“She Knew She Ought to Be Happy”: Socialized Subjects in <i>Emma</i>

Abstract This article argues that we have consistently misunderstood Jane Austen's subjects by assimilating them to a political liberalism in which she was uninterested. What matters in Austen is not subjective interiority so much as social status; her presentation of character resists the abstract equality characteristic of liberalism, which separates individuals from their social worlds. In contrast, Austen's subjects are almost entirely social. Tying Austen's presentation of the subject to the famous theses by Tom Nairn and Perry Anderson about the particular class compromise characteristic of English society, this article reads socialization in Emma as ideological and utopian in equal measure, suggesting a positive side to the socialization that a critical tradition invested in liberalism can only see as ideological inscription.