Reviews with content warning for Classism - Emma

Reviews tagging 'Classism'

Emma by Jane Austen

64 reviews

wooblatoober's review against another edition

challenging funny lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

i’m surprised to say i really enjoyed this book, especially as i got to the end. it was an exceedingly difficult read for me since it was published in 1815 (not my reading forte), & i had many complaints at the beginning, but all of them were assuaged as the book went on. i was expecting it to be like little women, since that was austen’s only other work i had read before this, in ways i didn’t like—little women spelled out, from how i saw it, that the husband knows best and that’s that. i felt like in the marriage department, little women put too much fault on the women too often, and not enough fault on the men, when there were problems or disagreements. emma couldn’t be more different from little women in this aspect, likely, i think, because it’s fictional, so austen can make the men whatever she wants them to be, but she does a great job of making it still seem realistic, as much as i can tell as an american living in the 21st century, who doesn’t know the ins and outs and subtleties of the highly structured culture of england in 1815.

below is my spoiler-riddled feminist discussion about the book.

besides interactions with men in which emma is empowered, i really appreciate her relationship with jane—she doesn’t like her at first, a bit arbitrarily and a bit due to jealousy in ways, it seems—but they become friends at the end, & hot girls being friends instead of having a rivalry is just so sexy. & THEN, mr. knightley is dreamy lol! i suspected at the beginning that she would be wrong about everything, he would be right about everything, and they’d get married because he’s “good for her” or some shit. but i was pleasantly wrong. emma, who is much younger than mr. knightley (which i feel gives her much better reason to be wrong, rather than just being a woman lol), is wrong about a lot of things—BUT!!! mr. knightley is wrong about things, too. not only that, he seeks out harriet to get to know her and try to see emma’s side, & OPENLY ADMITS to emma that he was wrong about her. & there was something sweet to me about their convo about how emma treated miss bates—mr. knightley wasn’t mad, & didn’t think she meant to be mean. he just told her it hurt miss bates’s feelings—no unsolicited advice, just the facts he believed she would have wanted to know. not to mention mr. knightley MOVED IN WITH HER when they got married, despite being richer, having a better home, & being in a relatively higher place in society (i think), just so her dad wouldn’t be upset. even though they /did/ believe stress back then would make you die, i still believe it’s sweet, especially for the time period. i think any other man would at least just put off the wedding until mr. woodhouse died, at the least. more impatient men might even insist she moves in with him with her father, or even without mr. woodhouse.

i really liked emma. i feel like i could relate to her in a lot of ways, and i really enjoyed that. it was almost like the book was being written from my own point of view—i thought the same way as emma, like, the whole time lol. i didn’t even see a lot of twists coming that i think the reader was meant to see.

the classism bothered me, the belief that your blood firmly cements you into what kind of person you can be, and i understand that it would have been even more feminist for emma to never get married,

let alone to a man who was an adult when he fell in love with her when she was 13.

but i also want to acknowledge first that

she was an adult when he confessed to her and when they got married,

and again that this was written in 1815, and how much we don’t understand about the culture of england in that time period unless we’re scholars who study it. there are so many subtleties that go over our heads, that were outrageously feminist for the time. i can’t ask for a woman growing up in the late 1700s—not only growing up with those ideologies and understandings of society, but writing her books for other people living in the early 1800s who have those ideologies and understandings of society, and living with the consequences of what she publishes, or what she can even get published—to be completely politically correct for 2024. like she was wrong in those aspects—the classism, the

power relationship mr. knightley would have more realistically had over her,

the fact that she could have stayed single. it was 200 years ago. she was right in a lot of other ways, and that’s what i enjoyed.

not to mention austen purposely wrote it as a romance, so emma might as well fall in love with the one man who ever admits he’s wrong lmao.

i just wanted to add this to my review after seeing so many reviews that complained about those things. it’s still a book written 200 years ago, & that’s something to keep in mind so you can enjoy it in its context.

Content Warnings

hihicass's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This one dragged on a bit to really hammer the point home.

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emilywemily6's review against another edition

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challenging funny hopeful slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I love this book and every rendition of it that I’ve ever seen, but it was SO SLOW. This time period and Jane Austen in general writes in a really dense way. I like the humanly imperfect characters and there are a lot of funny moments.

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tannemilia's review against another edition

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hopeful relaxing slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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lindseyhall44's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“Time did not compose her. As she reflected more, she seemed to feel it more.”
Emma was such a bittersweet read for me, because although it was by far my favorite Austen novel, it was also my last time experiencing the joy of her words for the first time. I am very greatful for the reader, and person, I have developed into because of Jane Austen.
Emma is not only a beautiful, gentle love story (albeit with a few flaws of age), but also a whipsmart telling of growing up. The gossip, humor, and absolute blunders that the characters made were so much fun to read. I would highly, highly recommend!

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anna_m_k's review against another edition

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hopeful lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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linnylionheart's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

bessadams's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

readingwithcoffee's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

There’s a lot of classism in the book but we have narrator so I wouldn’t say the book fully believes any of it though probably some give. The context and times the book was made in and class of the author and so forth. But the only racism it is not five stars is the random but very explicit racism to Romani people in like chapters 39 to 42 out if 55 where a begging child is seen as some danger to this delicate white wealthy women and just popping out of bushes to ambush them god forbid for money. Incredibly ridiculous and racist.

It had some weird age gap stuff not even the age gap itself but like complimenting the male interest for watching and participating in her childhood which never of as grooming per se but was kinda creepy and and screamed father issues to me. Otherwise a lot of fun with a spoiled unreliable narrator.

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