Heckerling’s film has transformed Emma into a dramatic twentieth century teen flick that both exemplifies and undercuts the contemporary culture of 1990s Los Angeles defined by consumption and appearance while still maintaining aspects of Emma’s narrative and characterisation. The juxtaposition of the two texts allows the audience to identify the tension between continuity and change through the use of the female protagonist who portrays the flaws of human nature. Jane Austen’s novel begins with, “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich.” This highlights the attributes that were most desired at the time of 19th century Highbury, England. However, Jane Austen’s context had a class hierarchy with males that had inherited wealth at the top. This patriarchal society represented in Emma portrays the importance of marriage for women as it was their only means of financial security as well as the advancement of their position in society.
These values include: marriage, self-actualisation. In her text, Weldon has used the idea of marriage to compare and contrast of how is it different in the context of Pride and Prejudice and the context of Letters to Alice. In Pride and Prejudice, the idea of marriage is convey through the decision in which characters made about marriage and their motive behind these decisions. In a highly patriarchal society, marriage is considered to be a need, and that happiness only occurs in special occasions, just as Charlotte Lucas says, “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance”, the use of emotive languages allow readers to understand that women’s existence in the patriarchal society is to get marry. On the other hand, the main protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet fails to
Literary Brilliance Invigorated By Theatrical Glamour The riveting, timeless, classical, and coming of age tale orchestrated by Charlotte Brontë is immaculately composed, modernized, and brought to life by Cary Fukunaga, endeavoring to portray the narration of an orphan exposed to the rigors of a cold, scornful, forsaken, loveless, dreary, desolate, and arbitrarily governed past. Taking place in the patriarchal Victorian society, the protagonist known as Jane Eyre sought refuge and embarks on the pursuit of acquiring her true autonomy, independence, and seeking a sense of belonging against conspicuously insurmountable odds, in this “rags to riches” masterpiece. Encompassed in this cinematographically astonishment is the juxtaposition of the essence and prowess behind a gripping and at some instances heart stopping romanticism between the plain-featured, reserved, yet talented, empathetic, hard-working, honest, and passionate archetype of Jane, matched with the wealthy, deceitful, self-centered, passionate, tormented, driven, charismatic, and brooding Mr. Rochester. Differing in appearance to society, and on the surface incompatible, the two seemingly star-crossed lovers mirror one another in terms of a passionate interior, enclosed in the mind and soul. Will Jane Eyre become the heir to more than skills at studying, drawing, and teaching?
Clueless is the modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. Both focus and satirise human follies and foibles. While Emma is set in the nineteenth century gentry of Highbury and Clueless is set in 20th Century Beverley Hills they focus on the same general concepts of matchmaking, romance and social status. While there are many differences due to the rigidity of time barriers Heckerling has proven Austen’s Emma to a malleable and flexible text making Clueless into a rather effective film in portraying the weaknesses of humans. Clueless is a modern teenpic and hence follows the typical conventions of focusing on teen issues such as boys, drugs, high school relationships and others.
Clueless, Amy Heckerling’s 20th century cinematic reconstruction of Jane Austen’s 18th century classic Emma, transforms the rustic values and attitudes of the Regency Period into the dynamics of contemporary existence. Heckerling uses various features of medium to remould the socially stratified society, restrain perceptions on marriage, and patriarchal values into an apparatus of modernity. When reading Emma the reader creates imaginative representations of the characters by building on Austen’s descriptions. For instance, Emma is introduced as being “handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition” (page 7). However in the medium of film we are given the filmmaker’s detailed representation of the character: Cher in Clueless is tall, blonde, slender, obviously popular, wealthy, a slave to modern technology and happy driving her friends around in her jeep.
The transformation of the Jane Austen’s novel Emma into the Amy Heckerling’s ‘teen-pic’ Clueless, involves changing the original text in to another medium set in a different context to allow a re-assessment of the values present in the text thus enabling the audience to gain a greater insight and appreciation of the ideals and concerns outlined by Austin in Emma. The themes presented by Austin in Emma are universal and timeless which enables Heckerling to adapt them to a context a modern audience can reflect and relate to, thus generating a greater understanding of the social commentary made by Austen on social class, marriage and education of the 19th century. Heckerling does not devalue Emma and the essence of what is said is not changed however Heckerling goes further than just a transformation and comments on modern issues such as sexuality, education and social equality relevant to her time. This allows the texts to resonate with each other with the known reflecting upon the new and the new reflecting on the known. Both Emma and Clueless deal with a society in which social structure and values are criteria for assessing people.
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway: | Society’s influence on different sexual relationships | | | | Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway: Society’s influence on different sexual relationships Virginia Woolf was a significant modernist writer who wrote Mrs Dalloway in post war Britain in the 1920’s. Like TS Elliot’s works of the time, she too made social commentary on the effects that the Great War had on the UK and that society had to relook at its frivolous and trivial lifestyles of the past. The war had changed people and their perspective on many things, such as equality of the sexes and the classes. This essay will explore how Woolf portrays the differences between the socially acceptable relationships of the time and the potential disruption and influence that society had regarding alternative relationships. The relationships that Clarissa Dalloway has with the other characters in the book reveal as much about her personality as her own thoughts and expressions do.
Anyone who reads the novel will —— remember the female character—Jane Eyre and be very impressed by her rebellious spirit, which is discussed in this article through the analysis of her views on love. key words ：Jane Eyre view of love equality sincerity 中图分类号 ： I 106 文献标识码 ： A 文章编号 ：1672-1578 （2010)11-0001-03 Jane Eyre is one of the most famous classical works in English literature history. The main reason why it achieves astonishing success is that the young woman writer charlotte Bronte unprecedented puts a young governess who is plain featured and has low social position into the center stage of the literary palace. She successfully creates an ordinary woman who dares to revolt and dares to strive for freedom and equality. Jane Eyre is an orphan and comes from a poor family.
For example, turning down Mr. Collins may demonstrateher as a no-brainer woman among the society at that time. But by rejecting him, this suggests that Elizabeth places her own judgment over social pressures to comfort. In spite of the fact that she has been forced to get married with Mr. Collins by her mother, she persists to her strong position of rejecting his proposal. Plus, although Lady Catherine tries to strong-arm her into rejecting any proposal from Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth gets angry and asks her to get away. Hence, it can be noticed how Austen stresses on the empowerment of women through Elizabeth’s
Elizabeth is a character who defies the social conventions of marriage in the novel. Austen describes marriage as ‘the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune’ (Austen, 2008: 104). Austen also states that ‘however uncertain of giving happiness, [marriage] must be their pleasantest preservation from want’ (104). This idea of marriage, as seen by social conventions of the time, is embodied in Charlotte Lucas. Charlotte does not desire love or happiness, but asks ‘only for a comfortable home’ (106), and believes that ‘happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance’ (18).