics. Alluding only rarely to actual events outside her famously placid villages, Austen does not, it is true, explicitly invoke the French Revolution [. . .] Austen may slacken the desperate tempos employed by her more strenuously politicized counterparts, but she shares their artistic strategies and their commitment to uncovering the ideological underpinnings of cultural myths. (Johnson, 1988: 27)
This overview of criticism on Austen has revealed the important connections between authorial intent, narrative viewpoint, and feminine vocalization. Not unexpectedly, critics from Austen’s time slotted her novels into the romantic novel genre and viewed her work strictly in that sense; later nineteenth century critics noted humor as an additional dimension to her writing.
By the twentieth and twenty-first century, Austen was being reappraised in light of the many subtle features she employs to develop both her stories and her characters. Modern scholars extensively analyze Austen’s control of her narrative and her use of Emma as a kind of third-person narrator, reporting her own experience, thereby engendering sympathy at critical moments. Some explore Austen’s free indirect style of consciousness to reveal her important characters’ inner thoughts, both to themselves and to the reader; others examine her technique of mingling the narrator’s voice with the character’s consciousness.
Various scholars evaluate the way Austen’s free indirect style aids in her use of irony, while some explore the opportunity it affords Austen in reflecting both
10 individual and collective opinion via the gossip in the novel. A number of scholars study Austen’s use of the sentimental novel to exemplify the public and private concept of class and gender. The multi-faceted criticism of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has yielded scholarly articles about Austen’s narrative techniques, her feminist leanings, and her use of irony, and also about the society in the novel itself.
Moreover, Spinker (1987) analyzes the social and economic distinctions appear in Emma. Spinker states that the categorization of people according to social or economic distinctions often plays a pivotal role in Jane Austen’s novels.
Although Emma proves no exception to this model, the classification of characters as Aristos may be more relevant than dividing them into social classes. Aristos characters also recognize that they are of the “Many,” but they must constantly strive to be of the “Few” (Fowles, Aristos 212-13). Although this may seem elitist or snobbish, the distinctions between the Few and the Many are not external such as money or position but rather internal such as morality, values, and clear- sightedness.
In addition, Gilmour (1981: 5, 16-21) also tries to explore the ideological implications of landlord in Emma by focusing on Jane Austen’s depiction of Mr.
Knightley as an exemplary gentleman and landlord. She argues that in linking Mr.
Knightley’s gentlemanly virtues with his owning land, and Emma’s moral inadequacies with her money and her lack of property, Austen, acting as an apologist for the landed classes, was defending the “paternal system of government” from attacks stimulated by the new discourse on political economy,
11 attacks that challenged the hereditary right of the gentry and aristocracy to the exclusive monopoly of the land.
Finally, though this is not the first study of social condition in Emma, this study tries to reveal the class-consciousness in the Victorian Society related to the values within it by using Jameson’s theory.
B. Theoretical Review
1. Marxism in Literature
Literary works are not mysteriously inspired, or explicable simply in terms of their authors’ psychology. They are forms of perception of seeing the world. Moreover, Marxists believe that economic and social conditions determine religious beliefs, legal systems and cultural frameworks. Art should not only represent such conditions truthfully, but seek to improve them. Marxist aesthetics is not flourishing in today's consumerist society, but continues to ask responsible questions ( http://www.textetc.com/theory.html).
Though the founder of Marxism, Karl Marx is better known because of his economical and political rather than literary writings, he frequently refers to literature in his writings. Literature may be part of the superstructure, but it is not merely the passive reflection of the economic base. Engels as quoted by Eagleton in Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976: 9) said that:
According to the materialist conception of history, the determining element in history is ultimately the production and reproduction in real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. If therefore somebody twists this into the statement that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms it into a
12 meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure – political forms of the class struggle and its consequences, constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc. – forms of law – and then even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the combatants: political, legal, and philosophical theories, religious ideas and their further development into systems of dogma – also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form.
In addition, he states that art is far richer and more opaque than political and economic theory because it is less purely ideological. His remark suggests that art has a more complex relationship to ideology than law and political theory, which rather more transparently embody the interests of a ruling class.
In Lukács’s view (1923 History and Class Consciousness), realism means more than rendering the surface appearance: it means providing a more complete, true, vivid and dynamic view of the world around. Novels are reflections of life, and therefore not real, but they nonetheless involve the mental framing that elude photographic representation. Writers create an image of the richness and complexity of society, and from this emerges a sense of order within the complexity and contradictions of lived experience.
Furthermore, the French Marxist Louis Althusser regards society as de- centered, having no overall structure or governing principle. Levels exist, but in complex relationships of inner conflict and mutual antagonism: a far cry from the economic foundations of simple Marxism. Art is something between science and ideology, the latter being “a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to the real conditions of their existence” (Louis Althusser’s For Marx,
1977, as cited by John Holcombe in his article at
13 http://www.textetc.com/althusser.html). Art is therefore not entirely a fiction, nor of course the view of its author.
More recently, the English Marxist Terry Eagleton (1976: 1 – 19) states that literary criticism should become a science, but rejects the hope that literature could distance itself from ideology. Literature is simply a reworking of ideology, by which Eagleton means a reworking of all those representations – aesthetic, religious, judicial – which shape an individual's mental picture of lived experience.
Finally, the American Marxist Fredric Jameson (1981) sees ideology as strategies of containment which allow societies to explain themselves by repressing the underlying contradictions of history. Texturally, these containments show themselves as formal patterns. Some are inescapable. Narrative, for example, is how reality presents itself to the human mind, in science as well as art.
And reality still exists, exterior to human beings: Jameson does not accept the view that everything is just a text. Indeed, in his reading of Conrad’s Lord Jim,
Jameson shows how past interpretations - impressionist, Freudian, Existential, etc.
- both express something in the text and describe the demand for capital in the modern state.
2. The Definition of Class
Raymond Williams in his book Culture and Society 1780 – 1950 said that class could be dated in its most important modern sense, from about 1740 (1961:
14). Before that time, the ordinary use of class is to refer to a division of group in
14 schools and colleges. Then, at the end of the eighteenth century, the modern structure of class, in its social sense, begins to be built up. The new use of class does not indicate the beginning of social divisions in England, but it indicates a change in attitudes towards them. Class is more indefinite word than rank.
Furthermore, the decisive step from taxonomy – classifying things – to theology – a set of religious beliefs – was taken by Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels, whose polemical writings divide humankind under capitalism into two classes, wage laborers who produce surplus and capitalists who appropriate it. The bourgeoisie and the proletariat are each with its own consciousness and organization (1961: 20).
Jameson in his book The Political Unconscious differentiates social class into two, namely a dominant and a laboring class (1982: 83-84). Though this term is previously and generally used by other Marxist, Jameson employs this term as he wants to position the class fraction or ec-centric or dependent classes. Jameson emphasizes that the usage of these terms is to “differentiate the Marxian model of classes from the conventional sociological analysis of society into strata, subgroups, professional elites and the like”. He adds that:
For Marxism, however, the very content of a class ideology is relational, in the sense that its values are always actively in situation with respect to the opposing class, and defined against the latter: normally, a ruling class ideology will explore various strategies of the legitimation of its own power position, while an oppositional culture or ideology will, often in covert and disguised strategies, seek to contest and to undermine the dominant value system. (1982: 84)
15 3. Fredric Jameson’s Marxism
An American Marxist, Fredric Jameson is generally considered to be one of the foremost contemporary Marxist literary critics writing in English. He has published a wide range of works analyzing literary and cultural texts and developing his own neo-Marxist theoretical position. In addition, Jameson has produced a large number of texts criticizing opposing theoretical positions. A prolific writer, he has assimilated an astonishing number of theoretical discourses into his project and has intervened in many contemporary debates while analyzing a diversity of cultural texts, ranging from the novel to video, from architecture to postmodernism. Jameson views Marxism more than just a means of production, but it is also about social and culture.
Jameson’s first book, developed from his Ph.D. dissertation, was Sartre:
The Origins of a Style (1961). In brief, Jameson argues here that Sartre's disorienting style represents in literary form the alienation of his philosophy and the very failure of art itself to make order in a fragmented world. In working on
Sartre, he discovered Marxism – not so much from reading Sartre's overtly
Marxist works, but from encountering frequent references in Sartre to Marxist terminology and points of view, which Sartre took for granted that his readers would understand, but that seemed quite exotic to an American reader in the late
1950s.
The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (1981) is the book in which Jameson tries to develop this dialectical criticism. Jameson wants to develop a Marxist theory of interpretation that encompasses all other
16 theories, that becomes their intellectual horizon, because it effectively describes all of human life. The notion of all of human life is explored via Lukacs's concept of totality, that is, the sum of all the relations among people, culture, and the material world of a given time and place. Economic activity and cultural activities such as religion and the arts are related within the totality, although not in the mechanistic base-superstructure way found in older Marxist views. The totality must be understood as constantly changing (1981: 50-56).
Jameson proposes in Political Unconscious a two-part system of interpretation. The first part, the study of forms, argues that works of literature (or any other symbolic configuration) grow out of changing social pressures as an attempt to solve the contradictions enacted in social relations. Jameson would say that artists are not always aware of the ways their works attempt to imagine solutions to real social problems. The eruption of these proble ms into the process of creating symbolic constructions would be, for Jameson, a sort of return of a collective repressed – our repressed awareness of the crimes we commit against one another via social injustice – and this is the political unconscious that literature, and all other symbolic forms express.
The second part of Jameson’s scheme, the study of ideologies, views any particular ideological control or hegemony over other discourses through a process of struggle. Works of art, then, take part in this struggle. While Jameson clearly locates symbolic constructions within their social class origins here, and more, sees them as instruments in class struggle, he avoids earlier Marxist views of texts and other symbolic constructions as totally determined by class.
17 Principally, he modifies earlier versions of the concept of hegemony. In some
Marxist analyses, dominant classes exercise their ideological control so thoroughly that the very people they are oppressing assent to the oppression. The marginalized agree that they deserve to be marginalized and, instead of hating their exploiters, wish only to become like them. Jameson suggests that while this hegemonic process does indeed operate, its control is never effortless or total.
Some people always resist it, with varying degrees of success, and the hegemonic situation is never static. The dominant class maintains control only through constant struggle. It is this struggle that keeps the totality in flux, so that, one complex of social relations fades away, along with its hegemonic networks, while another comes into being (1981: 57)
Jameson suggests that we understand this struggle as a struggle over who controls the production of meaning. Meaning is produced through forms, or, as
Jameson says, the production of aesthetic narrative form is to be seen as an ideological act (1981: 79). Hence, to study history, or the sequence of modes of production of meaning, is to study changes in the ideology of form.
Fredric Jameson's notes in The Political Unconscious about utopian thinking are that Marxism can no longer be content with its demystifying vocation to unmask and to demonstrate the ways in which a cultural artifact fulfills a specific ideological mission, in legitimating a given power structure. Marxism must not cease to practice this essentially negative hermeneutic function but must also seek, through and beyond this demonstration of the instrumental function of a
18 given cultural object, to project its simultaneously Utopian power as the symbolic affirmation of a specific historical and class form of collective unity. (1981: 291)
Jameson’s call here for a utopian moment in analysis may simply express a desire to make his analysis as comprehensive as possible. As Dominic LaCapra notes, one of Jameson’s dominant critiques against Marxism is that it has been undialectically one-sided in attempting to demystify ideologies without seeing their necessity and their well-nigh gravitational force of attraction (1981: 239). It can be said that Jameson hints here about the Marxist critic being motivated by a commitment to fostering social justice, having dreams as well as nightmares about history.
The commitment to social justice need not derive from transcendent sources; that is, it may be ethical, not moral, and unabashedly ideological (indeed, if everything is ideological, there is no shame in admitting oneself to be in the grip of an ideology that promotes social justice).
Jameson's dream of redemption in his commitment to what he calls in
Cognitive Mapping (1988) a society without hierarchy, a society of free people, a society that has at once repudiated the economic mechanisms of the market (1988:
355). Jameson claims that Marxist ideology is unable to imagine what such a utopian society would actually be like, and hence also unable to imagine how to achieve such a society. Given that he wants this kind of society to come into existence, he sees these failures as a crisis in Marxist ideology (1988: 355). He sees Marxist ideology as needing to generate a vision of the future that grips the masses, an image of Utopia (1988: 355).
19 Jameson says that the needed utopian ideology must be not only economic but also, indeed supremely, social and cultural (1988: 355). Jameson means here is that the utopian ideology needs not only plans for the egalitarian reorganization of economic production, such that people’s material needs are met, but also plans for new forms of affective and aesthetic life, such that people's emotional and spiritual needs are met. He puts the problem another way when he notes, with one signal exception (capitalism itself, which is organized around an economic mechanism), there has never existed a cohesive form of human society that was not based on some form of transcendence or religion (1988: 355).
Since religious belief or transcendent values are in his view absolutely incompatible with the society he wants to come into existence, the requisite that
Marxist utopian ideology must contain social and cultural elements that take their place, that provide the incentive for people to live cooperatively and to renounce the omnivorous desires of the id (1988: 355). In Jameson's view, no existing socialist society has solved this problem, although he raises the possibility that it is being addressed successfully in Cuba and Yugoslavia.
As a preliminary, then, to imagine the society for which he wishes,
Jameson sets himself the task of imagining what the ideology that could image this society would have to be like. One feature of the utopian ideology, he insists, must be a totalizing vision of current national and international social life. This totalizing vision is needed because, he argues, if you do not have such a vision, then neither can you imagine comprehensive social change. The totalizing concept that Jameson finds to be the most useful tool to think with is the concept of capital
20 (1988: 354). He wishes to understand current national and international life in terms of the historical development of capitalism.
4. Victorian Era The Victorian era is generally agreed to stretch through the reign of Queen
Victoria (1837-1901). It was a tremendously exciting period when many artistic styles, literary schools, as well as, social, political and religious movements flourished. It was a time of prosperity, broad imperial expansion, and great political reform. It was also a time, which today we associate with prudishness and repression. Without a doubt, it was an extraordinarily complex age that has sometimes been called the Second English Renaissance. It is, however, also the beginning of Modern Times.
The background of Victorian Era is also indicated by the growing material prosperity, and a level of industrial production and foreign trade which set
England far ahead of all other countries (Thomson, 1959: 100). a. Victorian Era in England
The Victorian era was a period of dramatic change the world over, and especially in England, with the rapid extension of colonialism through large portions of Africa, Asia, and the West Indies, making England a preeminent center of world power and relocating the perceived center of Western Civilization from Paris to London. The rapid growth of London, with a population of 6.5 million by the time of Victoria’s death, evidenced a marked change due to industrialization away from a way of life based on the ownership of land to a modern urban economy based on trade and manufacturing. Dramatic changes in
21 manufacturing, rapid growth of the British economy, and seemingly continual expansion of England's colonized territories resulted in mixed sentiments, with some writers such as Thomas Babbington Macauley applauding change and the superior civilization of England and other writers such as Mathew Arnold and
Thomas Carlyle expressing more trepidation and concern about this era of change.
In addition to general economic and political change, there were advancements made in the promotion of women’s rights, especially in terms of improving labor conditions and their rights in marriage (Derry, 1963: 51-52).
The people of England had suffered many inconveniences during the
Napoleonic wars, from which they expected relief with the coming of peace.
Instead of relief, however, there followed a period of economic depression for which there were several causes. For one thing, industry was considerably upset by the sudden change from a war time to a peace time basis (Rickard, 1957: 171).
The inability of many returning soldiers to return quickly to work also caused much unemployment.
Furthermore, merchants were overstocked with goods only to find that their customers at home and abroad had little with which to buy. Parliament enacted some remedial legislation, for in 1815 it revised the corn law and raised the tariff on grains. Although this favored the wheat growers, it increased the cost of bread; hence it aroused much opposition. In 1816, Parliament also repealed the income tax law. Three years later the Bank of England resumed specie payments, after a long suspension, thus easing the minds of many with regard of the soundness of money and contributing to lower prices (Rickard, 1957: 172).
22 The Victorian Era was also a time of tremendous scientific progress and ideas. Darwin took his Voyage of the Beagle, and posited the Theory of
Evolution. The Great Exhibition of 1851 took place in London, lauding the technical and industrial advances of the age, and strides in medicine and the physical sciences continued throughout the century. The radical thought associated with modern psychiatry began with men like Sigmund Feud toward the end of the era, and radical economic theory, developed by Karl Marx and his associates, began a second age of revolution in mid-century. The ideas of
Marxism, socialism, feminism churned and bubbled along with all else that happened.
The dresses of the early Victorian era were similar to the Georgian age.
Women wore corsets, balloonish sleeves and crinolines in the middle 1840. The crinoline thrived, and expanded during the 1850 and 1860, and into the 1870, until, at last, it gave way to the bustle. The bustle held its own until the 1890, and became much smaller, going out altogether by the dawning of the twentieth century. For men, following Beau Brummell’s example, stove-pipe pants were the fashion at the beginning of the century. Their ties, known then as cravats, and the various ways they might be tied could change, the styles of shirts, jackets, and hats also, but trousers have remained. Throughout the century, it was stylish for men to wear facial hair of all sizes and descriptions. The clean-shaven look of the
Regency was out, and mustaches, mutton-chop sideburns, Piccadilly Weepers, full beards, and Van Dykes (worn by Napoleon III) were the order of the day.
23 As stated in the beginning, the Victorian Age was an extremely diverse and complex period. It was, indeed, the precursor of the modern era. If one wishes to understand the world today in terms of society, culture, science, and ideas, it is imperative to study this era.
In relation to the above statements this thesis describes the facts that
Victorian era portraits an environment in which a full-scale demolition of traditional values is going on, correctively with the uprooting and dehumanization of women, and children by the millions, a process brought about by industrialization, colonial imperialism and the exploration of the human being as a thing or an engine or a part of an engine capable of being used for profit
(Langbaum, 1967: 202). Thus, the English working class, coming to birth through the trauma of the Industrial Revolution, suffered not merely from brutality, hunger and deprivation, but from an oppressive snobbism, at times merely patronizing and at other times proudly violent, on the part of the superior social classes
(Langbaum, 1976: 272).
From some points of view, the Victorian age might be regarded as an age of religion, an age in which Evangelicalism, the religion of the middle class, set the tone of manners, dress, and taste which the lower orders adopted in their struggle towards respectability (Ford, 1970: 48).
b. The Values of “Victorian Era” in Emma
Austen clearly portrays the values of Victorian Era in Emma through descriptions of the society, culture, and characters’ behavior. These can be seen
24 clearly from the way people get dressed and celebrate events in their lives. The following is the division of the characters into three classes based on their social lives, jobs, belonging, and wealth, namely the upper class, middle class, and lower class.
Upper class refers to wealthy and powerful people. People who belong to this class do not work; their income comes from inherited land and investments.
Most characters in Emma belong to upper class, for examples Emma Woodhouse who inherites £ 30,000, and Mr. George Knightley who owns the Donwell Abbey.
Middle class refers to managers and highly paid professionals. People who belong to this class perform mental or clean work, and they are paid monthly or annually. One character that can be grouped into this class is Miss Taylor,
Emma’s governess, who is later in the story, marries Mr. Weston.
Lower class referred to people paid average or low wages. They perform physical labor, are paid daily or weekly wages. Two characters, Miss Bates and
Mr. Robert Martin, belong to this class.
5. Hegemony of Victorian Era in Emma
Values of “Victorian Era” in Emma emphasizes on the relationship between the upper class and the lower class. The upper class throws balls to celebrate important events in their lives, and the lower class is possible to attend if only their upper class friend invites them. This fact can be revealed from Mrs.
Bates’ characters. She could attend the balls because of her upper class friend.
25 Moreover, the upper class people usually attend school and learn good manners, as represented by Emma Woodhouse. The curriculum was heavily weighted towards t he classics - the languages and literature of Ancient Greece and
Rome. A lady’s education was taken, almost entirely, at home. There were boarding schools, but no University, and the studies were very different. She learned French, drawing, dancing, music, and the use of globes. If the school, or the governess, was interested in teaching any practical skills, she learned plain sewing as well as embroidery, and accounts. Meaning to say, that ladies learn how to be a good wife and mother.
6. Contradiction
In Marxist terms a class is a group of people with a specific relationship to the means of production. Marxists explain history in terms of a war of classes between those who control production and those who actually produce the goods or services in society (and also developments in technology and the like). In the
Marxist view of capitalism, this is a conflict between capitalists (bourgeoisie) and wage-workers (proletariat). For Marxists, classes are antagonistically opposed to one another. This antagonism is rooted in the situation that control over social production necessarily entails control over the class which produces goods – in capitalism this is the exploitation of workers by the bourgeoisie.
The most important transformation of society for Marxists has been the massive and rapid growth of the proletariat in the last two hundred and fifty years.
Starting with agricultural and domestic textile labourers in England, more and
26 more occupations only provide a living through wages or salaries. Private enterprise or self-employment in a variety of occupations is no longer as viable as it once was, and so many people who once controlled their own labour-time are converted into proletarians. Today groups which in the past subsisted on stipends or private wealth – like doctors, academics or lawyers – are now increasingly working as wage laborers. Marxists call this process “proletarianisation,” and point to it as the major factor in the proletariat being the largest class in current societies in the rich countries of the “first world.”
The increasing dissolution of the peasant-lord relationship, initially in the commercially active and industrialising countries, and then in the unindustrialised countries as well, has virtually eliminated the class of peasants. Poor rural laborers still exist, but their current relationship with production is predominantly as landless wage laborers or rural proletarians. The destruction of the peasantry, and its conversion into a rural proletariat, is largely a result of the general proletarianisation of all work. This process is today largely complete, although it was arguably incomplete in the 1960s and 1970s.
Marx saw class categories as defined by continuing historical processes.
Classes, in Marxism, are not static entities, but are regenerated daily through the productive process. Marxism views classes as human social relationships which change over time, with historical commonality created through shared productive processes. A 17th-century farm laborer who worked for day wages shares a similar relationship to production as an average office worker of the 21st century.
27 In this example it is the shared structure of wage labor that makes both of these individuals “working class”.
Marxism has a rather heavily defined dialectic between objective factors
(i.e., material conditions, the social structure) and subjective factors (i.e. the conscious organization of class members). While most Marxism analyses people class status based on objective factors (class structure), major Marxist trends have made excellent use of subjective factors in understanding the history of the working class. E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class is a definitive example of this “subjective” Marxist trend. Thompson analyses the
English working class as a group of people with shared material conditions coming to a positive self-consciousness of their social position. This feature of social class is commonly termed class-consciousness in Marxism. It is seen as the process of a “class in itself” moving in the direction of a “class for itself,” a collective agent that changes history rather than simply being a victim of the historical process. (Retrieved from www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/
Pages/ Back/Wnext26/Bernie.html)
In contrast to simple income – property hierarchies, and to structural class schemes like Weber's or Marx’s, there are theories of class based on other distinctions, such as culture or educational attainment. At times, social class can be related to elitism, and those in the higher class are usually known as the “social elite”.
For example, Bourdieu seems to have a notion of high and low classes comparable to that of Marxism, insofar as their conditions are defined by different
28 habitus, which is in turn defined by different objectively classifiable conditions of existence. In fact, one of the principal distinctions, Bourdieu makes a distinction between bourgeois taste and the working class taste. (Taken from http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext26/Bernie.html)
At various times the division of society into classes and estates has had various levels of support in law. At one extreme we find old Indian castes, which one could neither enter after birth, nor leave (though this applied only in relatively recent history). Feudal Europe had estates clearly separated by law and custom.
On the other extreme there exist classes in modern Western societies which appear very fluid and have little support in law.
The extent to whic h classes are important differs also in western societies, though in most society’s class as an objective measure has very strong empirical effects on life chances (e.g. educational achievement, life-time earnings, health outcomes). Only in the strongly social-democratic societies such as Sweden is there much long-term evidence of the weakening of the consequences of social class.
C. Theoretical Framework
In order to give a deep and thorough exploration to answer the problems formulated in chapter I, Jameson’s theory is employed. There are four concepts by
Jameson applied such as class, ideology, class contradiction, and class- consciousness. The clarifications of those concepts are presented in the following paragraphs.
29 Jameson in his book The Political Unconscious remarks that there are two classes in the society, namely a dominant and a laboring class. Classes are not subjects but rather positions within the social totality. This concept of class is used to analyze in what class the characters belong to.
Moreover, Jameson argues for the primacy of Marxism on the grounds that its horizon, history and the socio -economic totality, provide the most comprehensive framework in which gender, race, class, sexuality, myth, symbol, allegory, and other more limited concerns can be explored and interpreted. He also argues that it is capitalism and its processes of co modification and reification which provide the motor and matrix of today's world-system, especially after the collapse of Soviet communism.
In addition, Jameson argues that the economic base has a fundamental relation to the cultural objects of the superstructure, yet the relation between these two is not to be found within the object itself. The economic base does not directly generate effects within the object but affects society in its production and reception of the objects. The economic base is found reflectively within the cultural object as a deliberation within the creator or receiver’s psyche. In other words, every person that works towards the creation of a cultural object, and the audience receiving the cultural object, have what Jameson calls a political unconscious. This political unconscious denotes each persons’ political hopes and desires as represented within the cultural object, yet in contradictory fashion articulates both the actual and potential social relations which constitute individuals within a specific political economy. According to Jameson, the
30 political unconscious acts as a mediatory principle which enables the economic primacy of the Marxist doctrine to coexist along with a cultural analysis that studies the differences of the multiple, heterogeneous world of cultural objects.
The cultural object potentially becomes the locus of class-consciousness as political possibility within Jameson’s thought.
31 CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Subject Matter
This research analyzes a novel entitled Emma that is written by Jane
Austen. Emma, the fourth of Austen’s six novels, was first published in 1816.
However, this research uses the novel that was published by David Campbell
Publishers Ltd. in 1991. This novel consists of 495 pages that are divided into 55 chapters. Those 55 chapters are grouped into three volumes. This novel has an introduction by Marilyn Butler.
This novel presents the reader with an in depth look into how society in
England, in particular members of the upper class, interacted both with each other and with those lower than them on social ladder at that time. The main character,
Emma Woodhouse, is smart, pretty and clever young woman, whose main objective throughout the book is to search for prospective husbands for her dear female friends. Mrs. Weston marries at the beginning of the story, and thus Emma searches for a new companion, Harriet Smith, an obscure origin young woman.
Emma’s new scheme consists of trying to match up Harriet with Mr. Elton, a fairly distinguished man in their town, while Harriet herself has her eye on Mr.
Robert Martin, a man who is well below both Harriet and Emma on the social ladder. In trying to bring Mr. Elton and Harriet together, Emma realizes that Mr.
Elton desires Emma herself instead. Mr. Knightley, Emma’s brother in law, condemns her for her matchmaking schemes. Over the course of the story, Emma
32 comes to realize her own faults and desires, and eventually comes to terms with what she has done.
B. Research Procedure
The research has four successive steps. Firstly, the writer read Emma for several times. In the first reading, the writer tried to follow and understand the story, then in the second reading, the writer focused on the social classes of the characters. In the further reading, the writer tried to comprehend the relationships of each character in relation with their social classes. The data obtained was the primary data. In this step, the writer also noted important statements and manners that could give clear direction of answering the problems stated.
Secondly, the writer tried to find secondary data through books, websites, essays, and journals that could support the analysis. The writer browsed some websites to find more information about Emma, its critics, Jameson’s theory, and
Victorian Society.
Thirdly, the collected primary data was categorized based on the characters’ interpretation, which are related to the class-consciousness of
Victorian society. The available data was scrutinized using the Marxist points of view, especially with the use of Jameson’s theories.
Finally the findings of the research were to answer the questions stated in the problem formulation. The answers then enable the writer to describe a conclusion of the study.
33 C. Data Analysis
The research tried to answer some questions dealing with the formation of lower class, middle class and high-class society in Victorian societies. Secondly the research also found the suitable answer related to how bourgeoisie and aristocracy maintain their social status in Victorian Society. Next, it explained the contestation of class interest of Victorian Society in Emma. Finally the study attempted to describe the changes of social class status of Victorian society in
Emma.
There are two steps to be taken in the research. Those steps are explication and interpretation. In the explication step, primary data are read, collected and related to each other so that the meaning is understood. The meaning is mostly surface meaning because it is derived from what is stated in the novel. Secondly, the step of interpretation is used to dig up the hidden meaning of data.
Interpretation is conducted by trying to find out the meaning from what is written, or from things, which are not stated in Emma.
D. Research Sources
The major source of this research was the novel itself. The novel provided primary data as the basis of analysis.
Additional readings have been extended to books on history economy and sociology in order to reconstruct events and the socio-historical aspects of English society in the panorama of literary work studied. Beside the aforementioned, books on literary theories are selectively used to serve as the basis of the discussion. Those theories are related to Marxist approach such as; Frederic
34 Jameson’s The Political Unconsciousness. In addition to books, there are more sources used in this study such as journals, periodicals, magazines, website, and non-print materials in the form of cassette which are considered to be supporting sources of the discussion.
35 CHAPTER IV
THE ANALYSIS OF CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS OF “VICTORIAN SOCIETY” AS REPRESENTED BY CHARACTERS IN EMMA
The study scrutinizes the class-consciousness of Victorian society in
Emma by using Frederick Jameson’s Marxism. The discussion consists of the economical base as the foundation of class formation and ideology as a means to maintain class status of the characters, which will lead into class-consciousness in
Emma.
A. The Economic Base as the Foundation of Class Formation
Martin D. Lee stated that the categorization of people according to social or economic distinctions often played a pivotal role in Jane Austen’s novels
(Fowles, Aristos 212-13). Austen tended to figure a homogenous social community in her novel. In Emma, with a few exceptions, that was Robert Martin and Miss Bates, Austen tended to put all characters into the same social class where they could attend the same parties, sit down to dinner together, and intermarry.
The economic distinction between characters could be seen clearly through the characters of Emma Woodhouse, Mr. George Knightley, Miss Taylor,
Miss Bates, and Mr. Robert Martin. These characters were chosen since they represented different economic base in Emma. The different economic base created class formation which was later, borrowing Jameson’s terms, called dominant and laboring class (Jameson, 1982: 83-84).
36 Seen from the economic base, Emma Woodhouse and Mr. George
Knightley represented the dominant class; Miss Bates and Mr. Robert Martin represented the laboring class, whereas Miss Taylor represented the class between the dominant and laboring class. Then, through her marriage Mr. Weston, Miss
Taylor stepped on to the ladder of dominant class.
1. The Dominant Class
The dominant class in Victorian Era referred to immensely wealthy and powerful people. The popular image of this class was elegant, handsome men and women dressed in big fluffy dresses who went to balls and social events most of the time. Mainly these people inherited their wealth. They had an easy life which allowed them to enjoy their lives without thinking money matters. Their daily lives consisted of having brunch everyday, long chats, playing cricket, and in the evening had social balls. The dominant class women in Victorian Era painted, played piano, had social graces, and most of the time had general knowledge of political events.
The dominant class had power to control laboring class through their wealth and power. The dominant could hire the laboring to work for them, or they could rent their land to tenants. In Emma, there were two characters that clearly represented this class, namely Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley. They wer e both immensely wealth and had power to their surrounding. Their power could be seen through the reflection of relationship between the characters such as, the relationship between Emma Woodhouse and Harriet, Emma Woodhouse
37 and Miss Bates, and the relatio nship between Mr. George Knightley and his tenant, Robert Martin. Although Emma Woodhouse and Mr. George Knightley belonged to dominant class, which meant that they could control the laboring class, they had different attitudes in showing their power. This fact is discussed more detailed in the following subchapters.
a. Emma Woodhouse
Emma Woodhouse, the main character in Emma, was wealthy and well- educated. Her economic base put her into the dominant class, a class that had control over the other class, the laboring. Through the course of the story, Emma’s wealth and comfort had influenced her ways in treating others. She acted and talked as she was a real lady of the dominant class. Her wealth had put her in the top of her self-appraisal. She thought that she had had everything in her life, and nobody else could have more than her, especially those who were not at the same class as her.
Emma Woodhouse was the younger of two daughters of Mr. Woodhouse, a descendant of a very ancient family. She was nearly twenty-one and heiress to £
30,000. This money would have been invested in government bonds that paid 5%, so her annual income was £ 1,500. A pound (£) in the early 19th century had roughly the same spending power as $ 100 of today’s money so Emma would have the equivalent of about $150,000 per year. This is very huge amount of money to spend in a year for a girl at her age.
38 Furthermore, Emma was beautiful, wealthy, well-educated young woman who was born and raised in dominant class society. She lived with her father at
Hartfield, their dominant class home. Emma had led a rather sheltered life at
Hartfield. This could be seen from Austen’s opening sentence that appeared to give quite a clear description of Emma:
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one-years in the world with very little distress or vex her. She was the younger of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent father, and had, in consequence of her sister’s marriage, been mistress of his house from a very early period (p. 1).
Being well-sheltered by her family, Emma had a very comfortable life.
She would never feel of danger and hunger for she had everything. She had a very big house for herself, huge amount of money, loves and cares from her governess, a loving father, and lots of nice friends. Nothing she had missing.
However, as its nature, everything Emma got made her a snob. This could be inferred from the following
The real evils indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived; that they did not by any means rank as misfortune with her. (p. 1 – 2)
Being snobbish, Emma tended to control over others. She thought of her own that she could do everything. The first fact was shown on the day her governess, Ms. Taylor, married Mr. Weston.
39 [...] “And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me,” said Emma, “and a very considerable one – that I made the match myself. I made the match, you know, four years ago; and to have it take place, and be proved in the right, when so many people said Mr. Weston would never marry again, may comfort me for any thing.” (p. 8)
Emma’s attitude toward Harriet also showed that she was at higher and better position than Harriet. This happened because Emma had lost her best companion, Miss Taylor, and she attempted to find another useful walking companion. Emma thought that Harriet would be useful for her as she could do many things to make Harriet as her own image.
Harriet Smith’s intimacy at Hartfield was soon a settled thing. Quick and decided in her ways, Emma lost no time in inviting, encouraging, and telling her to come very often; and as their acquaintance increased, so did their satisfaction I each other. As a walking companion, Emma had very early foreseen how useful she might find her. [...] She had ventured once alone to Randalls, but it was not pleasant; and a Harriet Smith, therefore, one whom she could summon at any time to a walk, would be a valuable addition to her privileges. But in every respect as she saw more of her, she approved her, and was confirmed all her kind designs. (p. 23).
In addition, Emma noted that Harriet was the perfect acquaintance for her after
Mrs. Weston leaving. Emma realized that she could do nothing to Mrs. Weston, but she could do everything she wanted to Harriet. She was just as a great wax puppet maker when she was about to change Harriet.
[...] Altogether she was quite convinced of Harriet Smith’s being exactly the young friend she wanted – exactly the something which her home required. Such a friend as Mrs. Weston was out of the questions. Two such could never be granted. Two such she did not want. It was quite different sort of thing – a sentiment distinct and independent. Mrs. Weston was the object of a regard, which had its basis in gratitude and esteem. Harriet would be loved as one whom
40 she could be useful. For Mrs. Weston there was nothing to be done; for Harriet every thing. (p. 23 – 24)
Emma thought that she could do everything to Harriet. She had considered many attempts to help Harriet, such as her attempts to find Harriet’s parents.
Emma thought that she was the one who could educate Harriet to be a dominant class woman. She thought she knew the best for Harriet. She could even think that
Mr. Martin was, somehow, not good for Harriet.
For some time she was amused, without thinking beyond the immediate cause; but as she came to understand the family better, other feelings arose. She had taken up a wrong idea, fancying it was a mother and a daughter, a son and son’s wife, who lived together; but when it appeared that the Mr. Martin, who bore a part in the narrative, and was always mentioned with approbation for his great good nature in doing something or other, was a single man; that there was no young Mrs. Martin, no wife in the case; she did suspect little danger to her poor little friend from all this hospitality and kindness - and that if she were not taken care of, she might be required to sink herself forever. (p. 25)
Moreover, for being snobbish, Emma did not want to admit her mistakes although she, herself, knew that she had made mistakes. It was getting worse when other person – the one and only person who could tell that she was wrong was George Knightley – told her that she had made a mistake, she still did not want to admit it. Her superior feeling had led her into a frame that she would never make a mistake, and what she made was just another way of solving problems.
[...] “Do you think so?” replied he. “I cannot agree with you. It appears to me a most perfect resemblance in every feature. I never saw such a likeness in my life. We must allow for the effect of shade, you know.”
41 “You have made her too tall, Emma,” said Mr. Knightley. Emma knew that she had, but would not own it, and Mr. Elton warmly added. (p. 45) [...]
Further, Emma also did not want to admit her mistake about Mr. Elton’s feeling toward Harriet though John Knightley had warned her about it. In this case, she was too vain. If she pulled off her ignorance, she would have been able to see the reality in front of her. She would be able to see how Mr. Elton fond of her, not
Harriet. Once again, Emma proved that she was too snobbish.
[...] “Yes,” said Mr. John Knightley presently, with some slyness, “He seems to have a great deal of good-will towards you.” “Me!” she replied with a smile of astonishment, “Are you imagining me to be Mr. Elton’s object?” “Such an imagination has crossed me, I own, Emma; and if it never occurred to you before, you may as well take it into consideration now.” “Mr. Elton in love with me! – What an idea!” “I do not say it is so; but you will do well to consider whether it is so or not, and to regulate your behavior accordingly. I think your manners to him encouraging. I speak as a friend, Emma. You had better look about you, and ascertain what you do, and what you mean to do.” “I thank you; but I assure you, you are quite mistaken. Mr. Elton and I are very good friends, and nothing more.” [...] (p. 112)
Then, when it came into the reality that Mr. Elton was in love with her and he proposed her, Emma started to be angry. This was not because she did not like him, but it was because everything went wrong, not as she had planned before.
She could not accept herself who had made mistake. She could not be angry to herself since her pride told her not to do so. It was much better for her to blame others – in this case Mr. Elton – for the mistakes.
42 [...] She believed he had been drinking too much of Mr. Weston’s good wine, and felt sure that he would want to be talking nonsense. [...] “Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct! And I can account for it only in one way; you are not yourself, or you could not speak either to me, or of Harriet, in such a manner. Command yourself enough to say no more, and I will endeavor to forget it.” (p. 129 – 130)
Emma, who realized her power, had a very bad judgment to people below her class. She considered herself too high so that she used quite rude words to explain Miss Bates’ characters. This could be seen from the way she talked about
Miss Bates, an old spinster. She considered Miss Bates the worst poor woman ever.
[...] “But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates!” “That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet; and if I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates! So silly – so satisfied – so smiling – so prosing – so undistinguishing and un-fastidious – and so apt to tell every thing relative to every body about me, I would marry to-morrow. But between us, I am convinced there never can be any likeness, except in being unmarried.” “But still, you will be an old maid! And that’s so dreadful!” (p. 84 – 85)
Further, Emma also noticed that economic base in this case, poverty, did make difference whether someone would be a poor or a wealthy single. She really singled out the advantage of being wealthy. For her, being wealthy meant a happy life since others would fully respect her existence. She knew how difficult life would be when someone lived a poor life. She also noted that poverty could make people less sensible and unpleasant. People who lived in poverty only knew
43 sorrow, and this would extremely influence the relationships with others. At this point, Emma had put herself as a very fortunate woman.
[...] “Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be ridiculous, disagreeable, old maid! The proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else. And the distinction is not quite so much against the candor and common sense of the world as appears at first; for a very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross. (p. 85)
However, being a very fortunate woman did not make her wisely speak about Miss Bates. She tended to be a little bit sarcastic when she dealt with Miss
Bates. Emma was not in earnest when she said that poverty did not influence Miss
Bates. The fact that Emma wanted to point was that Miss Bates was silly and satisfied with her own life, though she was an old poor single.
[...] “This does not apply, however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and too silly to suit me; but, in general, she is very much to the taste of everybody, though single and though poor. Poverty certainly has not contracted her mind; I really believe: if she had only a shilling in the world, she would be very likely to give away sixpence of it; and nobody is afraid of her: that is a great charm.” (p. 85)
Through her relation with Jane Fairfax, Miss Bates’ niece, Emma showed her reluctance of having a relation with someone she did not like. She always likely tended to connect Jane Fairfax, who was in fact a good maid and single to her aunt’s poverty. Emma seemed to be a little bit jealous with Jane Fairfax when
44 Miss Bates complimented her many times. In this following, Emma showed her feeling toward Jane Fairfax.
“Do you know Miss Bates’ niece? That is, I know you must have seen her a hundred times – but are you acquainted?” “Oh! Yes; we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to Highbury. By the bye, that is almost enough to put one out of conceit with a niece. Heaven forbid! At last, that I should ever bore people half so much about all the Knightleys together, as she does about Jane Fairfax. One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from her is read forty times over; her compliments to all friends go round and round again; and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of nothing else for a month. I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires me to death.” (p. 86)
Moreover, Emma, who had got everything in her life, showed her jealousy toward Jane Fairfax clearly. Emma’s jealousy toward Jane Fairfax was increasing by the time she heard the news that Jane Fairfax was about to come to Highbury.
It was difficult for her to be a good acquainted of Jane Fairfax though she herself did not know the reason why she could not like Jane Fairfax.
[...] Certain it was that she was to come; and that Highbury, instead of welcoming that perfect novelty which had been so long promised it – Mr. Frank Churchill – must put up for the present with Jane Fairfax, who could bring only the freshness of a two years absence. Emma was sorry; - to have pay civilities to a person she did not like through three long months! – to be always doing more than she wished, and less than she ought. Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to answer; [...] (p. 167)
At this time, Emma could not understand, even explained the reason why she could not intimate to Jane Fairfax as she was close to Harriet. In fact, Mr.
Knightley had told her the underlying reason why she could not be Jane Fairfax’s acquaintance. However, Emma was too stubborn to admit that. Her dignity was much too high to admit that what Mr. Knightley said was much correct.
45 [...] Mr. Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself; and though that accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of self examination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her. [...] (p. 167)
Then, Emma started thinking how she did not like the behavior of Jane Fairfax’s aunt. Although she did not want to admit it, she realized that Miss Bates’ behavior had influenced her attitude toward Jane Fairfax. Emma, once again, considered poverty as a reason to make an acquaintance.
[...] But she could never get acquainted with her: she did not know how it was, but there was such coldness and reserve – such apparent indifference whether she pleased or not – and then, her aunt was such an eternal talker! – and she was made such a fuss with by every body! – and it had been always imagined that they were to be so intimate – because their ages were the same, every body had supposed they must be so fond of each other. These were her reasons – she had no better. (p. 168)
However, the reasons why Emma could not like Jane Fairfax became much clearer on the day of Jane Fairfax’s arrival. Emma was amazed by Jane
Fairfax’s manner and appearance. Emma could not understand why a woman named Jane Fairfax could have that elegant manner and appearance. Emma fully thought that it must be her who possessed the highest elegance.
[...] and now, when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after a two years’ interval, she was particularly struck with the very appearance and manners, which for those two whole years she had been depreciating. Jane Fairfax was very elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself the highest value for elegance. [...] (p. 168)
As a result of Jane Fairfax’s arrival, and her elegant manners and appearance, something had driven Emma’s thoughts. Emma was full of curiosity
46 and doubt. She still did not want to understand that Jane Fairfax could possess elegant manners and appearance as she had. Emma kept in her mind that a maid, who lived in poverty, could never possess elegant manners and appearance. It was her and only privilege as a member of the dominant class, and no one, from the laboring class could possess it. Then, a negative trait appeared in her mind. Emma thought that Jane Fairfax had lived a secret life with Mr. Dixon.
In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with twofold complacency; the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering justice, and was determining that she would dislike her no longer. When she took in her history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty; [...], it seemed impossible to feel any thing but compassion and respect; especially if to every well-known particular entitling her to interest, were added the highly probable circumstance of an attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she had so naturally started to herself. In that case, nothing could be more pitiable or more honorable than the sacrifices she had resolved on. [...] (p. 168 – 169)
From the facts above, therefore, it was clear that Emma used her wealth to maintain her social relationship. Her relationships were mostly influenced by her economic base. She was fully aware that her belongings – her wealth and comfortable life – made everything different.
As a conclusion, Emma, who was wealthy and possessed comfortable and enjoyable life, could not accept herself to be in the second position after somebody else. She realized that by her economic, she deserved the best. She could only understand that she had everything, and no body else did. She positioned herself at the first rank, and others were below her rank. In other words, Emma had successfully maintained class formation among people surround her.
47 b. Mr. George Knightley
Mr. George Knightley was another member of the dominant class. Jane
Austen has successfully cast him as an equal partner for Emma, a partner that saw everything from different angles. Because of their wealth, Emma was said to be a little bit snobbish, whereas George Knightley was said to be a sensible man.
While Emma was being the woman of highest rank in Highbury, Knightley was being a man of considerable blood and status in the area. People admired his family for his family was regarded very kind to the poor. There was no doubt that the characters in Emma reflected a society struggling with value systems that were slipping away. Mr. George Knightley upholds the aristocratic tradition of British society despite the impact of people in his own class who acted against the welfare of the community.
Mr. George Knightley was not only a friend of the Woodhouse, but he was particularly connected to the family because of his younger brother’s marriage to Emma’s sister, Isabella. Jane Austen has introduced him as another main character that would be so closed to and would influence Emma, since the very beginning of the story.
Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight and thirty, was not only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly connected with it as the elder brother of Isabella’s husband. He lived about a mile from Highbury, was a frequent visitor and always welcome, and at this time more welcome than usual, as coming directly from their mutual connections in London. [...] (p. 5)
He was a magistrate and owner of Donwell Abbey with its home farm, a mile from Highbury. Mr. Knightley also had a claim to blood and wealth that
48 made him worthy of society in Emma. His status is determined by the fact that his family has been landowners in Highbury since at least 1540. As a magistrate, he was used to see things from many points of views and it made him wise.
[...] “I do not understand what you mean by ‘success;’” said Mr. Knightley. “Success supposes endeavor. Your time has been properly and delicately spent, if you have been endeavoring for the last for years to bring about this marriage. [...]” (p. 9) [...] Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish and the chicken, but leave him to chuse his own wife. Depend upon it, a man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of himself.” (p. 10)
He was such an ideal gentleman who had the power to tell the truth to
Emma, evident by Knightley’s bold statement “Emma knows I never flatter her”
(p.7). He was among few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse and he was the only one who could show Emma her faults.
Emma, I must once more speak to you as I have been used to do: a privilege rather endures than allowed, perhaps, but I must still use it. I cannot see you acting wrong, with out remonstrance. How could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her characters, age and situation, I had not thought it possible... And, where she prosperous, I could allow much for the occasional prevalence of the ridiculous over the good. Were she a woman of fortune, I would leave every harmless absurdity to take its chance; I would not quarrel with you for any liberties of manner. Were she your equal in situation – but Emma, consider how far this is from being the case. She is poor; she has sunk from the comforts she was born’ and, if she live to an old age, must probably sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was badly done indeed (p. 383 – 384).
Though George Knightley was known as a rich and successful gentleman, he did not use his power to control others, to do what he wanted. He, in contrast to
Emma, showed his chivalries to the poor sincerely. One of the aspect of chivalries
49 was that a gentleman like Mr. Knightley gladly performed their duty to the society. George Knightley was sensitive to the plight of Highbury’s less fortunate.
In particular he made sure to tell Miss Bates that he was at her disposal during her time of need.
[...] He cut her short with, “I’m going to Kingston. Can I do any thing for you?” “Oh dear, Kingston – are you? – Mrs. Cole was saying the other day she wanted something from Kingston.” “Mrs. Cole has servants to send. Can I do any thing for you?” [...] (p. 248)
By insuring that Miss Bates retained her dignity and quality of life in her declining years, Mr. Knightley maintained the class structure because his service kept the genteel Bateses from sliding into poverty. He delighted fully took the
Bateses in his carriage on the way to the Cole’s party. He, even, sent them apples.
Many said that apples were merely fruits, but when they were given to the one who very needed them, it would be such a wonderful gift; as it happened to Miss
Bates.
“Oh! Mr. Knightley, one moment more; something of consequence – so shocked! – Jane and I are both so shocked about the apples!” “What is the matter now?” “To think of your sending us all your store apples. You said you had a great many, and now you have not one left. We really are so shocked! [...].” (p. 249)
Mr. Knightley also showed his chivalry to Harriet when Harriet was sad because of Mr. Elton. He could save her from a very embarrassing situation by asking her to dance with him (p. 336). Then, Mr. Knightley could also wisely tell
50 Emma that it was all about Emma’s mistakes. Harriet did not do something wrong.
“They aimed at wounding more than Harriet,” said he. “Emma, why is it that they are your enemies?” He looked with smiling penetration; and, on receiving no answer, added, “She ought not to be angry with you, I suspect, whatever he may be. – To that surmise, you say nothing, of course; but confess, Emma, that you did not want him to marry Harriet.” “I did,” replied Emma, “and they cannot forgive me.” (p. 338)
Furthermore, his chivalry was also seen through his relation with Robert
Martin, one of his tenants. He could frankly tell the talent, skills, and abilities that
Robert Martin possessed, without being afraid or jealous. He could manage the fact that others, sometime, possessed more than he did. His wealth and position did not make him blind with the situation surround him. He did not keep his distance with others, but he maintained good relationship with them. Even, Mr.
Knightley could tell Emma how worthy Robert Martin was, and that he was exactly what Harriet needed in her life.
[...] He knows I have a thorough regard for him and all his family, and, I believe, considers me as one of his best friends. [...] I never hear better sense from any one than Robert Martin. He always speaks to the purpose; open, straight forward, and very well judging. [...] he was an excellent young man, both as son and brother. (p. 57)
Mr. Knightley possessed good wealth, land and people’s admiration. By his economic, he had performed a real gentleman of his class.
The dominant class that was represented by the characters of Emma and
George Knightley showed different attempts in pursuing their existence. Emma represented a real woman in Victorian Era through her characters and attitudes, such as attending balls, wearing expensive and conservative gowns, and making
51 friends only with people whom she could take benefit from. George Knightley, who was a gentleman in Victorian Era, also realized the power of his wealth. He understood that he could control others by his money, power, and land. However, he did not try to dominate others’ lives. Instead, he managed to have mutual relationship with others. He treated others as they must be treated, not as he wanted to treat them.
The two chosen characters were all wealthy and belong to dominant class.
They enjoyed their status and people’s admiration. People admired Emma, and most of those people only admired her wealth. Because of that, no one was brave enough to tell Emma that they did not agree wit h Emma’s attitude toward Harriet,
Miss Bates, Robert Martin, and Jane Fairfax. Others could only think that her attitudes were not as it should be, but they also thought that it was fine for she was wealthy. People were permissive with royal and wealthy people.
On the contrary, George Knightley, who also enjoyed his status and people’s admiration, treated others as they were in the same class. It was true that he had the same class with Emma, but he was the only one who was brave to tell
Emma when she made mistakes, among the other dominant class members. He also showed his admiration toward his tenant, Robert Martin. He sometimes had a conversation with Robert Martin, as they were buddies. He was also the one who was willing to pick up Miss Bates and Jane Fairfax and then took them with him to the party.
As a conclusion, both characters are real representatives of dominant class of Victorian society, though they do not share the same attitudes to treat others.
52 They are successful in pursuing their existence as dominant class, and maintain the class formation through their wealth and belongings.
2. Class between the Dominant and Laboring Class
Though Jameson does not clearly state the existence of a class between the dominant and laboring, however, this class truly exists in Emma. This class refers to people who can earn enough money, and just enough to live, such as managers and highly paid professionals. They have the skills to be highly paid. Women in this class were usually governesses. Though there were two governesses in this story, they were Ms. Taylor (later Mrs. Weston) and Miss Jane Fairfax; they showed different lives as governess. Miss Taylor led a happy life with the
Woodhouse, as one of the family, but, when Jane Fairfax seek a similar post, the author speaks of her decision to retire from all the pleasures of life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace and hope, to penance and mortification for ever.
The following discussion is only about Miss Taylor because she is the only one from this class who can step on to the next class ladder, by marrying Mr. weston.
Miss Taylor was the governess of Emma from the time she was a child.
Miss Taylor was an excellent woman, intelligent, well informed, useful and gentle, “who had fallen little short of a mother in affection” (p. 1). She showed her professionalism in her work. She did not only mean a governess to Emma, but she was more than that. She was such a friend and a mother for Emma.
Sixteen years had Miss Taylor been in Mr. Woodhouse’s family, less as a governess than a friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly of Emma. Between them it was more the intimacy of sisters. Even before Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal
53 office of governess, the mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint; and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor’s judgment, but directed chiefly by her own. (p. 1)
Miss Taylor filled Emma’s days with cheers, cares, and joys. The influence of Miss Taylor as an excellent governess for sixteen years was deeply implanted in Emma’s behaviour. Emma was used to be loved and little bit spoiled by Miss Taylor. This could be seen from the fact that Miss Taylor married Mr.
Weston could lead her into deep sorrow.
Sorrow came – a gentle sorrow – but not at all in the shape of any disagreeable consciousness. – Miss Taylor married. It was Miss Taylor’s loss which first brought grief. It was on the wedding-day of this beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any continuance (p. 2).
Miss Taylor’s position would not be able to be replaced by anyone else. Emma owned large debt of gratitude to Miss Taylor. She was the one with whom Emma usually shared every of her thought for sixteen years. Her affection would last forever in Emma’s memory.
[...] she recalled her past kindness – the kindness, the affection of sixteen years - [...]. A large debt of gratitude was owing here; [...]. It had been a friend and companion such as few possessed, intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of her’s; - one to whom she could speak every thought as it arouse, and who had such an affection for her as could never find fault. (p. 2)
However, Miss Taylor marriage to Mr. Weston did not deprive Emma of her kindest friend on every occasion, because visits between Randalls and
54 Hartfield were a daily occurrence. Emma occasionally visited Randalls in order to meet Miss Taylor and had nice, enjoyable and flattering conversations.
Since Miss Taylor became Mrs. Weston, she was a wife of “a man who had a little estate adjoining Highbury” (p. 12). She could govern her own house and family. She was very dutiful to her stepson, Frank Churchill, as it could be seen from Emma’s words:
“My dear, dear anxious friend,” – said she, in mental soliquy, while walking down stairs from her own room, “always over-careful for everybody’s comfort but your own; I see you now in all your little fidgets, going again, and again into his room, to be sure that all is right.” The clock struck twelve as she passed through the hall. “Tis twelve, I shall not forget to think of you for hours hence; and by this time to-morrow, perhaps, or a little later, I may be thinking of the possibility of their all calling here. [...]“ (p. 192).
Miss Taylor was a professional and earned enough money for that, but it did not make her become a member of the dominant class. It was her marriage with Mr. Weston that brought her to the world of dominant class. Moreover, there were no changes in her attitude since she became Mrs. Weston. She was still the same old Miss Taylor who was friendly and cared with others. Though, she had become Mrs. Weston, who was un-doubtfully rich, she still wanted to help Emma as what she usually did when she was Emma’s governess.
Miss Taylor was somehow a perfect example of how economic base became the foundation of class formation. When she was a governess, she could only possess her salary, and it made her belong to the society between the dominant and laboring class. Then, through her marriage to Mr. Weston, she could have one step higher. She was not a woman between the dominant and
55 laboring anymore, but she was a member of the dominant. This could only happen because she was wealthy enough.
3. Laboring Class
Laboring class referred to people paid average or low wages. People in this class found it hard to make a living in Victorian Society. Men struggled to make enough money to support their families and provide food for their wives and children. They would work in succession and just barely had enough for the day or week or month. Two characters that could be considered as the member of laboring class were Miss Bates and Mr. Robert Martin.
Miss Bates and Mr. Robert Martin were another perfect example of how the economic base, - wealth, land, and popularity -, could group people into certain different groups. It was not Miss Bates and Robert Martin willingness to be members of the laboring class, but it was society itself – including the members of the other class – that forced them to stay in that class. Through their relationships with other characters, it could be said that though they worked very hard and lived their lives in a very well-mannered, people – especially members of the dominant class – would always regard them as unworthy people.
a. Miss Bates
Miss Bates was the aunt of Jane Fairfax. She lived with her mother, Mrs.
Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury in a very small way. She enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome,
56 rich nor married. She realized that she was poor, but somehow her poverty did not lead her into sadness. She knew in her own way how to be happy and make others happy though other people thought that she was a little bit silly.
It was her own universal good will and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved everybody, was interested in everybody happiness, quick sighted to everybody’s merits [...]. The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a recommendation to everybody and a mine of felicity to herself (p. 18)
In spite of this, Miss Bates was a great talker upon little manners. She was a delightful character who provided much of the humor of Emma. Some characters in Emma were told as they did not like Miss Bates manner, such as
Emma and Mrs. Weston. Therefore, there should be a great astonishment why
Miss Bates could be like that, and her past showed it. She could share others’ happiness and share her own happiness in a very different manner.
She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her youth had passed without distinction, and her middle life was devoted to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavor to make a small income go as far as possible (p. 18).
Unmarried women found themselves in a difficult position in Victorian society. Women who could not catch a husband were seen as useless by society.
Society, due to the changing economic and social standards, lacked respect for unmarried women. This could be seen from Emma’s attitude towards 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.” (p. 380)
57 Though Miss Bates did not immediately catch the meaning of Emma’s words, she then realized the pain:
Ah! – well – to be sure. Yes I see what she means, (turning to Mr. Knightley) and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend. (p. 380)
Moreover, Miss Bates did not have enough knowledge of an upper class woman as she could not recognize her niece’s mistake. Mr. Knightley showed this to her as in, “Miss Bates, are you mad, to let your niece sing herself hoarse in this manner? Go, and interfere. They have no mercy on her” (p. 232)
b. Mr. Robert Martin
Mr. Robert Martin was the tenant of Abbey-Mill Farm, who fell in love with Harriet. He was twenty years of age. As a man in that society, he worked hard to fulfill his family, mother and sister, needs. He was considered as a lower class person who was usually not educated. This could be inferred from Emma’s question doubting his ability “Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of his own business. He does not read?” (p. 26)
Moreover, Emma already had an assumption that un-educated person was not good looking. She asked a question about Mr. Martin physical performance:
“What sort of looking man is Mr. Martin?” (p. 26)
Mr. Martin was un-noticeable by Emma since he did not belong to the same social class with her. This fact could be reflected from his conversation with
Harriet:
58 That may be – and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot, is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do. A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me; I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other. But a farmer can need none of my help, and is therefore in one sense as much above my notice as in every other he is below it. (p. 26)
She showed how she disliked Mr. Martin because he came from lower class. She clearly mentioned the disadvantage of Mr. Martin to Harriet.
I wish you may not get into scrape, Harriet, whenever he does marry; - I mean as to being acquainted with his wife – for though his sisters, from a superior education, are not to be altogether objected to, it does not follow that he might marry anybody at all fit for you to notice. The misfortune of your birth ought to make you particularly careful as to your associates. There can be no doubt of your being a gentleman’s daughter, and you must support your claim to that station by every thing within your own power, or there will be plenty of people who would take pleasure in degrading you. (p. 27 – 28)
She even forbade Harriet to get involved with him.
[...] I want to see you permanently well connected – and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd acquaintance as may be; and, therefore’ I say that if you should still be in this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not drawn in, by your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife, who will probably be some mere farmer’s daughter, without education. (p. 28).
Moreover, she frankly said that Mr. Martin was not as she expected. He is very plain, undoubtedly – remarkably plain – but that is nothing, compared with his entire want of gentility. I have no right to expect much, and I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so very clownish, so totally without air... (p. 29).
59 However, Mr. Knightley, his landlord, who had high opinion about him said that he never heard better sense from anyone than Robert Martin. Robert
Martin always spoke to the purpose; open, straight forward, and very well judging
(p. 60).
It is true that it is hard for laboring class to struggle for their lives in
Victorian Era. People consider them as less worthy because they are not rich and do not have belonging. It is hard for this class to maintain social relationship with another class unless they have friends from the dominant class.
Furthermore, the dominant class sometimes makes their lives more difficult as seen from the treatment given to Miss Bates and Robert Martin. People consider Miss Bates a great talker, someone who talks too much about everything, and they do not like her when she talks too much. This will not happen if she is wealthy because people tend to be permissive with wealthy people. People also limit their relationship with Miss Bates. There is a thick borderline that keeps the dominant and Miss Bates to stay at their side. Furthermore, Robert Martin also finds problem only because he belongs to laboring class. He is regarded worthless for Harriet since he is only a tenant farmer. People – through Emma’s character – think that he will not be able to make Harriet happy for he is not rich. People also think that Robert Martin will not be able to good money. People do not want to see the fact that actually Robert Martin works hard.
From the above explanation, we can conclude that economical base has important roles in Victorian society. Economic has classified people into different rank and strata. People are treated based on the belonging and their economic
60 level. Once people belong to dominant class, others will treat them as royal people in the society and result in being so permissive with their attitudes. In the contrary, once people become laboring class people, they will be treated differently. People will neglect their existence and even limit their participation in the society. People often neglect laboring class’ rights. This results in a big gap between dominant and laboring class.
B. Ideology as a Means to Maintain Class Status
Jameson notes that Marxist ideology is unable to what such a utopian society would actually be like. He adds that utopian ideology must be not only economic but also social and cultural aspect. Therefore, the following discussion is based on this theory.
1. The Dominant Class
The dominant class in this story was clearly portrayed by the characters of
Emma and Mr. George Knightley. Emma, who was inherited £ 30,000, reigned and she had the feeling of being superior to others. Through the course of the story, she clearly showed her power to control others. Emma treated Harriet as a model of whom Emma could implement her theories. Otherwise, Mr. George
Knightley, the owner of Downwell Abbey, showed that he thought everything logically. He was full of consideration. His full of consideration was shown through his attitude toward Emma’s plan to match Harriet and Mr. Elton. Mr.
61 George Knightley did not agree with Emma’s plan because he saw that Robert
Martin is worth enough for Harriet.
a. Emma Woodhouse
The first fact of her superiority was related to her acquainted with Miss
Harriet Smith. Once she met Miss Harriet Smith, she thought that Miss Harriet
Smith needed an encouragement (p. 20). She even called Miss Harriet as “a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance to be quite perfect” (p.
21). Emma, additionally, clearly emphasized that she wanted to form Miss
Harriet’s opinion and manners. She would notice and improve Miss Harriet the good manners of a good society that was upper class society. She wanted to detach Miss Harriet from her bad acquaintance that was Mr. Robert Martin. She would introduce Miss Harriet into a good society.
Emma felt that by doing it, - she considered it interesting -, she would be highly becoming her own situation in life, her leisure, and powers (p. 21). In brief,
Emma could classify herself as a superior to Miss Harriet.
Moreover, Emma thought that she knew the best for Miss Harriet. She started to involve in matchmaking of Harriet. She believed that Harriet deserved
“a better man” not her acquainted Mr. Robert Martin, a farmer (p. 28). In addition, she asserted her opinion as the following
I know that is the feeling of you all. I know that such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every man delights in – what at once bewitches his senses and satisfies his judgment. Oh! Harriet may pick and choose. Were you, yourself, ever to marry, she is the very woman for you (p. 62).
62 She tried to match Harriet with Mr. Elton, a handsome young man who, later in the story, proposed Emma. In doing so, she persuaded Harriet to refuse Mr.
Martin’s proposal by letter. At this point, she congratulated herself on the progress of her scheme (p. 69 – 82). She admired herself as a good planner.
Then, when it came into the fact that Mr. Elton was interested in Emma, not Harriet, she felt into her greatest sorrow. She had made Harriet unhappy and suffered for a long time.
Furthermore, her feeling of superiority made her blind of her surrounding.
She still did not realize that actually Harriet finally fell in love with Mr.
Knightley. Because of her superior feeling, that she must have known everything, she could not realize the signals that Harriet showed. When it came into a clear fact for Emma, she felt greatly distress. At this point, she realized her own feeling of Mr. Knightley.
The second fact of her superiority was traced through her relation with
Miss Jane Fairfax. She considered that what she felt was somehow correct. She did not like Miss Fairfax since Miss Fairfax showed some talents that she did not possessed. Her superiority was degraded by the fact that Miss Fairfax played and sang better than her (p. 234). To reign her superiority, she tried to prove her suspicion toward the relationship between Mr. Churchill and Miss Fairfax.
Emma had the feeling that such a noble person like her must be superior to an orphan like Miss Fairfax. This feeling made her cannot accept the existence of
Miss Jane Fairfax. Moreover, she also related Miss Jane Fairfax to her aunt, an unmarried woman who was also lacked of her respect.
63 The third fact was that she neglected the presence of Mr. Robert Martin.
She could not accept that such the laboring class fell in love with a girl like Miss
Harriet who belonged to higher class than him. She believed that the dominant class should get involved with the dominant class in order to maintain happiness.
Though Mr. Knightley was clearly fond of Mr. Martin, she did not care with that fact.
Emma, herself, appreciated too much in her own feeling toward Mr.
Churchill. She considered that Mr. Churchill fell in love with her without consulting the surrounding facts. Although Mr. Knightley had warned her about
Mr. Churchill, she thought that it was only an absurd idea of suspecting Mr.
Churchill.
Emma regarded that the laboring class was below herself in rank. Though the laboring class was a part of the society, she assumed that they lived in a different part of society in which they had their own neighborhood, manner, and opinions. Emma felt that as a dominant class, she had the control towards others, and knew everything or the best for others. Meaning to say that, Emma considered herself as a dominant class who had superior feeling to others.
b. Mr. George Knightley
Mr. George Knightley showed something different. He was a magistrate – a well-educated person – who owned Donwell Abbey. From this fact, it was clear that he belonged to the dominant class. He was a tall active man, with a fine upright figure and alert mind. Although he was a the dominant class, he did not
64 have such feeling of superiority to others. He could, if he would. Instead, he was the one who could see Emma’s mistakes and the one who was brave enough to tell Emma of her mistakes.
His logical, forthright mind forms an excellent contrast to Emma’s illogical flights of fancy (p. 18). When Emma became friends with Harriet he saw at once that the liaison would harm both or them: that Harriet’s ignorance continually flatters Emma, and that Emma’s attempt to educate Harriet would merely make her uncomfortable among people of her own station in life and give her a little polish, without benefiting her character (p. 16).
He performed good attitude towards everybody in the story, both the dominant class and laboring class. His opinions of somebody were all almost right, though Emma, for many times, considered it naïve. Mr. Knightley appreciated the laboring class as well as he appreciated the other class. He did not neglect the existence of the laboring class even though Mr. Martin was only his tenant. He, even, frankly stated that Mr. Martin had better sense from anyone and always spoke to the purpose; open, straight forward, and very well judging (p.
60). He could be fair and open-minded. He was truly honest in giving compliments to others. He considered Mr. Martin as an appropriate man for Miss
Harriet.
“I have reason to think,” he replied, that Harriet Smith will soon have an offer of marriage, and from a most unexceptionable quarter: - Robert Martin is the man. Her visit to Abbey Mill, this summer, seems to have done his business. He is desperately in love and means to marry her.” (p. 57)
65 Mr. Knightley did not agree with Emma’s opinion toward Mr. Martin. Mr.
Knightley argued that Mr. Martin was superior to Harriet while Emma was argued that Harriet was superior to Mr. Martin.
“Not Harriet’s equal!” exclaimed Mr. Knightley loudly and warmly; and with calmer asperity, added, a few moments afterwards, “No, he is not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in situation. ... I remember saying to myself, “Even Emma, with all her partially for Harriet, will think this a good match.” (p. 59 – 60)
Furthermore, he also showed his good nature when his carriage fetched
Miss Bates and Jane to the Coles’ dinner party. Though many people considered
Miss Bates as a tiresome woman because she always talked too much in every occasion, Mr. Knightley still considered her as a friend. This could be seen from his attitude when he had casual conversations with Miss Bates. He also gave presents to Bateses from his farm. He acknowledged Bateses as the members of society as the others.
Those actions represented his feeling toward both the dominant class and the laboring class. He regarded that those two classes definitely needed to be treated the same. He could appreciate the dominant class and the laboring class and at the same time, he could criticize both.
Those two characters represented the dominant class and how they behaved as the members of that class. It was clear that those two the dominant class behaved differently in order to maintain their social status.
Emma represented a real the dominant class woman who lived in
Victorian Society. She regarded the laboring class unworthy. She showed her attitude through the relationship she maintained with the other characters. She
66 paid full attention to the dominant class and neglected the existence of the laboring class.
Emma, who wanted to reign her superiority in order to maintain her social status, was such a naive woman. She had very little things that could vex her. This was because Miss Taylor had treated her so well. She enjoyed her life as much as she enjoyed treating others according to her wishes. She seemed to daydream in maintaining her relationships with other characters. She pretended that she already knew everything before others. This included her judgment towards Mr. Elton,
Mr. Churchill, Miss Fairfax, and Mr. Martin. Although all her judgments were wrong – she was correctly judge Miss Jane Fairfax as “concealing” something –, she could not accept any comment that she was wrong. She always denied what
Mr. Knightley told her. She felt she was absolutely right in what she did.
In contrast, Mr. Knightley did something different in order to maintain his social status. Though he was a dominant class, he was down to earth. He could maintain relationship both with the other the dominant class and the laboring class.
Though in Victorian society the dominant class tended to marginalize the laboring class, Mr. Knightley did not do that. He treated Mr. George Martin, his tenant, indifferently. He assumed himself as one of Mr. Martin’s best friends. He was fair to tell the truth about Mr. Martin attitude.
67 2. The Laboring Class
The laboring class referred to working class people or wage earner. In
Victorian society, if they were lucky, they could possess very minimal amount of money. Even worst, most of them were homeless and jobless. They had to really work hard in order to fulfill their basic needs. Though they worked hard they still suffered from “nameless misery” (Langbaum, 1967: 61). They got wage that was just not enough to fulfill their basic needs. Many of this working class did not possess any work. There were two possible things they could do, they were stealing and starving. Both would end in a miserable condition, in which either they were caught by the police or they were “taken care by the police in a quiet and offensive manner” (Langbaum, 1967: 61).
Once a person was born as a laboring class, it was hardly possible for him/her to maintain better life. Though they tended to be marginalized by the dominant class, they could not escape from their destiny. They worked for the dominant class, but the dominant class gave them very small wages in return.
These people were also neglected by their society. It was hard to find the dominant class who wanted to maintain social relationship with them. Only few of the dominant class could maintain this relationship. The dominant class considered this class as unworthy people.
Two characters in Emma also represented the laboring class’ lives. They were Mr. George Martin and Miss Bates. They were considered differently by the other members of the society.
68 a. Mr. Robert Martin
Mr. Robert Martin was a farmer and he was a tenant of George
Knightley’s farm. Martin and Harriet were in love long before Emma interfered their relationship. Harriet showed her interest as well as her appreciation toward
Robert Martin without thinking about his social background. However, when
Harriet became Emma’s “walking companion”, Emma tried to wash her brain by an idea that Robert Marin was not equal to Harriet because Robert Martin was only a farmer, a member of laboring class who was not wealthy.
As a farmer, Robert Martin, actually, had worked hard to struggle for his living. Furthermore, he also read books and literature to enrich his knowledge.
Though he had done his best, people, especially the dominant class that was represented by Emma, still considered him as an unworthy person. Emma clearly stated this as ” That may be – and I have seen him fifty times, but without having any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot, is the very sort of person to raise my curiosity.” (p. 26) Even worse, Emma said that he was not worth enough to be somebody lover as in:
Whatever money he might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family property, it is, I dare say, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and so forth; and though, with diligent and good luck, he may be rich in time, it is next to impossible that he should have realized any thing yet. (p. 27)
Emma considered whether someone was worth or not only from their means of production. She did not want to acknowledge the fact that Robert Martin had maintained good social relationship with others and the fact that he read
69 books and literature. Mr. Knightley was the one who recognized the true Robert
Martin as the following:
“Well, well, means to make her an offer then. Will that do? He came to the Abbey two evenings ago, on purpose to consult me about it. He knows I have a thorough regard for him and all his family, and, I believe, considers me as one of his best friends. He came to ask me whether I thought it would be imprudent in him to settle so early; whether I thought her too young: in short, whether I approved his choice altogether; having some apprehension perhaps of her being considered (especially since your making so much of her) as in a line of society above him. I was very much pleased with all that he said. I never hear better sense from any one than Robert Martin. He always speaks to the purpose; open, straight forward, and very well judging. He told me every thing; his circumstance and plans, and what they all proposed doing in the event of his marriage. He is an excellent young man, both as son and brother. I had no hesitation in advising him to marry. He proved to me that he could afford it; and that being the case, I was convinced he could not do better (p. 57)
Mr. Knightley was surprised knowing that Harriet refused Robert Martin’s proposal from Emma. Then, he considered Emma as the one who told Harriet to refuse Robert Martin’s proposal. Surprisingly, Emma admitted and did not feel guilty as the following
And If I did, (which, however, I am far from allowing,) I should not feel that I had done wrong. Mr. Martin is a very respectable young man, but I cannot admit him to be Harriet’s equal; and am rather surprised indeed that he should have ventured to address her. By your account, he does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were ever got over.” (p. 59)
Furthermore, she also said
“They would be estimated very differently by others as well as myself; Mr. Martin may be the richest of the two, but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society. – The sphere in which she moves is much above his. – It would be a degradation.” (p. 60)
70
Though Robert Martin’s appearance was very neat, and he looked like a sensible young man, Emma still considered him unworthy (p. 29). For Emma it was clear that someone was worthy only when they had huge amount of money.
b. Miss Bates
Miss Bates was well known as a great talker since she talked too much on every thing. People only got acquainted with her formally or at the surface. They were usually not really willing to get acquainted with her. They talked and chatted with her only as appreciation to Mrs. Cole, Miss Bates’ friend, a member of dominant class.
Through the course of the story, Miss Bates was told as an unmarried woman who was not smart, bad in manner, and abusive. She was not able to recognize whether the utterances or sentences spoken by the other characters were mocking utterances or not. She was such a great talker. She talked about everything to everybody she met in every situation. She could not see whether she talked the right things in the right place or not. She thought that she was the one to blame when there was a problem.
From the facts above, it can be concluded that Miss Bates was not well educated, and this was as the result of being the member of laboring class who did not earn much money. She might never learn the meaning that lied behind such mocking utterances or sentences. This could be seen from her reaction toward
71 Emma’s compliment about the excellence of Miss Fairfax’ handwriting as the following
“You are extremely kind,” replied Miss Bates highly gratified; “you who are such a judge, and write so beautifully yourself. I am sure there is nobody’s praise that could give us so much pleasure as Miss Woodhouse’s. My mother does not hear; she is a little deaf you know. ‘Ma’am,’ addressing her, ’do you hear what Miss Woodhouse is so obliging to say about Jane’s handwriting?” (p. 158)
Miss Bates thought that Emma was honest in giving the compliment, whereas actually, Emma herself thought it was such a silly thing as the following
“And Emma had the advantage of hearing her own silly compliment repeated twice over before the good old lady could comprehend it. She was pondering, in the meanwhile, upon the possibility, without seeming very rude, of almost resolved on hurrying away directly under some slight excuse, when Miss Bates turned to her again and seized her attention.” (p. 158)
This might not happen if Miss Bates was well educated and if she read books or literature so that she would be able to know the meaning that implied beneath
Emma’s compliment.
C. The Class-Contestation in Emma
E.P. Thomson in The Making of the English Working Class analyses the
English working class as a group of people with shared material conditions coming to a positive self-consciousness of their social position. This feature of social class is commonly termed class-consciousness in Marxism. It is seen as the process of a “class in itself” moving in the direction of a “class for itself,” a
72 collective agent that changes history rather than simply being a victim of the historical process.
The English working class was made in confrontation with both the economic exploitation that is inherent in capitalism as well as a counter- revolutionary repression that united the landed and commercial classes against
French-type Radicalism. The English governing class had a genius for co-opting successive strata of the propertied classes – mercantile in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and commercial and industrial by 1832 – in the nick of time to isolate the working class and spare the country revolution. The result of counter-revolution was a working class that was very conscious of its own identity but lacked the drive for political power.
The working class or the laboring class – according to Marxists and
Jameson – in Emma is best represented by Miss Bates and Robert Martin. The previous discussions have proved and showed their struggle as the member of the laboring class. Furthermore, it was also said that the laboring class lived hard lives in Victorian society since Victorian society provided opportunities only for the dominant. The dominant in Emma is best represented by Emma Woodhouse and
Mr. Knightley who acted differently in maintaining and pursuing their class status.
Borrowing E.P. Thomson’s theory that the English dominant class had a genius for co-opting successive strata of the propertied classes in the nick of time to isolate the working class and spare the country revolution and it resulted in the consciousness of the laboring class for its own identity, it can be said that there
73 were also some conflicts raised in Emma because of the treatment of the dominant class. Moreover, conflicts were not only between the dominant and laboring, but conflicts also existed within the dominant and laboring.
Furthermore, conflicts in Emma are also inspired by the author’s life.
Austen was said to be a member of the dominant class and lived a nice and quite easy life as a member of the dominant. Austen herself saw the treatment the dominant gave to the laboring had isolated the laboring. Austen, an author who usually wrote stories about noble, dominant family, has included the laboring as the characters in her story. This class suicide is also portrayed in Emma through the relationship among Mr. Knightley, Miss Bates and Robert Martin.
1. Conflicts between the Dominant and Laboring
The class structure is basic in Emma, as it is in all Austen’s novels. The responsibilities and behavior of each class are generally known and accepted, and this is such a privilege for the dominant. In return for their many privileges, the dominant class had a responsibility toward the poor and the unfortunate. Emma
Woodhouse not only fulfilled her social duties with charitable visits to the poor family, but also took effective measures to alleviate their distresses out of a genuine kindness:
[...] 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 goodwill (p. 86).
74
With this display of right behavior and right feeling, Emma Woodhouse revealed to the reader her sound moral nature and good judgment. They contrasted both with Harriet’s inadequate response and with her own scheming, fancy-driven behavior upon encountering Mr. Elton. They also contrasted with Miss Bates’ ignorance and with her indifferent feeling toward Robert Martin.
The relationships between Emma Woodhouse and Miss Bates are little bit different compared to the relationships between Emma Woodhouse and Robert
Martin. Though the nature of their conflicts was about their economic base and ideology, the conflicts between Emma Woodhouse and Miss Bates were also influenced by Emma’s jealousy toward Miss Bates’ niece, Jane Fairfax.
On the other hand, Austen has plotted George Knightley as a perfect or infallible man to embody her social ideal. George Knightley – another member of the dominant class – did not show any conflicts with Robert Martin or Miss Bates.
He could fairly treat them as they were members of laboring class who needed supports and company.
a. The Conflicts between Emma Woodhouse and Robert Martin
Seen from the economic base as the foundation of class formation, the conflicts between Emma Woodhouse and Robert Martin emerged as a result of
Robert Martin’s poverty. Emma characters were told to be unlikable for she was snobbish, vain, manipulative, power -hungry, self-deluded, often indifferent to the feelings of others, and on at least one occasion scathingly cruel. Emma clearly
75 showed how she did not like Robert Martin despite the fact that Robert Martin made many attempts to prove that he was worthy.
Emma’s attitude toward Robert Martin was influenced by her self-deluded toward Harriet for she thought that she could arrange a marriage for Harriet and someone else who was superior to Robert Martin. Emma was excruciatingly vain when she told Harriet that Harriet was superior to Robert Martin so that it was unworthy for Harriet to marry Robert Martin, whereas she had not met Robert
Martin, yet. Further, Emma, as she said that she wanted to see Harriet
“permanently well connected” (p. 28), only wanted to fulfill her fancy and egotism rather than social responsibility and reason. Emma wanted something to happen in Harriet’s life as she wished, not as Harriet wished. In addition, Emma was as manipulative as she said to Harriet that Harriet would live a very hard life and would have un-educated children if she married to Robert Martin.
“You understand the force of influence well, Harriet; but I would have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent even of Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse. I want to see you permanently well connected – and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd acquaintance as may be; and, therefore, I say that if you should still be in this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not be drawn in, by your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife, who will probably be some mere farmer’s daughter, without education.” (p. 28)
Although Emma met Robert Martin for the first time on her way to
Randalls, she could already judge Robert Martin’s personalities and manner only from his physical appearance. Emma’s snobbery led her to act like a teenage that was by having a “quick eye sufficiently acquainted with Robert Martin” (p. 29).
Harriet, who then came running happily to Emma, asked Emma’s opinion toward
76 Robert Martin. Harriet expected Emma to tell something good about Robert
Martin. On the other hand, surprisingly, Emma frankly told her that Robert Martin was remarkably plain, despite the fact that Robert Martin’s appearance was neat.
Emma drove Harriet to have the same opinion. Harriet could only share the same opinion though actually she did not absolutely agree.
“[...] Well, Miss Woodhouse, is he like what you expected? What do you think of him? Do you think him so very plain?” “He is very plain, undoubtedly – remarkably plain: - but that is nothing, compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect much, and I did not clownish, so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a degree or two nearer gentility.” “To be sure,” said Harriet, in a mortified voice, “he is not so genteel as real gentlemen.” (p. 29)
Emma in her snobbery stated that her relationship with Harriet was the only reason why Harriet could be so superior. The relationship brought Harriet into a company of real gentlemen. This meant that Harriet could only marry with real gentlemen in the company who were well educated and well bred. Emma vividly insisted Harriet to consider Robert Martin as a very inferior creature.
Emma was so hypocritical since she did not tell Harriet her first impression toward Robert Martin’s appearance as his appearance was neat and he was like a sensible man. Emma told Harriet that Robert Martin possessed awkward look, uncouth voice, and abrupt manner.
“I think, Harriet, since your acquaintance with us, you have been repeatedly in the company of some, such very real gentlemen, that you must yourself be struck with the difference in Mr. Martin. At Hartfield you have had very good specimens of well educated, well bred men. I should be surprised if, after seeing them, you could be in company with Mr. Martin again without perceiving him to be a very inferior creature – and rather wondering at yourself for having ever thought him at all agreeable before. Do not you begin to feel
77 that now? Were not you struck? I am sure you must have been struck by his awkward look and abrupt manner – and the uncouthness of a voice, which I heard to be wholly un-modulated as I stood here.” (p. 30)
Furthermore, Emma was not only objected Robert Martin’ look, manner and voice, but she also compared him with other men in Hartfield such as George
Knightley, Mr. Weston and Mr. Elton. Emma said that there was a big difference between Mr. George Knightley and Robert Martin as they were un-comparable.
Mr. George Knightley was said to be so highly superior, one in a hundred, whereas Robert Martin was one of a hundred.
“Certainly, he is not like Mr. Knightley. He has not such a fine air and way of walking like Mr. Knightley. I see the difference plain enough. But Mr. knightly is so very fine a man!” “Mr. Knightley’s air is so remarkably good, that it is not fair to compare Mr. Martin with him. You might not see one in a hundred, with gentleman so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley. [...]” (p. 30)
Emma did not only compare Robert Martin with Mr. Knightley, but she also compared him with Mr. Weston and Mr. Elton. She noted that Robert Martin was far different. She also emphasized how Robert Martin looked like when he was as old as Mr. Weston. She blatantly said that Robert Martin would be completely uncouth, and rude in manners. She pointed that Robert Martin would only think about how to get profit and to avoid loss. It was important for Emma to let Harriet knew that a man such as Robert Martin would never change himself into a better gentleman.
“[...] What you say to Mr. Weston and Mr. Elton? Compare Mr. Martin with either of them. Compare their manner of carrying themselves; of walking; of speaking; of being silent. You must see the difference.”
78 “Which makes his good manners the more valuable. The older a person grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not be bad – the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth, is detestable in later age. Mr. Martin is now awkward and abrupt; what will he be at Mr. Weston’s time of life?” “But there may be pretty good guessing. He will be a completely gross, vulgar farmer – totally inattentive to appearance, and thinking of nothing but profit and loss.” (p.30 – 31)
Certainly imagination or fancy, combined with snobbery, caused Emma to discourage Harriet from accepting Mr. Martin’s proposal. Emma held to her belief that Harriet was personally and socially superior to Mr. Martin, despite compelling evidence to the contrary – Mr. Martin’s gentlemanly letter of proposal. Emma was full of distrustful for she found out that the proposal was above her expectation. She would never expect that Robert Martin could write a proposal without any grammatical mistake. Emma realized the power of the letter for it expressed good sense, warm attachment, liberality, propriety, and delicacy of feeling. However, Emma was too snobbish to acknowledge it. She tried to find any mistake in the letter and weaknesses of the letter.
[...] She read, and was surprised. The style of the letter was much above her expectation. There were not merely no grammatical errors, but as a composition it would not have disgraced a gentleman; the language, though plain, was strong and unaffected, and the sentiments it conveyed very much to the credit of the writer. It was short, but expressed good sense, warm attachment, liberality, propriety, even delicacy of feeling. [...] (p. 48)
Though in the next story Emma said that it was a better written letter than she had expected, she also clearly showed her sarcasm in her words. She definitely said that Robert Martin’s sister had helped him writing the letter. Once
79 again, Emma did not want to acknowledge the talent Robert Martin had. Emma wanted to show Harriet that marrying Robert Martin was not a good idea. Emma neglected the fact that Robert Martin had made a very good letter. For Emma it was clear that whatever efforts Robert Martin made, Emma would not take it into account.
“Yes, indeed, a very good letter,” replied Emma rather slowly – “so good a letter, Harriet, that every thing considered, I think one of his sisters must have helped him. I can imagine the young man whom I was talking with you the other day could express himself so well, if left quite to his own powers, and yet it is not the style of a woman; no, certainly, it is too strong and concise; not diffuse enough for a woman. [...]” (p. 48)
The evidences above vividly showed the intense of the conflicts between
Emma Woodhouse and Robert Martin. Once Emma regarded Robert Martin as an unworthy person to be married, it was difficult for Emma to acknowledge any effort Robert Martin did. As a power-hungry woman, Emma became the source of the conflicts. She made everything sound impossible for Robert Martin; it was only because of Robert Martin’ poverty.
From the conflicts between Emma Woodhouse and Robert Martin, it was certainly clear that the dominant treated the laboring based on their economic base. Emma portrayed how the dominant’ treatment could affect the members of laboring class’s life. Emma used her power to maintain the class status and control the laboring.
80 b. The Conflicts between Emma Woodhouse and Miss Bates
The conflicts between Emma Woodhouse and Miss Bates were mainly because of Miss Bates’ poverty and manner, and of Emma jealousy toward Jane
Fairfax. Throughout the story, Emma was told that she had indifferent feeling toward Miss Bates.
Emma did not like the way Miss Bates spoke or commented on things.
She considered Miss Bates as a foolish who laughed at herself. Emma could never understand why people could stand with Miss Bates in the party. Emma would not get closed to Miss Bates if she did not have something urgently to do with Miss
Bates.
Emma Woodhouse noted that Miss Bates was actually not equal with those who attended Cole’s party. Emma could not accept any good treatment given to Miss Bates. Though Emma herself sometimes visited Miss Bates, she could not pretend that she liked Miss Bates. For Emma, she would not want to get acquainted with Miss Bates if she did not have any reason to do so.
2. Conflicts within the Dominant
In Emma, conflicts were not only between classes, but also within class.
There was not any conflict within the members of laboring class, but there were conflicts within the members of dominant class. The most noticeable conflicts raised within the members of dominant class were conflict between Emma
Woodhouse and George Knightley.
81 Since the very beginning of the story, Austen had stated that there would be conflicts between Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley. George Knightley was told as one among few people who could see Emma’s mistakes and as the only one who could tell Emma her mistakes. To this point, Emma was told that she would disagree to whatever George Knightley said. It was because Emma was used to be treated so well by her family, especially by her father and Miss Taylor, her governess. As the result of well-treatment, Emma grew as snobbish, vain, manipulative, power-hungry, self-deluded, often indifferent to the feelings of others, and on at least one occasion scathingly cruel woman. These attitudes would be the source of conflicts between Emma and George Knightley.
There were three notable conflicts between Emma Woodhouse and Mr.
George Knightley that could be seen from the novel. The first conflict between
Emma and George Knightley rose when they talked about Miss Taylor’ marriage.
Emma was so proud of herself that she could successfully match Miss Taylor and
Mr. Weston into a marriage. She was so sure that there would never be a marriage if she did not match her. This success led her into a feeling that she would be successful if she made another match. Her father, who used to spoil her also acknowledged her for the successful match.
“And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me,” said Emma, “and a very considerable one – that I made the match myself. I made the match, you know, four years ago; and to have it take place, and be proved in the right, when so many people said Mr. Weston would never marry again, may comfort me for any thing.” (p. 8) However, George Knightley did not agree with them. For George
Knightley, the marriage of Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston was not because of
82 Emma. He stated that Emma was daydreaming, and that she made a lucky guess.
He disagreed when Emma used the word “success” to express her happiness. For
George Knightley, success meant endeavor. George Knightley noticed that Emma did not make any efforts to match Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston. He said that it was only Emma’s saying to herself.
“I do not understand what you mean by “success;” said Mr. Knightley. “Success supposes endeavor. Your time has been properly and delicately spent, if you have been endeavoring for the last four years to bring about this marriage. A worthy employment for a young lady’s mind! [...] you made a lucky guess; and that is all that can be said.” (p. 9)
Emma, certainly, got angry to hear George Knightley’s comment. She was never been denied before as she heard Knightley’s comment. Emma said that lucky guess was never merely luck, but she noted that lucky guess needed talent. When she used her talent for something, this meant that she devoted herself or endeavored. Emma underlined the word “success” because she thought that she had been success in endeavoring her talent for the marriage of Mr. Weston and
Miss Taylor.
“And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess? – I pity you. – I thought you cleverer – for depend upon it, a lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it. And as to my poor word ‘success’, which you quarrel with, I do not know that I am so entirely without any claim to it.” (p. 9)
Emma’s choice of words emphasized the feeling of power-hungry. She wanted everybody to agree with her thought, feeling, and actions. She could not accept any negative comment about herself or what she did.
83 The second notable conflict between Emma and George Knightley was about the relationship of Harriet and Robert Martin. Emma wanted to match
Harriet with Mr. Elton since she thought that Robert Martin was a sort of unworthy person. Emma, who wanted to form Harriet based on her own arrangement, had persuaded Harriet to refuse Robert Martin’s marriage proposal.
Mr. George Knightley did not agree with Emma’s plan.
Emma and George Knightley had different point of view toward Robert
Martin. George Knightley saw him as open, straight forward, and very well judging person. He considered Robert Martin as an excellent young man and he saw that Robert Martin was a perfect match for Harriet. On the other hand, Emma saw Robert Martin as a poor farmer who was unworthy to marry. She considered
Harriet having higher position than Robert Martin. She thought that Robert
Martin’s match was someone out there, someone who was not as worth as Harriet.
“Come’, said she, “I will tell you something, in return for what you have told me. He did speak yesterday – that is he wrote, and was refused.” This was obliged to be repeated before it could be believed; and Mr. Knightley actually looked red with surprise and displeasure, as he stood up, in tall indignation, and said, “Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever believed her. What is the foolish girl about. (p. 58)
George Knightley believed that Emma Woodhouse had set Harriet to do so. He was angry when he knew the fact that Emma was behind the refusal.
Emma herself did not feel guilty for doing so. Emma felt that what she did was for
Harriet’s sake. Emma wanted Harriet to marry with her equal, not to marry someone who was inferior. She stated this clearly to George Knightley.
84 “And if I did, (which, however, I am far from allowing,) I should not feel that I had done wrong. Mr. Martin is a very respectable young man, but I cannot admit him to be Harriet’s equal; and am rather surprised indeed that he should have ventured to address her. By your account, he does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were ever got over.” (p. 59)
As the response, George Knightley was mad with Emma Woodhouse. However, he could put himself into calm warm advice. He then said that Emma’s effort to form Harriet as her arrangement had blinded her. In spite of being rude to Emma, he noted and showed Emma’s mistakes.
“Not Harriet’s equal!” exclaimed Mr. Knightley loudly and warmly; and with calmer asperity, added, a few moments afterwards, “No, he is not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in situation. Emma, your infatuation about that girl blinds you. What are Harriet Smith’s claims, either of birth, nature or education, to any connection higher than Robert Martin?” (p. 59)
Moreover, the third conflict between Emma Woodhouse and George
Knightley was about Miss Bates. Emma did not like Miss Bates for her manner.
Later in the story, it was clear that Emma’s feeling was not only influenced by
Miss Bates poverty, but it was influenced much more by the existence of Jane
Fairfax. Emma could not be a good acquaintance of Kane Fairfax since she felt that Jane Fairfax was so perfect for her class. Emma’s jealousy toward Jane
Fairfax created negative atmosphere in her relationship with Miss Bates since
Miss Bates was Jane’s aunt.
On the contrary, George Knightley showed different attitude toward Miss
Bates. He could be a good friend of her and her family. George Knightley was
85 willing to take them into his cart when they wanted to attend Cole’s party. He also offered help to Miss Bates when he wanted to go Kingston.
From the three notable conflicts between Emma Woodhouse and George
Knightley, it was clear that actually they cared each other. In criticizing Emma,
George Knightley wanted to show that what Emma did was wrong. If George
Knightley did not care to Emma, he would not do that.
The conflicts between and within classes in Emma showed that every person in every class wanted to maintain their class status though they chose different way to do that. The way people maintained their class status in Emma had forced other people who got acquainted with them to react. Their reaction created new atmosphere in Emma. This could be seen clearly from Robert
Martin’s portray. After Emma Woodhouse considered him as unworthy person to marry with, he equipped himself with good books and readings to prove that he was worthy. This was true because later at the end of the story, he could marry with Harriet.
The above facts showed how each character struggled to maintain their class status. Meaning to say that the characters, altogether, were conscious about their class existence. The new atmosphere in Emma, an atmosphere in which people realized their existence as members of certain class, created class contestation which was resulted in class consciousness.
86
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This chapter includes two parts, namely conclusions and suggestions. The conclusions examine the answers of the formulated problems based on the analysis. The suggestions the suggestion to the future researchers of literary works, especially those who concern with Jane Austen’s literary works.
A. Conclusions
This thesis is not only meant to analyze how the characters perceive their existence, but also to analyze the composition of the Victorian society. There are three points that can be presented in the conclusions. These three points are considered to be the core of this study. First is the categorization of the characters based on the means of production. The characters are grouped into three classes namely dominant, a class between dominant and laboring, and laboring class. Two characters are described as the member of dominant class. One character is described as the member of a class between the dominant and laboring class. Two characters are also described as the member of laboring class. Those characters are Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley, Miss Taylor, and Robert Martin and Miss Bates respectively. As the members of dominant class, Emma
Woodhouse and George Knightley possess very huge amount of money. Miss
Tailor, who is in the class between the dominant and laboring, earns enough money as a governess. Robert Martin and Miss Bates are the members of laboring class. They do not have the means of production.
87 The second point is the characterization of the characters based on their ideology. The character presented some different things related to utopian ideology. Emma and Knightley as the member of dominant class had different opinion about perceiving their status. Emma though that she is at the highest rank and she really knows what she does. She tends to be rude to the people below her rank such as to Miss Bates and Robert Martin by judging their manner and appearance. In the contrary, Knightley does something different. He absolutely knows that he is rich, but he does not make use of his wealth. He treats people below his rank equally to those at the same rank. He is polite to people such as
Miss Bates and Robert Martin. He even gives good and nice comments about their manner and appearance. Furthermore, Miss Bates and Robert Martin who are members of the laboring class also act differently. Miss Bates tends to talk too much on every thing. She looks like uneducated person, whereas Robert Martin is vice versa. He reads books and literature.
The third point is about their class struggle and class-consciousness. Each character portrays their self reliance about their being member of certain class.
Emma tends to do the same thing that is make use of her wealth through the course of the story, whereas Knightley acts like a perfect man who is rich, kind, well judging, reasonable, and certainly handsome. Furthermore, there is a change in Miss Taylor since she marries Mr. Weston and she turns herself into Mrs.
Weston. She is not a governess anymore. She has step onto the ladder of higher rank because her marriage. Then, Miss Bates with her unique way, talking too much, keeps maintaining her status. She tends to make friends with members of dominant class. Little bit different, Robert Martin reads books and journal though
88 he is a member of the laboring class. He considers that reading will improve his knowledge.
The class formation in Emma is not only based on the economic of each character, but also based on the ideology, taste and hegemony, and language.
They, altogether, form classes and influence the characters in maintaining their class status. Therefore, some characters in Emma are not easily classified into certain class, such as Jane Fairfax and Harriet.
B. Suggestions
Emma is one of Jane Austen’s novels, which is very interesting. It portrays life of rich people and their relationship among other people at their rank and people below their rank. There are many interesting topics that can be analyzed from this novel. Future researchers can use another approach to analyze other aspects of the novel. Thus, the writer suggests for the future researchers to analyze the relation of the writer’s personal life to the story of the novel by using modern feminist approach.
89 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Austen, Jane. 1991. Emma. London: David Campbell Publishers Ltd.
Booth, Wayne C. 1961. The Retoric of Fiction. Chicago: UCP.
Bradbury, Malcolm. 1957. Jane Austen's Emma Critics. Boston: Oxford UP.
------. 1994. Critics on Jane Austen. Ed. Judith O’Neil. New Delhi: Universal Book Stall.
Brooker, Peter and Raman Selden. 1997. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. London. Prentice Hall.
Derry, John W. 1963. A Short History of Nineteenth-Century England. London: Blandford Press Ltd.
Eagleton, Terry & Drew Milne. 1996. Marxist Literary Theory. New York: Blackwell Publisher.
Finch, Casey, and Peter Bowen. 1990. ‘”The Title-Tattle of Highbury”: Gossip and the Free Indirect Style in Emma’. Representations 31.
Ford, Boris. 1970. Notes on the Victorian Scene: From Dickens to Hardy. New York: PenguinBooks, Inc.
Gilmour, Robin. 1981. The Idea of the Gentlement in the Victorian Novel. London: Allen & Unwin.
Haslett, Mayora. 2000. Marxist Literary and Cultural Theories. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Jameson, Frederick. 1981. The Political Unconscious. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Jameson, Frederick. 1988. The Cognitive Mapping. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Johnson, Claudia L. 1988. Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langbaum, Robert. 1967. The Victorian Age. New York. Fawcett Publications, Inc.
90 Langland, Elizabeth. 1984. Society in the Novel. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
McKernan, Maggie. 1993. The Saying of Jane Austen. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.
Paris, Bernard J. 1978. Character and Conflict in Jane Austen Novels. Detroit: Wayne State UP.
Rickard, J.A. 1957. History of England. New York. Barness & Noble, Inc.
Scott, John. 1999. Social Divisions. London: Macmillan
Scott, Sir Walter. 1972. “Review of Emma.” Emma: An Authoritative Text. Ed. Stephen M. Parrish. New York: Norton.
Spinker, Michael. 1987. Imaginary Relations: Aesthetics and Ideology in the Theory of Historical Materialism. London: Verso.
Thomson, David. 1959. England in the Ni neteenth Century (1815-1914). London: Hunt Barnard & Co., Ltd.
Williams, Raymond. 2001. The Long Revolution. London: Broadview Press.
Online Resources:
Kelsh, Deb. An article of Desire and Class. Retrieved from (http://eserver.org/clogic/1-2/kelsh2.html). Accessed on December 2006 www.readprint.com/author-4/jane-Austen. Accessed on October 2006 www.textetc.com/theory.html. Accessed on March 2006 www.textetc.com/althusser.html. Accessed on May 2006 www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext26/Bernie.html. Accessed on August 2006
91 APPENDIX: 1
THE SYNOPSIS OF EMMA
At the center of the story is the title character, Emma Woodhouse, a heiress who lives with her widowed father at their estate, Hartfield. At the beginning of the novel, she is a self-satisfied young woman who feels no particular need to marry, for she is in the rather unique condition of not needing a husband to supply her fortune. At the beginning of the novel, Emma's governess,
Miss Taylor, has just married Mr. Weston, a wealthy man who owns Randalls, a nearby estate. The Westons, the Woodhouses, and Mr. Knightly (who owns the estate Donwell Abbey) are at the top of Highbury society. Mr. Weston had been married earlier. When his previo us wife died, he sent their one child (Frank
Churchill) to be raised by her brother and his wife, for the now-wealthy Mr.
Weston could not at that time provide for the boy. Without Miss Taylor as a companion, Emma adopts the orphan Harriet Smith as a protégé. Harriet lives at a nearby boarding school where she was raised, and knows nothing of her parents.
Emma advises the innocent Harriet in virtually all things, including the people with whom she should interact. She suggests that Harriet not spend time with the
Martins, a local family of farmers whose son, Robert, is interested in Harriet.
Instead, Emma plans to play matchmaker for Harriet and Mr. Elton, the vicar of the church in Highbury.
Emma seems to have some success in her attempts to bring together
Harriet Smith and Mr. Elton. The three spend a good deal of leisure time together and he seems receptive to all of Emma's suggestions. The friendship between
92 Emma and Harriet does little good for either of them, however. Harriet indulges
Emma's worst qualities, giving her opportunity to meddle and serving only to flatter her. Emma in turn fills Harriet Smith with grand pretensions that do not suit her low situation in society. When Robert Martin proposes to Harriet, she rejects him based on Emma's advice, thinking that he is too common. Mr. Knightly criticizes Emma's matchmaking, since he thinks that the dependable Robert
Martin is Harriet's superior, for while he is respectable, she is from uncertain origins. Emma's sister, Isabella, and her husband, Mr. John Knightly, visit
Highbury, and Emma uses their visit as an opportunity to reconcile with Mr.
Knightly after their argument over Harriet.
The Westons hold a party on Christmas Eve for the members of Highbury society. Harriet Smith, however, becomes ill and cannot attend. During the party,
Mr. Elton focuses his attention solely on Emma. When they travel home by carriage from the party, Mr. Elton professes his adoration for Emma, and dismisses the idea that he would ever marry Harriet Smith, whom he feels is too common for him. Mr. Elton obviously intends to move up in society, and is interested in Emma primarily for her social status and wealth. Shortly after Emma rejects Mr. Elton, he leaves Highbury for a stay in Bath. Emma breaks the bad news to Harriet Smith. As of this time, Frank Churchill has not yet visited his father and his new wife at Randalls, which has caused some concern. Emma, without having met the young man, decides that he must certainly be a good suitor for her, since he is of appropriate age and breeding. Another character who occupies Emma's thoughts is Jane Fairfax, the granddaughter of Mrs. Bates, an
93 impoverished widow whose husband was the former vicar, and the niece of Miss
Bates, a chattering spinster who lives with her mother.
Jane is equal to Emma in every respect (beauty, education, talents) except for status, and provokes some jealousy in Emma. Jane will soon visit her family in
Highbury, for the wealthy family who brought her up after her parents had died has gone on vacation. There is some indication that Jane might be involved with
Mr. Dixon, a married man, but this is only idle gossip. Mr. Elton returns from
Bath with news that he is engaged to a Miss Augusta Hawkins. This news, along with an awkward meeting with the Martins, greatly embarrasses poor Harriet
Smith. Frank Churchill finally visits the Westons, and Emma is pleased to find that he lives up to her expectations, even though Mr. Knightly disapproves of him.
Emma and Frank begin to spend time together, yet he seems somewhat insubstantial and immature. He makes a day trip to London for no other reason than to get his hair cut. Soon afterward, Jane Fairfax receives a pianoforte from
London, and Emma assumes that it was sent to her by Mr. Dixon. As Frank and
Emma spend more time together, Mr. Knightly becomes somewhat jealous, while
Emma in turn becomes jealous as she suspects that Mr. Knightly might be in love with her rival Jane Fairfax. Frank Churchill must abruptly leave Randalls when he learns that his aunt is unwell. His aunt is an insufferable woman, proud and vain, and she exercises great authority over her nephew. Thinking that Frank was ready to profess his love for her, she convinces herself that she is in love with Frank, but is unsure how to tell that she actually loves him. Finally, she realizes that she must not be in love with him, for she is as happy with him absent as she is with him
94 present. Mr. Elton brings his new wife back to Highbury. She is a vapid name- dropper, who compares everything to the supposedly grand lifestyle of her relatives, the Sucklings and addresses her new peers in Highbury with a startling lack of formality. Emma takes an instant dislike to her, and upon realizing this,
Mrs. Elton takes a dislike to Emma.
When Frank Churchill returns, he and Emma sponsor a ball at the Crown
Inn. During this ball, Mr. Elton openly snubs Harriet Smith, but she is saved from his social slight by Mr. Knightly, who graciously dances with her. After the ball, when Harriet and her companions are walking home, they are assaulted by a group of gipsies, but Frank Churchill saves the girl, a situation which becomes the talk of Highbury. This leads Emma to believe that Frank Churchill, whom Emma is sure she does not love, would be a suitable match for Harriet. When discussing what happened the next morning, Harriet does admit that she has some feelings for the man who saved her the night before yet she does not explicitly name
Frank. Thanks to this new infatuation, Harriet finally gets over Mr. Elton. At an outing at Box Hill, Frank Churchill, whose recent behavior had been questionable, proposes a game for entertaining Emma, and during this game Emma makes a rude comment to Miss Bates. Afterwards, Mr. Knightly severely scolds Emma for doing so, since Miss Bates is a poor woman who deserves Emma's pity and compassion, and not her scorn and derision. When Emma goes to visit Miss Bates the next day to apologize, she learns that Jane Fairfax has taken ill. She was preparing to leave for Maple Grove to become a governess for a family, a situation that she earlier compared to the slave trade.
95 Emma now begins to pity Jane Fairfax, for she realizes that the only reason that Jane must enter into a profession is her social status. Otherwise, she would be as highly regarded as Emma herself. There is shocking news for Emma when Mrs. Churchill dies. Freed from his overbearing aunt, Frank reveals to the
Westons that he has been secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax. Mr. Knightly begins to show a greater romantic interest in Emma, but when she attempts to break the bad news to Harriet Smith about Frank Churchill's engagement (the second heartbreak for Harriet), Emma learns that Harriet in fact had fallen for Mr. Knightly, who saved her socially at the Crown Inn ball. Emma now realizes that she is the only one who can marry Mr. Knightly, and that she has done Harriet a great disservice by making her think that she can aspire to such unreasonable heights.
Mr. Knightly soon professes his love for Emma, and they plan to marry.
Yet there are two obstacles: first, if Emma were to marry she would have to leave her father, who dotes on her; second, she must break the news to Harriet Smith.
Emma and Mr. Knightly decide that, when they marry, he should move to
Hartfield, for Mr. Woodhouse cannot be left alone and would not bear moving to
Donwell Abbey. Harriet takes the news about Mr. Knightly well, and soon after she reunites with Robert Martin. The wrongheaded aspirations that Emma instilled in Harriet are now gone, and she becomes engaged to her original and most appropriate suitor. She even learns of her parentage: her father is a respectable tradesman. The novel concludes with marriage: between Robert
Martin and Harriet Smith, Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax, and between
96 Mr. Knightly and Emma Woodhouse, who has grown to accept the possibility of submitting some degree of her independence to a husband.
97 APPENDIX: 2
THE BIOGRAPHY OF JANE AUSTEN
Jane Austen (1775-1817) was born in Steventon, Hampshire, where her father was a rector. She was the second daughter and seventh child in a family of eight. The first 25 years of her life Austen spent in Hampshire. She was mostly tutored at home, and irregularly at school. Her parents were avid readers and she received a broader education than many women of her time. Her favorite poet was
Cowper. On her father's retirement, the family sold off everything, including
Jane's piano, and moved to Bath.
Austen started to write for family amusement as a child. Her earliest- known writings date from about 1787. Very shy about her writing, she wrote on small pieces of paper that she slipped under the desk plotter if anyone came into the room. In her letters she observed the daily life of her family and fiends in an intimate and gossipy manner: "James danced with Alethea, and cut up the turkey last night with great perseverance. You say nothing of the silk stockings; I flatter myself, therefore, that Charles has not purchased any, as I cannot very well afford to pay for them; all my money is spent in buying white gloves and pink persian."
(Austen in a letter to her sister Cassandra in 1796)
Austen's father supported his daughter's writing aspirations and tried to help her get a publisher. After his death in 1805, she lived with her sister and hypochondriac mother in Southampton and moved in 1809 to a large cottage in the village of Chawton. Austen never married, but her social life was active and
98 she had suitors and romantic dreams. James Edward Austen-Leigh, her nephew, wanted to create another kind of legend around her and claimed that "of events her life was singularly barren: few changes and no great crises ever broke the smooth current of its course... There was in her nothing eccentric or angular; no ruggedness of temper; no singularity of manner..." Austen's sister Cassandra never married. One of her brothers became a clergyman, two served in the navy, one was mentally retarded. He was taken care of a local family.
Austen was well connected with the middling-rich landed gentry that she portrayed in her novels. In Chawton she started to write her major works, among them SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, the story of the impoverished Dashwood sisters, Marianne and Elinor, who try to find proper husbands to secure their social position. The novel was written in 1797 as the revision of a sketch called
Elinor and Marianne, composed when the author was 20. According to some sources an earlier version of the work was written in the form of a novel in letters, and read aloud to the family as early as 1795. Austen's heroines are determined to marry wisely and well, but romantic Marianne is a character who feels intensely about everything and loses her heart to an irresponsible seducer. "I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter into all my feelings; the same with books, the same music must charm us both." Reasonable Elinor falls in love with a gentleman already engaged. '"I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes," said Elinor, "in a total misapprehension of character in some point or another: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell
99 why or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and ver y frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge."' When Marianne likes to read and express her feelings, Elinor prefers to draw and design and be silent of his desires.
They are the daughters of Henry Dashwood, whose son, John, from a former marriage. After his death John inherits the Norland estate in Sussex where the sisters live. John's wife, the greedy and selfish Fanny, insists that they move to
Norland. The impoverished widow and and her daughters move to Barton Cottage in Devonshire. There Marianne is surrounded by a devious heartbreaker
Willoughby, who has already loved another woman. Elinor becomes interested in
Edward Ferrars, who is proud and ignorant. Colonel Brandon, an older gentleman, doesn't attract Marianne. She is finally rejected by Willoughby. "Marianne
Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favorite maxims."
In all of Austen's novels her heroines are ultimately married. Pride and
Prejudice described the clash between Elisabeth Bennet, the daughter of a country gentleman and an intelligent young woman, and Fitzwilliam Darcy, a rich aristocratic landowner. Their relationship starts from dislike but Darcy becomes intrigued by her mind and spirit. At last they fall in love and are happily united.
Austen had completed the early version of the story in 1797 under the title "First
Impressions". The book went to three printings during Austen's lifetime. In 1998 appeared a sequel to the novel, entitled Desire and Duty, written by Teddy F.
100 Bader, et al. It followed the ideas Jane Austen told her family. Emma was written in comic tone and told the story of Emma Woodhouse, who finds her destiny in marriage. During the story Emma, a snobbish young woman, develops into someone capable of feeling and love. Emma has too much time and she spends it choosing proper male partners for her friends. She falls in love with her brother- in-law, the noble Mr. Knightley, but does he love her?
Austen focused on middle-class provincial life with humor and understanding. She depicted the life of minor landed gentry, country clergymen and their families, in which marriage mainly determined women's social status.
Most important for her were those little matters, as Emma says, "on which the daily happiness of private life depends." Although Austen restricted to family matters, and she passed the historical events of the Napoleonic wars, her wit and observant narrative touch has been inexhaustible delight to readers. Of her six great novels, four were published anonymously during her lifetime. Austen also had troubles with her publisher, who wanted to make alterations to her love scenes in Pride and Prejudice. In 1811 he wrote to Thomas Egerton: "You say the book is indecent. You say I am immodest. But Sir in the depiction of love, modesty is the fullness of truth; and decency frankness; and so I must also be frank with you, and ask that you remove my name from the title page in all future printings; 'A lady' will do well enough." At her death on July 18, 1817 in Winchester, at the age of forty-one, Austen was writing the unfinished SANDITON. Austen was buried in
Winchester Cathedral, near the centre of the north aisle. "It is a satisfaction to me
101 to think that [she is] to lie in a Building she admired so much," Austen's sister
Cassandra wrote later.
Austen's brother Henry made her authorship public after her death. Emma had been reviewed favorably by Sir Walter Scott, who wrote in his journal of
March 14, 1826: "[Miss Austen] had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I have ever met with. The Big Bow-Wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me."
Charlotte Bronte and E.B. Browning found her limited, and Elizabeth Hardwick said: "I don't think her superb intelligence brought her happiness." It was not until the publication of J.E. Austen-Leigh's Memoir in 1870 that a Jane Austen cult began to develop. Austen's unfinished Sanditon was published in 1925.
Chronology
Age
1775 (16 Dec) Jane Austen born at Steventon in Hants, seventh child of the Rev. George Austen (1731-1805) and Cassandra Leigh (1739- 1827)
1784/5 J. A. and her sister, Cassandra, leave the Abbey School, Reading 9
1795 Elinor and Marianne written. Lady Susan written 20
1796 (Oct) First Impressions begun (finished Aug 1797) 21
1797 (Nov) Sense and Sensibility begun. First Impressions 22
102 unsuccessfully offered to Cadell
1798/9 Northanger Abbey (Susan) written. Sold to Crosby & Go. in 1803
1801 Austens settle in Bath 26
1805 Rev. George Austen dies. The Watsons and Lady Susan (R. W. 30 Chapman's dating) written about this time
1806 Austens leave Bath for Clifton with 'happy feelings of escape', 31 and visit Adlestrop and Stoneleigh
1807 (Mar) Austens settle in at Castle Square, Southampton 32
1809 Austens move to Chawton, Hampshire (owned by Jane's brother 34 Edward)
1811 Mansfield Park begun (Feb). Sense and Sensibility published 36 36 (Nov.)
1812 (Nov) Pride and Prejudice sold to Egerton 37
1813 (Jan) Pride and Prejudice published (Nov.) second editions of this 38 and Sense and Sensibility
1814 (21 Jan) Emma begun (finished 29 Mar 1815) 39 (May) Mansfield Park published by Egerton
1815 Persuasion begun (finished August 1816)(Dec) Emma published 40 by John Murray.
1816 Mansfield Park, second edition. 41
1817 (Jan-Mar) Sanditon begun 42 (28 July) Jane Austen dies at Winchester; buried in Winchester
103 Cathedral (Dec) Northanger Abbey; and Persuasion published by Murray
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