The 200th
anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s novel Emma got us to thinking. As Austen heroines go, Emma is a slight departure. She is not
sitting by the window waiting for a prospective husband to ride up and change her
family fortunes with a healthy yearly stipend. Instead, she has appointed
herself as a sort of regency matchmaker, willing to forgo the undeniable
pleasure and stability of marriage that most 19th-century young
ladies aspire to.
While Emma is not quite our
favorite Austen heroine (we slightly prefer Miss Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice for no other reason
than her levelheadedness), we admire Emma’s tenacity at what might be
considered her modern-day approach to playing Cupid with her friends and acquaintances.
She does still, however, carry the Austen gene of not recognizing her own true love
even though he is right under her nose.
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| Patty's granddaughter Emma with Jane Austen's Emma. |
Emma’s story was brilliantly retold in the movie Clueless (1995), but even that could do with a little up-to-date tweaking. So, as modern women go, how much easier would Emma’s task have been if she had some 21st-century tools to help her? Tinder comes to mind for the millennials, while Match.com is perhaps more suitable for the baby boomers.
Emma
could pack up her parasol, don her white gloves, and sashay off in her empire-waist
gown (via Uber, of course) to the nearest Starbucks. She might remove her bonnet, trimmed with flowers, and take out
her tiny notebook with its pencil attached by a ribbon, as she flicks through candidates
for love on her smartphone. After a suitable length of time devoted to her
project, and a delightful caffè mocha or two, she could return home and catch
an episode of The Bachelor.
