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Student ID: 1418241

EN330 Eighteenth Century Literature

Tutors: Dr Christina Lupton and Dr David Taylor

Word-count: 5,463

The role of shopping in Jane Austen’s Emma.

One need only read the most often quoted line of Austen’s to see that marriage

and class are foundational themes in her novels: as ‘it is a truth universally

acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a

wife’ (Pride and Prejudice, 1), a parallel acknowledgement might be that Austen’s

novels are primarily concerned with just that − single men, good fortunes and

prospective wives. Emma is no exception. Marriage and class are certainly the wheels

on which the novel itself, and the society of Highbury, turn. Austen wrote at a time

when marriage and class were intertwined; the social rank to which one was born

tended to govern the marriage in to which one was destined. Hence, in her works,

marriages often occur within class boundaries as opposed to across them. Yet, a truth

relatively unacknowledged in the divergence of these themes is the role of choice −

‘the act of choosing; preferential determination between things proposed; selection’

(OED). While marriage is characterised by ‘the act of choosing’ someone with whom

to spend the rest of one’s life, there is no such process of ‘selection’ regarding the

class to which one is born. Therefore, although marriage and class are certainly the

primary issues considered by Austen, she cannot do so without simultaneously, even if

subconsciously, raising this issue of choice, or lack thereof. This theme may be

nowhere more evident than in Emma, having at its heart Miss Emma Woodhouse,

whose ‘love of match-making’ (53) − the act of making marriage choices for other

people − is what colours the plot of the novel. Thus, what it means to be the ‘chooser’

or the ‘chosen’ is illuminated in every relationship depicted in Emma.

Austen’s exploration of the role of choice reflects the increasingly materialistic

nature of the society in which she was writing; a period that began to privilege the

‘consumer’, i.e. the ‘chooser’. Indeed, the era of the late eighteenth and early

nineteenth centuries is deemed as a ‘crucial moment in the development of consumer

culture, one in which luxury shopping could truly become […] ‘social habit’’ (Pinch,

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xii). Austen’s decision to include the rather ‘revolutionary’ (xxiii) setting of a shop −

Ford’s, ‘the principal woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher's shop united; the

shop first in size and fashion in the place’ (Austen, 140) − not only situates Austen

within this significant historical moment when luxury shopping was on the brink of

‘becoming ordinary’ (xi), but it also acts as a metaphor for the theme of choice. With

just ten explicit references to Ford’s, and only a few scenes actually taking place there,

it would be easy to either miss the presence of Ford’s entirely, or, if noticed, to dismiss

it as simply one of the ‘minute details’ of the novel (Sir Walter Scott, 200). Yet, as

Pinch argues, Ford’s is ‘essential to the texture of this novel’ (xii). Indeed, although it

would be false to describe Emma as a novel about shopping, one could certainly call it

a novel about choice, and, as shopping is an activity determined by choice (‘the act of

choosing’ from an array of objects one that one wants), the setting of the shop is

remarkably deliberate. This essay will analyse the position of Ford’s, and the shopping

behaviours of some of the novel’s main characters, in order to suggest that Austen

uniquely employs the shop as a setting from which to make observations on the act of

choosing.

Before grappling with the role of the shop in Emma, it is important to gain a

historical picture of the significance of shopping generally in the late eighteenth and

early nineteenth centuries. This is particularly important, as the significance of shops

and shopping in literature from Austen’s era may well be lost on modern readers, as

shops have since become ordinary fixtures, blurring into the background of our daily

lives (not least because the popularity of online shopping has rendered even the

physical space of a shop obsolete). However, as the quotidian nature of shopping was

only just forming in Austen’s era, the moment when shopping was ‘on [its] way to

becoming ordinary’ (Pinch, xi), it should not be overlooked. Although the practice of

selling and buying goods was, of course, not a new concept, ‘shopping’ as a cultural

activity did not begin to take shape, as historian Helen Berry writes, until ‘local

markets’, which had been ‘the main centres of consumption in England’, ‘underwent a

crucial transformation during the period 1690-1801, when trade “passed into the hands

of shopkeepers”’ (378). This physical shift of shopping from the busy outside market

places to the more intimate space of a shop, brought with it an equally notable shift in

the nature of trade; the move from perfunctory and practical purchasing − ‘shopping

for necessity’ − to middle-class polite spending − ‘shopping for luxury’ (Pinch, xii).

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Pinch alludes to the contemporary debate on luxury spending in the eighteenth

century, stating how the value of it was ‘hotly contested in English political and

literary circles’, seen by some as ‘synonymous with vice’ in contrast to others who

saw ‘the pursuit of luxury goods […] as a legitimate source of personal happiness and

[…] of national health and pride’ (xii). For writers to include shopping as part of their

narratives was, therefore, to enter into this contemporary debate, indicating their own

opinion through their presentation of shopping.

Shopping must also be contextualised within the eighteenth century culture of

‘politeness’. Commenting on the Third Earl of Shaftesbury’s idea of politeness, Klein

writes that it was considered the ‘positive form of the highest achievement in human

culture’ (188). Indeed, it was an aim to which many aspired, largely those who desired

to be considered a member of ‘polite society’ and in possession of all the airs and

graces with which this was associated. As politeness was an inherently social concept,

‘seen as an attempt to grasp and frame an interactional view of human relations and

society’ (187), in order to prove one’s status as a polite individual, a societal platform

from which to do this was vital. Many eighteenth century consumers found one such

platform in shopping, as successful luxury shopping in this era depended entirely on

one’s ‘almost daily ability to negotiate the rules of polite consumption to their own

social and economic advantage’ (Berry, 393) and, as such, ‘required a considerable

amount of social skill and economic nous on the part of the consumer’ (393). Berry lists

‘gesture, verbal exchange, and a ritualised pattern of behaviour as the customer engaged

with the shopkeeper’ (377) as examples of necessary shopping behaviours that perfectly

aided performances of politeness. Therefore, by ‘viewing the rise of “politeness” as an

aspect of commercialization’ (Klein, 187), the increasing popularity of the activity can

indeed be partly attributed to the fact that it produced a polite lifestyle, since it provided

‘people who were among, or who aspired to join, the ranks of […] ‘polite society’’ the

opportunity to flaunt polite behaviours (Berry, 377).

Interestingly, to ‘shop’ did not necessarily mean to ‘purchase’; as much as

shopping was about someone making their choice of goods, it was also about exercising

their ability to not make a choice and simply browse. Indeed, browsing was as

significant as purchasing since many believed that deep scrutiny of an object was vital.

Browsing was a practice observed by those wanting to seem as though the quality of

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goods was of extreme importance, when actually, they were only doing so in order to

demonstrate the quality of themselves, in terms of their social rank, discernment

abilities and politeness. Ironically, then, this focus on the object was not about the

object at all, but about the consumer. As such, the years between 1790 and 1820 saw

aspiring and higher ranks of society entering shops purely to browse rather than buy, as

can be gleaned from a letter written in 1798 by Maria, a young lady who recounts to a

friend having received an invitation to accompany other ladies on a ‘shopping tour’:

I declined accepting their invitation; alleging that I had no occasion to purchase any-thing

today; and therefore begged to be excused from accompanying them. They laughed at my

reason for not engaging in the expedition. “Buying […] is no considerable part of our

plan, I assure you. Amusement is what we are after.” (208)

Berry’s observation that ‘some eighteenth-century women turned browsing into an art

form, and a distinctive pleasure in its own right’ (387) is telling of how common such

browsing, or ‘amusement’, trips were. Yet, emphasis should be placed on the ‘some’ of

Berry’s comment, since it would be misguided to infer that all women saw browsing as

polite society at its finest, as Maria’s response indicates:

A most insignificant amusement this, said I to myself! […] Of all expedients to kill time,

this appears to me […] the most ridiculous and absurd. What possible satisfaction can

result from such a practice? […] is it any advantage to the mind? Does it enlarge the

understanding, inspire useful ideas, or furnish a source of pleasing reflection? (209-10)

If Mary Wollstonecraft were to answer Maria’s rhetorical questions, she would

certainly respond in the negative. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1793) she

writes scathingly on the lack of depth of women who partake in activities such as

shopping:

[…] but, I contend, that [conversation between French women] is not half so insipid as

that of those English women whose time is spent in making caps, bonnets, and the whole

mischief of trimmings, not to mention shopping, bargain-hunting. (93)

The divisive nature of shopping as illustrated by these sources, again speaks to the

contemporary debates surrounding the activity, demonstrating how eighteenth century

consumption was ‘neither as straightforward or as familiar an activity as one might

assume’ (Berry, 393), bound up with de facto ideas about class and behaviours, which

created a contemporary air of sensitivity surrounding it as a growing social

phenomenon. With an understanding of the multi-faceted opinions around shopping,

literature from this period with references to the act of shopping or that uses the setting

of a shop are highly significant. Situated within this ‘crucial moment in the

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development of consumer culture’ (Pinch, xii), Austen is one such author, Emma is one

such novel, and Ford’s is one such place of notability.

A primary avenue for exploring the significance of shops and shopping in

Emma can be ascertained by considering where Austen positions Ford’s; the shop is

only mentioned in the middle paragraphs of the central volume of the novel − at its

heart. Although this might make the shop easy to miss, since it is not a thread that runs

throughout, it is remarkable because Austen thus projects a sense of centrality about

Ford’s that works on the level of narrative structure. She further compounds this air of

centrality about Ford’s, as the shop finds itself geographically at the epicentre of the

town of Highbury. Indeed, we are told it is accessible enough for ‘“every body [to

attend] every day of their lives”’ (Austen, 157). Since it is ‘the principal woollen-

draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher’s shop united’ (140), the centrality of it is perhaps

necessary and unsurprising. But it is certainly significant, as it indicates how Ford’s is

the focus of Highbury, both geographically and socially. Austen thus not only

establishes her acute awareness of increasing consumer culture by including a shop at

all, but this deliberate sense of structural and narrative focus on Ford’s indicates

Austen’s desire to channel both the readers’ and Highbury citizens’ attention in the

direction of Ford’s.

Furthermore, by limiting the references that are made to Ford’s to the very

centre of the novel, Austen invites the reader to do a parallel narrowing down in their

conception of Highbury. In other words, one can access Ford’s by viewing it as a

microcosm of the town itself. This is indeed true if one thinks in terms of class and

social mobility, since the neutrality of Ford’s allows for a unique crossing of classes. As

Brodie posits, ‘Austen devotes much of her narrative genius to outlining communities,

then exploring the permeability of their boundaries’ (59). Indeed, although Highbury

can certainly be seen as hierarchal, it is in fact ‘a place of status ambiguities’ (Pinch,

xiv). Harriet’s potential marriages to men of ‘real, long-standing regard’ (Austen, 17)

would secure her ‘rise in the world’ (61) from merely ‘the natural daughter of

somebody’ (19) to a ‘well married’ gentlewoman (61). Similarly, the Coles’ family

have gone from little wealth, living ‘quietly, keeping little company, and that little

unexpensively’ (162) to yielding great profits from ‘the house in town’ (162), thus

making them ‘second only to the family at Hartfield’ (163). Downward social

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movement is also illustrated through the financially ‘poor’ Bates women and Jane

Fairfax, who have ‘sunk from the comforts [they] were born to’ and therefore whose

‘situation should secure [Emma’s] compassion’ (295). Ford’s reflects this same

permeability of social boundaries, as a place that can be, and is, visited by ‘everybody’

(157). Although Frank Churchill’s ‘every body’ may not mean ‘every body’ as in ‘any

body’, but ‘every body’ as in people of social importance, it certainly is a place that is

‘crisscrossed by many feet’ (Pinch, xi), and these feet belong to people across social

boundaries. For example, the ‘respectable’ (12) Mr. Weston, ‘“comes to Highbury six

days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford’s”’ (157); Harriet accidentally

meets Robert and Elizabeth Martin there, members of the town’s working community

who are deemed ‘“inferior as to rank in society”’ (50); even the unnamed woman who

Emma sees from the doorway of Ford’s is ‘travelling homeward from shop with her full

basket’ (183). Ford’s thus provides a unique setting for Austen to emphasise and reflect

the socially mobile world that Highbury epitomises.

Consequently, the lack of class distinctions within Ford’s makes it a place

simultaneously owned by everybody and nobody. In this way, outings to the shop are

unlike any other in the novel, marked by a potent sense of neutrality; one does not need

an invitation to attend Ford’s, unlike the other social events in the novel, such as the

ball at the Crown Inn, the Coles’ party or the outing to Box Hill, encounters reserved

only for invited ‘especial [sets]’ (86) of people. Nor does attendance at Ford’s resemble

visiting someone’s house on a social call, like Randalls, Maple Grove, or Hartfield,

since, by entering Ford’s, one inhabits a space of neutrality and equality, rather than one

shaped by the social positioning of the Ford family. Indeed, even though Mr. and Mrs.

Ford of course own Ford’s, their ownership is significant for its insignificance; the

reader never meets Mr. Ford, and only explicitly sees Mrs. Ford on one occasion where

she has just two lines of speech. The near silence of the Fords pertains to the polite

culture of shopping, wherein the shopkeeper was required to submit to the customer

entirely and relinquish their own sense of identity. Berry quotes an eighteenth century

tailor for whom ‘the polite show of manners that his customers expected was a source

of loathing, […] a subservient self-denial of his own individualism and identity’ (393).

The ‘self-denial’ of the shopkeeper is reflected in the lack of presence maintained by

the Fords. The reader who, like Miss Bates ‘did not see [Mrs. Ford’s] before’ (Austen,

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186) behind the counter, might also ‘beg [Mrs. Ford’s] pardon’ (186), for allowing her

ownership of a space so significant in the novel to have faded into insignificance.

As such, Ford’s is a place of both structural and geographical centrality and is a

microcosmic version of Highbury itself. But why does Austen make a shop so central a

setting in a novel that is not about shopping? One answer can be found in that it situates

Emma within a ‘crucial moment in the development of consumer culture’ (Pinch, xii),

where, for a fashionable shop to be the destination of almost everybody’s daily walks,

was an aspect of life ‘that [was] on [its] way to becoming ordinary’ (xi); in creating

Ford’s, Austen imprints a unique and contemporary stamp on the town of Highbury,

distinctly marking it by social transition. Yet, Austen uses Ford’s and the activity of

shopping more pertinently and self-consciously than simply to reflect social change

since Ford’s also acts as a metaphor for Austen’s musings on choice. The exploration of

choice largely relates to the relationship plots of the novel, both marital and platonic,

and there is certainly a tangible dynamic between ‘chooser’ and ‘chosen’ in every

relationship depicted in the novel; Mr. Weston chooses Miss Taylor explicitly saying it

is ‘a great deal better to chuse than to be chosen’ (14), Emma chooses Harriet to be her

new companion as ‘exactly the young friend she wanted’ (21), and, to the surprise of

everybody, Frank Churchill chooses Jane Fairfax, despite seeming to have chosen

Emma. Austen also shows characters exercising their right to refuse being chosen − for

instance, Emma refuses Mr. Elton, and Harriet refuses Robert Martin − neither woman

reciprocates the choice made. Furthermore, Austen exposes what it looks like to have

someone choose for another person in Emma and Harriet’s relationship. Given the

prevalence of Austen’s theme of choice, what better place could she have chosen to

compound it, than a place that depends entirely on someone entering and choosing,

from an array of objects, one that they desire? The link between shopping and

relationships is therefore evident, as choice is central in both instances. In order to see

how Austen uses the shop as a metaphor for choice, one might take a closer look at the

scenes at Ford’s.

The first scene to actually take place in Ford’s (as opposed to the encounter

reported by Harriet) is one featuring Emma, Mrs. Weston and Frank Churchill:

At this moment they were approaching Ford’s, and he hastily exclaimed, “Ha! this must

be the very shop that every body attends every day of their lives, as my father informs

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me. He comes to Highbury himself, he says, six days out of the seven, and has always

business at Ford’s. If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove

myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must buy something at

Ford’s. It will be taking out my freedom. − I dare say they sell gloves.” (157)

In this paragraph and the succeeding scene Frank epitomises the growing materialism

of the early nineteenth century, believing somewhat ridiculously that his status as a

Highbury citizen is founded on making a purchase. Emma encourages him − ‘lay out

half-a-guinea at Ford’s, and your popularity will stand upon your own virtues’ (157).

However, more significantly, it is Frank believing that to shop would be ‘taking out

[his] freedom’, as the notion of freedom, of having choice, prompts the question of

Frank’s non-existent choice. Indeed, one must consider his position at this moment as a

man with a distinct lack of freedom, as the nephew at the beck and call of a sick Aunt

‘who could not bear to have him leave her’ (248). As yet, he is not free from his Aunt to

make any of his own choices. Mr. Knightley employs the same language of choice

when judging Frank for his unreliability, saying ‘There is one thing, Emma, which a

man can always do, if he chuses, and that is, his duty’ (115, emphasis added); Frank’s

problem is that he cannot always choose, even something as important as his duty to his

father. His assertion that buying something at Ford’s would be ‘taking out [his]

freedom’ feeds into this larger picture of his own lack of freedom; Ford’s offers him the

opportunity to be in the privileged position of the chooser, rather than the chosen by his

Aunt, and thus restrained by her.

It would not be farfetched to suggest that this trip to Ford’s is also what inspired

the ‘so much talked of’ (345) purchase in the novel, the pianoforté for Jane; ‘when the

gloves were bought and they had quitted the shop’ the first line spoken is Frank asking

‘Did you ever hear the young lady we were speaking of, play?’ (158). It is plausible that

this unexpected question arose as a result of Frank spending time surrounded by objects

in a shop, and thinking about what object the woman he loves might desire, and decided

on a pianoforté. Unfortunately for him, the ‘every thing’ (157) apparently sold at Ford’s

does not include a pianoforté. The unavailability of the instrument parallels Frank and

Jane’s relationship; just as a pianoforté is immediately inaccessible (he must go the

‘sixteen miles twice over’ (161) to London under the guise of having his hair cut in

order to make the purchase), so too is Jane. Not inconsequently, he flippantly claims

that buying something at Ford’s would make him ‘a true citizen of Highbury’ (157),

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when marrying Jane would give him this status unequivocally; indeed, Emma soon

reminds him of ‘how much she belongs to Highbury’ (158, emphasis added). As such,

Austen uses this scene to subtly underscore Frank’s lack of personal choice through the

limitations of his purchasing choice; gloves are not really what he wishes to acquire by

‘taking out [his] freedom’ − Jane is.

The more famous ‘shopping scene’ shows Harriet fussing over ribbons and

parcel destinations while Emma observes Highbury as she waits for her. However, the

preceding conversation is essential to understanding its significance. Harriet and Emma

have just been discussing the Coles daughters, who Emma says are ‘“without exception,

the most vulgar girls in Highbury”’ (183). Immediately following this hyperbolic

statement of vulgarity, the scene suddenly shifts to Ford’s: ‘Harriet had business at

Ford’s. − Emma thought it most prudent to go with her’ (183). This stark jump from

discussion of vulgarity to the activity of shopping is ironic, as the rapid juxtaposition

casts a subtle slur on Emma and Harriet’s activity of shopping. Austen’s shift in

narrative thus reflects her awareness of the contemporary contentious nature of

shopping, as those nineteenth century readers ‘who saw luxury as synonymous with

vice’ (Pinch, xii), may view Emma and Harriet with the same disdain that Emma does

the Coles daughters. However, although it would be convenient to a nineteenth century

shopping-sceptic to believe Austen to be depicting shopping as vulgar, and therefore

implicate Emma in this category, Austen is very quick to excuse Emma from shopping.

Indeed, it is Harriet who ‘[hangs] over muslins and [changes] her mind’ (183) while

Emma neither touches a single object, nor even fully inhabits the space of the shop by,

instead, waiting in the liminal space of the shop doorway. Austen thus avoids her

heroine being categorised by either pro-shopping or anti-shopping readers, by placing

her in the privileged position of both ‘there’ and ‘not there’.

More importantly, though, is how the shopping scene pertains to Austen’s

parallel between the role of choice in shopping and in relationships. The scene first

describes Harriet’s shopping behaviours; she is ‘tempted by every thing’, ‘swayed by

half a word’ and ‘always very long at a purchase’ (183). These descriptions could just

as well apply to her dealings with the men with whom she is infatuated; she is tempted

by nearly ‘every’ man Emma deems suitable for her (Mr. Elton, Frank Churchill and,

unbeknown to Emma, Mr. Knightley), she is swayed by Emma to refuse Robert, and if

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one sees ‘purchase’ as the end-purpose of shopping and marriage as the end-purpose of

romantic relationships, she is indeed ‘very long at a purchase’, taking the whole novel

to finally marry Robert. Furthermore, Harriet’s indecision as to the destination of her

parcel is telling of her inability to navigate a social world to which, according to status,

she does not belong; ‘“Yes−no−yes, to Mrs. Goddard’s. Only my pattern gown is at

Hartfield. No, you shall send it Hartfield, if you please. But then, Mrs. Goddard will

want to see it.”’ (184). Harriet is unaccustomed to the privilege of choosing, so when

she finds herself in a setting in which she is the chooser, she cannot make a choice. She

thus requires the help of Emma, who steps in with all of her usual confidence, telling

Harriet to ‘“not give another half-second to the subject”’ (185) before governing the

destination herself. Shopping provides a platform from which Emma can flaunt her

choosing and polite skills, while Harriet flounders under the pressure, thus

demonstrating the social chasm and the dynamics of ‘chooser’ and ‘chosen’ that exists

between the two girls.

But is it really an inability to choose and a reliance on Emma that Harriet

demonstrates? A closer look would suggest perhaps not. Before asking for Emma’s

advice, Harriet solves the problem of destination herself by asking if Mrs. Ford could

‘make it into two parcels’ (185). Although she may not know it, Harriet does not need

Emma’s help. Emma’s intervention, saying ‘“It is not worth while, Harriet, to give Mrs.

Ford the trouble of two parcels’” (185), is rendered palpably unnecessary when the

‘obliging Mrs. Ford’ responds by saying it would be ‘“no trouble in the world”’ (185).

Emma unnecessarily plays the role of saviour, taking over Harriet’s choice with her

own, in a way that mirrors entirely Emma seeking to save Harriet by persuading her to

refuse Robert Martin. At Ford’s, Emma again supersedes Harriet by imposing her own

choices onto Harriet; although the instance at Ford’s is trivial, it reflects a matter with

far more serious emotional consequences.

Furthermore, Harriet’s desire to split the parcel in two might also symbolise her

desire to divide herself between two worlds; to have one half ‘sent to Mrs. Goddard’s’

(185), a world in which it would be acceptable for her to marry Robert Martin who she

‘had always liked’ (378), and to have the other half sent to Hartfield − ‘“for [Harriet] is

never happy but at Hartfield”’ (44) − where she can keep Emma’s approval and

attention, believing her to ‘“understand every thing”’ (61). The duality that Harriet

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desires is impossible and her social straddling is unsustainable, placing her in the

position as predicted by Mr. Knightley at the start of their ‘great intimacy’ (29);

‘Hartfield will only put her out of conceit with all the other places she belongs to. She

will grow just refined enough to be uncomfortable with those among whom birth and

circumstances have placed her home.’ (31) Indeed, Harriet cannot maintain a

relationship with both Emma and Robert simultaneously, and although she ultimately

chooses the world of Robert, in this moment at Ford’s, Harriet, like the parcel, is

destined by Emma ‘to Hartfield’ (185).

Unlike Frank and Harriet, who are respectively characterised by their lack of

freedom and indecisiveness, Emma is the privileged chooser of the novel. Indeed, she

revolutionarily chooses not to marry (‘Emma’s resolution of never marrying’ (94) is

often talked of) and, even believes she can choose Harriet’s social class in the absence

of knowledge of Harriet’s parentage (‘Emma was obliged to fancy what she liked’ (22)

in her ‘endeavour to find out who were the parents’ (21)). Grossman writes that ‘For

Emma, as for most of Austen's unmarried female characters, choosing between

matrimonial possibilities represents a career choice within the leisure class’ (156).

Indeed, choosing is certainly Emma’s occupation, but what Grossman does not

acknowledge here is that Emma’s work is rather in choosing other people’s partners for

them, through her ‘love of match-making’ (53). Although her success in this role of

matchmaker is limited, it heightens the irony that, as the primary ‘chooser’ in the novel,

Emma does not actively choose her own match for herself. Even at the point of

realising her love for Mr. Knightley, this is not a matter of choice for Emma; it is a

matter of ‘thoroughly [understanding] her own heart’ (324, emphasis added). That the

revelation ‘that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself’ ‘darted through her, with

the speed of an arrow’ (320) is significant in illustrating how remarkably passive Emma

is when it comes to choices of her own; indeed, the romantic cliché of the arrow with its

associations to Cupid ironises the fact that far from playing her usual active role of

metaphorical ‘arrow-shooter’ herself, she is made the victim of it.

Austen uses Emma’s shopping behaviours to illuminate this ironic lack of

choice; although she is often seen at Ford’s, it is notable that she is never there ‘on

business of [her] own’ (184), reflecting the fact that she is never overtly concerned with

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the business of her own heart. Even in the shopping scene she does not shop but instead

goes ‘to the door for amusement’ (183) where she reflects on Highbury;

Much could not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury; − Mr.

Perry walking hastily by, Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the office door, Mr.

Cole's carriage horses returning from exercise, or a stray letter-boy on an obstinate

mule, were the liveliest objects she could presume to expect; and when her eyes fell

only on the butcher with his tray, a tidy old woman travelling homewards from shop

with her full basket, two curs quarrelling over a dirty bone, and a string of dawdling

children round the baker's little bow-window eyeing the gingerbread, she knew she had

no reason to complain, and was amused enough; quite enough still to stand at the door.

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not

answer. (183)

Pinch aptly argues that although Emma’s movement to the door could of course be read

as ‘a turn away from shopping’ (xxii), actually ‘Emma’s turn in Ford’s doorway is a

turn to more of the same’ (xxiii). Indeed, Emma consumes the scene with an attention

to detail that mirrors Harriet’s ‘rapt consumption of fashionable goods’ (xxii). She even

lists the inhabitants of Highbury in a style reminiscent to that of a shopping list.

However, one might argue that more specifically than ‘shopping’, Emma is ‘browsing’.

Indeed, the detail that she describes − such as the ‘obstinate mule’, or the ‘dirty bone’

being fought over by the dogs − and background she projects to those in the scene −

assuming that the horses are ‘returning from exercise’ and that the old woman is

‘travelling homewards from shop’ − are acts of mental mimesis of the process of

scrutiny and handling that was so central to the ‘art form’ of browsing (387). The

significance of browsing in eighteenth century shopping was that it was ‘the first stage

of shopping’ (390), usually led by a choice made and an object purchased. Although

Emma engages in this first stage as a browser, she does not choose one object of

Highbury to focus on, just as she does not choose a match for herself.

Essentially, Austen positions Ford’s as a place of central importance from which

to make subtle observations about the act of choosing. Her underlying explorations of

choice are particularly pertinent when contextualised within the historical significance

of this era’s growing consumerism. Therefore, a level of understanding of shopping in

the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is required, in order that a modern

reader might not lose the metaphor purported by Ford’s. Indeed, writing at a moment in

history when luxury shopping and polite consumption were phenomena gaining notable

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social momentum, and, consequently, the consumer, i.e. the chooser, was considered to

be at the top of the social hierarchy, what better time to explore what it means to choose

and be chosen? And what better setting in which to do so, than a place where the act of

choosing is its sole purpose − a luxury ‘shop first in size and fashion’ (Austen, 140)?

The shopping behaviours of the central characters therefore parallel the nature of the act

of choosing in their personalities and relationships; indeed, choice is limited for Frank,

overwhelming for Harriet and surprisingly absent for Emma. Ultimately, Emma cannot

be described as a novel about shopping, but it is certainly about choice, and, as

shopping is an activity characterised by the choices made by a consumer, Austen

projects structural and geographical centrality onto Ford’s in order to illuminate the

importance of the act of choosing. The whole novel, then, might be read as an

exploration of Mr. Weston’s philosophy that it is ‘a great deal better to chuse than to be

chosen’ (14); Austen seems to suggest that although this may be the case in shopping,

this philosophy does not necessarily transpose onto matters of the heart.

Word-count: 5,463

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Berry, Helen. ‘Polite Consumption: Shopping in Eighteenth-century

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Brodie, Laura Fairchild. ‘Jane Austen and the Common Reader: “Opinions of

Mansfield Park”, “Opinions of Emma”, and the Janeite Phenomenon’. Texas

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Foster, Hannah Webster. The Boarding School; or, Lessons of a Preceptress to her

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Grossman, Jonathan H.. ‘The Labor of the Leisured in Emma: Class, Manners, and

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Klein, Lawrence. ‘The Third Earl of Shaftesbury and the Progress of

Politeness’. Eighteenth-Century Studies 18.2 (1984): 186–214. Web. 30 March

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Pinch, Adela. Introduction. Emma. By Jane Austen. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

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Scott, Walter. 'ART. IX. Emma; a Novel'. Oxford: The Quarterly Review, October

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Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Dublin: printed by J.

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"choice, n." OED Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Web. 10 April 2016.

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