What are some elements found in Emma that could justify some critics in suggesting that Austin is a conservative?

The
idea ofas a conservative--morally, as a political Tory and as part of the male literary
tradition--comes from the 1975 critical publication by Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and
the War of Ideas. In it Butler asserts that Austen is following in the footsteps of
traditional English Literary cannon and is "programmatically conservative" instead of
a "non-partisan liberal moralist." Subsequent criticism in Feminism, especially by
Showalter and Gilbert, disputes Butler's early opinion, yet echoes of "conservative"
still can be heard.

is one that most easily accepts the
mantle of conservative because the deep level,...