Essay on Mr.Woodhouse and Miss Bates in Jane Austens Emma

The Characters ofMr.Woodhouse and lam Bates in Emma The immediate impression wiz gets of Miss Bates is that of a loquacious old biddy, one of Emmas more irritation personalities. But Miss Bates offers a refreshing contrast to the other characters in the novel, many of whom harbor hidden agendas and thinly veiled animosities toward perceived rivals. If any major character in Emma is a snob, we might submit Miss Bates the anti-snob. Her very artlessness serves as a foil for those in the novel whom present contrived images of themselves or whom look down their noses at others. When she compliments others concern and generosity, as she is constantly found doing, there laughingstock be no doubt that her sentiments are genuine, if somewhat misplaced. She always deals her intellectual -- but then, her mind is always occupied with the good, making her lack of bevel pleasant rather than overbearing. In the first part of the book, Miss Bates serves not only as the anti-snob, but als o the anti-Emma. Whereas Emma is described at the first-class honours level as being handsome, clever, and rich, Miss Bates enjoys a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married. Nor, obviously, clever. Life has denied her everything that Emma has been granted and how does Emma treat her, and speak of her to others? Shabbily, of course. If I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates, Emma tells Harriet, who has expressed concern about Emmas choice to remain unmarried, so silly, so satisfied, so smiling, so prosing, so undistinguishing and unfastidious, and so apt to tell everything carnal knowledge to everybody about me, I would marry to-morrow. She neglects to visit the Bateses often because of all the incompatibility of being in dange... ... York The Oxford University press, 1923-1988.Cookson, Linda, and Brian Loughrey, eds. Critical essays on Emma of Jane Austen. Harlow Longman Literature Guides series, 1988. Craik, W. A. The Deve lopment of Jane Austens gay art Emma Jane Austens mature comic art. London Audio Learning, 1978. Sound preserve 1 cassette 2-track. mono. Gard, Roger, 1936- . Jane Austen, Emma and Persuasion. Harmondsworth Penguin, Penguin masterstudies series, 1985. Monaghan, David, ed. Emma, by Jane Austen. New York St. Martins Press, 1992. Parrish, Stephen M, ed. Emma an authoritative text backgrounds, reviews, and criticism. New York W.W. Norton, A Norton critical edition series, 1972,1993. Sabiston, Elizabeth Jean, 1937- . The Prison of Womanhood four provincial heroines in nineteenth-century fiction. London Macmillan, 1987.