Young ladies of their time: Emma Woodhouse vs. Cher Horowitz (ePub)

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Stuttgart (Institut für Amerikanistik), course: Janespotting, language: English, abstract: After reading the novel Emma, and then watching the movie Clueless, one can find many parallels, some more apparent than others. Especially the characters can easily be compared with each other. As already mentioned before, Emma Woodhouse becomes Cher Horowitz, Mr. Knightley becomes Josh, Harriet becomes Tai, Robert Martin becomes Travis, Frank Churchill becomes Christian, Mr. Elton becomes Elton (the only one who keeps his name), Mr. Woodhouse becomes Mel Horowitz, Augusta Hawkins becomes Amber and Mrs. Weston is `replaced¿ by Cher¿s best friend Dionne. Of course one can realize at once that certain characters are missing (Jane Fairfax, Miss Bates and Mrs. Bates...) and that we get introduced to certain new characters (Murray, the teachers...). But I don¿t want to focus on these differences and parallels today. Instead I want to put the two main characters, the two young ladies, Emma and Cher into the centre of my work.

The aim of this paper is to find out if Heckerling brought Emma Woodhouse into our world or if she invented a brand new character, called Cher. In my paper I want to find similarities and differences of these two young ladies, so that the question asked above can be answered. First of all I want to introduce the two young ladies in general, what kind of persons they are, what they like or don¿t like, etc.. Then I want to take a closer look at their home. Where do they live? What are the similarities? Afterwards I want to characterize them in more detail, corresponding to certain different themes. What does fashion mean to them? Are both of them class conscious? What are they doing the whole day, especially in their spare time? Are there similarities concerning their love life, or is the storyline concerning the two heroines love life indentical? And finally I want to find out who actually becomes a better person at the end, as both get transformed and enlightened.

Hopefully after the analysis of these two heroines we can decide whether Cher Horowitz is actually Emma Woodhouse, or if there are too many differences, so that we can come to the conclusion that Amy Heckerling created a brand new charcter, which fits better into the America of the 20th century.