How Does Jane Austen Present Emma's Society

Jane Austen portrays the society of the novel, Emma, through the values and standards of the Highbury world. Highbury is a "large and prosperous village almost amounting to a town," sixteen miles out of London. In Emma we find there is an emphasis placed on social organisation and mores.
Hartfield is the home of the Woodhouses, who are the "first in consequence in Highbury." Indeed, all the fully developed characters in the novel belong to the upper middle class - the cultural elite. Consequently Highbury life is seen from this level.
There are persons of higher rank than the Woodhouses within the realm of the novel but they are not developed to any great extent. For example, the Churchills are represented from this higher echelon.
In addition there are those characters seen as below Emma 's station in life such as Robin Martin whom Emma remarks rather snobbishly about. The lower middle class also include the former Miss Taylor, Mrs Goddard and Miss Bates.
In the leisured gentry the attributes of snobbery, condescension, unkindness and lack of consideration are often seen. This is apparent in Emma 's comments on the lower orders and her visits to the poor are undoubtedly undertaken as they were a social requirement.
The characters within Emma are related by kinship or common social duties. In Highbury society the people are inhibited by a strong sense of rank and social duty. We find through the course of the novel that there is no real violation of rank perpetuated. As a person 's rank changes in relation to the Woodhouses, a distance is seen. The vicar is not close, the schoolmistress is received, and the poor are