The moral code that is
clearly the message of this witty yet thoughtful novel points to the dangers of trusting in our
instincts and imagination rather than in the facts of the situation. What makes this novel so
hilarious is the many mishaps suffered by both the eponymous heroine,Woodhouse, but also by
various other people, such as Mr. Knightley. Both of these central characters form a number of
opinions that are based on nothing more than hearsay or their own idea, which prevent them from
looking at the situation with objective, dispassionate judgement.
For
example, Emma clearly misinterprets Mr. Elton's actions, even though Austen makes it very clear
to the reader that he is not in love with Harriet, because the force of her imagination has
decreed that he is love with Harriet and not her. Note what she later confesses:
She had taken up the idea, she supposed, and made everything bend to
it.
In the same way, Mr. Knightley is unable to consider
Frank Churchill in an objective way because of the attachment he sees forming between Frank and
Emma. His jealousy forces him to disapprove of a man whom he has no solid basis to disapprove
of. Consider the following quote, which acts as the moral message of the play, which comes after
Mr. Knightley and Emma's betrothal in Chapter 50:
Seldom,
very seldom does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that
something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken; but where, as in this case, though
the conduct is mistaken, the feelings are not, it may not be very material.
This quote is important because it points towards the impossibility
of gaining complete truth in any situation, because of our own personal biases and emotions.
Austen's moral code is therefore that all humans need to be very chary of claiming to have
"complete truth" and acting on it, because so often humans can be mistaken about that
"truth." The only remedy is to trust in the wholehearted and honest emotion that
springs from the human heart.
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