How does Austen represent women's agency in Emma?
How does Austen represent women's agency in Emma?
The term ‘agency’ is used to signify the ‘ability or capacity to act or exert power’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 2013) therefore when referring to ‘women’s agency’, one implies the feminist philosophical idea of women’s capacity for independent choice and action. Jane Austen’s Emma was published in the early 19th Century (Whalan), an era in which women had an especially rigid role in society that often confined them to the desires of men. In this Georgian period therefore the idea of female agency would be considered a controversial concept. However Jane Austen’s works are often considered as ‘representative of what critics have called the ‘feminist tradition’ in the English novel’ (Brown, 1973 p. 321), with her novel Emma found to follow this feminist tradition by recognizing the ‘identity and social functions of a woman’ (Brown, p. 321). The novel Emma is named after its female protagonist, a character who in numerous ways defies the social conventions attributed to a woman of the 19th Century in favour of a more dynamic role. The character of Emma is shown as independent, authoritative and multidimensional and who, in juxtaposition with the novel’s other characters, is a tool in exposing the social expectations of women in the isolated Highbury society. Emma manifests the philosophical idea of women’s agency hence this essay will discuss the ways by which Austen uses Emma to represent the qualities of female agency and explore the conditions of this concept. The archetypal 19th Century woman was almost entirely controlled by men, she would transition from dependency on her father to being dependant on her husband. This was largely due to the fact that women often had no means of financial support and ‘men held all the resources and women had no independent means of subsistence’ (Wojtczak, 2008). In light of this Emma is a character who defies this social expectation as although she lives with her
The term ‘agency’ is used to signify the ‘ability or capacity to act or exert power’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 2013) therefore when referring to ‘women’s agency’, one implies the feminist philosophical idea of women’s capacity for independent choice and action. Jane Austen’s Emma was published in the early 19th Century (Whalan), an era in which women had an especially rigid role in society that often confined them to the desires of men. In this Georgian period therefore the idea of female agency would be considered a controversial concept. However Jane Austen’s works are often considered as ‘representative of what critics have called the ‘feminist tradition’ in the English novel’ (Brown, 1973 p. 321), with her novel Emma found to follow this feminist tradition by recognizing the ‘identity and social functions of a woman’ (Brown, p. 321). The novel Emma is named after its female protagonist, a character who in numerous ways defies the social conventions attributed to a woman of the 19th Century in favour of a more dynamic role. The character of Emma is shown as independent, authoritative and multidimensional and who, in juxtaposition with the novel’s other characters, is a tool in exposing the social expectations of women in the isolated Highbury society. Emma manifests the philosophical idea of women’s agency hence this essay will discuss the ways by which Austen uses Emma to represent the qualities of female agency and explore the conditions of this concept. The archetypal 19th Century woman was almost entirely controlled by men, she would transition from dependency on her father to being dependant on her husband. This was largely due to the fact that women often had no means of financial support and ‘men held all the resources and women had no independent means of subsistence’ (Wojtczak, 2008). In light of this Emma is a character who defies this social expectation as although she lives with her