Emma: Poem and Commentary (1998)

Billy Schraufnagel

Mr. Blackburn

Humanities A, 3

November 2, 1998

Conjecture

A smile

A blush

What do you see?

A silly charade

A trip to London

A heroic rescue

Do you think -

Could he possibly -

Yes! It must be!

A perfect portrait

A beautiful wedding

And children!

It’s raining.

Paint washes away,

Leaving a blank canvas.

The rain continues

To fall

Like tears.

Oh, dear.

My spectacles appear

To be broken.

Billy Schraufnagel

Mr. Blackburn

Humanities A, 3

November 2, 1998

“Conjecture” Commentary

In her novel, Emma, Jane Austen deals extensively with the power and danger of speculation or “conjecture.” Austen’s heroine, Emma, has several misconceptions which result in unhappiness for both Emma and her friend Harriet. The poem “Conjecture” seeks to explain the harm caused by false perceptions.

Emma’s misconceptions always originate from observations. She observes something simple, such as a “smile” or a “blush” by someone and immediately attempts to read the person’s emotions. Emma believes every polite word or gesture by Mr. Elton to Harriet to be a sign of his love for her. It does not matter what Mr. Elton intends; Emma sees what she wants to see.

Mr. Elton’s “charade” is solved with the word “courtship” and entitled, “To Miss —.” Emma interprets that to mean “To Miss Smith,” or Harriet, but Mr. Elton intends it for Miss Woodhouse, or Emma. Mr. Elton also insists on making a “trip to London” to frame Emma’s portrait of Harriet. Emma perceives this trip to show his devotion to Harriet, but he really goes to impress Emma.

Later in the novel, Emma and Harriet speak at Donwell Abbey of an unnamed man whom Harriet is in love with: “The service he rendered you was enough to warm your heart” (338). Emma believes it to be Frank, but Harriet loves Mr. Knightley. Both Frank and Mr. Knightley perform a “heroic rescue” for Harriet; Frank rescues her from a band of begging gypsies, and Mr. Knightley asks her to dance when she is alone at the Crown Ball.

As implied in the third stanza of “Conjecture,” Emma’s mind races to conclusions so quickly that she cannot even complete a mental sentence. When she resolves an issue to herself, however, she dwells upon it continuously. She fabricates details to make it more feasible. The line, “A perfect portrait,” refers to both Emma’s unrealistic imagination and her specific enhancement of Harriet’s figure in the portrait she drew of her: “she meant to throw in a little improvement to the figure” (74).

As Austen frequently uses the weather to mirror the action of the story, the poem uses the image of rain as an epiphany to destroy any illusions in Emma’s mind. Her realizations wipe out her painted imagination as quickly as water destroys a painting. As soon as Emma’s conceptions vanish, she discovers how little she ever knew: “I seemed to have been doomed to blindness” (413).

The final result of all of Emma’s dreaming and plotting is unhappiness for Harriet. Harriet loves both Mr. Elton and Mr. Knightley because of Emma’s foolish conjectures, and she loses them both. The concluding stanza demonstrates Emma’s increased self-knowledge with an allusion to Mrs. Bates’s broken spectacles, which “appear” to be broken.

The poem implies that it is dangerous to draw unfounded conclusions as Emma does; the result will be disappointment. Mr. Knightley reminds Emma of this in a conversation early in the novel: “Better to be without sense, than misapply it as you do” (90).