The picture which she had then drawn of the privations of the approaching winter, had proved erroneous; no friends had deserted them, no pleasures had been lost. – But her present forebodings she feared would experience no similar contradiction. The prospect before her now, was threatening to a degree that could not be entirely dispelled.
The significance of ‘prospect’, which plays on the various ideas of anticipation, aspiration, observation and artistic creation that have run throughout the text, is merely left for the reader to notice or not; there is no ‘prospect – prospect, do you understand?’ Indeed, many of the double meanings are accessible only on second reading as when Frank Churchill, who has asked Emma to dance, excuses himself from the obligation to Mrs Elton with the words, ‘I am an engaged man.’ Later, the same wordplay becomes darker as Miss Bates describes Jane Fairfax’s future employment as a governess, recalling with some bewilderment her niece’s earlier refusal ‘to enter into any engagement at present’.
Although Austen claimed not to write ‘for such dull Elves,/As have not a great deal of Ingenuity themselves’, however, the pleasure of her text is by no means dependent on recognizing the puns and allusions.20 While some readers might enjoy the riddles and wordgames, others will be more interested in the comedy of manners, the psychological insights, or the satisfactions of the romantic plot. One of the great preoccupations of Emma is the subjectivity of perception and the way in which judgements depend on the personality and prejudices of the judge. It is thus a brave reader who ignores the persistent depiction of characters misreading situations, conversations, and even themselves, in order to arrive at a ‘correct’ interpretation of the novel.
Many scenes appear to work on more than one level, but if the reader is often flattered into assuming a position of superiority to the protagonists, there are constant hints at the limited nature of all aesthetic response. The episode in Chapter 6, for example, where Emma produces a portrait of Harriet to the admiring murmurs of Mr Elton, appears to be little more than situation comedy, based on the witty representation of the three characters’ misunderstandings of each other. Here, if anywhere, the reader seems to be treated to the accurate depiction of life so prized by Walter Scott and his successors; there even appears to be authorial endorsement of the importance of realism in art, in the narrator’s comment, ‘A likeness pleases every body.’ When taken in context, however, this apparent apology for mimesis reads very differently, as Emma’s two warmest admirers gaze at her portfolio: ‘They were both in extasies. A likeness pleases every body; and Miss Woodhouse’s performances must be capital.’ A statement that might seem intended to represent a universal truth is thus unsettled by its uncertain surroundings, and rather than indicating narratorial intrusion, might equally suggest the voice of Mr Elton posing as aesthetic expert, or of Miss Smith extending her own enthusiasm for Emma to that of the world.
The slipperiness of the phrase becomes more obvious a few paragraphs later, when it is echoed and ironized in the response of those who gather to view Emma’s portrait of Harriet: ‘Every body who saw it was pleased, but Mr Elton was in continual raptures, and defended it through every criticism.’ ‘Every body’, at this point, refers of course to the Hartfield circle – Mrs Weston, Mr Woodhouse and Mr Knightley – and it quickly becomes clear that their pleasure in the likeness has little to do with the accuracy of Emma’s representation of Harriet. For while Mrs Weston admires Emma’s ‘improvement’ to Harriet’s eyebrows and lashes, Mr Woodhouse is torn between his uncritical delight in anything his daughter might do, and his concern for Miss Smith having been placed out of doors in nothing more substantial than ‘a little shawl’. Only Mr Knightley dares find fault with the drawing, but his brusque ‘You have made her too tall, Emma’, is immediately dismissed by Mr Elton’s repeated ‘I never saw such a likeness’. In a matter of lines, the central characters reveal themselves through their responses to the portrait, which are clearly influenced by their own preconceptions, their views of the artist and their relationships with each other. Any reader, therefore, who feels confident in his or her recognition of mimetic power, might pause over Mr Elton’s enthusiastic ‘I never saw such a likeness’, while those determined to find indeterminacy consider the centrality of the artist in the scene. The appreciation of Emma, here, can perhaps be seen as an elaborate metaphor for the appreciation of Emma.
A scene that initially appears to be promoting realism in both its content and style (‘a likeness pleases every body’), thus unfolds to suggest that the perception of ‘likeness’ depends as much on the observer as the creator. If the reader finds the scene convincing or ‘realistic’, it is probably because of a previously formed view of the novel and its author. The dialogue seems lifelike, not merely because it might remind the reader of personal acquaintances, but because it continues the illusion that has been created in earlier chapters. Mr Woodhouse’s attitude is entirely consistent with the representation of his character in the opening pages – doting, anxious, and firmly resistant to the thought of stirring from his own fire-place. Mrs Weston’s response, too, reflects the opinion she expressed to Mr Knightley in Chapter 5, that Emma’s somewhat high-handed attentions to Harriet can be nothing but beneficial to the girl of humble origins. The same conversation is recalled in Mr Knightley’s ‘You have made her too tall’, which echoes his disapproval of Harriet being elevated above her natural station. The reader’s pleasure in the ‘likeness’ of the scene, then, is not merely a question of it ‘ringing true’, but of recognizing the consistency between the representation here and that of earlier passages.
Despite the completeness of the text, however, much interest can be derived from reading it in relation to its historical context. Emma’s artistic accomplishments, for example, like many of the novel’s details, can be seen in the light of contemporary debates on female education following works such as Mary Wollstone-craft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman published in 1792.21 Mr Elton’s activities, too, may be read as a comment on the role of the early nineteenth-century clergyman, a topic which had already been explored in Austen’s previous novel, Mansfield Park.22 Even the individual remarks in the scene may be illuminated by knowledge of the period: Mrs Weston’s concern with Harriet’s eyes, for example, being characteristic of contemporary notions of female beauty, while Mr Woodhouse’s suspicion of Harriet’s skimpy attire may well be connected with the shawl being a relatively new, and foreign, addition to fashionable English wardrobes.23 And, comically submerged in the opposing views of Mr Knightley and Mrs Weston, is the central question of whether art should represent nature exactly, or whether the artist should aim to improve its object in accordance with an ideal beauty – an issue that had vexed aestheticians throughout the eighteenth century.24
Austen’s assessment of her own creative endeavours in comparison to those of her nephew, James Edward Austen, has often fuelled the assumption that she aimed at the realistic portrayal of a small, familiar part of contemporary life:
What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited Sketches, full of Variety and Glow? – How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labour?25