What does Jane Austen's Emma have to offer to modern audiences thematically? Please support with examples from text.

Jane Austen's Emma has a great deal
to offer to the modern audience because Emma is a modern
character.

This is most certainly the case with other of
Austen's protagonists as well because Austen was something of a paradox in her time. She
was a proper young woman, the daughter of a clergyman, who wrote with skills no one
around her knew she possessed—her novels were written in secret, and printed
anonymously. However, Jane's protagonists were believable and appealing to her
audiences. They were strong, determined women: however their mistakes and/or failures
kept these figures grounded in reality. Austen's characters were smart and witty, and
somewhat ahead of their time, but this is also the case with Austen herself: for female
authors were considered an href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anathema">anathema in the
culture in which she lived.

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...many of Austen’s works went to print with no
name on the title page to avoid linking her to the negative stigma of female
authorship.

In the novel,
Emma has been carried away by a sense of accomplishment that she seems
not to possess: she takes credit for making a match between her
former governess, Miss Taylor, and the man she marries, Mr. Weston. With this
seemingly inaccurate perception of her own abilities, Emma goes
about trying to arrange a match for her new friend, Harriet Smith, but after repeated
attempts, the men she has in mind for Harriet do not ask for her hand, but actually end
up engaged to someone else.

An example of her attempt at
such a match is seen with Mr. Elton, the first man Emma decides Harriet will marry. As
they are all gathered together reading small pieces of literature, Emma prompts Mr.
Elton to offer:

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…enigmas, charades or conundrums, that he might
recollect…

Emma prompts Elton
to write something of his own, but he declares he is unable to do so. However, the next
day he returns with something "a friend" wrote, and offers it as a piece to add to the
collection of writings that Harriet is gathering. He
notes:

Being
my friend's I have no right to expose it in any degree to the public eye, but perhaps
you may not dislike looking at
it.

Emma is certain that
Elton has written it himself, and upon his departure, she prompts Harriet to take it,
although Harriet is too shy to do so:

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"Take it," said Emma, smiling, and pushing the
paper towards Harriet, "it is for you. Take your own."

But
Harriet was in a tremor and could not touch
it…

Emma takes it upon
herself to do so, and in general goes about promoting the
relationship until Mr. Elton, alone with Emma in a carriage, takes hold of her and tries
to "make violent love to her." This is the first relationship that Emma tries to arrange
for Harriet that falls flat. Later, news arrives that while traveling, Mr. Elton has
become engaged to another young lady.

This process is
repeated more than once. However, it is Emma's timeless "human condition" that makes
this novel appealing to a modern audience: the idea of one friend trying to "fix up"
another with someone the first knows, the sense of the best intentions going awry, and,
ultimately, a person's ability to learn and prosper from his/her own mistakes, offer
Emma as a timeless piece of literature that is perhaps even more
appealing today than when first written in that it also captures the charm of an age,
long past.