Sorry this one's gonna not have many pictures because I'm on mobile.
I think it's funny that this is the one of the few Austen stories that the title isn't a place or a principle. This one's just the heroine' name. The only other time she does that is in Lady Susan, and it's because the character is a real livewire.
You do get the feeling in reading this one, that we the readers are supposed to have polarized opinions about this character. And truthfully, she is one of Jane's more eccentric heroine. It's kind of like if each Jane Austen Heroine was an Avenger, Emma Woodhouse would be Tony Stark.
That being said, I do have to disclose that don't really like Tony Stark. I mean, sometimes he'll do something clever or say something funny and it will make me laugh, and I sometimes enjoy his interactions with other characters, but just as an individual person he's not interesting or engaging to me. He's never as clever or funny or charismatic as he thinks he is, and I just don't see his conceitedness as a engaging personal characteristic.
That's pretty much the way I feel about Emma as well. Unlike most of Jane Austen's Heroines, Emma comes from money and her dad was smart enough to pay the extra money required by the government so he could give all his money and land to his daughters when he dies. Emma's pretty much got it made in Regency England because she's got absolutely no financial incentive to get married! (So, unless she meets someone really really fantastic she'll just keep the money and house and probably 10 or 12 cats all to herself, thanks.) Her life literally has no drama, so she's got to create it for everyone else.
Emma acts like she is God's gift to Highbury, and people treat her like her opinion matters even though she's kind of an idiot.
This is the Jane Austen story that most reads like a Modern Rom-Com: everything about it seems stupid and frivolous. Emma takes it upon herself to play Cupid and set up her friends and neighbors into romantic pairings. It works OK for a while, until one of her pet-projects (a girl named Harriet) expresses interest in Emma's Hot Neighbor, then Emma starts seeing Harriet as a rival and gets all threatened.
There's this whole monologue portion where Emma basically goes on a rant: "Ugh...who does Harriet think she is!? I, like, INVENTED her! How DARE she get a crush on a guy I've never expressed any interest in! Friggin traitor! I wish I'd never met her!"
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of veiw) we never get to see Emma go full blown be-otch. Discovering her latent feelings for her Hot Neighbor actually solves all of Emma's problems... because OF COURSE Emma's Hot Neighbor loves her back, and of course Harriet is perfectly happy with being a plot device and not a character with her own feelings and story arc.
(For being a story about discovering people aren't your toys, and other people's feelings matter, I feel like Austen dropped the ball in this part of the story.)
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