On a mission to read all of Austen's novels, Emma brings me to three. Austen finished six complete novels and I feel that it is imperative that I read them all. There is something about being an English major that requires some sort of competency with the classics. Plus, Austen intrigues me. These novels are her life's work and reading them sheds some light onto the woman who defied society, lived by her pen and never married.
My choice of movies lately (Becoming Jane and The Jane Austen Book Club) brought me to the library--on crutches no less--to pick my yearly Austen installment. It was between Sense and Sensibility and Emma. Emma intrigued me because it was the only novel that Austen named after her female heroine and I was curious as to why. I have my own theory of course, but I would need to read the other three to fully present my point.
The one thing that came out of this reading was the absence of first names. Emma always refers to Mr. Knightly as just that--Mr. Knightly. I think his first name is mentioned once in the beginning and once at the end. And while I know that back then, wives called their husbands Mr. So and So, it struck me as very similar to Sex and the City. What does that say about women? What is it about nicknames? Not that Mr. Knightly is a nickname, but it does keep things from getting too personal. She never calls him George. Are the nicknames we girls use now to refer to the guys in our lives a way of giving us distance from them? Does it keep us from getting too close? One thing I know for sure, though, is that nicknames make it that much more fun. Why date someone named Will when you can really be dating Moped Fred?
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