Men of sense and silly wives – the confusions of Mr Knightley

Abstract

Debates about authorial stance in Jane novels have often focused on Emma. The tension between Emma and Mr. and its final resolution inevitably raise questions about whether author was upholding or challenging contemporary moral and social attitudes. On whole, charisma Mr. and his apparent final triumph have persuaded critics that novel rather supports traditional patriarchal values than otherwise. But there have been some attempts to unseat Mr. Knightley. In 1968, J. F. Burrows questioned his authoritative function in novel, but stopped short denying it altogether. is a matter, he says, of accepting him as a leading but not oracular participant ... a matter heeding his words but not bowing to them.(1) Burrows's reassessment character leaves us much as we were before, and in his analysis he does not quite fulfill his promise to show us Emma in light. Some feminist critics have been more thoroughgoing, in particular Margaret Kirkham, who in an intelligent and searching analysis, has proved to her satisfaction that both Emma and Mr. have to change in order to be fit for each other, her purpose being to characterize novel as a document in eighteenth-century Enlightenment feminism: As novel unfolds, she writes, the education hero and heroine, about themselves and one another as moral equals, is shown in a way which subverts stereotype in which a heroine is educated by a Hero-Guardian.(2) Claudia Johnson also sees Mr. as less than perfect: Knightley is not above imaginistic readings his own ... [he] is just as apt [as Emma] to misconstrue where his interest is at stake ...(3) This certainly provides altered light, but it has not apparently been bright enough to change perception Mr. by many more recent critics as Emma's mentor, sane and rational warning voice that she initially ignores but ultimately has to attend to.(4) Even Laura Mooneyham, in a perceptive study that otherwise shows how heroes are often educated by heroines, rather than vice versa, says at very beginning her chapter on Emma: Austen's model for wisdom--and Emma's--is Mr. Knightley.(5) If, however, we look more closely at text novel than even most subversive critics have so far done, we find that, though they have disturbed traditional estimate Mr. Knightley's character, something is still needed to account for all that happens between two central characters. An examination some less frequented byways text will reveal that, far from being somehow above it all, he is involved in same kind social/moral confusion as Emma and all other characters and that it is with this general chaos that novel is chiefly concerned. Everybody except Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill, who themselves produce much confusion, is caught up in a complex web social assumptions, prejudices, romantic and literary notions all kinds, which creates a hilarious mix misunderstanding and blunder, so that nobody is seeing exactly what is there, or hearing exactly what is being said. The chief contemporary source ideas on social and moral principles may be found in conduct literature period which Jane Austen was very interested in, frequently quoting or referring to it in her letters, as well as occasionally in her novels. The second half eighteenth century saw a rapid growth in production books rules for proper behavior in both sexes. It was an age extreme social anxiety and self-consciousness which provided a ready market for works that seemed to offer reliable guidelines, particularly for those of middle sort who, like Mr. Weston, were rising into gentility and property (Emma: p. 15)(6) in new commercial world. These were often addressed to women, who could find themselves especially adrift and unoccupied in unfamiliar prosperity; but men also needed guidance in how to acquire dignity and acceptance in a society where breakup a more or less fixed semi-feudal dispensation, with all its rules rank, deference, and dependence, was reaching a critical phase. …