Emma and its interpretations

Emma is Jane Austen's finest novel.the subtlety of the book is such that the psychological motives of its characters may not fully detected or understood on a reading - or even a rereading.It is too minutely balanced to undergo the reworking most novels undergo before filming (with the addition and deletion of certain characters) .As a result,most of its cinematic versions do stick to the original as closely as possible.

Austen is suited to India,set in a hierarchical society with rigid class rules.It can be transposed as it is and still be realistic with minor changes,in a way that it can't be in contemporary Britain.Aisha,Bollywood Emma,manages to get the main character almost exactly wrong.the 'poor little rich girl' template isn't the right base( the character seems to be modeled on Sonam Kapoor's daydreams rather than the actual novel).Emma's a girl who takes care of her fractious, emotionally unresponsive father by herself.She lives in isolation near a small village.Her education 's been limited to a fond but not too clever governess (which explains her reaction to the widely travelled and educated Jane Fairfax).Convention casts her in the cocoon of the wealthy girl,but the realities of her situation are harsh in the abstract.this is Austen's genius-a lesser writer would have made Emma into a victim.She makes her into a person whose high spirits and wit are a reaction to this confinement.'Tragic is what she flatly refuses to be'.Oddly enough,scriptwriters sometimes miss this entirely,as in Aisha,when the audience's sympathy needs to be established.Instead,it become a paean to designer clothes,something that I hope the filmmakers had not intended.