The end of Jane Austen’s Emma sees a climactic ending headlined by marriages between almost all of the main characters. During these final scenes, there is a shift in many of the characters, of which many relate to the thinking of Martin Heidegger because of Heidegger’s musings about a person’s state of “being”. At the outset of the novel, many of the characters seem to act almost as ancillary to Emma, with Emma acting as the sole facilitator of her actions. As the novel progresses, we see many of those characters develop their own state of “being”, where they take up an identity within the space of the novel that does not revolve around Emma’s character. The primary example of a character in Emma who undergoes this shift is Harriet Smith, who in the course of the novel goes from someone manipulated by Emma into doing anything she would say and emerges an independent character. After her marriage, Harriet is described as being without care for the past and with “fullest exultation in the present and future. (Austen, 390). Further down the page, the novel goes into greater detail about how Harriet’s character differed now from when she was introduced. Because she was with Mr. Martin, she is now described as being with not only “security” and “stability”, but also the “hope of more” (Austen, 390). In the way that Harriet’s character was portrayed in the earlier chapters, there was no way for her to “hope for more” because her character had almost no autonomy, she essentially just did the bidding of Emma. It is also telling that at the end of the book, Harriet’s father is also revealed to be a tradesman, who was modestly rich enough to have afforded Harriet the life she had been living. The revelation of her father acts as another way in which the character of Harriet moves into a state of being, where the depth of her character is fleshed out. Her character realizes her full purpose, and although it is somewhat of a humble one, through marriage she was able to achieve it and attain happiness. The characters who marry at the end of Emma have been hit by the same kind of “divine lightning” which heidegger speaks about as being essential to being. (Dugin, 49) The divine lightning, in this case, being the marriage which allows the characters to “be”. Harriet, Mr. Elton, and the rest of the characters who are imbued with this leave the circle outside of Emma and become their own independent role within the story. Through Emma, there is an overwhelming feeling that just “being” is not good enough. That “being” represents itself in marriage, where characters graduate into life. Not only do they in a way graduate into life, but their characters also become noticeably more satisfied with themselves and their place in life. Because of this, Marriage takes on a special role in the novel beyond being a high point in the characters lives, it is also transformative.