Less than Perfect

Jane Austen said that in creating Emma Woodhouse she was creating a character that others might not like. She was being disingenuous – trying to get her retaliation in first, in case she was proved right.

It is true that, from the outset, she does show us Emma at her most meddling, deluded and insufferable. She is however very careful not to allow the balance to tip us too far against her. She gives us glimpses, now and then, of cracks in this façade. Flashes of truth, showing us other facets of this complex character that bit by bit, as the unfolding of events teach Emma herself what she really is, teach us too, like Mr Knightley to love her.

Here’s one.

Early in the book Mr Elton plays on Emma’s vanity to draw a likeness of Harriet Smith. His intention is, of course, totally misunderstood by Emma – she thinks it is a sign of his growing affection for Harriet, when in fact it is for her. In a rather touching passage, written in the third person but clearly portraying Emma’s own thoughts about herself, we get one of these glimpses.

“She had always wanted to do everything, and had made more progress both in drawing and in music than many might have done with so little labour as she would ever submit to. She played and sang; - and drew in almost every style; but steadiness had always been wanting; and in nothing had she approached the degree of excellence which she would have been glad to command, and ought not to have failed of. She was not much deceived as to her own skill either as an artist or a musician, but she was not unwilling to have others deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often higher than it deserved.”

The last sentence has that typical dash of Austen irony. But there is no suppressed savagery here, as there often is with Austen’s Olympian put downs. There’s something intimately understood here – as if Austen herself might regret her own drawing or piano playing, of not practising enough. It is a fault she understands and forgives.

Later, on the day after the party at the Coles, where Jane Fairfax had played and sung so admirably, and where Mr Knightley rode to her rescue when pressed too hard by Frank Churchill to sing more, Harriet, loyal and sweet, but with cloth ears, praises Emma’s playing.

“Oh! If only I could play as well as you and Miss Fairfax!”

“Don’t class us together, Harriet. My playing is no more like hers than a lamp is like sunshine……..The truth is, Harriet, that my playing is just good enough to be praised, but Jane Fairfax’s is much beyond it.”

Such devastating honesty warms us to her. She knows she has talent, but she has not the application, and will never have it. In one sense this reflects difference of situation. Jane Fairfax has no money. Her only hope is to marry well. She has not learned to play so well, merely for its own sake. She is no artist. The accomplishments that she has so fastidiously applied herself to acquiring are necessary for her in order to become a social embellishment to her future husband. She needs to apply herself, to seek perfection, in order to survive. Emma doesn’t. Her fortune is secure. She has talents, but no compelling need to perfect them, and she is not so motivated to perfect them for their own sake. People are more important to her.

Her failure to develop the talents she clearly has is very regrettable – she feels it herself - but we haven’t the heart to accuse her. For isn’t she just like the rest of us?