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Romancing Jane AustenEmma: ‘the operation of the same system in another way’

Romancing Jane Austen: Emma: ‘the operation of the same system in another way’ [The question of the nature of feminine agency cuts to the core of Austen’s work, but is expressed in a distinctive way in her last two complete narratives, Emma (1816) and Persuasion (1818). We find her late heroines in opposing circumstances: the privileged Emma, who rarely finds her will crossed either by an indulgent and weak father or a loving governess, and whose economic independence makes marriage unnecessary to her; and the already static Anne, whose inert condition at the opening of her narrative of revival is reinforced by the absence of her direct voice. We hear Emma speak early, but Anne is only indirectly registered by the narrator until a passing reference to the navy brings her into the present of the scene: ‘here Anne spoke’.394 The movement of Persuasion turns Anne’s stasis into a revised concept of freedom in its final un-mooring of her character from its ‘landed’ determinants: ‘She gloried in being a sailor’s wife.’395 This contrasts directly with Emma, when this is read as a study in the implications of ungrounded female will.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Romancing Jane AustenEmma: ‘the operation of the same system in another way’

Part of the Language, Discourse, Society Book Series
Tauchert, Ashley
Romancing Jane Austen — Oct 10, 2015
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25 pages

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References (3)

Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2005
ISBN
978-1-349-54635-0
Pages
111 –136
DOI
10.1057/9780230599697_6
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[The question of the nature of feminine agency cuts to the core of Austen’s work, but is expressed in a distinctive way in her last two complete narratives, Emma (1816) and Persuasion (1818). We find her late heroines in opposing circumstances: the privileged Emma, who rarely finds her will crossed either by an indulgent and weak father or a loving governess, and whose economic independence makes marriage unnecessary to her; and the already static Anne, whose inert condition at the opening of her narrative of revival is reinforced by the absence of her direct voice. We hear Emma speak early, but Anne is only indirectly registered by the narrator until a passing reference to the navy brings her into the present of the scene: ‘here Anne spoke’.394 The movement of Persuasion turns Anne’s stasis into a revised concept of freedom in its final un-mooring of her character from its ‘landed’ determinants: ‘She gloried in being a sailor’s wife.’395 This contrasts directly with Emma, when this is read as a study in the implications of ungrounded female will.]

Published: Oct 10, 2015

Keywords: Happy Ending; Narrative Fiction; Complete Truth; Narrative Action; Free Indirect Discourse

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