Maddy Kirkwood

June 30th, 2022

Reading Reflection #5: Emma – Final Volume

Novel and Spirituality 

The symbols of union and commitment are heavily present in chapter fifty of Emma. Emma and Mr. Knightley have just been engaged and Emma is thrilled but also wary of what this means for Harriet and her father. Emma decides that she will send Harriet to London to stay with her sister so that they can digest the information about the engagement together. Moreover, Frank has written an apology letter to Emma confessing that he was wrong to lead her on and that he is committed to Jane and feels terribly for how he has acted. Frank knew that he had to keep his engagement with Jane hidden from his aunt who would not approve of them and subsequently had to lie to everyone for his own selfish purposes. 

The symbol of marriage, particularly a loving marriage, means a great deal to nearly every character in this novel. Frank and Jane’s secrecy, Mr. Weston and Mrs. Westons’ marriage, Mr. Martin and Harriet’s infatuation, and Emma and Mr. Knightley’s relationships are all examples of characters deciding who to be with out of true love, rather than deciding to be with someone because it would increase their social status. 

Once Emma is engaged to Mr. Knightley, it seems that she has a change of heart when it comes to her previous statements in the novel suggesting that she is not interested in marriage. However, when Mr. Knightley proposes to her and she accepts, we can assume she will be married in the eyes of God, rather than deciding to be involved with Mr. Knightley while being unmarried. The spiritual act of being married in God’s house and declaring their commitment to each other formally in the church is imperative and we can see that it wasn’t that Emma didn’t want to be married, it was more that she wanted to be in love and chose freely who she would be married to. 

Emma is cognisant of what her sudden engagement means to her father, even though he admires Mr. Knightley, she values her father’s feelings in the situation. Emma knows that her father’s views on marriage are unfavorable and that it would not bode well for his health to live alone in Hartfield. Emma’s good nature shines through by showing her father respect by deciding that she will not be formally married until after he passes so that he will not have to suffer the loss of Emma leaving the Woodhouse household once she is married to Mr. Knightley. 

There are a number of relationships and examples in chapter fifty that convey marriage as a symbolic truth of life. In Emma, Marriage can be seen as a metaphorical bridge that connects two characters. Jane and Frank, as well as Emma and Mr. Knightley, are two examples of how genuine love and attraction. However, Austen is also conveying through her storytelling that something as simple as marriage can sometimes turn into a complex affair due to societal expectations as well as one’s own true feelings. 

My question for the class is “Do you believe that Austen ended her book this way to show people of this time period that marriage should be a decision based on true love, rather than a decision to increase one’s social status?”