You Wrote Her Answer!

 

“Come," said she,
"I will tell you something, in return for what you have told me. He did
speak yesterday -- that is, he wrote, and was refused."

This was obliged to be repeated before it could be
believed; and Mr. Knightley actually looked red with surprize and displeasure,
as he stood up, in tall indignation, and said,

"Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever
believed her. What is the foolish girl about?"

"Oh! to be sure," cried Emma, "it is
always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of
marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks
her."

"Nonsense! a man does not imagine any such
thing. But what is the meaning of this? Harriet Smith refuse Robert Martin?
madness, if it is so; but I hope you are mistaken."

"I saw her answer, nothing could be
clearer."

"You saw her answer! you wrote her answer too.
Emma, this is your doing. You persuaded her to refuse him.
“And if I did (which, however, I am far from
allowing), I should not feel that I had done wrong. Mr. Martin is a very
respectable young man, but I cannot admit him to be Harriet’s equal; and am
rather surprised, indeed, that he should have ventured to address her. By your
account he does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were
ever got over.”

 “Not Harriet’s
equal!” exclaimed Mr. Knightley, loudly and warmly; and with calmer asperity
added, a few moments afterwards, “No, he is not her equal, indeed, for he is as
much her superior in sense as in situation.” Chapter VIII (Pg. 44)

Here Austen plays upon gender relation stereotypes and Emma’s pride.  Emma tries to justify “Harriet’s” decision by playing upon the typecast men in her society who act upon the notion that women should marry anyone who proposes to them, in an attempt to deflect Knightley’s criticism of Harriet’s refusal of Robert Martin.  However, Knightley cuts through her shallow defense by firstly, saying that he does not obviously buy into such a belief about the duty of women and secondly, he sees through Emma’s pretenses to her actual personality and mind.  He exposes Emma’s delusion of Harriet’s position and her pretension at meddling in and ruining Harriet’s chances of happiness.  Emma is ashamed to admit the truth, to herself and to Knightley, that she not only physically wrote Harriet’s answer but decided it, as can be seen through her parenthetical qualifying statement.  Yet, Emma does know that she has persuaded Harriet, or she would have felt no need to justify the “hypothetical” situation of determining the answer.  Just as Emma is conveniently blind to the very recent actions of her own hand, she is determined to turn a blind eye squarely on the fact that Harriet is actually below Robert Martin in social standing.  Emma’s hubris rolls to a boil in this moment, and a bubbling of this tenacity proves to be unhindered by Knightley’s splash of cold and gentle truth about Harriet. In a world in which Emma’s whim is materialized and acknowledged, Emma expects that by simply saying Robert is not Harriet’s equal the whole of established society will embrace that fact and, indeed, that it already does.