The Course of Psychological Growth of Young Girls

in Emma by Jane Austin

析简#183;奥斯汀的《爱玛》中女孩们的心路历程

Purpose and Significance of the Study

Jane Austen is considered to be among the most significant English writers of the nineteenth century. She typically set her stories in English manor house and depicted minor landed gentry, country clergymen and their families, in which marriage mainly determined women's social status. Virginia Woolf called Austen "the most perfect artist among women."

Emma is the last completely finished product of Jane Austen's maturity. It is exordinery in Jane Austen's novel.The heroine in Emma,which blows a flesh wind in literature,is imperfect to exclusion of all other novel in 18th century. Austen once regarded Emma as ' a heroine whom no one but herself will much like.'But in fact Emma has glorious charming in that the novel is about heroine's progress out of her errors onto moral and emotional maturity.

The girls in Emma are from different classes, hose psychology growths provide different traces. Emma Woodhouse is "handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition."Harriet Smith is a companion of Emma, a pretty, sweet, non-too-bright girl of inferior social class. Jane Fairfax, orphaned at a young age, is Miss Bates' niece. She is a beautiful, accomplished young woman, who represents everything that Emma should be. Three different characters have their own growths.

The aim of this thesis is to explore the unique female perspective from the female writer and the book#8217;s contribution to English literature through reading Emma and related theory of psychological analysis.

Literature Review

Jane Austen has won wild research and comments around the world. In a certain sense, the literature achievement of Jane Austen is only inferior to Shakespeare but anyone else. Actually, Jane Austen's Emma is very popular both domestically and abroad. Unlike other heroines in Jane Austen's novels, the heroine in Emma is imperfect. Even the author herself worried about Emma as a heroine whom no one but herself will much like. While the fact is that most readers and critics love this character and response with positive remarks. David Lodge states his opinion in Introduction to Emma that it was the last completely finished product of Austen's maturity. (Bu Yayun,1) In most critics' opinion, this novel most perfectly represents her talents. Sir Walter Scott was the first person to give her praise in his essay on Emma in 1816 that Emma represents a major new kind of unromantic fiction, (wenku.baidu.com) In 1917, Reginald Fairer made comments on Austen's six novels and insists that Emma is the most complex-and-the best of them.(wenku.baidu.com)W.A. Ciaik considered ”Emma is Jane Austen's best and most misunderstood work.”(wenku.baidu.com)