Austen's six novels have finished reading the fifth, "Emma". Her work was revered by the regent (prince of Wales) at the time, so in the preface to Emma Austin expressed his desire to dedicate the work to the regent.
It is more and more found that Austin's concept of marriage and love is very similar to today's society, which can be summed up in four words - "door to door". Austen is particularly particular about the door, although she can write a combination of rich nobles like Elizabeth and Bentley, Jane and Darcy and the small family jasper, but this does not mean that she believes that marriage can be unlimited. It's just that she took the door apart and divided it into more categories.
For example, the woman's face is delicate, the man's momentum is extraordinary; for example, the woman can have no money, but must be elegant and tasteful, intellectual and kind, so that she can lean on a large amount of money, or enter the love circle that meets her. The man can't be so casual, money is a primary prerequisite, and for now, except for Edmund in Mansfield Manor, who is only a lawyer, the other works are either aristocrats or heirs of huge assets. Even in the case of Edmund, Fanny, who was paired with him, was at best a poor daughter of a foster caregiver in her aunt's house, and did not violate her door-to-door pair after all.
It is not enough to have these, the male and female protagonists must also have a heart that cherishes each other, that is, they are loyal to love. This is an indispensable element of love novels, and Austin is particularly attached to this kind of heartfelt recognition and love, if not, then sorry, hugh into the eyes of the author.
Of course, morality and cultivation are also indispensable, Austin did not write rich men as perfectly as Prince Charming, and her writing in "Mansfield Manor" henry Crawford is a debauched prodigal character, and in "Northang temple" General Tierney's eldest son is not a good commodity. But it is worth playing that the male protagonist image set up by Austin is most likely a person with both money and noble character, no wonder Charlotte Brontë has always been angry with her, thinking that Austen seems to be painting characters in oil paintings, in addition to beautiful and exquisite, or beautiful and exquisite.
Stills from the movie "Emma"
Fictional characters (People's Literature Publishing House, translated by Sun Zhili, the same below):
Emma Woodhouse: The heroine of the novel, whose mother died early, grew up with her sister Isabella and miss Taylor, a governess. She is clever, beautiful and generous, but she has the common problem of everyone's bridesmaids, that is, she is pretentious, and she is still an unmarried.
Emma from the movie Emma
Isabella: Emma's married sister, wife of John Knightley
Miss Taylor: The governesses of Emma's two sisters, emma eventually married Mr. Weston and became Mrs. Weston
Mr. Woodhouse: Emma's father, married late, his wife died early, and he was frail and sickly, but he was kind and friendly with his neighbors, and he also loved Emma and did not want his daughter to marry and leave him
Mr. Woodhouse in the movie Emma
Mr. Weston: Miss Taylor's husband, married in her early years, but whose wife died early, had a son who was passed on to his uncle
Frank Churchill: Mr. Weston's son, who changed his surname because he had passed on to his uncle
Frank Churchill in the movie Emma
John Knightley: Emma's brother-in-law
Mr. Knightley (in Western names, both the father and the eldest son can be called Mr. Suffix, and the eldest daughter can be called Miss Suffix): John's older brother, Emma's future husband, has strong assets
Mr. Knightley in the movie Emma
Mrs. Goddard: Principal of a private girls' school
Harriet Smith: The illegitimate daughter of a businessman, Emma's friend, who lives at Mrs. Goddard's school
Harriet in the movie "Emma", Harriet in the original is more beautiful and intelligent, and the movie looks stupid
Martin: The farm boy who pursued Riharit, the sharecropper of Mr. Knightley
Mrs. Bates: Widow of a former pastor in Highbury
Miss Bates: Mrs. Bates's eldest daughter, unmarried, kind and friendly, but more rambling, emma looked down on her
Miss Jane Fairfax: Daughter of Mrs. Bates' youngest daughter, whose parents died prematurely, and was secretly engaged to Frank Churchill
Colonel Campbell and his wife: The protector of Miss Jane Fairfax, her daughter was adopted by her father after her death
Miss Hawkins: Mr. Elton's wife, Mrs. Elton
Mrs. Elton in the movie Emma
Mr. Elton: The parish priest, who at first fell in love with Emma and was a hypocrite for the people
Mr. Elton in the movie Emma
The story is roughly:
The beautiful and intelligent Emma is a decent person, she is kind and beautiful by nature, but she is pretentious. Although he is an unmarried person, he loves to be a red bride and match others.
She started with her own governess, pairing her with Mr. Widower Weston, and when it was done, she became complacent and felt that it was a credit. Soon, she beat up the idea of Harriet, an illegitimate daughter who was boarding at a private school, and Harriet was originally in love with a sharecropper's son, Martin, and Emma obstructed it, encouraging Harriet to reject Martin's marriage proposal and encouraging her to associate with the priest Mr. Elton.
Because Mr. Elton loves Mar herself, Aiwu and Uddi also show a friendly side to Harriet. This cognitive delusion makes both Emma and Harriet mistakenly believe that Mr. Elton loves Harriet, and the misunderstanding is solved when he proposes to Emma, but it also makes Harriet sad. Elton's failed marriage proposal also led him to abandon his fantasies and soon become married to a wealthy Miss Hawkins.
Mr. Weston was visited by his adoptive son, Frank Churchill, and Emma, who had failed in his previous attempt to match, turned her attention to Frank. But she did not know that Frank was secretly engaged to Mrs. Bates's niece, Miss Jane Fairfax.
Mr. Knightley, who is not accustomed to Emma's random interference in other people's love affairs, severely accuses Emma, and after the truth of Frank and Jane's engagement is revealed, Emma really realizes that her impulsiveness is reckless and unkind.
She takes the initiative to reconcile with Jane, and at the same time creates conditions for Harriet and Martin to reconcile (voluntarily sendIng Harriet to her sister's house to see a dentist), and after a series of twists and turns, she also perceives Mr. Knightley's steady maturity and beneficial teaching and care for her, and finally marries her brother-in-law, who is 16 years older than herself.
Emma is Austin's longest novel and has been remade into a television movie several times, most recently directed by Othum de Wilder, written by Eleanor Catton, and starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Mia Gauss, Josh O'Connor, and Callum Turner, and was released in the United States on February 21, 2020.
The two-hour movie faithfully restores the original work, but due to the limited time, the plot is fast-paced, and if you have not seen the original work, you will feel that it is in the clouds. The director from the art world also makes the film quite exquisite, and almost every picture can become wallpaper. Some of the characters are handled with elements of witty humor, giving the film a light comedic style.
Austin said before writing the novel, "I'm going to create a heroine that no one but me will like very much." So about the heroine of the work, Emma, Austin's fans are polarized, and those who like her think emma is very personal and bold; but those who don't like her think that she is too pretentious and does not have the intellectual elegance that the heroine used to have before.
But Austen's old problem is to be recalled, although she has opened up a new field of literature for herself, but in this field of her own expertise, the same scenes and stories are constantly being repeated.
Like her previous works, her characters are drawn from the middle class. These characters all live in the countryside, and the storyline is limited to the countryside. Their ambitious events were nothing more than a ball at the Crown Inn or a picnic in The Box Hill, and I am afraid that nothing more important was done. They are not troubled by both social and political issues. (Austin Dobson (1840–1921): English poet. )
Charlotte Brontë also published her opinion of Emma, but her views have always been sharp and unkind. "I read one of Miss Austen's works, Emma, with interest, with the admiration of Miss Austin, which even Miss Austen herself would find appropriate. Looking at her work, we find that things like passion and fanaticism, anything that is energetic, moving, and heartfelt, are completely misplaced. That is why we should have laughed at her with a cultured heart, and should have calmly dismissed her as absurdity and showmanship. She is very good at depicting the superficial life of the mild-mannered English people, and in copying the details, she is as realistic as Chinese painting. She did not provoke the reader with passion, nor did she disturb the reader with esoteric philosophy. She had no idea what passion was, and she didn't even want to touch the sisterhood of the storm. Even with emotion, she only occasionally gives the reader a little water, but too much emotional dialogue will disrupt its smooth and elegant narrative structure. She was not so much concerned with the human mind as with superficial things like human eyes, mouth, hands and feet. What she served her appetite was what she saw keenly, what was said appropriately, and what she did at the right time, but behind these phenomena, what made people's hearts boil, why people lived in obscurity, why they died in a magnificent way, she turned a blind eye. ”
Austin herself had a much milder view of the work, writing a letter to the Regent's librarian, Mr. J.S. Clarke, in which she expressed her opinion of the new work (the last work she had witnessed with her own eyes): "At this moment, my greatest wish is that this fourth work will not bring shame to the other three. But at this point, no matter how much I want Emma to succeed, one thought has lingered in my mind: For readers who like Pride and Prejudice, Emma may be slightly inferior in terms of humor and humor; for readers who like Mansfield Manor, Emma may be slightly inferior in terms of reason. ”