Jane Austen's 1815 novel Emma focuses on the title character Emma Woodhouse and her romantic entanglements in the village of Highbury. Austen believed that a woman's choice of a marriage partner was crucial. She wrote domestic fiction set only in England from her own experiences. Austen used a floating third-person limited point of view rather than a fixed third-person or omniscient perspective to follow the thoughts and actions of multiple characters in Highbury and their connections to Emma.

1. Jane Austen’s Emma

2. Jane Austen: 1775-1817
 wrote “domestic” fiction--all her novels are
only concerned with a small circle of friends
 believed one should write only from one’s
experience, thus she never writes a scene
set outside England
 her plots concern themselves with women
and their choices of mates--believed choice
of whether and whom to marry crucial to
women
 saw marriage as the foundation of social
order

3. Austen’s literary forerunners
 18th century 1st person—autobiographical
novels
◦ Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
 18th century epistolary (in letters) novels
◦ Samuel Richardson’s Pamela
 18th century 3rd person—limited omniscient
novels
◦ most novels by women novelists, ie. Frances
Burney, that focused the omniscient narrator
only on the heroine
 18th century 3rd person—omniscient novels
◦ Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones

4. Point of View in Austen
 Not 1st person autobiographical
◦ too focused on one individual
◦ too knowing of that person’s thoughts
 Not 3rd person omniscient
◦ narrative voice misses out on lots of
information
 Not exactly 3rd person limited omniscient
◦ the narrative voice is not fixed on one person
 Free indirect style—a floating 3rd person
limited omniscient narrator

5. Highbury and its environs
Randalls
M/M Weston
(Frank
Churchill)
Hartfield
Emma
Mr. Woodhouse
Donwell Abbey
George
Knightley
flat above store
Mrs. Bates
Miss Bates
(Jane Fairfax)
the Vicarage
Mr. Elton
(Mrs. Elton)
the school
Mrs. Goddard
Harriet Smith
townhouse
The Coles
Abbey Mill Farm
Mrs. Martin
Elizabeth Martin
Robert Martin
townhouse
The Coxes