Essay: Why Mr. Knightley loves Emma Woodhouse
She may not allow anyone to tell her what to do, but, whether she realizes it or not, Emma allows Mr. Knightley to act as her conscience.
Unlike many of Jane Austen’s heroines, Emma Woodhouse has neither reason nor intention to marry. Her father’s nervous condition, her mother’s early death, and the marriage of her older sister Isabella, left Emma to be mistress of Hartfield from a young age. In her own opinion, she has all the benefits of matrimony, minus a husband who would likely reign in much of the freedom she enjoys living with her father. Until she sees “somebody very superior to anyone [she has] seen yet,” Emma tells Harriet Smith, she could not be induced to marry and “would rather not be tempted.” And her position at Hartfield increases her sense of vanity in regard to her judgment. Emma believes her judgment is superior to everyone else’s–except Mr. Knightley’s. She may not allow anyone to tell her what to do, but, whether she realizes it or not, Emma allows Mr. Knightley to act as her conscience.
Reading Emma, we learn that Mr. Knightley has always been anxious for how Emma will turn out. “There is an anxiety, a curiosity in what one feels for Emma,” he tells the new Mrs. Weston (formerly Miss Taylor). While everyone else in Highbury can’t see Emma’s faults, Mr. Knightley recognizes a sense of superiority in Emma that leads her to believe she can read people’s desires and urge them to act according to her will. He takes it upon himself to be the one person in her life who does not spoil or compliment her for everything, scolding and lecturing her when it’s warranted. Mr. Knightley doesn’t lecture Emma because he believes her to be a spoiled brat in need of punishment; he knows she has good character and judgment, but it needs to be appealed to in order for her to make the right choices.
Allowing Emma to believe she could bring about successful matches—like Mr. Weston and Miss Taylor—and develop an intimacy with Harriet Smith (possibly the dumbest character in all fiction) would lead to nothing good indeed! Harriet’s weak head and character make it very easy for Emma to mold her into what she is looking for in a female companion, sans cleverness and wit. Before she met Emma, Harriet had her heart set on marrying Robert Martin, a farmer, but Emma persuades her that it would be a “degradation” to marry so beneath her station. While no one in Highbury can say who Harriet’s parents are, Emma is certain that she must be a gentleman’s daughter and, therefore, sees nothing wrong with suggesting that she set her sights higher—on Mr. Elton.
Emma has no reason to dwell on persuading her friend to turn down Robert Martin’s marriage proposal until Mr. Knightley learns of her matchmaking role. Mr. Knightley respects Mr. Martin and actually believes that marrying Harriet Smith would be anything but a marriage of equals. Still, he assumes that Emma would be happy that her dim-witted friend had secured a formidable match. But Emma doesn’t see Mr. Knightley’s point: “A girl with such loveliness as Harriet,” she says, “has a certainty of being admired and sought after, of having the power of choosing from among many.” In this scene where Emma and Mr. Knightley argue over a woman’s right to refuse a man’s proposal, Mr. Knightley is astonished, disappointed, vexed by Emma’s poor judgment. He knows she has allowed herself to be blinded by vanity, and he tells her so. “Better to be without sense, than misapply it as you do,” believing she is “abusing the reason” she has.
Emma doesn’t like upsetting Mr. Knightley, as “she [does] not always feel so satisfied with herself so entirely convinced that her opinions [are] right and adversary’s wrong, as [he is].” She prefers her judgment to be in agreement with his, but in the matter of Harriet Smith and Robert Martin, she believes she is the better judge.
Since Mr. Knightley is Emma’s conscience, she doesn’t like having his opinion “so loudly against her,” even if she is right. After their argument, she plots to get him alone in the room where she’s holding her newborn niece, knowing they both think and feel the same about their nephews and nieces. While Mr. Knightley sees through her scheme to get them to make up, he concedes to it because he wants to be friends again just as much as she does. He cannot help but put their quarrel behind him.
Emma is driven by a desire to improve her mind and conduct, only “she will never submit to anything requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding,” according to Mr. Knightley. When being lectured by Mr. Knightley, she feels sorry for her actions, but she doesn’t take any steps to improve her character.
She resolves never to play matchmaker again after the pain she causes Harriet in attempting to match her with Mr. Elton, but Emma only feels torture when she’s in Harriet’s presence, and then it’s only because she feels guilty about what she’s done, not out of any real compassion for Harriet’s sake. “Your allowing yourself to be so occupied and so unhappy about Mr. Elton’s marrying, Harriet, is the strongest reproach you can make me,” she says in an effort to get Harriet to think of other things. “Deceived myself, I did very miserably deceive you–and it will be a painful reflection to me forever. Do not imagine me in danger of forgetting it.”
Emma’s greatest faults are a lack of sincerity and a willingness to always be happy and carefree. She cannot be made to fret or dwell on a mistake of her own or the misfortune of others–as we see with Harriet, she is willfully blind to Harriet’s unfortunate position. The greatest and most sincere change in Emma comes after Mr. Knightley scolds her at Box Hill for her unfeeling behavior toward Miss Bates.He was holding up a mirror to her, showing her what she was: “…I would not quarrel with you for any liberties of manner. Were she your equal in situation–but, Emma, consider how far this is from the case…Her situation should secure your compassion. It was badly done indeed!” With these words, Emma truly feels wretched. Not only did she wound Miss Bates with her carelessness, but also Mr. Knightley.
Although Emma only declares she’s in love with Mr. Knightley after Harriet first professes her feelings for him, she would not have come to that conclusion if Mr. Knightley had not forced her to see herself in a new light. She doesn’t become a new Emma Woodhouse, per se, but an Emma Woodhouse with an open mind and heart. It was an Emma Mr. Knightley knew she would become, but not because of his lectures. “I do not believe I did you any good,” he tells her. “The good was all to myself, by making you an object of the tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so much without doting on you, faults and all.”
He does Emma the justice of saying, in the end, that she could have ignored every lecture he ever gave her, but she chose to listen to them all.