Emma, As A Typical Female Bildungsroman

A bildungsroman, in its simplest sense, is a novel about the moral and psychological growth of a young man or a young woman. Emma, claimed as Jane Austen's most complex and best novel, is about the heroine's progress out of her errors onto moral and emotional maturity. Some critics, represented by Jerome Buckley, hold that Emma is not a bildungsroman for this genre has always been associated with the theme of the journey or quest, while Emma has not. However, by reading Emma and surveying related theories, it's found that Emma not only matches the criteria of a bildungsroman, but also fulfills most of the significant features of Buckley's definition of the bildungsroman, so a careful study of the heroine's growth is quite necessary for the female adolescent development study.The first chapter of the thesis explains the concept of bildungsroman in detail, analyzes the three stages of Emma's growth and explores Emma's psychosocial development by means of developmental theory about adolescents. Thus Emma as a typical female bildungsroman is proved. The second chapter focuses on author's intentional arrangements of Emma's development from four aspects. In order to achieve the reader's understanding of Emma's growth, Austen herself intentionally arranges the story to be observed through Emma's eyes, and uses "inside view" as a tool to interpret and witness Emma's psychological process of maturity. Besides, Austen arranges Mr. Knightley, a reliable fatherly lover, to correct Emma's faults and assess her value, and thus to help Emma grow step by step. In addition, Harriet Smith, an innocent and mindless girl, is arranged as a mirror to reflect Emma's thought and her final introspection. What's more, an unobtrusive narrator is also arranged to enable the reader to know the few part that Emma cannot tell by herself. The last part investigates the significance and limitation of this female development. From Emma's growth, the upgrading of her morality is clear-cut, which not only reflects the reality in England at that time, but also conforms to the moral advance in that society. Meanwhile, the flame of Austen's feminism can be seen from Emma's using her knowledge to gain and exercise power, from the education of the hero and heroine one another as moral equals,and also from Emma's early independent attitude to marriage. But at the end of the novel, Jane Austen ignores Emma's feminist thinking, and transforms a dynamic self-assured lady into a conventional subservient wife, which is due to Austen's inevitable limitation at her time. The conclusion is drawn that the study of Emma as a typical female bildungsroman provides us insights into the development of a young lady in the late 18th and early 19th century, whose life experience and psychology can be used as reference to the research on present female adolescents.