Slaves of Affection in Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (1801) and Jane Austen’s Emma (1817)

Abstract

One of the reasons to associate Maria Edgeworth with Jane Austen is the importance of the former as a main source of inspiration for Austen’s domestic plots. Interestingly, both colonialism and gender studies have turned their eyes to Edgeworth’s and Austen’s approach to slavery. Nevertheless, the specific connection between Belinda and Emma in this regard has been overlooked while, indeed, there are many reasons to relate both works since both deal with women’s submission and emotional dependence from others in many ways. This article analyses two secondary characters in Edgeworth’s Belinda and Austen’s Emma. After examining the similarities of the status of blacks and women in late eighteenth-century England, I maintain that these works can be seen as two studies of gratitude and that they offer a new version of Edgeworth’s familiar theme of the grateful negro, though in this case it applies to woman’s surrogate social position. The ideas of Homi K. Bhabha on colonial discourse help to examine the relationship between gender and race in Belinda and Emma, as well as the lack of a fixed identity and unfulfilled desire of independence that was common to blacks and women. It is precisely this feature that adds some darkness and social critique to Edgeworth’s and Austen’s otherwise rather predictable plots.