Essay on Mr.Woodhouse and Miss Bates in Jane Austens Emma

The Characters ofMr.Woodhouse and Miss Bates in Emma The immediate impression one gets of Miss Bates is that of a loquacious old biddy, one of Emmas to a greater extent annoying personalities. But Miss Bates offers a refreshing contrast to the other characters in the young, many of whom harbor hidden agendas and thinly veiled animosities toward perceived rivals. If all(prenominal) major character in Emma is a snob, we might consider Miss Bates the anti-snob. Her very artlessness serves as a foil for those in the novel whom present contrived images of themselves or whom look down their noses at others. When she compliments others concern and generosity, as she is constantly found doing, there can be no doubt that her sentiments are genuine, if somewhat misplaced. She always speaks her mind -- but then, her mind is always occupied with the good, making her lack of cant pleasant rather than overbearing. In the first part of the book, Miss Bates serves not only as the anti-snob, but also the anti-Emma. Whereas Emma is described at the outset as being handsome, clever, and rich, Miss Bates enjoys a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married. Nor, obviously, clever. Life has denied her everything that Emma has been granted and how does Emma treat her, and speak of her to others? Shabbily, of course. If I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates, Emma reveals Harriet, who has expressed concern about Emmas choice to remain unmarried, so silly, so satisfied, so smiling, so prosing, so undistinguishing and unfastidious, and so apt to tell everything relative to everybody about me, I would marry to-morrow. She neglects to visit the Bateses often because of all the horror of being in dange... ... York The Oxford University press, 1923-1988.Cookson, Linda, and Brian Loughrey, eds. Critical essays on Emma of Jane Austen. Harlow Longman Literature Guides series, 1988. Craik, W. A. The Development of Jane Austens comical a rt Emma Jane Austens mature comic art. London Audio Learning, 1978. Sound recording 1 cassette 2-track. mono. Gard, Roger, 1936- . Jane Austen, Emma and Persuasion. Harmondsworth Penguin, Penguin masterstudies series, 1985. Monaghan, David, ed. Emma, by Jane Austen. New York St. Martins Press, 1992. Parrish, Stephen M, ed. Emma an authoritative text backgrounds, reviews, and criticism. New York W.W. Norton, A Norton deprecative edition series, 1972,1993. Sabiston, Elizabeth Jean, 1937- . The Prison of Womanhood four provincial heroines in nineteenth-century fiction. London Macmillan, 1987.