Mr Henry Woodhouse is a central character in Jane Austen's 1815 novel Emma and the father of the protagonist, Emma Woodhouse. He is a wealthy member of the English landed gentry who owns a small country estate and substantial other property.
A valetudinarian widower, keen on gruel and a quiet life, he regrets the earlier marriage of Emma's elder sister, and is opposed to marriages in general.
Character With his cosy domesticity, his childlike simplicity, and kindly hospitality, Mr Woodhouse has been seen as a charming figure by generations of readers – as one of the most enchanting of chumps.S. Kaye-Smith, Talking of Jane Austen (London 1946) p. 34–5 A minority of critics, however, have taken a rather harsher view. Ronald Blythe, for example, insists that "Mr Woodhouse, so wrongly and oddly regarded as an old pet by generations of readers, is actually a menace",R. Blythe, 'Introduction', Jane Austen: Emma (Penguin 1971) p. 15 threatening Emma's future happiness by tying her to him and opposing all changes, especially marital. To Barbara Hardy, this complaint was an anachronistic view of an affectionate and unpredatory figure.Barbara Hardy, A Reading of Jane Austen (2000) p. 130 Still, his role in the courtship plot is certainly that of what Northrop Frye called a "blocking character",N. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton 1971) p. 172 even if one acting through weakness not strengthE. Copeland ed. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (Cambridge 1997) p. 71 – the tyranny of invalidism.R. Sale, Jane Austen and Representations of Regency England (London 1994) p. 136 and 140
Jane Austen's authorial comments on Mr Woodhouse are very muted: for the most part he is presented in dialogue, where his eccentricities have the best chance to shine. He is introduced by her as "a nervous man, easily depressed... hating change of any kind", while a late vignette shows him under the weather, when "he could only be kept tolerably comfortable by almost ceaseless attention on his daughter's side".R. Blythe, ed., Jane Austen: Emma (Penguin 1971) p. 39 and p. 410 In between, Austen quietly observes his "gentle selfishness" and his "mild inexorability'.Quoted in R. Jenkyns, A Fine Brush on Ivory (Oxford 2007) p. 158 Those who see him as a confirmed egotistR. Blythe, 'Introduction', Jane Austen: Emma (Penguin 1971) p. 15 who uses his wealth to make the world revolve around himself – "unfit for any acquaintance, but such as would visit him on his own terms";R. Blythe, ed., Jane Austen: Emma (Penguin 1971) p. 51 and hypocritically imperious with his servantsJ. Mullan, What Matters in Jane Austen? (London 2012) pp. 126–8 – can certainly find evidence in the text to support their views; but the overall impression of a lovable charmer still remains.R. Jenkyns, A Fine Brush on Ivory (Oxford 2007) p. 164
It is with regard to his younger daughter, Emma, that the contrasting views of Mr Woodhouse come into starkest opposition. There is no doubt that he idealizes her: as she tells her friend Harriet, one of her reasons for not wanting to get married is that "never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man's eyes as I am in my father's"R. Blythe, ed., Jane Austen: Emma (Penguin 1971) p. 109 Mr Woodhouse's supporters see an almost unconditional love as standing behind his inability to see faults in Emma.D. Selwyn, Jane Austen and Children (2010) p. 111 To his critics, he has created a spider-web of flattery,R. Jenkyns, A Fine Brush on Ivory (Oxford 2007) p. 16 a narcissistic cocoon that denies the reality of generational change and loss,F. Oehischlaeger, Love and Good Reason (2002) p. 93 and p. 101 within which Emma is psychologically trapped. In this reading, only the eventful twists and turns of the book's entire plot can breach her imaginary superiority and free her from him, enabling her to realise that "she had been entirely under a delusion...with unpardonable arrogance",R. Blythe, ed., Jane Austen: Emma (Penguin 1971) p. 402 and permitting a more realistic relationship to emerge in the form of Mr Knightley.
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