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When the novel opens, Emma, fresh from her first matchmaking success, has decided to make Mr. Elton, the village vicar, her next project. Emma decides that Harriet Smith is the ideal candidate for Mr. Elton’s wife and spends the first section of the novel working to bring this match to fruition.
Mr. Elton is an essential character for two key reasons. To begin with, he plays a key role in Emma’s maturation and development. Emma is initially convinced that Mr. Elton is in love with Harriet. She is so convinced of her own brilliant matchmaking skills and her ability to read people that she misses very obvious indicators that Mr. Elton is infatuated with her and not Harriet. For example, in Chapter 6, Emma displays a portrait that she drew of Harriet to Mr. Elton and the Westons. Mr. Elton’s admiration for Emma is obvious to the reader, but Emma does not pick up on it. He tells Emma, “You have given Miss Smith all that she required…. She was a beautiful creature when she came to you; but, in my opinion, the attractions you have added are infinitely superior to what she received from nature.” The reader hears Mr. Elton celebrate Emma and slight Harriet’s appearance, but Emma only hears his praise of her friend. As a result, she is stunned when Mr. Elton proposes to her at Christmas and she is forced to come to terms with the fact that she has misread and misinterpreted every interaction that she has had with Mr. Elton up until that point, a defining moment for our heroine. Emma develops over the course of the novel as she gradually perceives the dangers that her own self-satisfaction and biases present, and her realization that she was wrong about Mr. Elton and Harriet is her wake-up call.
Mr. Elton is also important because he offers Austen the opportunity for social commentary. Emma, like all Austen texts, is a novel of manners—a type of fiction that was popular in the 19th century and focuses on the customs, values, and behaviors of a specific social class. In a novel of manners, characters are often differentiated by how well they behave in a social setting. In other words, the good characters have good manners (or learn to have good manners) and the bad characters have bad manners. Mr. Elton represents a common archetype in the novel of manners genre: the individual who conceals their poor character behind a false display of gentility. Mr. Elton is young, handsome, lively, and quick with a compliment. As a result, he is considered a welcome addition to any social gathering—especially to Emma. However, as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Mr. Elton is not as desirable company as we are initially led to believe. For example, he wants to marry for money as opposed to love and he is dismissive of Harriet’s illness at Christmas. His most egregious transgression occurs during the Crown Inn ball when he does not ask Harriet to dance even though they are the only two left without a partner. His actions would have been considered a major slight according to Regency dance etiquette, and 19th century readers would have understood this to be Austen’s way of informing the reader that Mr. Elton is not a good person. Protagonists of a novel of manners develop as they learn to navigate the complicated social mores of their society. In the case of Emma, our heroine’s slow understanding of Mr. Elton’s true character showcases the trajectory of her maturation.
