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The Best Blessings Of Emma In Jane Austen's Emma

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Jane Austen begins the novel Emma by stating, “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence, and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her” (1) immediately giving readers the impression that Emma is a young woman whom the readers should respect and grow to love throughout the novel. As we continue reading, however, we learn that while Emma has a good reputation and a circle of people who love her and want the best for her, she is extremely flawed. In the article, The Darkness in Emma, Anita Soloway states, “for Emma, beauty, cleverness, and wealth prove to be mixed blessings at best, for they foster the conceit of arrogance that lead her to hurt others and threaten her own happiness” (86) which ties into my argument that Emma’s good reputation is not necessarily based on her character, but instead, the lifestyle she lives, which is a similar concept for Tom in Tom Jones. Tom Jones is described and seen as a imprudent bastard because of his rank in the social ladder, ultimately landing him in jail. He is introduced with the statement, “as we determined when we first sat down to write this History, to flatter no man; but to guide our Pen throughout by the Directions of Truth, we are oblige to bring our Heroe on the Stage in a much more disadvantageous Manner than we could wish; and to declare honestly, even at his first

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