Summary: Chapter 13
The Woodhouses and Knightleys are invited to the Westons’
for Christmas Eve dinner. Harriet and Mr. Elton are also included,
but Harriet comes down with a sore throat and is forced to miss
the gathering. Emma meets Mr. Elton while visiting Harriet and is pleased
by his attentions to her friend, but she remains puzzled that he
refuses her suggestion to skip the party since Harriet will not
be there. Mr. John Knightley witnesses the exchange and suggests
to Emma that Mr. Elton has feelings for her. Amused, Emma dismisses the
suggestion. When she and Mr. Elton travel to the gathering in the same
carriage, she is surprised that Mr. Elton’s concern for Harriet gives
way to cheerful anticipation of the evening ahead.
Summary: Chapter 14
Entering the party, Emma attempts to put Mr. Elton’s strange
behavior out of her mind, but his constant hovering presence makes
her worry that Mr. John Knightley’s suggestion that Mr. Elton cares
for her may be correct. Meanwhile, Mr. Weston announces that Frank Churchill
is due to visit in early January. Emma feels some interest in this
news because she has half-seriously thought of Frank as a potential
suitor, though she does not anticipate giving up her vow to remain
single. Mrs. Weston confides to Emma that she has some anxiety about
meeting her stepson, and she fears Mrs. Churchill will prevent him
from coming. She and Emma speculate about the situation at Enscombe,
the Churchill estate, and Emma wonders why a young man should be
so dependent upon the impulses of his guardian.
Summary: Chapter 15
Mr. Elton joins Emma in the drawing room and displeases
her by acting more concerned with her health than with Harriet’s.
John Knightley’s report that it has begun snowing leads to a small
crisis, and Mr. Woodhouse and Isabella are beside themselves with
worry about traveling the three-quarters of a mile home. Mr. Knightley assesses
the situation and reassures everyone that they will make it back
safely.
In the confusion created by the party breaking up, Emma
finds herself alone in one of the carriages with Mr. Elton. He immediately declares
his love for her and proposes. Hoping that he is merely drunk, Emma
attempts to remind him that Harriet is the true object of his affections.
Astonished, Elton assures Emma that he has never been interested
in Harriet. Moreover, he is convinced that Emma has known of and
encouraged his sentiments. Emma sharply rebukes him and refuses
his proposal, and the two travel the remainder of the journey in
angry silence.
Analysis: Chapters 13–15
Emma’s belief that she is different from others cannot
merely be attributed to her sense of superiority; it also results
from her ambition to make her life more interesting and more useful
than the limitations of village life seem to allow. Observing and
imagining the destinies of other lives exercises her intellect.
We might think of Emma as a kind of novelist creating plots for
the characters that people her world. In this sense, she may be
closer to Austen than her mistakes would lead us to believe. In
fact, Emma is somewhat prudish, afraid to consider marriage for
herself, despite her belief that “a good match” is the key to happiness
for her friends. Alert to what she believes are the subtleties of
flirtation between Harriet and Mr. Elton, she is incapable or unwilling
to see that she might be engaging in such social games herself.
Emma’s confrontation with Mr. Elton is the novel’s first
major crisis. The true turning point is not Elton’s proposal, however,
but his accusation that Emma has known that she was the object of
his affections all along. He says, “I am sure you have seen and
understood me,” and for the first time in the novel Emma is at a
loss for words, fiercely angry. This is the first instance in which
Emma is implicated in the social interactions that she believed
she was manipulating from a position of control and detachment.
She has understood her own calculating behavior as beyond reproach,
in a sense invisible, and suddenly she is seen and placed within
the society from which she believed she has separated herself, forced
to realize that she has been lying to both Harriet and herself.
Austen has sometimes been accused of a failure of nerve
when it comes to depicting emotional scenes because she generally
switches from dialogue to indirect language when relating moments
of passion. Instead of reporting Elton’s speech directly, Austen
writes, “Mr. Elton [had] actually [begun] making violent love to
her: availing himself of the precious opportunity, declaring sentiments
which must be already well known, hoping-fearing-adoring-ready to
die if she refused him. . . .” From this statement and from what
we know of Mr. Elton, we can imagine his actual words, but their
shock value is softened by the indirect description. The information
Austen gives us about Emma’s feelings is similarly vague: “It would
be impossible to say what Emma felt on hearing this; which of all
her unpleasant sensations was uppermost.” It is up to us to decide
whether such language weakens the effect of these scenes or makes
them more powerful by preserving the characters’ privacy and challenging
us to supply the emotional details.
