Wednesday, April 16, 2025

For Friday: Austen, Emma, Chapters 16-23


 

Answer two of the following:

Q1: In Chapter 18, Emma and Knightley are discussing Frank Churchill--a man neither of them has yet met--and they have (once more) an argument. As she complains, "You seem determined to think ill of him." Does his dislike of Frank come from a simple source--jealousy? Or do his complaints carry more weight than she wants to believe? You might consider whose criticisms seem more true to life once Frank enters the story. 

Q2: What makes Jane Fairfax such a foil for Emma in the story? How does the narrator present her to us, and how to other people genreally respond to her? Similarly, why does Emma seem to dislike her so much from the beginning? Does anyone share her opinion? 

Q3: First impressions are always an important element of any Jane Austen novel. What are Emma's first impressions of Frank Churchill once she actually meets him? Is she really seeing him, or is she still 'reading' him through her own novelistic fantasy of class and family? Is it love at first sight? Or something else?

Q4: Does Emma begin to have any doubts in these chapters of her powers of observation or matchmaking? What might make her overweening confidence begin to falter--even for a moment--in the wake of Elton's rejection and Churchill's arrival? 

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