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This is a guide to the characters in Jane Austen’s Emma. It has full spoilers, ending included, because you cannot say what these people want without saying what they get.
I counted names in the Project Gutenberg text. Emma appears eight hundred and sixty-four times. Harriet comes second, five hundred and six times. Mr. Knightley is named three hundred and three times, and Mrs. Weston, the former Miss Taylor, two hundred and fifty-six. The vicar, Mr. Elton, gets two hundred and thirty mentions, more than Frank Churchill, at one hundred and fifty-one. So the cast is bigger than the love story.
Emma Woodhouse
Emma is handsome, clever and rich, and nearly twenty-one when the book opens. Her mother died long ago, and since her sister married, she has run her father’s house. She says she will not marry. She has her nephews and nieces, she says, and enough to occupy her.
What she wants is something to do. She fills her days with matches, and she tells herself she is helping. What she gets is a series of corrections. She admits to Mr. Knightley that her vanity was flattered by Frank Churchill. She insults Miss Bates at Box Hill and is truly ashamed. By the end she marries Mr. Knightley and promises herself to be more humble.
Here is my reading, and it is an opinion. Her biggest flaw is certainty. She decides who people are, and then she reads every fact as proof.
Mr. Knightley
He is about seven or eight and thirty, and he lives a mile away at Donwell Abbey. He is the elder brother of John Knightley, who is married to Emma’s sister. He has known Emma since she was a child. And he is the only person who tells her the truth to her face.
What he wants, for most of the book, is for Emma to see clearly. He tells her she has been no friend to Harriet. He tells her the Box Hill insult was badly done. He dislikes Frank Churchill early. The narrator says his jealousy is as old as Frank’s arrival, and that he left for London to learn to be indifferent.
What he gets is Emma, and a house that is not his. In the book he says he has loved her since she was thirteen, at least.
The Woodhouse Family
Emma’s father, Mr. Woodhouse, wants nothing to change. He fears late hours, draughts and large dinners. He recommends thin gruel to every guest. The word appears nine times in the text. He consults Mr. Perry, the apothecary, who is named thirty-nine times with that title.
Emma’s elder sister is Isabella, married to John Knightley. They live in Brunswick Square in London, and they have five children. At Christmas they visit Hartfield, and at the dinner at Randalls John Knightley remarks that he never saw a man more set on being agreeable than Mr. Elton.
What Mr. Woodhouse gets is his daughter, and a son-in-law who moves in. Not because he changes his mind, but because thieves rob Mrs. Weston’s poultry house, and he decides he wants a man in the house.
Harriet Smith
Harriet boards at Mrs. Goddard’s school. The text says she is the natural daughter of somebody. She is pretty, sweet and docile, and she wants guidance. Emma gives her an opinion about everything.
Harriet turns down Robert Martin, because Emma says to. She falls for Mr. Elton, then is crushed. She hopes next for the person who rescues her at the ball, and Emma, wrongly, thinks that is Frank Churchill. It is Mr. Knightley.
What she gets is Robert Martin, a farmer at Abbey-Mill Farm, who proposes again, and it works. He is the man Mr. Knightley always said he was: sensible, with good principles. And near the end, Harriet’s parentage becomes known. She is the daughter of a tradesman, rich enough to have given her a comfortable maintenance.
The Westons and Frank Churchill
Mr. Weston is cheerful and sanguine. He was a captain in the militia, and he is a native of Highbury. His first wife, Miss Churchill, died after three years, and her brother and his wife took the little boy, Frank, to raise at Enscombe. Mr. Weston later made his fortune in trade and bought Randalls. When the book opens he has just married Miss Taylor.
Mrs. Weston, the former Miss Taylor, is Emma’s confidante. What she wants is for her friends to be happy. What she gets is a baby, a little girl, and a letter to forward.
Frank Churchill is charming and restless, and he wants to protect a secret. He has been secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax since October. He flirts with Emma as cover. And after Box Hill, he is ashamed. He gets Jane, and in his own words, he knows he is happier than he deserves.
Jane Fairfax and the Bateses
Jane is an orphan, raised among the Campbells, and she is expected to become a governess at one-and-twenty. She is elegant, composed and a fine pianist. Emma cannot warm to her, and Mr. Knightley notices.
Jane wants security and her secret. She does not want Mrs. Elton arranging her future. And Frank’s behavior at Box Hill pushes her to break the engagement.
Her aunt, Miss Bates, is the talkative one, and the one Emma insults. Her mother, Mrs. Bates, is old, civil and humble. The Bateses are poor, and Mr. Knightley reminds Emma that Miss Bates has sunk from the comforts she was born to. After Box Hill, Emma tries to be kinder.
The Eltons
Mr. Elton is the vicar, handsome, polite and proud. He wants a good marriage, and he decides that Emma, not Harriet, is the one to aim for. When she says no, he leaves for Bath and returns with a bride.
Mrs. Elton wants to be admired. She speaks of her sister’s house at Maple Grove, and her brother-in-law’s barouche-landau. She calls her husband Mr. E., and she says Knightley, with no Mr. In the text she is named a hundred and fifty-two times. Emma finds her self-important and ill-bred. At the end she is still comparing, and she thinks Emma’s wedding shabby next to her own.
The Smaller Parts
A few more names are worth knowing. Mrs. Goddard keeps the school where Harriet boards, and she is one of the three ladies Mr. Woodhouse is happy to see at Hartfield, along with Mrs. and Miss Bates.
Mr. and Mrs. Cole are neighbors, and Emma accepts their dinner invitation. She does not regret going, and it is at their house that she first hears about the mysterious piano.
Colonel and Mrs. Campbell are the family who took Jane in. Their daughter, Miss Campbell, marries Mr. Dixon, and that marriage is the whole basis of Emma’s wrong theory about Jane. Mr. Dixon’s name turns up forty-nine times.
Who Gets What
So here is the tally. Emma gets Mr. Knightley, and a bit more humility. Harriet gets Robert Martin. Frank gets Jane. Mr. Woodhouse gets a protector. The Eltons keep each other.
Here is my reading, and it is an opinion. Most people in Highbury want one thing: to be seen correctly. Emma has to learn to look before she can give that to anyone.
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