Emma Summary | Chapterly
Emma by Jane Austen: A Complete Summary "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." Overview Emma (1815) is Jane Austen's most complex comedy and her deepest exploration of self-deception. Austen reportedly said she was creating "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like," and Emma Woodhouse is indeed a challenging protagonist: beautiful, wealthy, intelligent, and spectacularly wrong about almost everything. Emma fancies herself a matchmaker. She has no need to marry for money and so amuses herself by arranging other people's love lives. Every match she attempts fails. Every person she misjudges teaches her something about her own blindness. The novel is a comedy of errors that becomes a profound study of how intelligence without self-knowledge leads to harm. Plot Summary Emma Woodhouse, "handsome, clever, and rich," dominates the social world of Highbury. After successfully (she believes) matching her governess Miss Taylor with Mr. Weston, she takes on Harriet Smith, a young woman of uncertain parentage, as her next project. Emma convinces Harriet to reject a proposal from the worthy farmer Robert Martin in favor of the vicar Mr. Elton. Disaster follows. Mr. Elton has no interest in Harriet—he wants...