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Kalina Deng
Mrs. E. Richardson
University English II
16 November 2009
Humorous Reconstruction of Men in Emma
Thesis: In Emma, Jane Austen reconstructs the definition of the ideal man through comical
character depictions, humorous dialogue, and ironic gender role reversals.
I. Comical character depictions
A. Mr. Woodhouse
1. Satire of paternal authority
2. Juxtaposition with the ladies of Highbury
B. The “gallant” bachelors
1. Frank Churchill
2. Mr. Elton
II. Humorous dialogue
A. Dialogue of the emasculated men
1. Mr. Woodhouse
2. Mr. Elton
3. Frank Churchill
B. Dialogue of Mr. George Knightley
1. On Frank Churchill
2. On Mr. Elton
C. Dialogue of Emma
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1. On Frank Churchill
2. On Mr. Elton
III. Ironic gender role reversals
A. Emma Woodhouse
1. Mistress of Hartfield
2. Matchmaker
B. Other women of “superiority”
1. Mrs. Churchill
2. Jane Fairfax
3. Harriet Smith
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Deng 1
Kalina Deng
Mrs. E. Richardson
University English II
16 November 2009
Humorous Reconstruction of Men in Emma
Jane Austen’s Emma is the early-nineteenth century tale of an independent young heiress,
Emma Woodhouse, who tries to match a lower-class girl, Harriet Smith, with a well-to-do
husband and introduce Harriet to society. By assuming the role of a matchmaker, Emma takes on
a masculine position. Blinded by her own ideas and aspirations, the young heiress fails to see
who is compatible with whom. After numerous convoluted love triangles, misinterpreted
messages, and proclamations of love, the novel ends with everyone paired up with whom he or
she belongs. Due to the heroine’s atypical character, Jane Austen speaks of Emma as “a heroine
whom no one will like except myself” (Trilling ix). However, a thorough reading of Emma
induces an appreciation for the heroine as she personifies all the qualities ideal men should
embody. By juxtaposing the comical male characters with each other and the ridiculous ladies of
Highbury society, the author sets the persona of Emma Woodhouse apart from conventional
women and effeminate males. In Emma, Jane Austen reconstructs the definition of the ideal man
through comical character depictions, humorous dialogue, and ironic gender role reversals.
To heighten Emma Woodhouse’s masculine qualities, Austen depicts the majority of the
male characters as bumbling and effeminate. In the first few pages of Emma, Austen
characterizes the twenty-year-old heroine as beautiful and clever. The heiress of thirty thousand
pounds has been raised by a governess, Miss Taylor, and an indulgent, hypochondriac father, Mr.
Woodhouse. Due to Miss Taylor’s recent marriage to Mr. Weston, Emma is left only to the
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company of her father, who exercises little actual paternal authority. The author laments that
Emma “was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude… [Her father] could not
meet her in conversation, rational or playful” (Austen 2). “[A] much older man in ways than in
years…” (2), Mr. Woodhouse is also characterized as “a nervous man, easily depressed; fond of
every body [sic] that he was used to, and hating to part with them; hating change of every kind”
(3). Mr. Woodhouse is unlike a paternal figure in that he is selfish and oblivious to opinions
divergent from his own. Critic Audrey Bilger contends the irony in Mr. Woodhouse is that he
“represents the contradictions within conservative thinking: he dislikes change so thoroughly that
he despises even the traditional source of social stability” (136). The “traditional source of social
stability” the critic addresses is marriage, the centuries-old source of economic and social
security. Mr. Woodhouse despises marriage because it fragments his social circle and leads to
change. Mr. Woodhouse “lament[s] that young people would be in such a hurry to marry – and
to marry strangers too…” (135). This is outrageous because no person would marry someone he
does not know. Furthermore, the hypochondriac is a stifling host: “his hospitality would have
welcomed his visitors to every thing [sic], [but] his care for their health made him grieve that
they would eat” (16). In this way, Mr. Woodhouse is backwards and farcical in his reasoning.
Instead of acting as a father to Emma, he is a “moribund patriarch” (Johnson, Equivocal Beings
197). In Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel, Claudia Johnson intensifies her argument
that “Mr. Woodhouse’s two-fold hostility to disruption and indigestion so unfits him for the
duties incumbent upon the head of a respected household” (130). Being a scrupulous
hypochondriac, Mr. Woodhouse is not able to fulfill his duties as a paternal figure or a man and
must relinquish control of Hartfield to his masculine daughter, Emma.
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In addition, Austen associates Mr. Woodhouse with the ladies of Highbury to strengthen
evidence of his lack of masculinity. The valetudinarian is juxtaposed with the conventional Miss
Bates, Mrs. Elton, and his older daughter, Isabella. Austen explains to the reader that Miss Bates
is “neither young, handsome, rich, nor married.… [and] a great talker upon little matters, which
exactly suited Mr. Woodhouse, full of trivial communications and harmless gossip” (14). Due to
his association with stereotypical women, the old man becomes an old woman who chatters
about incessant, nonsensical matters by the hearth. Having “a full flow of happy regrets and
fearful affection with [Isabella],” Mr. Woodhouse enjoys sharing his obsession with health and
illness with his doting older daughter (77). The reader can only muse at the old windbag’s quirks
and laugh at his imbecility. As with all conventional women, Mr. Woodhouse is “fond of
society” and “like[s] very much to have his friends come and see him…” (13). Due to his
selfishness and fatuousness, Mr. Woodhouse often inconveniences his family and friends in his
demands for a visitation, regardless of rain or shine. Rebuking his own father-in-law, Mr. John
Knightley harps that “[a] man…must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people
to leave their own fireside, and encounter [a snowing] day as this, for the sake of coming to see
him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow…” (87). With these lines, the author induces
a chuckle or two from the wise reader, who understands how disagreeable the hypochondriac is.
In addition, Austen derides Mr. Woodhouse as having “resemblance to a child… in total want of
taste for what he [sees], for he [is] slow, constant, and methodical” (283). Moreover, Bilger
disparages that “Mr. Woodhouse bears authority in name only; the petty tyranny he exercises can
barely mask his intellectual impotence. By casting a father as a comic character and mocking his
view of women, Austen deflates the myth of paternal solicitude” (137). In light of the author’s
parody of paternal superiority and degradation of Mr. Woodhouse to a fatuous spinster and a
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child, the reader is invited to mock the sappy old man and look to Emma as the paragon of
masculinity.
In a thorough study of Emma, the reader will notice the repetitive uses of the word
gallant and its derivatives. In characterizing Mr. Elton and Frank Churchill as gallant, Austen
uses the term to underscore the effeminacy of these emasculated men. The author repudiates
gallantry as “vanity, extravagance, love of change, restlessness of temper” as well as
“heedlessness” and “indifference” (157-58). Austen suggests that traditional gallantry is silly and
archaic for the nineteenth century. In this sense, the author casts off the conventional ideas of
courtliness and asks the real men to step up. In Equivocal Beings, Johnson asserts that “gallantry
– that generous loyalty to rank and sex – rather than representing the acme of manliness, is
figured as effeminating proximity with and submission to women, and as patently absurd” (199).
Absurd is the exact word to describe Mr. Elton and Frank Churchill’s ridiculous gallantry.
According to Austen, “[Mr. Elton’s] gallantry [is] always on the alert” (35) for he is “most
earnestly careful that nothing ungallant, nothing that did not breathe a compliment to the sex
should pass his lips” (53). Mr. Elton pays excessive, meticulous attention to his behavior in order
to win Emma’s heart. However, his actions are superfluous, exaggerated, and bumbling,
reducing him a comical figure in the heroine’s eyes. Having “the tenderest spirit of gallantry”
(59), Mr. Elton induces laughter from the reader when his exorbitant conduct is repudiated by
Emma as “absurd and insufferable” (91). The “sort of parade in his speeches… incline[s Emma]
to laugh,” and she must “[run] away to indulge the inclination” (63). Emma muses that Mr. Elton
is “almost too gallant to be in love.… he does sigh and languish, and study for compliments
rather more than I could endure as a principal” (36). In the novel, Mr. Elton writes a “very pretty
gallant charade,” intended for Emma but presumed to be for Harriet (59). The word pretty itself
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connotes femininity and not masculinity. The “unnecessarily gallant” Mr. Elton is “proud,
assuming, conceited; very full of his own claims, and little concerned about the feelings of
others” (104). His character is condemned by the author as superfluous, outlandish, and silly.
Likewise, Emma finds Mr. Elton to be excessive and sexist and refuses his drunken proclamation
of love. Therefore, the reader, knowing Emma to be more masculine than the comical suitor,
must also “indulge the inclination” to laugh at the ridiculous behavior of the gallant Mr. Elton.
However, Mr. Elton is not the only emasculated and gallant male. Frank Churchill is
denounced as a “gallant young man, who seemed to love without feeling, and to recommend
himself without complaisance…” (272). Contrary to critical reviews, Austen characterizes Frank,
not Emma Woodhouse, as the true snob in Emma. Frank Churchill is more concerned with
outward appearances than the majority of the Highbury society. In his ludicrous attempts to
conform to Highbury society, Frank exhibits an overkill of gallantry in his superficiality and
vanity. The ignorant “child of good fortune” (348) believes that he can integrate himself into his
father’s society by shopping; he thinks that “to be a true citizen of Highbury[, he] must buy
something at Ford’s” (153). Furthermore, the effeminate bachelor travels sixteen miles to and
from London for a spur-of-the-moment haircut. He oversteps gallantry in that he pays scrupulous
attention to his demeanor in order to appear “fit to be seen” to the conventional society (171).
Johnson condemns “male prettiness [as] small, weak, and self-preening,” and Frank Churchill to
be the epitome of such “self-preening” (Equivocal Beings 199). While Frank thinks so highly of
himself, Emma mocks his vanity and allows him to be gallant so she can laugh at him. Because
“[Frank’s] gallantry is really unanswerable,” the heiress and the reader can only answer the
gallant Frank with laughter and mockery (289). In addition, Bilger maintains that “male suitors
[like Frank Churchill] come across as comical precisely because their egotism is self-evident;
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they wear their hypocrisy on their sleeves” (121). Austen disparages Frank Churchill for his
“[d]isingenuousness and double-dealing… [as] the vehicle for gallantry and trick [and] child’s
play” (272). The “double-dealing” refers to Frank’s mistreatment of his secret fiancée Jane
Fairfax; his toying with Jane’s feelings and flirting with Emma are manipulative devices to
conceal his true intentions. He partakes in “child’s play” because he is unable to man up to his
overbearing aunt, Mrs. Churchill, and tell her of his secret engagement. Johnson upholds that
such “gallantry is intrinsically nonsensical: artificial and disingenuous, taking on the very
femininity it courts (Equivocal Beings 200). Thus, Frank Churchill is a self-absorbed, conceited
child. By overstepping courtliness and gallantry, Mr. Elton and Frank Churchill make themselves
vulnerable to mockery by real men like Mr. George Knightley and the masculine Emma
Woodhouse.
In the novel, Austen further reconstructs the definition of the ideal man by mocking the
humorous dialogue of effeminate men. Critical analysis of the language in Emma exploits the
fact that “foolish and simple [characters] exhibit concrete vocabularies” (Boles 12). Austen gives
Mr. Woodhouse lines that befit his bumbling and hypochondriac spinster of a character. For
instance, Mr. Woodhouse exaggerates present circumstances with his assertions of “a vast deal
of rain” and “[i]t rained dreadfully hard” (5). Furthermore, he talks about boiling well-cooked
eggs, unwholesome fruit preserves in tarts, changing wet socks, and drinking wine. According to
Mr.Woodhouse, “a little bit of tart – a very little bit… [or] what say you to half a glass of wine?
A small half glass… could [not] disagree with you” (17). In Jane Austen and the Reader, the
critic agrees that “Mr. Woodhouse’s use of inflated language… emphasizes his most limited
universe” (28). Furthermore, Austen comments that “[m]en never know when things are dirty or
not” and “[w]omen will have their little nonsenses and needless cares” (196). As an effeminate
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male, Mr. Woodhouse bickers about the size of hind quarters of a pig and insists that Mr.
Knightley’s shoes are “very damp and dirty” and must be changed (5). When talking about
meeting Mrs. Elton for the first time, Mr. Woodhouse says, “considering we never saw her
before, she seems a very pretty sort of young lady” (216). This assertion is illogical and
senseless. Defined by his harebrained utterances, Mr. Woodhouse is the “weak emasculate voice
of definitive negations and terminations… [and] spell[s] doom for all of society” (Johnson,
Equivocal Beings 198). His particularities and absurd advice underscore his ridiculous nature
and valetudinarian personality and heighten his effeminacy in comparison to Emma’s
masculinity.
Likewise, Mr. Elton and Frank Churchill’s dialogue falls short of masculine repartee.
Like Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Elton speaks with incessant interest and gallant animation. However,
he doesn’t have anything of value to discuss; he has no wit. In declining Emma’s dinner
invitation, Mr. Elton mutters a repetitive “very cold, certainly very cold” to justify his early leave
from Hartfield (85). He begins his conversation with Emma with a glorification of the “excellent
device [of] the use of sheep-skin for carriages” (88) and continues on to praise the “excellent
fires” that guard them from the cold weather (89). His scruples are comparable to those of Mr.
Woodhouse and, thus, farcical to the reader. Mr. Elton amplifies his own imbecility with his
inebriated proposal to Emma. He flatters himself when he proclaims his own “ardent attachment
and unequalled love and unexampled passion…” (100) and asserts “upon [his] honour [sic], there
is no unsteadiness of character” in himself (101). This is hilarious because Mr. Elton has no
honor. He loves without cause and marries only for money. All Mr. Elton knows is how to
protect himself from harsh winters. Like Mr. Elton, Frank Churchill is presumptuous and
moronic. Other than his gallant compliments to Emma, his dialogue centers on either criticism or
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praise of his fiancée Jane Fairfax. He fusses about how “Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd
a way – so very odd a way… I never saw any thing [sic] so outrée [sic]!” (171) and then exalts
Jane as “an angel in every gesture” (377). The reader smirks at the foolhardy bachelor, who
doesn’t know who to please or how to appeal to a woman’s heart. In addition, Frank makes
empty plans of going abroad and claims he is “tired of doing nothing” (286). This is peculiar
because Frank is too feeble and spoiled to take on challenges and new experiences. Since Mr.
Woodhouse despises marriage and the gallant bachelors are oblivious to women’s desires,
Austen suggests that the masculine role of matchmaking can only be allocated to Emma.
In the novel, Austen uses the dialogue of the masculine characters, Emma and Mr.
George Knightley, to convey the definition of what an ideal man should be. Mr. Knightley
claims that “men of sense… do not want silly wives” (48). Nonetheless, Mr. Elton chooses to
marry frivolous Miss Hawkins and Mr. Knightley’s own brother, John, chooses to marry
Emma’s worry-wart sister Isabella. As Mr. Elton marries for money and status, Frank Churchill
marries in order to obtain not love but a trophy wife. Critics disagree with the gallant characters’
marriage choices because “men prefer saucy women…” rather than subordinated housewives
(Johnson, Jane Austen 142). Mr. Knightley denounces Frank Churchill by claiming “[i]t is not to
be conceived that a man of three and four-and-twenty should not have liberty of mind or limb to
that amount” (112). As a man of reasonable age, Frank Churchill should have the freedom to do
as he pleases. Instead, he lives under the thumb of his aunt, Mrs. Churchill, and is not able to
visit his father, Mr. Weston, at leisure. Therefore, frivolous Frank “tak[es] out [his] freedom” by
shopping (153). Mr. Knightley also contends that “[t]here is one thing, Emma, which a man can
always do, if he chuses [sic], and that is his duty” (113). Furthermore, the duty of man is “not
[done] by manoeuvring [sic] and finessing, but by vigor and resolution” (113). However, Mr.
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Elton and Frank Churchill are conniving knaves who shun their duties for gallantry and, thus, are
the antithesis of “sensible [men]” (113). Mr. Knightley further rebuffs that “[he] can allow for
the fears of the child, but not for the man” (114). Again, Austen insinuates that these foolish,
emasculated characters cannot be men, much less strong women like Emma, but children. Mr.
Knightley also belittles Frank Churchill as “a chattering coxcomb” (115) and a “puppy” (116).
Johnson notes how the word “chatter being a word reserved for feminine speech… [is hardly
the] language of true manliness” (Equivocal Beings 200). Mr. Knightley also states that “[he]
should be as ready to acknowledge [Frank’s] merits as any other man; but [he] hear[s] of
none…” (115). In addition, the man snubs Frank as “a disgrace to the name of man” (334).
Inconsiderate and thoughtless, both Mr. Elton and Frank are the converses of ideal men. In fact,
Mr. Knightley condemns Frank’s handwriting to be “too small – wants strength. It is like a
woman’s writing” (230). As poor a writer as Frank, Mr. Elton writes Mr. Woodhouse “a long,
civil, ceremonious note” to excuse his leave from Hartfield (108). As a true man, Mr. Knightley
faults the “thousands and tens of thousands” of words in their elaborate writing and speech (351).
Johnson agrees with Mr. Knightley in that “[t]he real man… is a man of few words” (Equivocal
Beings 200). Time after time, Mr. Knightley debases Mr. Elton and Frank Churchill to the status
of conventional women and children, a far cry from real men and his own Emma.
Arguably the most masculine character in the novel, Emma Woodhouse also deplores her
ideas of true men through her rebuke of the gallant bachelors. Johnson asserts that “[w]hat ‘true
masculinity’ is like – what a ‘man’ is, how a man speaks and behaves, what a man really wants –
is the subject of [Emma’s] continual debate…” (Equivocal Beings 196). Emma criticizes Mr.
Elton as “[t]he stupidest fellow!” (53). Furthermore, she scoffs that Mr. Elton “may be sure of
every woman’s approbation while he writes with such gallantry” when, in reality, the fool has no
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idea of what women want (63). Emma also exclaims that “in many men, especially single men,
[there is] such an inclination – such a passion for dining out … almost their duties…” (85).
Nevertheless, Mr. Elton declines her invitation to dinner. Like Mr. Knightley, the heroine
addresses the “duties” of a man and the inability of the gallant Mr. Elton to fulfill them. Miss
Woodhouse also avers that “[w]here a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will
have the advantage over negligent superiority” (86). However, the irony is that neither Mr. Elton
nor Frank Churchill has “moderate powers” or “advantage[s]”. Instead, Mr. Elton reduces
himself to nothingness and gallantry and Frank cowers under the thumb of his aunt. In addition,
the heroine repudiates that Mr. Elton “could be no judge, however, of the evil he was holding
cheap” (152) and “must be a blockhead who wanted more” (157). Having only read letters from
Mr. Elton and Frank Churchill, the heroine agrees with Mr. Knightley that “[she’s] never [seen]
any gentleman’s handwriting” (230). It is also comical how both Frank and Mr. Churchill gripe
about a warm day and exaggerate the intensity of the sun. Emma scorns their femininity in
pronouncing that she “should not like a man who is so soon discomposed by a hot morning”
(285). Finding amusement in his stupidity, Emma alleges that Frank Churchill is “[s]o unlike
what a man should be! – None of that upright integrity, that strict adherence to truth and
principle, that disdain of trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of
his life” (312). Upon reading such derisive comments, the reader must share Emma’s
condemnation of such emasculated males and appreciate the heroine’s paradigm of a real man.
By denouncing conventional women and effeminate males, Austen puts the limelight on
the masculinity of Emma Woodhouse. Contrary to her father, Emma is able to “suppl[y] her
visitors [with conversation] in a much more satisfactory style…” (17). Mr. Knightley attributes
that Emma “has been the mistress of the house…” and of everyone in it since she was twelve
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years old (26). According to one critic, as “moral life of all men… [is] an essential element of
their power,” the character of Miss Woodhouse is an anomaly in “that she has a moral life as a
man has a moral life” (Trilling x). As penned by Austen, men’s “thoughts [should] naturally find
proper words,” and masculine Emma “understand[s] the sort of mind” (37). The contrast of
Emma’s masculinity to male effeminacy produces the comedy in the novel’s gender role
reversals. At the beginning of the novel, the author evokes irony in her claim that there are “very
good specimens of well-educated, well bred men” at Hartfield, the property ruled by Emma (23).
This is true because by end of the novel, Austen lets the reader know that Emma and Mr. George
Knightley, who has “gentleman so plainly written” (23) on him and “so little gallantry” (302),
will continue to preside over the estate. Also, whereas Mr. Elton and Frank Churchill’s writings
are weak and effeminate, “Emma’s hand is the strongest” (230). The other women of Highbury,
gallant bachelors, and Emma’s impotent father cannot hold a candle to the heroine’s “sexual
coolness” (Trilling xvi). In fact, Austen attributes the characters of Harriet, Jane Fairfax, and
Mrs. Churchill with more masculine characteristics than the comical male figures. While Jane
Fairfax had the “highest degree of excellence” (127) and exhibits “superiority both of mind and
manner” (222), Harriet “bore the intelligence very well…,” (109) and Mrs. Churchill “rules” at
her estate in Enscombe (94). In this sense, Mr. Elton and Frank Churchill are inferior to Jane and
Harriet and do not deserve their love. Through portrayals of woman of superiority in ironic
gender role reversals, Austen contends that the emasculated males cannot compare to the
masculinity of strong women, especially that of Emma Woodhouse.
In Jane Austen’s Emma, the definition of the ideal man is expounded by not gallant fools
but by women like Emma. One critic derides Mr. Woodhouse, Frank Churchill, and Mr. Elton as
“children, who have learned nothing of the guile of the world” (Trilling xviii). Furthermore,
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Johnson asserts that Emma “purg[es] masculine gender codes from the ostensible ‘excesses’ of
sentimental gallantry and ‘feminized’ display, redefining English manhood instead as brisk,
energetic, downright, ‘natural,’ unaffected, reserved, businesslike, plain-speaking; gentlemanly,
to be sure, but not courtly” (Equivocal Beings 201-02). A thorough study of Emma elucidates
that none of the idiotic male characters can exemplify the ideals of manhood as well as Emma
can. Through the masculine character of a well-to-do bachelorette, Austen satirizes the “lords of
creation” and rejects their “countless absurdities and contradictions” (Bilger 120). In this way,
the author refutes convention and social order and justifies that “woman, lovely woman reigns
alone” (54). Though the character of Emma Woodhouse, like Austen, was an anomaly in her
time, the heroine shines today as not the exception but the rule – the rule of both men and
women.
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Works Cited
Austen, Jane. Emma. Ed. Lionel Trilling. Boston: Houghton, 1957.
Bilger, Audrey. Laughing Feminism: Subversive Comedy in Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth,
and Jane Austen. Ed. Sarah B. Cohen. Humor in Life and Letters Ser. Detroit: Wayne
State UP, 1998.
Boles, Carolyn G. Jane Austen and the Reader: Rhetorical Techniques in Northanger Abbey,
Pride and Prejudice, and Emma. Ed. Charles E. Walton. The Emporia State Research
Studies Ser. 30. Emporia: Emporia State UP, 1981.
Johnson, Claudia L. Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender, and Sentimentality in the 1790s :
Wollstonecraft, Radcliffe, Burney, Austen. Ed. Catherine R. Stimpson. Women in
Culture and Society Ser. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995.
---. Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1988.
Trilling, Lionel. Introduction. Emma. By Jane Austen. Boston: Houghton, 1957. v – xxvi.