emma, from highbury to high school

8/17/2019 Emma, From Highbury to High School

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EmmaFrom Highbury to High School

via parallelism and parody

‘I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity,themost unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared tobe an authoress’

Jane Austen

Born on 16 December 1775, Jane Austen is one of English literatures most celebrated authors.However, it was many years after her death that her genius finally began to be recognised, as

her novels had originally been published anonymously. Austen used her novels to cast a criticaland satirical eye over the landed gentry of England towards the latter part of the 18th Century. As with most of her novels, Emma highlights the dependence of women on marriage, financialsecurity and social standing.Some of the topics Austen covered in her novels are as relevant today as they were then, whichis why several re-workings and adaptations of her works have been produced.. Emma (1996),stars Gwyneth Paltrow as the eponymous heroine attempts to stay as faithful as possible to thenovel, whereas Clueless (1995), starring Alicia Silverstone playfully integrates the serious topicsof Austen’s day into the shallow, commodity hungry, micro environment of the American HighSchool. At first glance it does not appear that Clueless is anything more than a teen flick or

generic rom-com. However, I intend to highlight examples of parallelisms between the movieand Jane Austen’s Emma that, unless you have read the novel or seen an accurate adaptation,you may not be aware of.

http://janeaustensoci.freeuk.com/http://janeaustensoci.freeuk.com/


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Death of the narrator ‘Emma Woodhouse,handsome,clever, and rich,

with a comfortable home andhappy disposition, seemedto unite some of the bestblessings of existence; andhad lived nearly twenty-oneyears in the world, with verylittle to distress or vex her ’

Emma (2015 p.7)

The instantly recognisable opening lines of Emma are delivered by an omniscient heterodiegetic narrator,giving the reader a very quick appraisal of Emma. Unless the filmmakers decide to include a narrator thats separate from the fictional world, they must ‘show ’ rather than ‘tell ’ the viewer that Emma is all of thesehings.By casting extremely attractive women such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Alicia Silverstone, the viewercan instantly relate them to the main character. However,Clueless does have instances of Free IndirectSpeech, just as the novel has, with the viewer being privy to Cher’s private thoughts by way of a voiceoverby the individual character.The third person narrator continues in the novel to give a little background information about Emma which

s important to our understanding of her.One of the important factors the narrator imparts is the absence ofMrs. Woodhouse, who died when Emma was two leaving Emma and her father alone.We are also told that,up until recently the household had employed a governess- Miss Taylor,who had evolved into a good friendand confident to Emma. However, Miss Taylor had recently married and left the employ of Mr Woodhouse.

er Horowitz, like Emma Woodhouse, has beenought up primarily by her father. Her mothero died, however, in order to bring the story into

e twentieth century and to depart from the

tra-diegetic narrator the details of her death arecussed during their conversation at breakfast,vealing that she died in the operating theatreilst undergoing ‘routine liposuction’. Thiserence to liposuction as ‘routine’ appears toeshadow the movie’s relentless mocking of the

merican high class, just as Austen pokes fun ate very same social class in Emma . Indeedspite the many parallelisms in the movie,ueless appears to be one long parodic homageEmma , even though it makes no literalerence at all,to either Austen or the novel itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_indirect_speechhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_indirect_speech


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Lessons in Love

Emma Woodhouse seeserself as a relationship

expert feeling that shewas instrumental to themarriage of Miss Taylorand Mr Weston.As suchhe takes it upon herselfo ‘improve’ Harriet Smithby convincing her to severontact with her old

riends, including theentleman farmer Mr Martin,

with whom she seems to beenjoying a fledglingelationship.Emma explainso Harriet that Mr Martin isot elevated enough andhe should set her sightsigher.t does seem strange,owever, that Emma feels

hat Mr Martin, a comfortablywell off land owner could notomfortably care and

provide for Harriet. Emmabelieves that Mr Martin is

ot well read as he forgot toaccess a book she hadecommended. She decideshat Harriet would be farmore suited to Mr Elton, the

ocal clergyman, whom shebelieves to be far bettereducated and mannered.

‘Those soft blue eyes and all those naturalgraces should not be wasted on the inferiorsociety of Highbury and its connections. Theacquaintance she had already formed wereunworthy of her. The friends from whom shehad just parted, though very good sort ofpeople, must be doing her harm. They were afamily of the name of Martin…’

Emma (2015 p.24)

Cher Horovitz also perceivesherself as an expert in the art ofmatchmaking. Whereas Miss taylor andMr Weston are already married as thenovel commences, we witness theprocess of matchmaking by Cher whichculminates at the end of the film with themarriage of Mr Wendell and Miss Geist.Unlike Emma, who is convinced that sheis merely a conduit for the improvement

and elevation of the life of Harriet Smith,Cher is acting as Cupid for purely selfishreasons i.e. to negotiate a better gradefrom Mr Wendell.As the two teachersbegin to embark on this new, albeitmanufactured, relationship, Cherdecides she has a flair for matchmakingand when new girl Tai Frasier turns upat school, she decides that Tai willbecome her ‘project’, thus reflecting,yetat the same time, parodying the Emma/

Harriet relationship in the novel.

The Emma/Harriet and Cher/ Tai relationships both appear tobe important satellite eventswhich, although not importantin their own right, drive the plotforward. The main focus orkernel event in both novel andfilm is the journey of self-discovery by Emma and Cher,a journey that culminates intheir understanding of theirsocietal places and roles beingturned on it’s head.

‘…exactly the young friendshe wanted’

Emma (2015 p.26)


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Picture This ‘We only see what we want to see’

Don Miguel Ruiz

“This man is almost too gallant to be in love,” thought Emma. “I should say so, butthat I suppose there may be a hundred different ways of being in love. He is anexcellent young man, and will suit Harriet exactly; it will be an ‘Exactly so’, as he sayshimself; but he does sigh and languish, and study for compliments rather more than Ican endure as a principal. I come in for a pretty good share as a second. But it isgratitude on Harriet’s account.”

Emma misunderstands Mr Eltons compliments, Emma (2015 p.48)

As Emma continues to fan the flames of, what sheassumes, is the burgeoning of their relationshipshe suggests painting a portrait of Harriet, much tothe excitement of Mr Elton.Emma, for all her, selfsupposed, skills in matchmaking, is totally obliviousto the fact that she is the object of Mr Elton’senthusiastic praise and not Harriet. The passageabove highlights this as the narrator describes

Emma’s thought process of attributing all praiseand compliments to Harriet. Indeed in the firstsentence it appears that Emma believes Mr Eltonto be ‘too gallant’ to express his feelings directly ator to Harriet. This example of Emma’s habit of misinterpreting

events that seem perfectly obvious to the reader,is prevalent through the novel.It seems ironic thata woman so well educated in etiquette andgentility can be so ignorant to the obviousadvances of a would-be suitor. It is throughexamples such as this that the reader becomesacutely aware of Emma’s naïveté and her inabilityto perceive true reality; instead viewing the worldas some kind of utopian wonderland. Emmacontinues to misread the situation, when later inthe chapter Mr Elton volunteers to take thepainting to London in order to get it framed. Shestill believes him to be acting this way in order toimpress Harriet, when in reality he is attemptingto ain favour from Emma.


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The camera never lies

Clueless both parallels and parodies the painting

scene as well as bringing it into the 20th Century.Rather than painting a portrait of Tai, Cherattempts to photograph her and Elton togetherunder the guise of a group picture. However, theframing and composition of the scene grosslyexaggerate both Cher’s misreading of the signalsand Elton’s blatantly obvious preference of Cher.The initial blocking of the actors in the shotclearly show an exaggerated distance betweenTai and Elton, so much so that Cher has toactively encourage them to acknowledge oneanother.t is also plain to see how much Elton is engagingwith the camera and the photographer i.e. Cher.After the photo shoot Elton requests a copy of aphotograph of Tai which he sticks to the inside ofhis locker door. This appears to parallel MrElton’s request to take Harriet’s portrait to Londonn order to be framed. It does, however, appear tomock the original even further. Whilst it is easy tomagine someone framing a work of art,regardless of the subject matter, it takes a lotmore effort to imagine anyone displaying a

photograph of a person in order to admire thehandiwork of the photographer.

Thus, in this case I believe Cher to be justified inbelieving that Elton asked for the photograph because headmired Tai, whereas if Emma was as insightful as shebelieves herself to be then she would have picked up onMr Elton’s romantic overtones. Another way that the filmmakers of Clueless try toconvey that there is nothing between Tai and Eltonbesides the possibility of friendship,despite Cher’s bestefforts, is the extra-diegetic soundtrack that accompanies

this particular scene. ‘Alright”, by Supergrass makesseveral references to having a good time with ‘friends’,perhaps this is to accentuate the lack of any notion ofromance between Tai and Elton.

‘Say Cheese’. Cher attempts to photograph Taiand Elton together !.

….but Elton only has eyes for one girl

‘See our friends, see the sights- feel alright’

-Supergrass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDLTyCtQum4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDLTyCtQum4


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Conclusionn it’s day Emma by Jane Austen would have been a topical, satirical and perhaps a little provocative fingeroint towards the, sometime eccentric English gentry. Although still amusing today the topics it covered areot quite as relevant. Clueless takes the novel, deconstructs it, then pieces it back together, not to deal withurrent issues as such, more to illustrate how shallow we can be. Cher typifies how obsessed we seem toe today with our appearance; through social media, through our constant hunger for latest trends andommodities. We seem to worry so much about impressing people and involving ourselves in their lives that

we miss events that could improve our own. Both Emma and Clueless eventually work themselves into thehappy ever after’ narrative despite countless opportunities for everything to go wrong.he mere fact, however, that despite the 200 year gap between the novel and the adaptation audiences andritics alike were able to draw parallels between the two seemingly unrelated works is testament to the skill,

wit and observation of Austen. This could simply be Austen’s use of ordinary people in ordinary situations as

benchmark for her works, therefore everyone can relate to her humour, as everyone knowsomeone,somewhere that fits her narratives.

‘I don’t begrudge her a boyfriend…Ooh, I wonder if they have that in my size.’-Cher Horowitz, Clueless


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emma, from highbury to high school

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