Emma Woodhouse and Frank Churchill Jane Austen

Emma Woodhouse and Frank Churchill

Jane Austen in her novel, 'Emma', has created two very identical characters namely the heroine of the novel, Emma and the man she becomes infatuated with, Frank Churchill. Both the characters bear many similarities with regard to their disposition, attributes and social standing. The passages that introduce the two characters reveal that they both grew up in affluent families and did not have much to worry about. This opulence had a profound impact on their personalities and both turned into vain, self-absorbed persons as adults.

A brief look at the introduction of Frank and Emma shows how the two characters acquired similar attributes. The opening lines of the novel introduce the heroine in these words:

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." (p. 2)

Almost similar were the conditions in which Frank Churchill reached adulthood as is clear from these introductory lines about him in Chapter 2:

The child (Frank) was given up to the care and the wealth of the Churchill, and he had only his own comfort to seek, and his own situation to improve as he could....He had still a small house in Highbury, where most of his leisure days were spent; and between useful occupation and the pleasures of society, the next eighteen or twenty years of his life passed cheerfully away" (p. 40)

Frank Churchill and Emma were both highly self-centered people with little or no regard for the feelings of others. This is the reason why Frank fails to decipher Emma actions and her infatuation with him and similarly, Emma is equally egoistic to pay attention to Mr. Knightley's feelings. Both of them are always pre-occupied with their own concerns and thus lack the sensitivity required to give due regard to other person's views and emotions. Though Frank turned out to be a foolish manipulator in the end unlike Emma, it is true that both characters possessed a deep desire to direct other people's lives. But the major difference here is that while Frank did this for selfish gains, Emma was genuinely interested in improving lives of underprivileged, even if most of her actions in this connection backfired. Even Emma agrees that there was some similarity between the two of them, which she acknowledges when she discovers that Frank was in love with Jane Fairfax.

Reproaching him on his manipulating behavior in the past, Emma says, "I am sure it was a source of high entertainment to you, to feel that you were taking us all in. -- Perhaps I am the readier to suspect, because, to tell you the truth, I think it might have been some amusement to myself in the same situation. I think there is a little likeness between us." (407-408)

The last line above makes it clear that the two characters indeed were similar in some respects even if their intentions differed from each other.