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1. Introduction
Jane Austen is a female writer of great influence in 19th century in Britain. Her novels are always confined to stories about love and marriage among common squire’s daughters. To a certain extent, her works mirror the point of views of feudal force and reflect the moral standard of family and society, which mainly based on the social communication between ladies and gentlemen. Irony is the main feature of her works, as her works inherit European traditional literature of irony and with her own unique understanding. She has a significant position in English literature. In the early 19th century, Walter Scott’s (1815) novels were the most popular by common people. But he gave high evaluation to Austen’s works: “The young lady has a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with.”
1.1 Background of this Study and Early Researches
Emma is a novel that has strong ironic tone. Emma, who is pretty, young, and self-glorification, never worries about money or eager to marry, is shaped as an object of or victim of irony. At first, critics almost paid attention to the love and marriage of the gentleman and ladies of the middle upper class. Latter, they began to discuss from different point of view, such as money, status, and main character. But there is an obvious writing skill, which is irony. In this novel, Austen criticizes the blind pursuit of money and status in marriage through irony. Discussing the irony used in Emma can not only help us appreciate the beauty of language, theme and character building, but also deepen the understanding of the work. That is the purpose of discussing this topic.
About Emma, however, there are plenty of scholars have given their point of view from different aspects. Austen’s works pay close attention to marriage and women’s right. And there is no exception in Emma. For instance, Deng Jun (2008) once talked about women view of marriage published in Journal of Hubei University of Economics. He points out Austen’s calm and mature view toward marriage. Although love is in the first place between men and women in marriage, economic background, social status and other material factors should be taken into consideration. In addition, Zheng Shufang (2011) has discussed its feminist consciousness published in Overseas English, which mainly through Emma’s rebellious character and the pursuit of the supremacy of love.