Mrs. Elton: Emma's Evil Twin
Thu, Nov 19
|Livestreamed via YouTube
Time & Location
Nov 19, 2026, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Livestreamed via YouTube
About the Event
About the Talk
Jane Austen's Unsung Characters fall into two categories. Many (Eleanor Tilney, Lucy Steele, Charlotte Lucas, Harriet Smith, and Louisa Musgrove, for example) are essential to advance the action of the plot, while others who are equally vivid (Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Smith in Persuasion, or Mrs. Elton in Emma) make no measurable difference to the narrative. Yet Austen took great care in constructing them. They must serve other purposes.
The plot of Emma would have unfolded pretty well as it does even if Mr. Elton had returned to Highbury still an eligible bachelor. But the novel's conclusion might have been less complex and less satisfactory. Austen clearly had fun creating Mrs. Elton’s aspirational vulgarity, and we certainly have fun reading about her, but she also changes the way we read Emma Woodhouse: by arriving in Highbury just at the point when readers might be finding Emma insufferable,…
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