Emma is a pretty average person who lives an unfufilling life. She is not poor, stupid, or ugly, but neither is she rich, very smart, or extremely beautiful. Although she is average, throughout the entire book, she struggles to become elite. I think her desire to become elite arises from the books she reads. During her childhood she idolized "illustrious or ill-fated" women. She always focused on something "better" than her-self, never allowing her to be satisfied with normal life. She had a good life, a beautiful daughter, an ok husband, and a beautiful home, but she couldn't bring herself to accept the wonders of everyday life. The women she envied as a child weren't content with the simple, so why should she? The characters led wild adventures through life of romance and tragedy so Emma wanted to too. It was because of the books she read as a child that focused all her attentions on the elite and high-up, preventing her from being happy with her average life. For example, after the party at the La Vaubyessard, she is never content in Tostes again. For a whole year, she anticipates another party, but when the invitation is "lost in the mail", Emma loses all hope and despairs.
In the end, her struggle to be elitist she leaves her husband in deep debt and her daughter in her daughter in the poor working class. Ironically, Emma's efforts to be elite condem her daughter to a life of poverty.
Emma is a romantic woman stuck in a realist novel.
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Your last line sums things up quite well. I wonder if, in the end, we should admire Emma as she seems to be the only "average" character in the book (they're all average, as you say) who rebels against her own mediocrity. In the case of "plain" Jane, we applaud her efforts to better herself; in Emma's case, we wind up vilifying her. Why do you suppose this is?
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