Jane Austen's Emm Chapter Analysis

In my last standing daily assignment response, I discussed at length how Mr. Knightley plays into Emma’s good conscience and common sense of decency, as well as how, through taking his advice, she comes to open her eyes and reevaluate the world around her, not to mention her own place in it, and the effects and consequences her actions can have on the lives and well-being of others. It was also suggested, of course, that it’s through this recourse of action that she reconsiders her relationship with Mr. Knightley as well; which, of course, comes full circle in Chapter XIII of Volume III (Chapter 49), in which Emma and Mr. Knightley finally come to terms with one another; getting everything out there in the atmosphere until they, inevitably, finally confirm their love for one another: “Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little
In tying everything together, Austen reflects upon our own inherent human instincts about telling the truth; rather, we always withhold certain aspects of who we are and what we do in order better secure and place our pursuits as social creatures on this Earth. We may have been quick to judge the actions of Emma and various other characters throughout this story, but we are, perhaps, not meant to see them so much as “bad people,” so much as human and flawed. As has been demonstrated thus far, it’s really when we succumb to impertinence and shallowness, indulging in extravagance in vanity for its own sake that we really begin to lose our way. Such befalls Frank and the Eltons, nearly taking hold of Emma herself, but it’s the plain-spoken, heartfelt words of Mr. Knightley who win out hold of Emma’s heart in the end; breaking through the hollowness of the perceived social constructs of the times by crafting and synthesizing his own simple, truthful, genuine