Emma - Reading response (Book Review Sample)

Name Institution Subject Date Emma Introduction Emma is a novel that was published for the first time in the year 1815 in the month of December. The novel is very iconic in pointing out the disadvantages and the adverse effects of the unconstructed romance. The book was written by Jane Austen and contains several characters that give the book its best description and narration. The book explored the concerns as well as the difficulties that the women in the area of Georgian-Regency England face in a very high comedy in the form of a book. The social aspects of the book are imperative in giving the book its fascinating taste for the readers. Within the story in the book, there are the key factors that it focuses on, like the big question that goes like who will marry whom and for what reason will make them have such decisions. In this article, I will address the theme of love, romance, and marriage as portrayed in the book, by the author Jane Austen, (Marso). Love and marriage are two main things that are majorly put into use in the book for the reasons of the social aspects of the society. The two themes have been used to bring about different roles in the society about different people. The love and romance between the women in the area where Emma lived have yielded many good and positive impacts in the way people in the region relate. For example, the value of the love between the individuals equipped Emma with the ability to be conscious of what is right for her around her. For this reason, she finds herself developing an active companion with the one of the lady friends in the locality. At the same time, she finds the best in being in the companionship with Miss Taylor, who went on to marry Mr. Weston. For this reason, she felt the loneliness afterward, following the marriage between Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston. It shows that the level of love that existed between them, as ladies was so strong and had a lot to bring about the strong ties between the individuals in the society, (Marso). Love, on the other hand, has been used by the author to show the level of seriousness with which people can take the issue of marriage and romance that can happen between the individuals in the society. For example, despite that fact that Emma was notably beautiful in the society, she did not have any reason for getting married. She lacked that particular urge to be married to a man, to provide her fortunes as per the book. If she sees no reason to get married, then it means the love she feels for the others are just but compassion towards them but does not have the romantic bit of it, (Austen). Marriage, on the other hand, was a tool that was used by many of the members of the society to assess the level of completeness of a person in the organization as expected by the other officers of the society. For example, the fact that everybody in the book, whose lives revolve around the Hartfield incline towards thinking of marriage at some point. Without this, the characters are ever in the act of matchmaking, which is spearheaded by the one Emma. Marriage, therefore, has a role in uniting people, while giving them the chance to remain in a somewhat happy state for the rest of their lives. The matchmaking skills that Emma possesses are the actual examples of the value of the marriage aspects that the members of the society seen, (Austen). Marriage is a tool that communicates the importance of relationships that can raise the status of the partners. With this regard, marriage has been seen as the saviour to the diminishing female social and economic situation in the society. At that same time, unions were important in bringing people together for the purpose of socializing and creating new ties between people. For that matter, there are seen a lot of affiliations made between the different people in the society following the marriages that are considered in the plot if the story. Harriet, for example, is one of the people who became friends with Emma due to the wedding that existed between the Miss Taylor and her husband. The union created a lonely feeling in the heart of Emma that prompted her to develop the friendship with Harriet. The friendships, therefore, are seen to be as a result of the marriage that came in between the couple. Therefore, creating the new bonds between people is one of the things that marriage played a role in building in the novel Emma, (Marso). Additionally, Emma tried to prevent her friend, Harriet Smith for getting into a relationship with Mr. Martin but instead wanted her to give more attention to Mr. Elton, who also served as a vicar in the local church. It shows that through marriage, people were expected to consider some things that range from personal expectations to the societal views. These expectations in the wedding field prevented Emma from falling in love with the vicar, Mr. Elton, who in turn went away for the Hartfield area to some other place to find a wife. It was evident that in the book, marriage does not just occur because of the little love, but due to some other underlying factors. In the book, marriage is portrayed to be something that someone does not just get into when he does not have enough money. For the ladies, they were expected to choose wisely and keenly for the men who had the best qualities in the society, in terms of money and other desires that they wanted, (Marso, pg. 305-320) At some point, though, she is kind opposed to the fact that one should marry following the money prospects. She says in chapter fifteen that the wickedest thing to do is to marry for money purposes. She, thus, reservedly agreed to the fact that marriage should be due to the love between two people. It is one of the things she stressed to bring about the sanity in the society despite the expectations from the members of the community, (Marso 305-320). The protagonist is the idea that the romantic love between two people is the only way that someone can obtain the perfect match for marriage. As opposed to the societal expectations, though, she was able to impart these kinds of thoughts to the people around her to think in the same ways as she was. She primarily employed these skills in the much-known matchmaking skills that she used to help the people around her to emulate the same with regards to getting themselves, partners. For example, she used the skills to try and match Harriet to her husband as well as the one Jane Fairfax to marry Frank Churchill. The marriages are not only based on the financial and other expectations of the society but also match the needs of the single ladies. For this reason, the author assures the readers that the people she matched are rest assured of the financial security in the long run due to the choices of their marriage partners, (Austen). The issues above, as mentioned by the author in the book are so instrumental in determining the destiny if the people in the society. It brought in the societal aspects of the marriage romantic love for being in the acceptable social status in the society. The romantic love is supposed to control the destiny of the people who are to get married, but at some point, the romance bit of the marriages comes in later in later in the wedding life. For this reason, the views of the protagonist are somewhat in line with the expectations of the society; that require the members to marry with the aim of getting the recognition due to the increased social status in the community, (Marso 305-320). In the book, the marriage is portrayed to be best when it exists between two people, especially a man who is older than the woman. She discussed the case of her brothers who married the women who were older than them. That was before her story began. In her whole story, she talked about the marriages that existed between the individuals, whereby a man was often older among the two partners in the couple. These views of the age differences between the married partners are in line with the societal expectations and the overall views of the public about the marriage. The differences in the age limits are, thus, the evidence of the unselective nature of the people who can put up with the situations in the wedding that have a woman older than the man, which is contrary to the society expectations, (Marso, pg. 305-320) Additionally, the unions, on the other hand, are to happen after a courtship, after which the proposal was to follow. The courtship is a kind of a relation that the two would use to assess the possibilities of the marriage to work or not. It happens between the two young men and women to strengthen them for the marriage life, as far as the society expects them to act. That is also the period in which the partners were able to determine the suitability of the other partner regarding their personal needs and the needs of the society. These facts are much in line with the way people are expecting the marriage life to be. The new talks about the possibility of a woman being unable ...