Jane Austen incorporates a novel within a novel in Emma. Jane Fairfax's romance shadows the main storv. The two texts provide a double perspective, allowing Austen to include in her rational, sociallv sanctioned love story, a method of self-conscious comment. The double narrative shows the interplay in both texts between consciousness and convention. Austen uses the conventional romance form but presents the romance unconventionally. Jane Fairfax, the heroine of her own shadow novel, personifies the tension between the novel's "light" and "dark" landscapes. The solution of the shadow novel's mystery frees the characters from double-dealing and delusion, and effects the reconciliation,leading to the appropriate, happy ending.