Emma essay #1

Hi everyone,


Here's your question.  Good luck!

"'That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.'" Chapter 9, pg. 79

Discuss Austen's presentation of Emma Woodhouse in the light of this quotation from Emma.

Write about 3 sides in your response.


This essay will be due Wednesday 17th February.


As a side note, please notice the new additions to the Emma tab on the right of the screen.  Here's an extract from Duckworth's critique:

"The narrator of Emma quotes a line from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “The course of true love never did run smooth” (I), commenting that a Hartfield edition of Shakespeare “would have a long note on that passage” (75).  Such a note could mention that, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the lovers in Emma are laughably confused, that one of them is revealed to be an ass, that the heroine, who pretends to play the part of Puck, finds that she is only one of the confused lovers, while the narrator is the real Puck, and that both works end with three weddings.  Emma’s narrator, like Elizabeth Bennet, is diverted by the “‘follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies’” of her characters, and “‘laugh[s] at them whenever [she] can’” (57)."

This observation is worth noting down for possible use in your essays.  Also note the title on the essay and the year it was published.


- T. Marcus