Resumen
Resumen de Emma
Para quién es
For anyone who enjoys sharp social comedy, a flawed heroine who learns, and the pleasure of spotting the gap between her confident guesses and the truth.
De qué trata este libro
Emma is a comic novel by Jane Austen, published in December 1815. It follows Emma Woodhouse, a young woman of twenty-one who lives with her widowed father in the country village of Highbury. She is clever, rich and used to getting her own way. Austen said she was writing a heroine whom no one but herself would much like, and the book shows why that was a fair warning and a good bet.
Austen wrote it in her last years of steady work, at a time when she had already published Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park. Here she gives up the grand houses and long journeys of her earlier books. Almost everything happens within a few miles of Hartfield, the Woodhouse home. Dinners, walks, a ball, a picnic and a stream of letters are enough to carry a whole plot.
What you get is a funny, close study of a mind that believes it sees everything and sees very little. You meet a village full of sharp portraits, and you learn to watch for the gap between what Emma thinks and what is true. Let us begin with Emma herself, and the small world she rules.
En este resumen
- 1Emma rules a small, comfortable worldFree
- 2A wedding gives Emma a false confidence
- 3Harriet Smith becomes Emma's new project
- 4Emma talks Harriet out of a good match
- 5Mr Elton has other plans in mind
- 6New arrivals disturb the quiet of Highbury
- 7Emma misreads the people around her
- 8Mr Knightley and the cost of unkindness
- 9How Austen tells the story and why it works
Idea clave 1 de 9
Emma rules a small, comfortable world
The novel opens by telling us that Emma Woodhouse has lived nearly twenty-one years with very little to distress or vex her. She is the younger daughter of Mr Woodhouse, a gentle, anxious man who fears drafts, late nights and any kind of change. Her elder sister, Isabella, has married and moved to London. This leaves Emma as the lady of Hartfield, the first person in the house and one of the first in the neighbourhood.
Highbury is a village of modest size, and Hartfield stands near its heart. The Woodhouses are the leading family, so Emma has few equals and no one who corrects her. Her father admires everything she does. Her old governess, Miss Taylor, loved her too much to scold her in earnest. Austen tells us plainly that the real danger in Emma's situation is the power of having her own way, joined with a disposition to think a little too well of herself.
The one person who does tell Emma the truth is Mr Knightley. He is a landowner of about thirty-seven who farms the estate of Donwell Abbey, and he is the brother of Isabella's husband. He has known Emma since she was a child, and he feels free to criticise her. Their talk is full of teasing, and underneath it lies real respect on both sides.
The opening chapters also give us the daily texture of Emma's life. She plays the piano, draws portraits and starts reading lists she does not finish. She means well, but she likes to make plans more than she likes to carry them through. Austen lets us see the good heart and the idle habits at once.
This setup matters because the whole story grows from it. A clever young woman with nothing to do and no one to question her will look for a project. Emma is about to find one, and she will call it kindness.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Who’s who
- Emma Woodhouse
- Emma is the wealthy young mistress of Hartfield, devoted to her father and eager to arrange her neighbours' lives.
- Mr Knightley
- Mr Knightley is a sensible landowner and family friend who challenges Emma's judgements and cares for his neighbours.
- Harriet Smith
- Harriet is an impressionable school boarder of unknown parentage whom Emma befriends and hopes to marry advantageously.
- Mr Woodhouse
- Mr Woodhouse is Emma's affectionate, anxious father, whose fear of change shapes their household at Hartfield.
- Mr Elton
- Mr Elton is Highbury's unmarried vicar, whose attentions Emma interprets as affection for her friend Harriet.
- Frank Churchill
- Frank Churchill is Mr Weston's charming son, raised by wealthy relatives and eagerly expected by his father's neighbours.
- Jane Fairfax
- Jane Fairfax is Miss Bates's reserved, accomplished niece, whose talents inspire both admiration and resentment in Emma.
- Miss Bates
- Miss Bates is Jane Fairfax's affectionate, talkative aunt, living modestly with her mother among their Highbury neighbours.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 162,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 10 h 50 min
- Listening time18 h
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback, hardcover and large print at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages