Long praised for its rich domestic realism, Emma also presents troubling questions: how can a character as intelligent as Emma be wrong so often? When does Austen expect us to sympathize with Emma, and when does she expect us to criticize her? Is the ending as genuinely happy as it is presented to be, or does Austen subtly inject a note of subversive irony into it? That these questions are on some level unanswerable ensures that Emma will be read again and again
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Analysis of Major Characters .
Emma Woodhouse - The narrator introduces Emma to us by emphasizing her good fortune: "handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition," Emma "had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." But, the narrator soon warns us, Emma possesses "the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself." Emma's stubbornness and vanity produce many of the novel's major conflicts, as Emma struggles to develop emotionally. .
Emma makes three major mistakes. First, she attempts to make Harriet into the wife of a gentleman, when Harriet's social position dictates that she would be better suited to the farmer who loves her. Then, she flirts with Frank Churchill even though she does not care for him, making unfair comments about Jane Fairfax along the way. Most important, she does not realize that, rather than being committed to staying single (as she always claims), she is in love with and wants to marry Mr. Knightley. Emma's mistakes seriously threaten Harriet's happiness, cause her embarrassment, and create obstacles to her own achievement of true love, but none of them has lasting consequences. Throughout the novel, Knightley corrects and guides Emma, and, in marrying Knightley, Emma signals that her judgment has aligned with his. .
Austen predicted that Emma would be "a character whom no one but me will much like.
