Male_Characters_in_the_Novel_Emma

Artlessly, Emma draws us into intrigues that are partly a manifestation of her own active imagination. We don't mind because, like Mrs. Weston, we want to believe that, "[w]here Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred times," and if Emma is manipulative, "she will never lead any one really wrong." Austen's narrator confirms Mrs. Weston's good opinion of Emma. If Emma possesses "a mind delighted with its own ideas" she is also full of "real good-will." If she is spoiled by always having been "first" with her father, she is also extraordinarily patient with his tiresome eccentricity. And if she is an intriguer, she is capable of self-criticism and compassion, qualities illustrated in self-reflection when her hopes for Harriet and Mr. Elton are dashed. By the time Emma has "taught" Harriet to be smitten with Mr. Elton, we have been given clues enough that Emma is the real object of Mr. Elton's desire. Of course we relish the situational irony of Emma's self-congratulatory pronouncement that her efforts for Harriet have paid off: "There does seem to be a something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right direction, and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow." But by the same token, when the full horror of Mr. Elton's real intentions are revealed as he attempts to "make love" to Emma in the coach scene, her misery and admission of culpability redeem her in our eyes: "Every part of it brought pain and humiliation . . . but, compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light; and she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken . . . more disgraced by mis-judgment ... could the effects of her blunders have been confined to herself." Lest Emma's journey toward true gentility become too didactic or moralistic, Austen introduces a romantic and mysterious subplot involving Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax, which offers the theme of Emma's education more opportunities for wit and satire. Austen's humor expresses delight with the spectacle of imperfection; however, the tone is far from mocking, for we, like Emma, are still in the dark as to the nature of the mystery, and it is only by a succession of ambiguous hints that we ourselves discover the truth. Although we find little to admire in Emma's jealousy of Jane Fairfax, we do not like Jane's cool reserve any more than Emma does. (By now we are addicted to the gossip.) Moreover, Frank Churchill's deceptions are so clever, that we are able to forgive Emma her favorite new intuition that Miss Fairfax is secretly in love with Mr. Dixon. Despite her foolish mistake with Harriet, Emma has not yet learned the virtue of discretion, but in sharing her gossipy supposition with Frank she is led on deliberately. In fact, the entire community (both the village folk and the literary folk who read the book for the first time) is involved in guessing who has sent Jane the gift of the pianoforte. It is with an almost voyeuristic curiosity, then, that we watch the mystery unfold as the characters gather for a dinner party at the Coles' place. Frank Churchill's cleverness and acute perception as contrasted with Emma's naïve conjectures set the scene for a comic display of wit during this episode when the major characters come together as a community. The dialogue concerning Jane and the pianoforte is a case in point. "I may not have convinced you perhaps," says Emma to Frank, "but I am perfectly convinced myself that Mr. Dixon is a principal in the business." She is looking for validation of her secret romance idea. Frank Churchill is only too willing to provide it. "Indeed you injure me if you suppose me unconvinced. Your reasonings carry my judgment along with them entirely. . . . And now I can see it in no other light than as an offering of love." The passage is at once ironic and witty because it is Emma's very lack of considered "reasonings" that allows Frank Churchill to deceive her, and because the pianoforte is indeed an offering of love, but from Frank himself. But wit is a double-edged sword. It can easily injure another (Emma "unwitting" use of wit at Box Hill hurts Miss Bates by implying that the spinster will not be able to limit herself to saying three dull things) as it forces the truth out into the open. Throughout the novel, Austen reveals when wit is appropriate precisely by gauging its effects on members of the community. The comedy of manners "works" as an educational device only when we have wit enough to see that all in the community are subject to the petty foibles and peccadilloes to which flesh is heir. Even Mr. Elton, whom we hold in disdain both for his cruel treatment of Harriet at the Crown Inn ball and his irredeemable, supercilious behavior after his marriage to the equally ill bred Augusta Hawkins, requires a small measure of sympathy: "how peculiarly unlucky poor Mr. Elton was in being in the same room at once with the woman he had just married, the woman he had wanted to marry, and the woman whom he had been expected to marry." Austen tends to forgive the improprieties of those who see their own shortcomings but finds little toleration for those who cannot. Frank Churchill is berated for his intrigues and deceptions, especially as they are perceived to compromise the health and future of Jane Fairfax, but his honest apologies, his true regard for Jane, and his loyalty to her friends overcome most objections to his frailties. Mrs. Elton, on the other hand, has no such loyalties and makes no such apologies. The fact that her character, especially, remains "unreclaimed" is important. In "Self-Deception and Superiority Complex: Derangement of Hierarchy in Jane Austen's Emma," Shinobu Minma points out what other critics have also noted: the character of Mrs. Elton is meant to "expose" Emma's own pretensions of superiority and her "self-righteous patronage." She is Emma's exaggerated and not so subtle alter ego. Shinobu argues that Austen's intent is to show how the arrival of the nouveau riche (here he includes the Woodhouses who, while well established, "are not a landowning family") tended to upset the traditional hierarchical structure with their need for acceptance into the upper echelons of society. I would argue that Mrs. Elton, unlike Emma, never fits, not merely because of her parvenu pertness, but because she is only superficially selfaware and lacks the talent to belong to any community. Emma's capacity to belong, ultimately, is the true measure of her gentility. That belonging is finally crucial to Emma's happiness, for like most others in the village, "Not one of them had the power of removal, or of effecting any material change of society. They must encounter each other, and make the best of it." Mrs. Elton considers herself preeminent in Highbury society by connection to and by the trappings of wealth and position. While Emma also feels herself superior and wants to remain so, her social position as "first" is challenged on moral grounds. She submits to the tests of character and admits her vulnerability and failures. Her wedding (the simplicity of which Mrs. Elton finds "extremely shabby") promises, in fact, to make her "first" in social stature, for Mr. Knightley is a member of the true landed gentry. However, that union comes only after Emma realizes the poverty of her own class-based prejudice and rectifies her social behavior. She finds her place and her humility when she can be civil to Miss Bates, accepting of Robert Martin, sociable with the Coles, and intimate with Jane Fairfax. We are left to imagine that because her education has been successful, she will find her happiness among that "small band of true friends" who have vouchsafed her membership among them. Source: Kathy Smith, Critical Essay on Emma, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2005. Catherine Dybiec Holm Holm is a freelance writer, as well as a genre novel and short story author. In this essay, Holm discusses how the writing style of this novel differs from a modern fiction novel. Jane Austen's Emma was first published in 1815. Today's readers will note that conventions in written storytelling have changed dramatically since the early 1800s. But Austen's style of storytelling effectively captures the societal nuances that are such a big part of this story. While it may be difficult for modern readers to absorb an older style of writing, it is possible that the older style of writing reflects how people generally communicated during that period in history. In this way, writing is a reflection of the consciousness of society and the trends in communication in general, whether in the 1800s or the twenty-first century. The difference between writing in the 1800s and writing today does not mean that one type of writing is superior to the other, but it does lead to interesting observations about how communication changes over time and what these changes might imply. A present-day reader will notice that Austen's book reads differently than a contemporary fiction novel, beginning with the first sentence. Modern fiction is required to "hook" readers right away. Within the first several pages of contemporary fiction (or even the first several paragraphs), there must be the sense of danger, urgency, or a problem (perhaps the central story problem) that the protagonist must deal with. Modern readers have come to expect this. This expectation may be influenced by today's fast-paced life, competing distractions, entertainment media that are short and to the point, or an evolution over time of storytelling methods which have come to be more popular than others. For a modern-day reader, it may be difficult to discern Emma's central conflict, or the premise of the story, given the first several pages. By contemporary standards, the book starts out quite gently with the following statement: "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to invite some of the best blessings of existence; and had very little to distress or vex her." Compare this to the beginning of the 2002 bestseller The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, which plunges the reader right into the first-person experience of a horrible murder, and one can see how much the conventions of fiction writing have changed in two centuries. Little seems urgent during much of the beginning of Emma, which was perhaps typical of 1800s stories but not typical today. One of the first senses of real urgency in Emma, which involves the protagonist, does not come until more than a quarter of the way into the book (at least one hundred pages from the beginning) when Elton and Emma are alone in a carriage and Elton reveals his passionate feelings for Emma. This is one of the first times in the story that emotions from any of the characters truly flare, and there is suddenly a sense of the larger problem at hand. Emma's astute skills of human observation and her attempts at matchmaking have backfired. In a modern novel, a problem like this, or at least some real emotion with something at stake, would have presented itself earlier in the story. A contemporary reader might assume, after the first few pages of Emma that the governess named Miss Taylor is to be an important character in the story, since much narrative is devoted to Emma's consternation when Miss Taylor moves away. Yet this does not turn out to be the case. Emma does start the novel, as she is mentioned in the first sentence, and the reader might correctly assume (based on contemporary storytelling conventions) that she will be important, even though the urgency to the story is very slow in coming, by modern-day standards. A number of other minor characters make an immediate appearance. Six characters are introduced or mentioned in the first three pages: Emma, Mr. Woodhouse, Miss Taylor, Mr. Weston, Isabella, and Isabella's husband. This convention marks another difference from today's toned down, streamlined fiction. It is impossible to know whether this implies that readers in the 1800s were more patient or could tolerate more narrative complexity, or whether readers today need communications to be as streamlined and concise as possible. Prose style in a novel such as Emma differs from a contemporary fiction novel. Sentences are often much longer than what today's readers are accustomed to. Dialogue is presented in huge chunks, compared to today's standards. Again, the urgent scene between Emma and Elton in the carriage illustrates both the use of sentences and dialogue in this novel. The way the scene is presented is also quite different than it might be written in contemporary fiction. The beginning of this explosive moment is almost lost in the prose. To restrain him as much as might be . . . she was immediately preparing to speak . . . but scarcely had she begun, scarcely had they passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her subject cut up—her hand seized—her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her. It is a very roundabout way of getting to the main point, which reveals itself at the end of this somewhat long sentence. Mr. Elton is "making violent love" to Emma. By contemporary standards, this scene might be written quite differently, possibly using more dialogue, shorter sentences, and immediately presenting the urgency of the problem at hand: Mr. Elton completely surprises Emma when he passionately displays his feelings for her. By contemporary story-writing standards, the dialogue in Emma often has a character speaking for a long time, longer than may sound natural to contemporary readers. A good example of this, toward the beginning of the book, features Emma and her father discussing their servant James. Mr. Woodhouse goes on for longer than may be comfortable to the modern reader. I am very glad I did think of her. It was very lucky.... I am sure she would be a very good servant; she is a civil, pretty-spoken girl; I have a great opinion of her. Whenever I see her, she always curtseys and asks me how I do, in a very pretty manner.... I am sure she will be an excellent servant; and it will be a great comfort to poor Miss Taylor.... Whenever James goes over to his daughter, you know, she will be hearing of us. He will be able to tell her how we all are. This large chunk of dialogue (with words omitted) is devoted to a servant and his daughter who have little importance in the novel's entirety, or its plot. Contemporary novels often emphasize a pragmatic approach, and very little shows up in the prose that does not advance the plot or serve as an important cue for the reader in some way. Contemporary literature teachers often advise aspiring writers to "show, don't tell." This phrase is a common denominator of the resources available to writers who want to improve their craft. The narrative style in Emma seems to favor the "telling" side of the spectrum, in many cases. This implies no judgment on the quality of the writing, but is another good example of how immensely storytelling craft has changed since the early 1800s. A good example of narrative that tells more than it shows occurs shortly after Emma and her father discuss their servant. Emma spared no exertions to maintain this happier flow of ideas, and hoped, by the help of backgammon, to get her father tolerably through the evening, and be attacked by no regrets but her own. The backgammon-table was placed; but a visitor immediately afterwards walked in and made it unnecessary. The narrative then goes on to describe the visitor at great length, including his age, location of his home, and his "cheerful manner." Contemporary storytelling would likely handle this series of events quiet differently. Mr. Knightley's (the above mentioned guest) appearance might be worded to stand out more effectively and the reader might not feel like such an observer but instead feel closer to the action. The wording "a visitor immediately afterwards walked in," which is almost lost and hidden at the end of a paragraph, "tells" the reader what is going on but might distance a contemporary reader. A more active way to "show" this action would be to set apart Knightley's arrival with a paragraph break. Then, instead of telling the reader that "a visitor walked in," the contemporary author might say something like, "Emma turned at a rustling behind her, and saw Mr. Knightly coming through the doorway." The contemporary author might immediately follow with dialogue and nuances that would gradually reveal (and "show" the reader) Knightley's character, age, and other details about this new character. There are moments in Emma where the prose stands out with insight and conciseness. During one of these moments, readers gain deep insight into Emma because her honest and blunt (but unspoken) thoughts contrast so effectively with what she has to say. The irony of the contrast highlights the excruciating importance that people (and these characters) placed on social conventions during this time in history. 'Yes, good man!' thought Emma, 'but what has all that to do with taking likenesses' You know nothing of drawing. Don't pretend to be in raptures about mine. Keep your raptures for Harriet's face.' These thoughts are in direct contrast to Emma's polite, socially mannered response, which follows immediately: "Well, if you give me such kind encouragement, Mr. Elton, I believe I shall try what I can do." Obviously, social conventions and consideration of social standing were extremely important in England's early 1800s. Austin's style of writing, purposefully or not, reflects these societal considerations. In Emma, characters spend a lot of time discussing proper behavior, as well as the importance of class and social standing. Emma goes to great lengths to steer Harriet from a romance with a lowly farmer. Emma distresses internally at some length over Churchill's decision to go to London for a haircut. Clearly, these characters pay attention to details, and the modern reader might find them obsessed with such details. There is a self-consciousness that runs throughout most of the book, particularly as characters worry about how to behave in social situations. Some change of countenance was necessary for each gentleman as they walked into Mrs. Weston's drawing-room. Mr. Elton must compose his joyous looks, and Mr. John Knightley disperse his ill-humour. Mr. Elton must smile less, and Mr. John Knightley more, to fit them for the place. But, this is a part of the fascination with Emma; it is not only a story but an in-depth experience of life in nineteenth-century England. The writing style reflects the social concerns and nuances of the time and might well be difficult to recreate using modern storytelling methods. Critic Frances Ferguson of Modern Language Quarterly describes this predicament another way: for the characters in this novel, "desire is always triangulated" because individual choice is always being aligned with larger societal choices, or "what 'everyone' thinks." In the same article by Ferguson, D. H. Lawrence is quoted as saying that Austen "creates a world of 'personality' that identifies characters in terms of their interests and evaluations." In this way, societal trends are reflected in Emma and in the way that it reads. Perhaps this can be said of all writing. Source: Catherine Dybiec Holm, Critical Essay on Emma, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2005. Shinobu Minma In the following essay excerpt, Minma describes the "old society" in which Emma takes place and Emma's disruptive effect on its hierarchical system. Text Not Available Text Not Available Text Not Available Text Not Available Text Not Available Text Not Available Text Not Available Susan M. Korba In the following essay, Korba identifies Emma's behavior as similar to that of a dominating male and examines her relationships with submissive females in Emma. She always declares she will never marry, which, of course, means just nothing at all. But I have no idea that she has yet ever seen a man she cared for. It would not be a bad thing for her to be very much in love with a proper object. Intimacy between Miss Fairfax and me is quite out of the question. —Jane Austen Emma Austen critic LeRoy W. Smith asserts that, "contrary to the traditional view, Austen does not avoid the subject of sex in her fiction," that, in fact, "she is well aware of sexuality's powerful role in human behaviour." Similarly, in Sex and Sensibility, Jean H. Hagstrum warns readers of Jane Austen against allowing the author's "considerable modesty" to obscure "the real passion that seethes beneath the controlled and witty surfaces" of her novels. He points out that "anyone so seemingly cool and rational has of course invited speculation about what is being kept out of sight" (p. 269). The critical debate over Austen's novel Emma may be seen as a case in point. For years, critics of Emma have been circling around the apparently disconcerting issue of the protagonist's sexuality. Claudia Johnson finds that "[d]etermining the common denominator in much Emma criticism requires no particular cleverness. Emma offends the sexual sensibilities of many of her critics. Transparently misogynist, sometimes even homophobic, subtexts often bob to the surface of the criticism about her." Johnson cites Edmund Wilson's ominous allusions and Marvin Mudrick's dark hints (p. 123) about Emma's infatuations with and preference for other women as examples of the unease aroused by this particular Austen heroine. In examining these critical responses, she concludes that much of the discomfort generated by the novel results from the fact that Emma "is not sexually submissive to and contingent upon men" (p. 123), and that she "assumes her own entitlement to independence and power-power not only over her own destiny, but, what is harder to tolerate, power over the destinies of others—and in so doing she poaches on what is felt to be male turf" (p. 125). Certainly Emma's adoption of the masculine role and the implications of her usurpation of social power are contentious issues. But it is the doggedly recurrent (yet inevitably dismissed) suggestion of Emma's possible lesbianism that seems to arouse the most critical discomfort. It becomes clear upon examining Smith's and Hagstrum's readings of Austen that the passions "seething" beneath her "controlled and witty surfaces" are seen to be exclusively heterosexual passions. Hagstrum finds no evidence in Austen's works of the "perverse" lesbian sensuality that he briefly examines in other eighteenth-century novels, and which he refers to as "morbidities" or "irregularities." Smith states that Austen "controls her use [of sex] to fit her settings, avoid offence and keep attention where she feels it belongs." One wonders if it is not Austen's critics who are determined to keep attention where they feel it belongs. Although several recent analyses have posited a more sexually radical Austen, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's characterization of the bulk of Austen scholarship as critically timid seems largely justified. For the most part, approaches to Austen conform with "the vast preponderance of scholarship and teaching . . . even among liberal academics [which] does simply neither ask nor know. At the most expansive, there is a series of dismissals of such questions." Accordingly, while Christine St. Peter challenges readers of Austen to "discover previously unremarked aspects in her treatment of women's relations," her response to the suggestion that Emma's sexual orientation is homosexual rather than heterosexual is emphatically and contemptuously dismissive: In my rejection of a narrowly defined marital love I do not intend to introduce here a parallel error of discovering in Austen the crypto-lesbian. I know well that in our post-Freudian critical world any mention of intimacy between women conjures up an image of sexual bonding. Austen was aware of this possibility, too, and quite severely rejects it. (p. 475) Claudia Johnson herself sees the suggestion of Emma's possible homosexual proclivities as nothing more than the misogynistic projections of critics who are "at a loss to account for how Emma could like Harriet more than she likes Mr. Elton." While Johnson's point is well taken, it illustrates the limitations of a feminist perspective that remains resolutely heterocentric. Critics consistently resist what Sedgwick refers to as "the rich, conflictual erotic complication of a homoerotic matrix" present in Austen, refusing to take seriously the possibility of an alternative to the prescriptive heterosexual paradigm. The fact that Emma possesses a measure of social and sexual power, and that she is a woman who, in a number of significant ways, "plays man" throughout the novel, implies as much about Emma's place in the novel's sexual configurations as it does about her appropriation of masculine social prerogatives. Her relationships with Miss Taylor (later Mrs. Weston) and Harriet Smith exemplify her attraction to and infatuation with docile and malleable members of her own sex, women over whom she exerts control and influence, and in whose sexual destinies she evinces a passionate and active involvement; and her relationships with the male characters in the novel—Mr. Knightley, Frank Churchill, and even Mr. Elton-serve to demonstrate Emma's marked sexual indifference to men, and, more importantly, her strong sexual identification with them. Feminist scholar Carole S. Vance suggests that The external system of sexual hierarchy is replicated within each of us, and herein lies its power. Internalized cultural norms enforce the status quo. As each of us hesitates to admit deviations from the system of sexual hierarchy, nonconformity remains hidden, invisible, and apparently rare. The prevailing system retains hegemony and power, appearing to be descriptive as well as prescriptive, a statement of what is as well as what should be. Thus, according to Vance "feminism must be a movement that speaks to sexuality . . . We cannot be cowardly, pretending that feminism is not sexually radical. Being a sex radical at this time, as at most, is less a matter of what you do, and more a matter of what you are willing to think, entertain, and question" (p. 23, [emphasis mine]). Accordingly, I propose an investigation of the controversial issue of Emma's erotic sub-text that poses the following questions: How do Emma's relationships with the various male and female characters in the novel reveal the nature of her sexual orientation' What are the underlying dynamics that animate her sexual identity' And finally, and perhaps most importantly, why must analyses of this particular heroine ultimately reinscript a normative heterosexual identity' Why shouldn't Emma be a lesbian' Susan Morgan, in "Emma Woodhouse and the Charms of Imagination," offers some insights into the psychology informing Emma's relationships. She suggests that Emma is a novel about "the fact that people have an internal life of their own, and that the recognition of this personal existence, this self in someone else, is the necessary requisite for morality and for love." She observes that "within her small world [Emma] knows no boundaries, recognizes no limits. And because there is no point for Emma where her sphere of influence ends there is no room for anyone else's to begin" (p. 37); as a result, Emma constantly "violate[s] the inner lives of the people she tries to control" (p. 46). The unconsummated friendship between Emma and Jane Fairfax is central to her argument: "Emma's inability to go outside herself and grant the value of others must cost her something. And Jane Fairfax is the measure of what Emma loses" (p. 42). Ultimately, Morgan concludes that Emma is about the unfolding of an "educational process" in which the heroine learns "to accept her limits and the inviolability of others" (p. 46). Her analysis, despite its avoidance of the sexual/erotic forces afoot within the text, provides a convenient point of departure from which to attempt an investigation of the complexity of Emma's sexual identity: Morgan has identified, albeit unwittingly, both the erotic dynamic at work in Emma, which I believe to be a subliminal form of "erotic domination" as delineated by psychoanalytic critic Jessica Benjamin, and the principal erotic relationship within the novel, which, I will argue, is the one that exists between Emma Woodhouse and Jane Fairfax, our heroine's real object of desire. In the discussion which follows, I will examine this concept of "erotic domination" as I see it operating covertly within Emma, focusing on several issues that I believe are central to an attempt to understand the complex construction of Emma's sexuality: her relationships with Miss Taylor, Harriet, and Mr. Knightley; her identification with the "male" sexual role, particularly in terms of sexual object choice and the wielding of power; and her involvement with Jane Fairfax, the erotic relationship around which all the others may be seen to revolve. It is this relationship that, for various reasons, is unavailable to Emma throughout most of the novel, and that reveals, finally, the insurmountability of the sexual and social limitations that circumscribe her. It is Jane's ultimate (and, I would argue, necessary) inaccessibility that leads Emma back to Mr. Knightley. Alice Chandler has noted that "marriage is . . . a sexual act in [Austen's] novels—usually a reconciliation between a man and a woman whose inner feelings and conscious knowledge have been at odds throughout the story"; ultimately, Emma does retreat from "playing man" and marries Mr. Knightley. Nevertheless, I would suggest that the real "reconciliation" in this novel is not between Emma and Mr. Knightley at all, but rather between Emma and Jane—and that, despite this reconciliation, they must then part. Each ends up with her respective husband, and the heterosexual social order is maintained. However, an examination of the various sexual relationships in Emma reveals that this heterosexual social order—"the normal" order, as opposed to "the perverse"—is governed by the same underlying principle that animates Emma's amatory relationships. It has been noted that, in Austen's novels, "love and power cannot be separated as ruling independently in the private and political orders." Accordingly, Sandra Lee Bartky points out that since "the subordination of women by men is pervasive . . . it orders the relationship of the sexes in every area of life . . . a sexual politics of domination is as much in evidence in the private spheres of the family, ordinary social life, and sexuality as in the traditionally public spheres of government and the economy." It would then follow that the dynamic of erotic domination, a concept that "mingles love with issues of control and submission . . . flows beneath the surface of 'normal' adult love" and runs "throughout all relationships of arousal"; in Emma, it permeates all sexual relationships, both heterosexual and homoerotic. Indeed, Benjamin contends that domination [is] not a nasty additive to nice eroticism but its essence, for, in patriarchies, domination and submission constitute erotic excitement." Thus, the structure of Emma's intercourse with other women, epitomized in the paradigmatic relationship with Harriet Smith, is mirrored in each of the novel's heterosexual attachments, including those of Mr. Weston and Miss Taylor, Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax, John Knightley and Isabella, as well as that of Emma and Mr. Knightley. The way in which the desire to dominate is expressed varies in each of the relationships: with Mr. Knightley, it is through overt control and the assertion of superiority; with Frank, it manifests in cruel games and the tormenting of his partner; with Emma, it is through manipulation. The submissive partner in each relationship is usually female, a "sweet, docile, grateful" young woman like Harriet—or a "worshipping" wife like Isabella. Nancy Chodorow points out that "[w]omen find it difficult to integrate agency and love and often accept whatever love they can get in exchange for identification with and love from a man"—for women, this often involves "submission, overvaluation, masochism, and the borrowing of subjectivity from the lover." Mr. Knightley, who is wont to express his views of relationships in language permeated with such terms as "submitting" and "subjection," affirms this view of the woman's role in a discussion with Mrs. Weston, in which he characterizes her as the ideal wife, one trained in "'the very material matrimonial point of submitting your own will, and doing as you were bid'"; he assures her that, as a consequence, had he been asked by Mr. Weston "'to recommend him a wife, I should certainly have named Miss Taylor.'" Ironically, Mr. Knightley credits her relationship with Emma for having turned her into such "an excellent wife"—as Emma's intimate companion, she has been well-trained in the role of the submissive partner. Typically it is the male partner who occupies the dominant position in the erotic relationship. Susan Contratto observes that "Power has a gender: charismatic power with its excitement, visibility, and privilege is male." Thus, Mr. John Knightley is said to be "no doubt . . . in the habit of receiving" his wife's "pleased assent" to his dicta, despite his tendency to "act an ungracious, or say a severe thing"; Mr. Weston's marriage to Miss Taylor gives him "the pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to chuse than to be chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it": Frank Churchill, who behaves with "shameful, insolent neglect" of his betrothed, and, worse, with "such, apparent devotion" to Emma, "as it would have been impossible for any woman of sense to endure" exits the novel with the woman of his choice, having been unable to "weary her by negligent treatment"; and Mr. Knightley, with his "downright, decided, commanding sort of manner" and his fondness for "bending little minds," acknowledges having "'blamed . . . and lectured'" Emma throughout their relationship, conceding that she has "'borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.'" Emma, however, is able to "bear" Mr. Knightley's attempts to dominate her because she does not recognize his right to dictate to her, and when he refuses to forgive her for contravening his wishes, she is "sorry, but could not repent." Her will—her sense of the legitimacy of her own power—matches his at almost every turn. Emma occupies a rather unique and peculiar position in the novel's relationship paradigm. LeRoy Smith finds that, in Austen's fiction, "some women, instead of acceding to dependency, sustain their self-esteem by a compensatory striving for power that takes the form of imitation of the dominant male." Indeed, Austen's creation of Emma at times seems to directly address the kinds of questions that Jessica Benjamin poses in her examination of sexual power: "Why does femininity appear to be linked to passivity' And why do men appear to have exclusive rights to sexual agency, so that women seek their desire in men, hoping to have it recognised through the agency of an other'" As Smith points out The hard truth about Austen's world is the fact of male domination. Women, characteristically, are devalued . . . Their social status is narrowly and rigidly defined: passivity is their expected state. Any attempt by them to acquire or exercise power is viewed by men as "manipulative, disruptive, illegitimate, or unimportant." But the female's craving for power is as deeply rooted as the male's [emphasis mine]. Emma firmly rejects the notion of passivity as her "expected state." She is laughingly dismissive of Harriet's wonder that, with all of her charming qualities, she "'should not be married, or going to be married!'," explaining that "'My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry: I must find other people charming—one other person at least. And I am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little intention of every marrying at all.'" It is clear that Emma recognizes and relishes the power and autonomy of her somewhat anomalous position when she asserts that she has "none of the usual inducements of women to marry'"—that she would, in fact. "'be a fool to change such a situation as mine."' Austen has placed Emma Woodhouse in the position of sexual dominance usually associated with men. What is more, she possesses a considerable degree of power, which is almost exclusively associated with "male mastery": "'Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want; I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husband's house, as I am of Hartfield'"; Mr. Knightley remarks disapprovingly that "'ever since she was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all.'" Arguably, Emma wields a degree of power equivalent to that of any of the male characters within the novel; more, in some cases, as demonstrated by her rejection of Mr. Elton, and her proven ability to deprive Robert Martin of his choice of a wife. This power is one that comes with social prestige, financial security, and a character allowed to develop without the restraints usually imposed upon women; in short, power that usually comes with the label of the male gender. However, Emma is free to exercise her need to control as long she violates only the selfhood of the women with whom she conducts relationships, and not the social boundaries that circumscribe them. Ultimately, Emma will discover that the power she possesses will not allow her to avoid the fate that she attempts to arrange for everyone but herself; her claim to having "very little intention of ever marrying at all" is one she will have to retreat from, once she realizes that if "all took place that might take place among the circle of her friends, Hartfield must be comparatively deserted; and she left to cheer her father with the spirits only of ruined happiness." Once everyone is settled in the security of heterosexual coupledom, Emma will have no outlet for her desire, no object upon which to exert erotic control-her power will no longer mean anything. In Emma, power and sexuality are inextricably linked, and it is Emma's desire for and limited exertion of erotic mastery that provide the framework for Austen's narrative. Susan Morgan identifies Emma's "problem" as a failure to "see the boundaries of oneself and the separate life of others." Similarly, Jessica Benjamin explains "erotic domination" as the failure to recognize the Other "as like, although separate, from oneself"; at the most basic level, it is an impulse imbued with the individual's desire for mutual recognition, for selfhood, and for transcendence. Erotic domination has its psychological origins in an individual's earliest experience, in the failure to achieve "true differentiation." This is a somewhat paradoxical process in which the individual acquires a sense of identity through the development of the ability to see herself and others as independent and distinct beings and learns that her acts and intentions can have an impact on others, and theirs on her; at the same time, the individual is dependent upon the recognition provided by her earliest care-giver, usually the mother, in order to reaffirm this autonomous identity. Benjamin explains that the problem of erotic domination begins with the denial of this dependency—this need for recognition from the maternal Other: To escape from this conflict it is all too tempting to imagine that one can become independent without recognizing the other person as an equally autonomous agent in her . . . own right. One need only imagine that the other person is not separate-she belongs to me. I control and possess her. The resulting relationship is one in which the dominant partner must subjugate the submissive partner as a means of establishing her own autonomy through the negation of the other person's. In Emma, this dynamic is not manifested physically between Emma and anyone else; rather, Emma's need to dominate the women who serve as her objects of desire, to repudiate dependency "while attempting to avoid the consequent feeling of aloneness," is sublimated in her attempts to direct and control their sexual proclivities and to determine the final configurations of their heterosexual unions. In this way, she is able to take an erotic sort of pleasure in exercising mastery, without transgressing the sexual norms of her society or acknowledging the possibility of such desire. In Emma Woodhouse's case, the failure to differentiate may be seen to have its roots in her early childhood: "Her mother had died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses: and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection." Miss Taylor, although occupying the maternal space in Emma's life during her formative years, is a problematic figure. In effect, she plays the role of the "permissive parent," as does Mr. Woodhouse, "a most affectionate, indulgent father." We learn that "[e]ven before Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint"; Emma becomes accustomed to "doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor's judgment, but directed chiefly by her own." Benjamin explains that if the first other we encounter is our mother . . . then it is through our . . . impact on her that we experience ourselves as existing and our intentions as meaningful and potent. If our acts have no impact on her, we feel powerless. But if we overpower her, there is no one to recognize us. When we affect her it is necessary that she does not simply dissolve under the impact of our actions . . . If, for example, the mother sets no limits for the child, if she obliterates herself and her own interests . . . she ceases to perform the role of other person . . . If the mother does not at some point remove herself from the child's control she becomes simply an object, which no longer exists outside the self. [(p. 284)] It is clear that Emma has come to objectify the maternal figure of Miss Taylor, a woman who "had devoted all her powers to attach and amuse her" for sixteen years. Emma considers her an essential appendage to herself, "a friend and companion such as few possessed"; and it is apparent in the first conversation we witness between Emma, Mr. Woodhouse, and Mr. Knightley, that Miss Taylor has long been considered a "possession" of the Woodhouse household. Her function has been "to please" both Emma and her father, a function that she is now expected to perform for her new husband. It is significant that Emma claims to have orchestrated the union between Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston: "'if I had not promoted Mr. Weston's visits here, and given many little encouragements, and smoothed many little matters, it might not have come to anything after all.'" Emma's view of Miss Taylor's marriage is one that privileges her own role and degree of control rather than that of the actual participants, illustrated by her claim that "'I made up my mind on the subject'"; she sees the marriage primarily in terms of how it involves and affects herself, much as she sees the objectified person of Miss Taylor. In effect, she is unable to maintain "the essential tension of the contradictory impulses to assert the self . . . without effacing the other." It is this "dialectic of control" upon which the achievement of true differentiation depends: "[I]f I completely control the other, then the other ceases to exist, and if the other completely controls me, then I cease to exist." Benjamin draws upon Freud and Hegel to explain how the breakdown of this tension leads to the desire for domination: According to Freud the earliest self wants to be omnipotent, or rather it has the fantasy that it is so. Subsequent omnipotence fantasies are seen as regressions to this necessary first stage. Hegel says that self-consciousness wants to be absolute . . . to be recognized by the other in order to place itself in the world and make itself the world. The I wants to prove this at the expense of the other; it wants to think itself the only one; it abjures dependency. For Hegel and Freud, then, the self gives up omnipotence only when it realizes its dependency . . . The subject discovers that if it completely devours or controls the other, it can no longer get what it originally wanted [recognition]. So the subject learns better. But although the subject may relinquish the wish to control or devour the other completely, it does so unwillingly, with a persistent if unconscious wish to fulfill the old omnipotence fantasy. This is a far cry from a real appreciation of the other's existence as a person. The truth in this view of the self seems to be that acknowledging dependency is painful, and that denying recognition to others because of this pain leads to domination . . . predicated on the denial of the other person's independent subjectivity and autonomy . . . It makes the other person an object but retains possession of her. (Pp. 284–85) Morgan observes that Emma "really sees herself as a director and the other people around her as extensions of her will"; her relationships with the other women in the novel—Miss Taylor, Harriet Smith, and Jane Fairfax—are all shaped by the underlying desire for control and domination. When combined with her passionate and obsessive responses to and interest in each of the women, particularly in their individual sexual relationships, a picture of Emma Woodhouse's own sexual identity begins to form. Emma's erotic predilection for members of her own sex can be traced throughout the novel and in each of the relationships she has with other women, and it is in these relationships that the underlying dynamics of erotic domination are most in evidence. Emma clearly has identified with the dominant role in the "self-other relationship," a role that Benjamin suggests is usually occupied by the male, while both Miss Taylor and Harriet Smith can be seen to occupy the corresponding submissive role, the "traditionally female side of selfhood" with its characteristics of "dependency, connectedness, [and] yielding" (p. 294). Emma's experience of the failure of differentiation, "the core experience underlying erotic domination," while different from "the male experience of differentiation," has in common with it several important factors. During the formation of male gender identity, the male child repudiates the mother once it is discovered that he "cannot be, or become, her": The repudiation of the mother . . . has meant that she is not recognized by the child in the normal course of differentiation. She is not seen as an independent person, another subject, but as something other . . . as an instrument or object, as less-than-human. An objectifying attitude comes to replace the earlier interactions of infancy. It is the male experience of differentiation that Benjamin links to the tendency to assert control, to make "the other an object and instrument of one's own will" (p. 293)—to subject her to erotic domination. Yet Emma Woodhouse's early childhood experience of the Other, the self-obliterating maternal figure, is one that has placed her in a peculiarly similar position: she also desires the submission of the other, and the mastery that comes with erotic domination. Benjamin points out that the submissive position is generally associated with the female and the dominant with the male and that the basis for this division is found in the mother's "lack of subjectivity for her children." However, the fact that "actual men and women often play the opposite role does not contradict this association. It affirms rather that erotic transgression is an opportunity to express what is ordinarily denied" (p. 294). And, as LeRoy Smith notes, Emma's development appears to be further complicated by her identification with the position or role of a model that represents a fantasised projection into the situation and behaviour of the model. The model attracts emulation because of his or her role or status . . . Emma's most influential model is a male figure, Knightley, whose position and role she comes to wish for herself. Throughout the novel, there are many references to Emma's being identified in a distinctly "male" position, often by other characters. During a discussion about Mrs. Weston's marriage, John Knightley suggests that "'You and I, Emma, will venture to take the part of the poor husband . . . the claims of the man may very likely strike us with equal force,'" At times, Emma herself seems to speak from a "male" point-of-view, as when she asserts "'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'" (p. 64); she later passionately defends the absent Frank Churchill to Mr. Knightley, saying "I wish you would try to understand what an amiable young man may be likely to feel in directly opposing those, whom as child and boy he has been looking up to all his life'" (p. 148), a statement that reflects her own position in her adversarial relationship with Mr. Knightley. But it is in her dealings with Harriet where Emma's behavior seems most "male." Emma considers Harriet "a valuable addition to her privileges," and is "quite convinced of Harriet Smith's being . . . exactly the something which her home required" (p. 26), sentiments reminiscent of a traditionally proprietorial male attitude and more appropriate to a successful young man deciding the time is right to acquire a wife. Emma, in fact, manages to "win" Harriet away from a male rival. When she comes to realize that Robert Martin poses a serious threat to her relationship with Harriet, her amused tolerance of Harriet's connection to the Martin family changes, and "other feelings arose" (p. 27). Emma coolly manipulates the girl into re-evaluating Martin's desirability, and although she encourages her to compare the "very clownish" (p. 32) manners of the young farmer to those of Mr. Knightley, Mr. Weston, and Mr. Elton, it is obvious that it is Emma, and not any of Harriet's more lofty male acquaintances, whom Martin is being matched against. Later, when Martin has proposed, Emma successfully brings about Harriet's refusal of him: "You must be the best judge of your own happiness. If you prefer Mr. Martin to every other person; if you think him the most agreeable man you have ever been in company with, why should you hesitate' You blush, Harriet.—Does any body else occur to you at this moment under such a definition' Harriet, Harriet, do not deceive yourself . . . At this moment whom are you thinking of'" The symptoms were favourable.—Instead of answering, Harriet turned away confused, and stood thoughtfully by the fire . . . Emma waited the result with impatience, but not without strong hopes. (p. 53) Emma makes it very clear to Harriet in the ensuing conversation that her acceptance of Martin would have precluded further intimacy: "'I must have given you up.'" The choice Harriet makes is between intimacy with herself, or marriage to Martin-and, in this instance, Emma, not Robert Martin, "gets the girl." Moreover, Emma seems to be impervious to the idea of being attractive/attracted to members of the opposite sex. She is at first amused at the idea of Mr. Elton as a possible suitor: "'Me!' she replied with a smile of astonishment, 'are you imagining me to be Mr. Elton's object' . . . What an idea!'" While it is true that Emma's incredulity is based as much on her specious desire for Elton to love Harriet, and her belief that his social inferiority precludes his aiming as high as herself, it is odd that someone of her physical beauty and accomplishments should never even consider herself a potential object of male sexual attraction. In projecting her own feelings about Harriet onto the various men of their acquaintance, she instead repeatedly imagines Harriet as such an object, despite the fact that, except for Robert Martin and Emma herself, no one in the novel evinces any sexual interest in a girl described as merely "'pretty, and . . . good tempered, and that is all.'" Other characters in the novel notice Emma's curious sexual inaccessibility: Frank Churchill, despite the flirtation he indulges in with Emma, admits that "'Amiable and delightful as Miss Woodhouse is, she never gave me the idea of a young woman likely to be attached.'" Her relationship with Frank is one which elicits nothing but the most superficial response from Emma, and begins, in her head, before she has even met him. It is the idea of Frank, rather than the flesh-and-blood reality, which appeals to her. Significantly, she is said to have "frequently thought-especially since his father's marriage with Miss Taylor—that if she were to marry, he was the very person to suit her." She convinces herself that she "'must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not—for a few weeks at least'"; but she is content "'not [to] persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be more.'" Her ultimate desire regarding Frank and "the progress and close of their attachment" is that "she refused him. Their affection was always to subside into friendship . . . they were to part." When she later confesses to Mr. Knightley that there was really nothing to the relationship with Frank, she says that, "'in short, I was somehow or other safe from him,'" the implication being that it is her unrecognized love for Mr. Knightley that has rendered her "safe" from Frank's charms. However, there is little evidence in the novel to suggest that Emma feels any genuine sexual interest in anyone of the opposite sex. In speaking to Harriet of the possibility of falling in love with a man, she states that it will have to be '"somebody very superior to any one I have seen yet, to be tempted . . . I would rather not be tempted. I cannot really change for the better.'" Yet she has "seen" Mr. Knightley all of her life, and she is only "tempted" when her other options have been exhausted. Emma exercises these other options through her involvements with members of her own sex, in her attempts to establish a form of erotic mastery. In a relationship of erotic domination, "[o]ne person maintains . . . her boundary, and one allows her . . . boundary to be broken"—this seems an accurate description of the sort of dynamic that Emma strives to establish in her relationships with other women. For the most part, she achieves mastery through manipulation, as when she subtly maneuvers the gullible Harriet into spurning Robert Martin's offer of marriage. However, at times she resorts to more overt methods, as when she joins with Frank in humiliating Jane at Hartfield, in an attempt to punish her for her reserve. From the outset of the novel, it is clear that there is a pattern to Emma's choice of female company: she is attracted to women who, like Miss Taylor, possess a "mildness of . . . temper," who defer to Emma's will, and who are "peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of hers." These qualities are even more exaggerated in Harriet Smith, described as a "humble, grateful, little girl" whom Emma can mold: She would notice her; she would improve her: she would detach her from her bad acquaintance, and introduce her into good society; she would form her opinions and her manners. It would be an interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking; highly becoming her own situation in life, her leisure, and powers. One is reminded of Mr. Weston's satisfaction in "its being a great deal better to chuse than to be chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it" in his own choice of a sexual partner. Miss Taylor's friendship with Emma has consisted of "submitting [her] own will, and doing as [she was] bid"; Harriet comes to "understand the force of influence" as wielded by Emma, whose resolution of "driving ... out of Harriet's head" any desire or attachment Harriet might feel towards anyone Emma deems unsuitable seems to her perfectly within her rights. Patricia Meyer Spacks, in "Female Changelessness; Or What Do Women Want'," states: "What do women want' Ideal women want whatever men want them to want." In considering Emma's relationship with Harriet, we could ask: "What does a woman chosen by Emma Woodhouse want' Whatever Emma wants her to want." Accordingly, Emma seems most to love Harriet when she is most effusively humble and compliant: "You, who have been the best friend I ever had in my life!—Want gratitude to you!—Nobody is equal to you!—I care for nobody as I do for you!—Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how ungrateful I have been!" Such expressions, assisted as they were by every thing that look and manner could do, made Emma feel that she had never loved Harriet so well, nor valued her affection so highly before. It is significant that Harriet seems to value her relationship with Emma far more than she values a romantic union with Robert Martin. When Emma reveals to her that such a union would have destroyed the possibility of any further intercourse between them, Harriet is "aghast"; she "had not surmised her own danger, but the idea of it struck her forcibly . . . 'What an escape! Dear Miss Woodhouse, I would not give up the pleasure and honour of being intimate with you for anything in the world . . . It would have killed me.'" Interestingly, in keeping with the underlying sexual dynamic that pervades the novel, Harriet's willingness to defer to Emma in all things, to place her in the position of prominence usually occupied by the male suitor or husband, ends when Harriet believes herself beloved by someone whom she perceives as more powerful than Emma—Mr. Knightley. Emma's attachments to her particular female friends are passionate and somewhat obsessive. Miss Taylor's absence "would be felt every hour of every day," and Emma wonders how she will be able "to bear the change'—It was true that her friend was going only half a mile from them; but Emma was aware that great must be the difference between a Mrs. Weston only half a mile from them, and a Miss Taylor in the house." Certainly Miss Taylor's marriage, despite Emma's self-congratulatory claim of having made the match herself, is an impediment to Emma's desire for dominance, since, as Mrs. Weston, she is no longer subject to Emma's control. Emma must needs find a replacement for Miss Taylor—this will prove to be a pattern in her erotic fixations. As the focus shifts from her feelings of loss at Miss Taylor's marriage to Mr. Weston, to her growing interest in Harriet Smith, the language Austen employs seems to become increasingly sexual. The relationship that Emma had shared with Miss Taylor is described as that of "friend and friend very mutually attached." It is replaced with something that is described much more overtly in terms that traditionally evoke the romantic heterosexual relationship. Emma's initial interest in Harriet is a very physical one: "Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen whom Emma . . . had long felt an interest in, on account of her beauty"; "She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort which Emma particularly admired"; on several occasions, we not only find Emma "busy in admiring those soft blue eyes" of her favorite's, but assuring Harriet that her "'soft eyes shall chuse their own time for beaming'" if Harriet will but "'Trust to me.'" A particularly charged scene between the two women occurs after Emma has "decoded" Mr. Elton's riddle: "Dear Miss Woodhouse"—and "Dear Miss Woodhouse," was all that Harriet, with many tender embraces could articulate at first; but when they did arrive at something more like conversation, it was sufficiently clear to her friend that she saw, felt, anticipated, and remembered just as she ought. Significantly, Austen's language here anticipates that used in the romantic declaration scene between Emma and Mr. Knightley, where it is Emma who ultimately finds herself saying and doing "[j]ust what she ought." After all, a lady—a heterosexual lady, that is—always does. Emma's feelings about Harriet become increasingly possessive; her remarks concerning Harriet are indicative of the way in which she views the younger woman in relation to herself: "The business was finished, and Harriet safe"; "'Now I am secure of you for ever'"; "'We will not be parted. A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked.'" Consequently, Emma's desire for Harriet to attach herself to Mr. Elton, although an alliance that would "'confirm our intimacy forever,'" is somewhat questionable. On the one hand, since Emma cannot actually "have" Harriet herself, the power to decide who does in some measure satisfies her unexpressed sexual desire. As well, Harriet's connection to someone whom Emma will be able to interact with socially will ensure Harriet's continued accessibility. (We must wonder, however, how Harriet, as Mrs. Elton, and therefore mistress of her own household, would be any more accessible to Emma in the way she seems to need her to be than Mrs. Weston.) On the other hand, her manipulation of Harriet's sexual focus takes her away from the one man who really does want her, and encourages her to fantasize about belonging to men who do not, and who, in reality, present no threat to Emma's proprietorship. Once Emma has successfully manipulated Harriet into refusing Mr. Martin's proposal of marriage, we learn that Harriet "slept at Hartfield that night," something that occurs with increasing frequency as Emma's influence over her grows. Not surprisingly, it is Jane Fairfax's lack of Harriet-like humility, her "coldness and reserve," her "indifference whether she pleased or not," which frustrates Emma and creates in her what seems to be a strong repulsion to Jane that lasts until almost the end of the novel. Emma, in her enthusiasm over Harriet's "tenderness of heart" and evaluation of her desirability as a wife, is driven to make unflattering comparisons to Jane: "'Dear Harriet!—I would not change you for the clearest-headed, longest-sighted, best-judging female breathing. Oh! the coldness of a Jane Fairfax!—Harriet is worth a hundred such.—And for a wife—." Austen continually emphasizes Emma's resentment over Jane's determination "to hazard nothing," and her feeling that she "was disgustingly, was suspiciously reserved." It is this reserve for which "Emma could not forgive her," a sentence that ends Volume 2, Chapter 2, and that is insistently reiterated at the beginning of Volume 2, Chapter 3. Susan Morgan observes that "Jane, to Emma's outrage, thinks for herself and feels for herself and so controls herself. She does not hand her character over to Emma"; more tellingly, Elizabeth Jean Sabiston states that "Jane Fairfax . . . resists all of Emma's efforts to probe her." Jane will not allow Emma to violate her boundaries, and so prevents her from establishing the dominant/submissive dynamic upon which her other relationships are built: "A distinctive quality about Jane is that she is not part of Emma's domain . . . primarily because Jane has an independent sense of self which Emma cannot absorb." As a result, her resentment leads Emma to some very adamant disclaimers about any attraction to Jane Fairfax: "'I must be more in want of a friend, or an agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of conquering anybody's reserve to procure one. Intimacy between Miss Fairfax and me is quite out of the question.'" Yet Emma seems to be more than aware of Jane's attractiveness and desirability. Whereas Emma initially thinks of Harriet as "a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance to be quite perfect," her first impression of Jane after her two year absence is that she is "very elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself the highest value for elegance"—she has, in fact, the sort of "elegance, which, whether of person or of mind, she saw so little in Highbury." She recognizes in Jane both "distinction, and merit"; in short, Jane possesses in abundance the qualities that Emma feels would make Harriet "quite perfect." And, despite Emma's declared antipathy towards Jane, she finds her "'the sort of elegant creature that one cannot keep one's eyes from'" and is "'always watching her to admire.'" Jane's apparent inviolability leads Emma to try and punish her, to force her into the subordinate role she so desperately needs her to occupy in order for Emma to maintain her sense of erotic mastery. She does this through Frank Churchill. Ironically, although Emma cannot know that Frank is Jane's lover, she singles him out as a sort of ally in her attempt to denigrate Jane. Frank and Emma are thus joined in a somewhat bizarre dyad as Jane's persecutors: simultaneously, each occupies the position of rival inamoratos, unbeknown to the other, and, in Emma's case, to herself. It is through their social unity that they manage to inflict the most torment upon Jane, exemplified in their behavior during the word game, when Frank teases Jane with the word "Dixon." Emma reacts with "eager laughing warmth"; Jane "blushed more deeply than [Mr. Knightley] had ever perceived her" the scene is highly charged—with erotic tension' Clearly the prospect of Jane's discomfort and pain affords Emma an exquisite thrill. Emma is complacent in her belief that Frank "perfectly agreed" with her evaluation of Jane and is confident that their feelings are "much alike." The "alikeness" of their feelings lies deeper than Emma is willing to acknowledge. At their second encounter, "Emma felt herself so well acquainted with him, that she could hardly believe it to be only their second meeting"—yet the bond she feels they are developing seems for the most part based on their various conversations concerning Jane Fairfax. In fact, all of their subsequent intercourse revolves around Jane, much of it initiated by Emma, who constantly pumps Frank for details about Jane's behaviour at Weymouth. Despite the fact that outward appearances lead others to suspect that Emma and Frank are interested in each other, for each of them the focus is most decisively Jane Fairfax-her situation, her supposed feelings for Mr. Dixon, her reserve, her musical skills, her complexion—as their common passion, she is endlessly fascinating to them both. In fact, it is Jane whom Emma most desires, whose recognition she most craves. It is through Jane Fairfax that the possibility of a reciprocal relationship based on an equal and mutual giving of self is presented. Benjamin suggests that the underlying motivation of the dynamic of erotic domination may be the individual's hope of replaying "the original thwarted impulse to discover the other person as an intact being who could respond and set limits at the same time," but that "the original need for a relationship of differentiation with another person is not really solved in erotic domination . . . The aliveness and spontaneity that come from an unscripted relationship is missing." However, Emma continues to resist the sort of intimacy she might find through a relationship with someone like Jane Fairfax, someone who is her equal; Morgan notes that "Emma . . . does not want friendship with a real and independent person. She prefers the indulgence of manipulating Harriet." Yet Emma's passionate attachment to Harriet begins to wane, and she eventually grows tired of her "delightful inferiority"; Harriet begins to figure less and less in Emma's musings, Jane Fairfax more and more. Benjamin explains that the "exhaustion of satisfaction that occurs when all resistance is vanquished, all tension is lost, means that the relationship has come full circle, returned to the emptiness from which it was an effort to escape." As we observe Harriet kiss Emma's hand "in silent and submissive gratitude" for her latest attempt to direct Harriet's sexual interest and "save her from the danger of degradation," it has already become apparent that the focus has shifted quite decisively to Jane Fairfax and to Emma's complex relationship with her. Susan Morgan suggests that Emma eventually "learns to recognize the presumptuousness of her games, to accept her limits and the inviolability of others" (p. 46), largely as a result of her relations with Jane Fairfax. I would argue that, on the contrary, Emma continues to resist the idea of a relationship based on mutuality until the end of the novel. Her feelings for Jane Fairfax, long denied and twisted into repugnance, are allowed to surface only when she perceives Jane in a powerless and vulnerable state—the desire for mastery informs all of her dealings with Jane. During their first visit, Emma is filled with "complacency" and a "sense of pleasure" over her resolve to be kind: When she took in her history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty; when she considered what all this elegance was destined to, what she was going to sink from, how she was going to live . . . Emma left her with such softened, charitable feelings, as made her . . . lament that Highbury afforded no young man worthy of giving her independence; nobody that she could wish to scheme about for her. Emma is reassured by Jane's powerlessness; indeed, she seems to dwell with some lingering pleasure on the idea of Jane's coming degradation. Once again, Emma's desire to exercise erotic power is manifested in her deliberation over another's sexual fate—and the possibility that she herself might somehow direct it. Emma has previously devoted a great deal of time and thought to Jane's possible sexual relationship with Mr. Dixon; her fixation on this imaginary situation has, in fact, caused her to behave in ways of which she is later ashamed. It is also interesting that Emma should be unable to come up with a "worthy" heterosexual prospect for Jane, considering that she seems to have no trouble when exerting herself on behalf of anyone else. In fact, she expends a great deal of energy in denying the possibility of any such connection for Jane, save for the non-existent romance she creates around Mr. Dixon and the pianoforte. Her reaction to Mrs. Weston's suggestion that there may be something between Jane and Mr. Knightley is one of horror and repudiation: "'Jane Fairfax . . . of all women! . . . Jane Fairfax mistress of the Abbey!—Oh! no, no;—every feeling revolts.'" Similarly, her response to Mr. Knightley's suggestion that she does not "'perfectly understand the degree of acquaintance'" between Jane and Frank Churchill is to protest in hyperbolic, almost manic terms: "'Never, never! . . . Never for the twentieth part of a moment, did such an idea occur to me . . . There is no admiration between them, I do assure you ... they are as far from any attachment or admiration for one another, as any two beings in the world can be." Since we know that Emma has no real feelings for Frank, her response would be distinctly out of proportion, unless we assume that it is the thought of Jane's attachment that so upsets her. It is obvious that Emma's attraction to Jane becomes more overt as Jane's situation seems to deteriorate. Emma decides, after Jane leaves Donwell in great agitation, that she does, in fact, pity her and her prospects, and that "'the more sensibility you betray of their just horrors, the more I shall like you.'" Emma's feelings for Jane have been undergoing a change throughout the latter part of the novel; as Jane's autonomy becomes increasingly threatened, Emma's desire for her increases. Once it becomes clear that Jane can no longer avoid the grim necessity of the "governess-trade," and that her departure from Highbury is immanent, her state of pitiable vulnerability is reassuringly confirmed for Emma. It is at this point that Emma desires to "win" her: "the person, whom she had been so many months neglecting, was now the very one on whom she would have lavished every distinction of regard or sympathy." Her interest in Harriet having abated, Emma's behavior to Jane becomes almost obsessive—however, her attempts to visit with and show favor towards the other woman are consistently rebuffed: "It was a more pressing concern to show attention to Jane Fairfax, whose prospects were closing, while Harriet's opened . . . with Emma it was grown into a first wish . . . She wanted to be of use to her; wanted to show a value for her society, and testify respect and consideration." Susan Morgan characterizes Jane as "the measure of what Emma loses" (p. 42); and Emma herself comes to realize what she has missed: She bitterly regretted not having sought a closer acquaintance with her . . . had she endeavoured to find a friend there instead of in Harriet Smith; she must, in all probability, have been spared from every pain which pressed on her now.—Birth, abilities and education, had been equally marking one as an associate for her, to be received with gratitude; and the other—what was she' Unfortunately, Emma's inability to answer this question—to comprehend the inviolability of the other's selfhood (whether that of Harriet or Jane) constitutes her real loss. Significantly, Emma's realization that "Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself" directly follows the scene in which she is informed of Jane's elopement with Frank, and Emma feels "most sorrowfully indignant: ashamed of every sensation but the one revealed to her—her affection for Mr. Knightley.—Every other part of her mind was disgusting." D. A. Miller, in his article "Emma: Good Riddance," discusses the way in which Emma is able to block out any previous erotic attachment (his example being that of Frank Churchill) by simply deciding that she "has always loved Mr. Knightley, but simply never knew it; she has never loved Frank Churchill, but only imagined she did." Miller sees this as a "self-revision": It would seem as though the psychology of being "really" in love required such retraction to help sustain itself. "This time, it's the real thing": but the reality of the real thing is in part produced by treating previous erotic interest as unreal: inauthentic, delusional, even (as here) non-existent. In the proposal scene, this closure of desire becomes institutionalised. Desire has recognised its "proper object" and made itself capable of fixing on it; this recognition can now be incarnated socially, in marriage. (p. 73) Indeed, Emma has undergone a "self-revision": but the "previous erotic interest" she repudiates is the one she feels for Jane Fairfax. Jane has proven to be an "object" who refuses to engage in the dynamics of erotic domination, and who is leaving her sphere of influence completely, through heterosexual union with Frank Churchill and her removal from Highbury. Emma, who has evinced no previous sexual interest in Knightley, is able to convince herself that he has always been her object of sexual desire, and, what is more, that all erotic interest previous to this is a cause for sorrowful indignation, shame, and disgust. Miller states that "the assumptions under which erotic desire is locked into place . . . [are] in holy matrimony and wholly in matrimony" (p. 73). Once Jane and Frank have run away together, Emma is forced to deal with what remains to her in the world of Highbury. Harriet's revelation that she is in love with Mr. Knightley and has hopes of reciprocation on his part brings home to Emma the realization that the very fabric of this world, with her at its center, is unraveling: Till now that she was threatened with its loss, Emma had never known how much of her happiness depended on being first with Mr. Knightley, first in interest and affection—Satisfied that it was so, and feeling it her due, she had enjoyed it without reflection; and only in the dread of being supplanted, found how inexpressibly important it had been. This passage is reminiscent of Emma's sentiments about her place in her father's affections: "'never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man's eyes as I am in my father's'" and she feels that "Could she be secure of . . . [Mr. Knightley's] never marrying at all, she believed she should be perfectly satisfied." Thus, Emma cannot bear for Mr. Knightley "to be lost to them for Harriet's sake . . . to be thought of hereafter, as finding in Harriet's society all that he wanted" or for Harriet "to be the chosen, the first, the dearest, the friend, the wife to whom he looked for all the best blessings of existence." When Mr. Knightley does declare his feelings for her, her first thought is "that Harriet was nothing; that she was every thing herself" (emphasis mine); later, when the new alliance between them is established, she congratulates herself on her good fortune in obtaining. "Such a companion for herself in the periods of anxiety and cheerlessness before her!—Such a partner in all those duties and cares to which time must be giving increase of melancholy!" Her "love" for Mr. Knightley seems based on a combination of her desire for ascendancy over Harriet or anyone else in his affections, and her fear of Hartfield's being "comparatively deserted; and she left to cheer her father with the spirits only of ruined happiness." Claudia Johnson observes that the "resources"—beauty, wit, employment, money—which Emma thinks can preserve her from sharing Miss Bates's ignominious destiny as a poor old maid finally amount to very little. It is single womanhood itself, the lack of a circle of people to be "first" with, that turns out to be the evil. Ironically, the "reconciliation scene" between Mr. Knightley and Emma is yet another manifestation of the dynamic of erotic domination permeating the relations among the characters. Mr. Knightley and Emma have been engaged in a power struggle throughout most of the novel, yet Emma's attitude towards him is generally marked by complacency (save for those instances when she feels deservedly rebuked by him for meanness or bad manners). Having no sexual investment in her relationship with Mr. Knightley, she is able to dismiss his attempts to subjugate her quite easily. While she does "not always feel so absolutely satisfied with herself, so entirely convinced that her opinions were right and her adversary's wrong," she is not so affected by their clashes "that a little time and the return of Harriet were very adequate restoratives." But here, in the reconciliation scene, Emma is finally subdued, "overpowered," in fact, by Mr. Knightley. For the first time, she responds from a position of diminished power—in short, from the "female" position: "What did she say'—Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does." Suffering from "wretchedness," from "loneliness, and . . . melancholy," with a "prospect before her . . . threatening to a degree that could not be entirely dispelled—that might not be even partially brightened," Emma is frightened, vulnerable, and humbled, and she is vanquished by a force more powerful than her own will—Mr. Knightley's declaration of desire, and the comfort and safety to be found in heterosexual union. However, Austen reserves the truly charged and sexually ambiguous moments for the reconciliation between Emma and Jane Fairfax. Emma visits Jane upon her return; she is "longing to see her," and finds that she "had never seen her look so well, so lovely, so engaging." They are unable to exchange confidences in the presence of Mrs. Elton, and Emma, in the few moments they have alone together, tells her that "'Had you not been surrounded by other friends, I might have been tempted to introduce a subject, to ask questions, to speak more openly than might have been strictly correct. I feel that I should certainly have been impertinent.'" Ostensibly she is referring, of course, to Frank Churchill. The two share an emotional exchange: Jane, "with a blush and an hesitation which Emma thought infinitely more becoming to her than all the elegance of all her usual composure," expresses her gratitude to Emma for her interest and forbearance. She chastises herself for her former behavior: "'I know what my manners were to you.—So cold and artificial!—I had always a part to act.—It was a life of deceit! I know that I must have disgusted you.'" Strong words. The encounter ends with Emma's realization that "'we are to lose you—just as I begin to know you.'" As the novel ends, all of the principals have been matched up with someone of the opposite sex and married off. Heterosexual order is reaffirmed, and everyone is happy. Yet are they' I have attempted to demonstrate that Emma's sexual interest lies, not in Mr. Knightley, or in any of the other men in the novel, but rather in other women. The novel's ending, then, presents a denial of her sexuality. Furthermore, Emma's sexual identity has been formed in a world where the "the question of power affects who and how you eroticize your sexual need"—that is, a patriarchal world. Consequently, as I have suggested, "the question of power . . . is absolutely on the bottom of all sexual inquiry." And, in fact, Emma's sexuality seems to be all about power, expressed through her desire for mastery, for domination, for manipulation. Thus, Emma is subject to a "double whammy," as it were: her erotic predilection for women cannot be openly expressed, and her identification with the "male" role in her most intimate connections with the women she desires renders what is expressed unequal, unhealthy, and ultimately unsatisfying. The only alternative model available to her, which she is forced to embrace at the end of the novel, is no better: Emma must learn to play woman and wife, to submit in her turn. Source: Susan M. Korba, "'Improper and Dangerous Distinctions': Female Relationships and Erotic Domination in Emma," in Studies in the Novel, Vol. 29, No. 2, Summer 1997, pp. 139–63. Sources Austen, Jane, Emma, edited by James Kinsley and David Lodge, Oxford University Press, 1971. Austen-Leigh, James Edward, A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections, edited by Kathryn Sutherland, Oxford University Press, 2002. Ferguson, Frances, "Jane Austen, Emma, and the Impact of Form," in Modern Language Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 1, March 2000, pp. 157–80. Finch, Casey, and Peter Bowen, "'The Tittle-Tattle of Highbury': Gossip and Free Indirect Style in Emma," in Representations, Vol. 31, Summer 1990; quoted in Ferguson, Frances, "Jane Austen, Emma, and the Impact of Form," in Modern Language Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 1, March 2000, pp. 161–62. Lynch, Deidre, ed., Janeites: Austen's Disciples and Devotees, Princeton University Press, 2000, pp. 25–44, 87–114. Melani, Lilia, "Discussion of Emma," Jane Austen Web page, http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/austen/ (accessed December 3, 2004). Minma, Shinobu, "Self-Deception and Superiority Complex: Derangement of Hierarchy in Jane Austen's Emma," in Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 14, No. 1, October 2001, pp. 49–65. Scott, Sir Walter, Review of Emma, in "Reader Response to Austen's Novels," Jane Austen Web page, http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/austen/ (accessed December 3, 2004); originally published in Quarterly Review, March 1816. Shaw, Harry, Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms, McGraw-Hill, 1972. Tillotson, Geoffrey, Paul Fussell Jr., and Marshall Waingrow, eds., Eighteenth-Century English Literature, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1969, pp. 1–10. Wollstonecraft, Mary, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: An Authoritative Text; Backgrounds; The Wollstonecraft Debate; Criticism, 2d ed., edited by Carol Poston, Norton, 1988, pp. 1–20. Further Reading Austen-Leigh, James Edward, A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections, edited by Kathryn Sutherland, Oxford University Press, 2002. The memoir written by Austen's nephew James Edward was first published in 1870 and offers the one existing source of family memories about Jane Austen, mostly the recollections, biographical notes, and vivid personal accounts of devoted nieces and nephews. Copeland, Edward, and Juliet McMaster, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, Cambridge University Press, 1997. This book is a comprehensive guide to Jane Austen and her work in the context of the times in which she lived. The book includes a discussion of her works and chapters on economics, politics, religion, social class, and literary traditions. Lynch, Deidre, ed., Janeites: Austen's Disciples and Devotees, Princeton University Press, 2000. This collection of essays produced since Austen's lifetime demonstrates how wide is the range of interpretations and reader response to her works. It also explores adaptations, reviews, and general reasons for her popularity. Tomalin, Claire, Jane Austen: A Life, Vintage Books, 1997. This is a lively and accessible account of the flesh and blood Jane Austen as told mainly from the perspective of family and friends and the many fascinating people she knew.