Jane Austen discussion

I have just been introduced to Mrs. Elton. Another character that we will "love to hate" or just a victim of Emma's prejudices?

Yesterday I was listening to Nancy Pearl on public radio and the topic was books we wish we hadn't read so that we could read them again for the first time. When you said that you had just been introduced to Mrs. Elton, I felt really jealous! I wish I could read Emma again for the very first time! I have reread it so many times that I can't even remember when I read it first or what I thought about it.

Oh, no, that what just a phrase to mark where I was in the book. I've read Emma a few times, though not as many as P&P or Persuasion.

It would be nice to be able to read an old favorite for the first time and be surprised by it. But, then again, I keep finding new things with every read or through the discussions to keep me amused, too.

I think that Mrs. E can be both the object of Emma's prejudice and a "love to hate" - certainly Emma is predisposed to dislike her, but her prejudice proves, after the fact, to have some foundation in the woman's presumptuousness.
Below may contain a spoiler for anyone who hasn't finished "Emma".


One of the funniest passages, IMHO, is when they go strawberry picking - Chapter 42 or so - that begins with Mrs. Elton charging to the head of the party and ends with her scurrying into the shade.

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I think Mrs. E. is one of the funniest characters Jane Austen ever wrote. She reminds me of the Bible verse "Let others praise you" (I believe it goes like that). She is constantly "downplaying" her accomplishments. "My FRIENDS think I do such-and-such very well". Well, she certainly is letting others praise her, but her false modesty is easy to see through. Certainly Emma has a grudge against her from the beginning, because *spoiler* she married Mr. Elton, but Mrs. E. definitely deserves at least some of her ill-will. In fact, if there was one character Emma would be justified to dislike, it would probably be Mrs. Elton. Poor Jane Fairfax!

I read in an article once that Bristol (Mrs. E's hometown) was a center for the slave trade. Thus, Jane Fairfax's remark about the governess trade "not in the sale of human flesh" might have an element of sting not obvious to modern readers. It's not likely Jane didn't know Mrs. E. came from Bristol.

Interesting conversation!

The more I read in the book about Mrs. Elton, the more I agree that she deserves Emma's contempt. The Eltons are mean-spirited people, full of self-importance.

That's an interesting point that you bring up Christy. Puts the whole thing in a new light.

I had been wondering what kind of people that Austen had to endure for her to be able to create such odious people for her books.

"Mrs. Elton" is one of the most interesting portions of this story. Austen spends a lot of time letting us know exactly who Mrs. Elton, nee Hawkins, is. I think she is really meant to represent a certain type of woman, kind of a product of the times. She was born in the middle merchant class, made respectable by her sister's successful marriage match, and presumably then became unbearable. She is just SO proud of her social-climbing success. Elton goes hunting someone with a mentionable fortune and she takes him because she will add to her respectability as the minister's wife --and she will be in the middle of all that is going on in the village, hopefully with a lot of influence.

She is full of herself and really is unstoppable. She never is really put in her place (except by Knightley) and at the end of the novel pretty much continues on. She actually ends the novel, which was probably a statement by Austen that, love or hate, these women were really a fixture.

I don't think Austen is saying Mrs. E's movement within the classes is a bad thing, but her insufferable pride and bragging is. I bet she knew a few of these women, Jeannette.

There is a great deal of mystery (or, as the literary critic Grant Holly wrote in 1989, Mr. E, which is what Mrs. Elton calls her husband more than once in the novel) associated with Mrs. Elton. She's all that you say on one level of the novel, but there's much about her that Emma is unaware of, too.

What are your suspicions of Mrs. Elton, Arnie?

That's one of the many topics I will be covering in my book, but suffice to say that if you can allow your mind to see Emma as containing two parallel fictional universes, one in which the reader (and Emma) have had all relevant questions and mysteries resolved, but another in which the reader (and Emma) are still in the dark about most of the important things that have happened during the course of the novel, then you can be free to read the novel against the grain, and begin to see alternative explanations for the behavior of characters such as Mrs. Elton.

Arnie, I am really glad to have you in the Jane Austen group. If you would like to provide some info on your book or even start a discussion about reader views, feel free to add that in the folder at the bottom of our main page called Book/Video News. You may need to click See More Discussions to display this folder.

However, in this thread we are only discussing Jane Austen's Emma. As Austen wrote Mrs. E, do you think she hints at mystery?

Yes, and the hint I will give for now is to examine Mrs. Elton's behavior toward other characters in Highbury besides Emma, and to wonder whether Emma has accurately understood Mrs. Elton's motivations for how Mrs. Elton behaves to those other characters.

Again, the key that unlocks the door to the shadow story of the novel is to realize that Emma could be completely wrong in her interpretation of other people's motivations, PLUS other people may have reasons not to want Emma to know the truth.

Sarah wrote: "Arnie, I am really glad to have you in the Jane Austen group. If you would like to provide some info on your book or even start a discussion about reader views, feel free to add that in the folde..."

There is also a folder titled "Fan Fiction/Continuations" that you could post under. That's a good spot for new Austen-related books.

Thanks for that tip, but my book will not be fanfic or a continuation, it will be a nonfiction explanation of my "shadow story" theory regarding Jane Austen's novels.

Interesting. Then your discussion would fit best under "Book News," as Sarah suggested.

Sounds good, I will post about my book there in due course!

Please do. I am sure there are people who will be interested in such a discussion.

Emma also has less pure reasons for resenting Mrs. E. Emma, who, after all, is queen bee in Highbury, probably feels threatened by the arrival of the social-climbing Mrs. E. Her mock-intimate manner of speaking to Emma shows that she considers herself, and wants others to consider herself, as Emma's equal. We see this when Mrs. E. is comparing Hartfield to Maple Grove, and when she want to start "a musical club" with Emma. So maybe Emma isn't so innocent as she seems in disliking Mrs. E.

Christy wrote: "Emma also has less pure reasons for resenting Mrs. E. Emma, who, after all, is queen bee in Highbury, probably feels threatened by the arrival of the social-climbing Mrs. E. Her mock-intimate man..."

Yes, I agree. Emma definitely sees herself as upper-tier and really resents Mrs. Elton trying to wriggle her way into a position of equality. But, Emma really doesn't have a social equal in Highbury. No one else has her money or family name, except for Mr. Knightley (it is a small town). But, Mrs. Elton certainly doesn't see it this way. Mrs. E. feels that her family connections are just as important. In addition, she is older AND married, which just adds to her claims of being equal to Emma. It puts both of them in an unflattering light.

And the other interesting aspect is that Mrs. E decides to take Jane Fairfax under her wing. Of course, Emma doesn't think Jane needs a protector, and this moves Emma a little into Jane's club when she sees Jane getting no relief from this woman.

How do we know that Mrs. Elton's intentions toward Jane are good?

I think Mrs. Elton believes that her attentions are very much altruistic. She, "who has all the best connections, is willing to make this effort for poor little Jane" (sorry, but there should be a hint of sarcasm here). Jane, does not want the attentions, nor does she want Mrs. Elton to look for a situation for her, especially without Jane's input.

Emma, I believe, does not see much good in Mrs. Elton's attentions or efforts.

Arnie wrote: "How do we know that Mrs. Elton's intentions toward Jane are good?"

Do you believe they are?

No, I don't. I think that most readers believe that her solicitude for Jane is sincere, but I don't.

No, I don't. I think that most readers believe that her solicitude for Jane is sincere, but I don't.

Mrs. Elton is not exactly a person in whom you'd want to put a lot of trust, is she? So it's very curious that most readers do seem to take her at her word.

I think that Mrs. E's altruistic actions are motivated by her own desires for attention and adoration. To be known as the benevolent lady of Highbury fits into her intentions of asserting herself as the toast of the town. Although I am not a fan of hers, I do have to give her credit for using what she has to get where she wants to in society and in life. Luckily for her, her family had enough money for her to marry well (ish) and get the ball rolling :)

I wonder about her background that she chose Elton. Was she so generally annoying that her prospects were that dim? Or was it just the lucky meeting of two flatters and the best one got the prize? In the tiny village of Highbury she certainly wasn't first family, nor were there many families to be impressed by her. I wonder what JA was getting at.

It is possible that Elton marrying Augusta was an act of resentment toward Emma. He wanted to show her some women did find him attractive, so he married the first eligible and, by his standards, nice woman he met. She seems like she would fling herself at him, Caroline Bingley or perhaps Lucy Steele style, but with less taste in men. In a way, the Eltons remind me of the John Dashwoods from Sense and Sensibility. Both families are made up of an unscrupulous man and an even worse woman, both are rude, and in both relationships the woman makes the man more rude and unkind than he was before. Plus, both families seek to elevate their status in society.

From the text it appears that Miss Hawkins marries Mr. Elton in order to project herself into respectable society. Emma observes that "[...:] setting aside the 10,000 l., it did not appear that she was at all Harriet's superior. She brought no name, no blood, no alliance." So, because Miss Hawkins has money (through mercantile efforts no less) she must gain status through marriage. And although Mr. Elton is no Mr. Knightly (in more than one respect), he is a respectable gentleman and has connections in better society than she can obtain on her own. So Miss Hawkins becomes Mrs. Elton and she begins her quest to become a part of society.

In my opinion, Augusta is an incredibly insecure person who probably realizes she's up against a very formidable 'opponent' in Emma and endeavors to test her mettle in 'hand-to-hand combat' through her manipulation of Jane and others in Highbury (including her husband). As I recall, I almost had the sense of the Box Hill picnic being their 'Battle of Agincourt,' with both Emma and Mrs Elton coming away from the fray badly wounded for differing reasons. Emma, in my opinion, loses her own carefully nurtured self-control; and Mrs. E is smoked out as being spiteful and manipulative in trying to wedge the Highbury camp into those who support her and those with Emma. I want to think more about Mrs. Augusta Elton.

By the bye, some of you might enjoy this hysterical short story/parody about our beloved Augusta Elton, written by Diana Birchall and published on the JASNA site. Here's the link, and enjoy! http://www.jasna.org/publications/def...

Christopher, those are good points. Mrs. E coming into town, making a stir around herself basically. This is very real-life. Someone who is trying to make themselves a legend in their own time (Isn't that what we used to say? Is that a 70s or 80s expression?) And usually this kind of attempt will clash with many people, especially those who are already the leaders of the circle.

I keep forgetting if these types of Augusta Elton lines were in both book and movie -- "Although I do not profess to be an expert on the subject, my friends say I have quite the musical talent.. " or some such thing as that. I ask you, don't we know people in life who talk like that? And it IS annoying and comical at the same time!

Your "Mrs. E. is smoked out...." - I love this Chris!

I have to agree with that. What I love about Austen's characters is that you could find their contemporaries even now! Who doesn't know a Miss Bates or a Mrs. E? Although I'm not a Mrs. E fan, I just think that her self praise is amusing! There are some similarities between Mrs. E and Emma, although I would have to say that definitely Emma was able to grow as a character.