s ends with two
weddings in quick succession, both performed, perhaps without any particular enthusiasm, by Mr.
Elton. The first unites Harriet with Robert Martin; the second, Emma with Mr. Knightley. It is
this latter wedding which is described in the final paragraph:
The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for
finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all
extremely shabby, and very inferior to her own.Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a
most pitiful business!Selina would stare when she heard of it.But, in spite of these
deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true
friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the
union.
Thehere is that Mrs. Elton is a thoroughly vulgar
woman who has not the taste to appreciate a sophisticated ceremony and probably thinks every
bride ought to look like a meringue. Even if it were pitiful to have very
little white satin, the important matter, as Austen points out in the final sentence, is the
marriage, not the wedding. Emma has learned a great deal about herself during the novel and is
finally fitted to enjoy married life with the man she has always loved without realizing
it.
If there is anto be drawn with Cinderella, then Emma has spent the better
part of the novel trying to be the Fairy Godmother, with no success whatsoever. Harriet would be
Cinderella, though she eventually marries a good man on her own level of society, rather than
one of Emmas unsuitable princes. No one goes from rags to riches, which is the principal theme
of Cinderella, but Emma does learn the importance of kindness, a secondary
theme in the fairy tale.
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