Jane Austen's Gentleman Ideal in Emma: Mr. Knightley

Introduction

In her third novel, Jane Austen created a flawed but sympathetic heroine in the young Emma Woodhouse. Widely considered her finest work, Emma once again deals with social mores, particularly those concerning ethical conduct and social status.

This paper focuses on how Austen uses the figure of George Knightley to propose a new English gentleman ideal — one that implicitly criticizes the strictures governing the role of women and the unequal relationship between the sexes. The first part surveys the social world of England in the early nineteenth century, in which Austen lived, and then compares the reality of those conditions with the seemingly idyllic settings Austen portrayed in novels like Emma.

The second part examines Austen's redefinition of the ideal English gentleman as embodied by Mr. Knightley. Despite the expected happy ending, this paper argues that Austen presents George Knightley as a gentleman who is both socially upright and an ideal marriage partner for Emma Woodhouse. By "quitting Donwell [and] sacrificing a great deal of independence of hours and habits," Austen portrays Mr. Knightley as a man who, in his own way, understands and accommodates the changing roles of women in society.

England in Jane Austen's Time

Jane Austen's life spanned the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. She was born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon, a small village in the English county of Hampshire. The effects of the French Revolution and its "Reign of Terror" were sweeping through England. The American colonies had recently waged a war for independence. The Industrial Revolution was providing new employment opportunities and driving a stream of migration between the rural countryside and the cities.

These new political and technological upheavals, however, did not necessarily translate into changes in the status of women. Until well into the mid-nineteenth century, most English women still worked in agriculture. In addition to farm work such as feeding animals, milking cows, and preparing hay, countrywomen also managed domestic tasks and caretaking.

In the cities, most women were confined to traditional occupations such as seamstress, embroiderer, or milliner. Unskilled women, however, worked in undesirable occupations such as chimney sweeping and butchery. The most common unskilled occupation, however, was prostitution. In 1801, there were an estimated 70,000 prostitutes in a population of 900,000.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, women were deemed incapable of bearing too much education, with teaching limited to social graces such as dancing, piano playing, and French language lessons. Those with a limited education from ladies' academies sought work as governesses. In some instances — as in Austen's own case — women from polite society turned to writing, one of the few occupations open to respectable members of the gentry. Otherwise, women's lives were expected to revolve around their husbands, the home, and family.

For many women of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the primary objective was to marry well. Because most marriages required a dowry, however, only approximately thirty percent of English women could afford to marry. The rest would grow into spinsterhood, destined to become wards of their wealthier male relatives.

Marrying well was prized above all because it brought women financial security. The laws of primogeniture prohibited women from inheriting property from their families. Thus, even women from relatively wealthy families stood to lose their property upon the death of their fathers. Austen touched on the unfair effects of this law on the Bennet girls in Pride and Prejudice and the Dashwoods in Sense and Sensibility, although this same restriction was not applied to Emma Woodhouse.

Peasant women could still find husbands if they proved sturdy and hardworking. Middle-class women, on the other hand, needed social skills and pleasing personalities. In Emma, part of the heroine's flaw was her strong "masculine spirit," which stood in stark contrast to Isabella, the quiet and indulgent mother who was portrayed as the "model of right feminine happiness."

Upon marriage and within the narrow confines of the domestic sphere, women were expected to run the household but to defer to their husbands. In Emma, Mr. Knightley observes that the heroine was "preparing [herself] to be an excellent wife all the time [she] was at Hartfield...on the very material matrimonial point of submitting [her] own will and doing as [she] was bid."

In addition to managing the household, the married woman's principal task was to bear children. Because of poor nutrition and hygiene, however, one in every four pregnancies ended in miscarriage. Infant mortality was high, as many babies succumbed to malnutrition and infection. Health problems such as tuberculosis further added to child and infant mortality rates.

Seen in this light, the preference for virginity, abstinence, and even spinsterhood — which Austen portrayed in her novels and chose in her own life — was also largely informed by the physical and health concerns of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

England was not immune, however, to the social and scientific upheavals sweeping throughout Europe. Scientific advances brought new understanding of nutrition, health, and hygiene, contributing to increased fertility among women, more births, and healthier children. The social upheavals in France and the waning influence of the Catholic Church meant that more young women were engaging in sexual activity, with a concomitant rise in the illegitimacy rate.

Perhaps the most significant advantage of these changes for Austen was a growing respect for novel writing. This was a fairly new genre in England, and the influential Evangelical and Unitarian movements of the nineteenth century viewed fiction as a waste of time or even a potential corruptor of morals. Despite the popularity of novels, those that openly discussed taboo subjects such as fornication and divorce were seen as dangerous, particularly for those who were not well educated.

The disrepute of the literary novel, combined with Austen's desire for privacy, partly explains why she published Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma anonymously. Moreover, while she was clearly critical of the era's impositions on women, Austen chose to write domestic novels rather than the more overtly political "women's rights" novels penned by Mary Wollstonecraft. In works such as Mary and Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman, the feminist Wollstonecraft advocated for legalized prostitution, women's financial autonomy, and a woman's right to divorce.

On the surface, Austen's novels deal with more traditional concerns, such as the pursuit of marriage. However, critics like Claudia Johnson observed that through "the device of centering her novels in the consciousness of...women," Austen exposed and explored "aspects of traditional institutions — marriage, primogeniture, patriarchy — which patently do not serve her heroines well."

In Mansfield Park, for example, Austen explores the situation of Fanny Price, who is entirely dependent on her wealthy uncle for her future. In Emma, Mrs. Bates demonstrates how the death of a male relative can cause even a once-comfortable woman's fortune to spiral downward.

Seen in this light, Austen's novels and their settings can be read as microcosms of eighteenth-century English society. Georgian England lived under a strict hierarchical social order determined by both class and gender. This is illustrated by the importance placed on social standing in novels like Pride and Prejudice and Emma. One obstacle to the marriage of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet has social roots: Darcy assumed the middle class to be uncultured, while Elizabeth believed all aristocrats were snobs. The first step toward their relationship is forged when Elizabeth impresses Darcy by demonstrating an understanding of the manners required in polite society.

The balls, dinners, and extended visits that preoccupied many of Austen's characters were thus evidence of a woman's role as arbiter and preserver of morals in early nineteenth-century England. Even Anne Elliot and the penniless Elinor Dashwood won the hearts of their suitors and found both matrimony and social status.

Many of the challenges regarding the rights of women, however, were reflected in Austen's later novels. The waning importance of manners and the changing social order also undermined women's role as arbiters. Many women were beginning to question their confined lives and to express discontent regarding their traditionally defined roles.

Fearing that such questioning would lead to frustration, Austen seems to advocate for women actively seeking a role in public life. In Persuasion, published posthumously, Austen writes of a naval wife who joins her husband at sea and takes it upon herself to manage the legal and financial aspects of renting a house. More importantly, her husband views these as positive changes and brags to his friend about his newly "independent" wife.

Thus, Emma and the rest of Austen's novels should be read in the context of her time. Poor health made childbirth dangerous, and diseases like tuberculosis were rampant, making spinsterhood less frightening — and in some cases even desirable. Social norms against open discussion of moral issues such as divorce, and the strictures against women in employment, meant that Austen's novels needed to end happily, which often meant in matrimony.

More importantly, while Austen set her novels in the domestic sphere, those households and country villages functioned as microcosms of the larger English social order. Furthermore, Austen believed that the domestic sphere was important in its own right, not merely secondary to the public sphere. For Austen, a knowledge of manners and the raising of well-mannered children were not women's occupations merely because they suited feminine sensibilities — rather, manners were an integral part of society, a task Austen assigned to the hands of her capable heroines.

The English Gentleman Ideal

Emma is a novel concerned with gender redefinition. The character of Emma Woodhouse herself employs many traditionally "masculine" traits. Unlike the Bennets and the Dashwoods before her, Emma is not bound by the law of primogeniture and will therefore not be stripped of her property upon her father's death. Though Emma may seem a less radical figure than the protofeminists of contemporaries like Wollstonecraft and Charlotte Smith, she nonetheless deviates sharply and unapologetically from the traditional female characters Austen portrays in figures like Isabella Woodhouse Knightley.

The sharp-tongued Emma, for example, is unlikely to suffer fools the way the tolerant Isabella indulges her silly husband. While Isabella discusses traditionally feminine matters like health and children, Emma questions the Knightley brothers about politics and estate management. Her observations regarding the problems that might arise from hiring a Scottish bailiff indicate an understanding of both local estate management and the prevailing nationalist prejudices that complicate such management. The narrator pointedly notes that Emma "talked in this way...long and successfully," demonstrating that her insights were not mere accidents. Though uninterested in traditionally feminine topics, Emma could more than hold her own in a male-dominated discussion of business and politics.

Because Emma is intelligent, and because she was in a position to marry for love, the hero of Austen's third novel had to deviate from the traditional masculine ideal embodied in previous domestic novels of the same era. This section discusses the traditional gentleman ideal in Georgian England and examines how Austen paints a subversive hero in the figure of George Knightley.

Conclusion

When read in the context of the time in which they were written, Emma presents a critique of the preoccupations with status that pervaded English society in the early nineteenth century. Instead, Austen proposes new heroic ideals. Emma Woodhouse illustrates the strength and intellect women can attain when freed from financial constraints.

More importantly, Mr. Knightley represents a new masculine ideal — a man defined by intellect and compassion rather than wealth alone, and one who is willing to accept women as his equals. This willingness is demonstrated in the most traditional of institutions: his marriage to Emma Woodhouse. In this way, Austen uses the domestic novel not merely to affirm social norms, but quietly and persuasively to challenge them.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Emma, vol. 4. Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen. R. W. Chapman, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Johnson, Claudia. Jane Austen: Women, Politics and the Novel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Weldon, Fay. "England in Austen's Time." Readings on Jane Austen. Clarice Swisher, ed. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1997.