Spoilers Ahead! This essay is for those who have read Emma. If you have not, venture on at your own peril.
“Emma began to listen better.”
In her novel, Emma, Jane Austen’s titular character single-handedly drives the plot forward through her match-making schemes, her flirtation with Mr. Frank Churchill, and her interactions with all the various members of Highbury society. She jumps to conclusions; always assuming that she knows best. This doesn’t always go well. In fact, it usually doesn’t go well and Emma breaks many hearts through her self-assured meddling.
Towards the end of the book, after many scrapes and failings, the narrator states that “Emma began to listen better.” It is this sentence, set apart in its own paragraph break in chapter forty-six, that reveals the predominant character fault of Emma Woodhouse.
Parallel to Emma’s fault is the way in which Austen, like the author of a mystery novel, presents all the information the reader could need to understand every character, if only the reader were able to listen to her clues.
Emma and the reader, through the duration of the novel, learn how to “listen better” to others in order to ask the right questions and come to a deeper understanding of the characters and events within the novel.
Jane Fairfax and Jumping to Conclusions
Throughout the first and second parts of the novel, Emma Woodhouse jumps to many conclusions about the members of her circle while failing to listen to them well. Jane Fairfax, for example, remains in Emma’s ill graces throughout the first sections of the novel. Emma has had a life-long jealousy of Jane’s grace, poise, and musical talent. Jane’s natural reserve is repulsive to Emma who is so expressive in her own opinions: “…there was such coldness and reserve – such apparent indifference whether she [Jane] pleased or not – and then, her aunt was such an eternal talker! – and she was made such a fuss with by everybody!” Emma understands the dislike to be unjust, but in the first sections of the book, never does much to dispel her childhood prejudices. The reader naturally follows Emma’s opinions with interest, and it is only ever hinted to the reader that her estimation of things may be false, or have deeper consequences.
In a key conversation in chapter twenty, Emma attempts to extract information from Jane Fairfax about Frank Churchill. Previously the reader is told, “There was no getting her [Jane’s] real opinion,” implying that Emma wanted to know Jane’s opinion, and thus get to know Jane. A few paragraphs later, however, Austen makes the subtle distinction that Emma is only out to procure “a syllable of real information,” and not Jane’s opinion at all. The distinction is easily passed over, and as the reader also desires more information on the mysterious Frank Churchill, the reader may naturally feel themselves thwarted in turn by Jane’s reticence and share Emma’s final sentiment, “Emma could not forgive her.”
Each of Emma’s questions are answered correctly by Jane though the young woman is careful to give no personal thoughts on the young man, who, it is later discovered, is her fiancé. Emma’s questions, “Was he handsome?... Was he agreeable?.... Did he appear a sensible young man, a man of information?” are all concerned with Frank Churchill, not Jane’s opinion of him. The answers Jane gives, “She believed he was reckoned a very fine young man… He was generally thought so…She believed everyone found his manners pleasing,” are obliging but impersonal. Emma was looking for information and received information. She was not listening to Jane’s answers close enough to grasp what remained unsaid: Jane’s actual opinion. If Emma had been properly listening, and asked the right questions, the secret engagement of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax may have been discovered much sooner.
A Wise Fool
Miss Bates is another character who Emma (and the reader) does not listen to attentively. A rather silly character at first glance, Miss Bate’s inanity and constant stream of words with little to no hard punctuation make her both difficult and tedious, for both Emma and the reader. Yet Miss Bates often provides an insight into what is happening amongst the characters. She states, “What is before me, I see” and often sees things that Emma, clever though she be, misses. Miss Bates comments to Frank during the Crown Ball, “My mother often talks of your good nature. Does not she, Jane? – Do not we often talk of Mr. Frank Churchill?” The subject is very quickly changed, as it often is in Miss Bate’s tornados of speech, yet if Emma had heeded closer, she may have wondered why Jane often talked of Mr. Frank Churchill. These passages are often passed over by the reader as well, their length and nonsensical quality tempt the reader to skim.
Perhaps the clearest example of Miss Bates subtle wisdom is in chapter forty-one, when Frank Churchill asks about Mr. Perry’s carriage. Miss Bates, in another word-tornado reveals that the Perrys had told Mrs. Bates, Miss Bates, and Jane about the whole affair, though it was to be a secret. With some clever dramatic irony, Miss Bates proclaims,
“I never mentioned it to a soul that I know of. At the same time, I will not positively answer for my having never dropt a hint, because I know I do sometimes pop out a thing before I am aware. I am a talker, you know; I am rather a talker; and now than then I have let a thing escape me which I should not. I am not like Jane; I wish I were. I will answer for it she never betrayed the least thing in the world.”
It is later revealed that Jane was in fact the leak and had written about the whole to Frank in a letter. These short comments are, perhaps by design, easy for both the reader and Emma to miss if they are not on their guard. If Emma had cared to listen closer to Miss Bates, she may have once again discovered the secret engagement.
Suspicion? Just Listen
Mr. Knightly, in listening to the above exchange, did suspect some secret interaction, proving him to be a better listener than Miss Woodhouse. He had intercepted a glance between Frank and Jane and began to “Suspect him [Frank Churchill] of some inclination to trifle with Jane Fairfax.” Unlike Emma, Mr. Knightly does not jump to conclusions, but rather listens closely to the afore-mentioned exchange, and then afterward poses a question to Emma about Jane and Frank’s possible involvement. He does not do so out of any inclination to procure information, as Emma did with Jane, but rather out of a concern for Emma herself. He was afraid she was in love with Frank, who was deceiving her. Emma, however, answers emphatically, “I will answer for the gentleman’s indifference.”
At this point in the novel, Austen has revealed through a series of mishaps that Emma’s opinions are perhaps not very reliable. Emma has, by this point in the story, discouraged her little friend Harriet from marrying the farmer, Robert Martin. She encouraged the poor girl to pine after Mr. Elton instead, who was at that time pursuing Emma herself. At the time of the carriage conversation in chapter forty-one, Emma was mentally marrying off quiet country Harriet and the illustrious Frank Churchill! Through these misadventures and the subsequent revelations, Austen discourages the reader in their trust of Emma. While the reader is ready and willing to agree with Emma’s assessment of Jane Fairfax early in the novel, they can no longer take her judgments at face value. The fact that Mr. Knightley is involved, a stalwart character who has never yet been wrong in the novel, only increases the reader’s suspicion of Emma’s pronouncement. Here, Emma’s emphatic no, reads as a probable yes, and the reader allies themselves with Knightley in his suspicion of Frank and Jane: the reader begins to “listen better.”
Signs of Change
It is only after the discovery of Jane and Frank’s engagement that Emma begins to improve. After Mrs. Weston reveals the secret engagement to Emma, Miss Woodhouse begins to follow her usual pattern and jump to conclusion after conclusion. Mrs. Weston gently interrupts these outbursts to give Emma more information, and it is at this point that the narrator, instead of using free indirect discourse (the style of speech which makes Austen such a treat to read) makes a direct statement. As mentioned above, set in their own paragraph break the words: “Emma began to listen better,” mark not only a change in Emma in that particular conversation, but also in the rest of the novel. From this point forward, Emma listens better. She is still not perfect, but there is a marked improvement in her ability to listen.
This growth in Emma’s character can be seen in her conversation with Harriet about Mr. Knightly. Harriet has fallen in love yet again, and Emma discovers this as she simultaneously discovers her own love of Mr. Knightley. As in the conversation with Jane Fairfax, Emma could have asked irrelevant questions. She could have manipulated Harriet’s emotions as she had in the past. Instead, the reader witnesses Emma’s growth – she listens. Austen tells us,
“Emma’s tremblings as she asked, and as she listened, were better concealed than Harriet’s, but they were not less… She listened with much inward suffering, but with great outward patience, to Harriet’s detail.”
Here within the span of a paragraph Austen emphasizes Emma’s listening, not with the goal to acquire information for herself, but for the sake of her friend. The only question she asks is to better understand the situation. Emma finally concludes without her usual opinions, but with a statement of fact:
“Harriet, I will only venture to declare, that Mr. Knightley is the last man in the world, who would intentionally give any woman the idea of his feeling for her more than he really does.”
How different is this Emma Woodhouse! She has begun to “listen better.”
Changed for Good
Emma Woodhouse has changed, and looks back on her earlier conclusions, opinions, and advice with shame.
“With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybody’s feelings; with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange everybody’s destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken.”
She realizes that “with common sense…I am afraid I have had little to do.” Her shame is heightened by the realization that, though she loves Mr. Knightley, she cannot hope, “she could not flatter herself with any idea of blindness in his attachment to her. She had received very recent proof of its impartiality.” Emma knows that Mr. Knightley, unlike herself, listens well and thus knows her very well, he is not blind as she has been. To Mr. Knightley himself, she expresses regret that she did not listen to him.
“You probably have been less surprised than any of us, for you have had your suspicions. – I have not forgotten that you once tried to give me a caution. – I wish I had attended to it – but (with a sinking voice and a heavy sigh) I seem to have been doomed to blindness.”
Emma’s regret is palpable, she realizes she has been negligent in listening – to others and to Mr. Knightly especially.
Yet Emma is now better at listening, and by putting this skill to work, she achieves her happily ever after. Mr. Knightly begins to speak, and Emma stops him, she does not want to listen – she has yet to master the art after all and has only grown “better.” Yet, she considers the man before her. She resolves to listen, not for herself as before, but for him: “…cost her what it would – she would listen.” Though she dreads to hear him speak of Harriet, as Emma fears he will, she tells him to continue with what he was going to say, “I will hear whatever you like.” Mr. Knightley, begins to make known to her his affection – in a very rambling un-Knightley-like way. Emma is silent throughout, listening and waiting. It is only after she has heard him say his entire piece that she says, “Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does.”
It is only by listening that Emma can hear Mr. George Knightly say he loves her.
The line “Emma began to listen better,” reveals to the reader not only the character development of Emma herself, but also how the reader can better encounter the novel. Austen, through her use of free indirect discourse, very rarely speaks directly with an “unbiased” voice. The narrator is omniscient but pushes the reader towards assumptions – true or false – about the characters. Often the narrator uses the voices of the characters to communicate. Emma, who learns to listen, acts as an encouragement to the reader to also listen carefully to the narrator and the characters of the novel.
It is only through such a careful listening that the true brilliance of Jane Austen’s novels can be revealed.