< Emma (novel)

Emma (novel)/YMMV


  • Canon Sue: Since she gets the guy despite a debatably effective bildungsroman arc, Emma herself occasionally appears to be one of these.
  • Les Yay: Good God. Emma even says she's interested in Harriet because she's so pretty and passionately insists to Mr. Knightley that no man in the world is good enough for her. Not to mention the wording of Emma's relationship with her former governess.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Emma again. Jane Austen wrote before she started that, "I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like."
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: Mr. Knightley ships Harriet/Robert Martin. Emma ships Harriet/Mr. Elton, and as far as she's concerned, Robert Martin should Die for Our Ship.
  • Tear Jerker: With LOADS of woobieness added into it, the reaction of Miss Bates to Emma's slight in the 1996 film comes off as this, particularly when she says, just above the level of tears, "I must make myself very disagreeable for her to say such a thing to an old...friend..."
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The newest Austen mash-up James Fairfax takes place in an Alternate Universe where same-gender relationships are not the least bit unusual... and simply Gender Flips Jane Fairfax into a male instead of making Emma/Harriet the Official Couple--although at least the Subtext between them is openly acknowledged.
  • Values Dissonance: Emma's ignorance of Harriet's rank and insistence that the circumstances of Harriet's birth should not deprive her of the same respect and opportunities open to richer, less-tender-hearted women is portrayed as a bad thing. [1]
    • More an 'unrealistic given the circumstances' thing. Also in-universe Values Dissonance where Harriet's obscurity isn't a problem to Emma but she considers association with Robert Martin demeaning. And another in-universe example in the great respect Miss Taylor/Mrs. Weston garners as a governess versus everyone being very sad about poor Jane having to become a governess.
      • That has more do with situation. Miss Taylor/Mrs. Weston lucked out as a governess, getting a good rich family that treated her like a member of the family and loving kids THEN marriage. Marriage is highly unlikely for a governess, which is the only way OUT of being a governess. If Miss Taylor was less beloved she would have been shipped out when Emma was sixteen. You get hints of this with Mrs. Elton being very snide about Mrs. Weston because of her background.
    • Knightley's objection is probably because it's not fair to delude the rather simple-minded Harriet into believing that she doesn't have a problem... in fact, more to the point, to do so while derailing her marriage to a yeoman with whom she would have been perfectly happy. (Even to the yeomanry it would have mattered, albeit not as much- Robert is still a catch, even if he does get his hands dirty.)
    • For a completely different example of Values Dissonance, it's eventually revealed that Mr. Knightley has been in love with Emma since she was thirteen...at which time he was twenty-nine!
  • Wangst: Miss Bates. Pull yourself together you fucking moocher (notably the opinion of Emma herself, on her bad days).
  1. ↑ In at least one adaptation, Emma lets her imagination run wild and assumes that Harriet's mysterious father is a member of the royal family! This is why she thinks Harriet is suitable for Mr. Elton - not because rank doesn't matter, but because she's imagined a much more illustrious background for Harriet than is plausible. (Mr. Elton would realize that no royal bastard would be enrolled in a school designed to turn out governesses and ladies' maids, but Emma doesn't.)
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