“Studying a pair of texts provides insights into the values of different contexts.” To what extent is this true of the two texts you have studied? Amy Heckerling has managed to creatively transform her 1995 teen film ‘Clueless’ into one of Jane Austen’s classic novels, ‘Emma’ (1815) by sustaining the same significant and important values and elements despite living in different contexts. This is depicted through the contrasting of cinematic techniques and narrative structure. The progress of the importance of social hierarchies and the revolution of self-realization is produced to be invariable. ‘Emma’ exposes the impacts of social hierarchies in the way people interact and behave with each other.
Elizabeth is one character that has very few thoughts on money and social positions, and because of this is able to rely her own judgements on characteristics and personalities. Elizabeth’s misconceptions of characters are clearly shown with Darcy and Wickham. At the beginning of the novel she is anything but fond of Darcy and believes that Wickham is a good man. She then goes to state… “There certainly was some great mismanagement I the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.” It this Elizabeth is stating that Wickham is basically evil and that Darcy is not.
Societal status was an important part of the regency times and plays a very important role in Emma. Clearly, there are different social classes and a line is drawn separating the upper class and lower class. Jane Austen views of the regency times were clearly expressed through Emma. Although Austen acknowledges the presence of social distinction between different social classes, she believes that the value of a person cannot be measured through their social status as it is an exterior quality. What truly matters is the interior quality of a person and that is what ultimately determines the character and relationship of a person possess.
He does this by things such as calling her nicknames with negative characteristics, such as his little lark, spendthrift and featherhead. Both Nora and Torvald, put on a face for the rest of the world and each other. Surprisingly, these choices of façade complimented each other. We gradually see how it isn’t good enough for her, yet hides it anyways through most of the play. In this era, it is expected for a woman to go straight from her father’s hand to her husband’s and the sacrifices it meant.
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.
Byelinkov is not the type of person to take praise very well while Varinka is willing to give him all he needs. All of these show what kind of persons Byelinkov and Varinka are, it shows how they over compensate each other’s personalities. Byelinkov says that “Pride can be an imperfect value”(981) While Varinka responds with “It isn’t pride. It’s the truth. You are a great man.” Varinka kisses Byelinkov and is still happy that she can call herself his wife.
Like Joe, she is in a stressful situation that causes her to doubt the loyalty of her husband, like Joe does with Clarissa. In the end, both John and Clarissa are vindicated as Jean and Joe realise the truth. The fact that there are chapters from Joe, Clarissa and Jed’s viewpoint force us to look at things from different points of view. Obviously this is metaphorically comparable to the contrasting views of science, art and religion respectively. However Ian McEwan shows us that we shouldn’t take one view over another, all of them have flaws- Joe sees things too logically, Clarissa is too emotionally involved and Jed uses his faith as a reason for his obsession when it obviously isn’t
In short, this chapter of her book is meant to show that “cultural views of gender are communicated to individuals, who exemplify them personally and thereby perpetuate cultural expectations of masculine and feminine identities and styles of interacting. She begins this chapter reminding the reader of her definition of communication: “a dynamic, systematic process in which two levels of meanings are created and reflected in human interaction with symbols,” (105). The central idea to her definition is “symbolic behavior.” Humans communicate with symbols and it is our ability to “think symbolically” is our most distinguishing attribute. Symbols “allow us to define, organize, and evaluate experiences and people, think hypothetically and reflect on ourselves. Discussing each of these implications of symbolic behavior will illuminate ways in which verbal communication expresses cultural views and expectations of women and men,” (106).
2012, p.78; Macionis & Plummer 2012, p.695). It also establishes their identity importance in both, surrounding social structure and existing social interactions. The person's role is
Carton realises that although they look alike, Darnay and himself are very different. After parting ways with Darnay, Carton resentfully says to himself, “Why should you [Carton] particularly like a man who looks like you [Carton]?” (Dickens 92). This suggests that Carton is jealous that Darnay, despite being physically identical to him, is far more successful than he is. Carton’s jealousy for Darnay and admiration for Lucie begin developing when he noticed that Darnay has “a fair young lady [Lucie] to be pitied by and wept for by” (Dickens 91). Although Carton makes no visible change after this instance, he shows his admiration for Lucie and wanting to better himself.