Who Is The Madwoman In Emma?

4 Pages 1102 Words

The Private Lives of One Half of Humanity
Emily Dickinson’s advice to “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—“ exemplifies the theories put forth by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in “The Female Swerve.” This concept that nineteenth century women authors have strayed from the predominantly masculine literary world, is illustrated in Jane Austen’s Emma through her characters’ actions and behaviors. Gilbert and Gubar refer to the “madwoman in the attic” as the female character of a novel who embodies a woman author’s rage and struggle towards a patriarchal society. In Emma, this character is Mrs. Churchill. Although Austen restricts her physical entrance into the novel and writes her as a silent role, doing so only serves to further conceal the true angst and anxiety of a prevalent female author in the nineteenth century.
In nineteenth century literature, women writers were essentially not permitted to achieve true authorship. Authors such as Jane Austen had to conform to patriarchal standards set not only in literature, but society as well. A woman writer could not publish her name to gain credit for her work, which in turn forced her to write from the perspective of a man to achieve acceptance. Austen could not speak freely of her opinions towards a woman’s behavior and position in society. Doing so would only further enhance the oddity of a woman’s literature work that already exists according to Gubar and Gilbert.
Generally, aside from the heroine, the female characters of a novel serve as foils to the protagonist. However in Mrs. Churchill’s case, where she lacks as a foil to Emma, she exceeds as a foil to a typical woman in the nineteenth century. Austen’s intent while writing Mrs. Churchill’s role was to uphold the value of “The Female Swerve” that “a literary woman must shatter the mirror that has so long reflected what every woman was supposed to be” (293). A woman of t...