Book: Persuasion

Author: Jane Austen
First Published: 1817
Original Language: English
Themes: the opinions of others, etiquette, selfishness vs sacrifice, patience

In A Nutshell: Poor Anne Elliot is mostly ignored by her family, being the gentlest and plainest of the three daughters of Sir Walter Elliot, a careless and vain baronet. Due to Sir Walter's extravagances, it becomes necessary for the family to remove to Bath and let their house, Kellynch Hall, to Admiral Croft and his wife. Unbeknownst to almost anyone else, Mrs. Croft is the relative of one Captain Wentworth; although now a successful and rich sailor, his prospects were less certain when he was engaged to Anne eight years before. Lady Russel, Anne's friend and adviser, persuaded her to break the engagement off for the sake of duty, and the two were sundered in anger and regret.

Now Anne is forced to renew her acquaintance with Captain Wentworth, who is still dashing and charming but seems to have no interest in her. Anne spends much time with the Musgroves, her brother-in-law's family, where the captain is very popular, and seems to be developing an attraction to one of the Miss Musgroves. During an excursion at Lyme, this Miss Musgrove injures her head accidentally and Captain Wentworth withdraws, allowing another captain to win her heart. Although encouraged by this news, Anne finally goes to Bath to be with her family but finds the rank-obsessed parties of Bath stagnant and uninteresting. A cousin of hers, Mr. Elliot, shows great interest in her and means to marry her, but an old friend, Mrs Smith, warns Anne that he's false and self-serving. Finally, Captain Wentworth can contain himself no more and professes his enduring love for Anne, and after those eight long years of regret and pain, they can finally be joyously married.

Thinking Makes It So: I should say from the outset that I am disinclined to like Anne Elliot. She's one of those sweet, gentle, obliging creatures who take no notice of themselves, who let other people command and override them with no apparent inclination to stand up for their own thoughts, feelings, or desires. She's so perfectly, submissively, wonderfully, angelically gentle that you just want to scream...if you're me, I guess. I can't help thinking that the whole silly painful awkward situation could've been avoided if Anne had stood up for herself and asserted her own wishes in the first place.

That said, Anne is surrounded by a lot of obnoxious, self-obsessed, overbearing people. Her father is so absorbed in himself and his gentility that he's gotten their family into debt, and he treats less fortunate people with disdain and scorn, as does his arrogant daughter, Elizabeth. The youngest daughter, Mary, is even more insufferable; she constantly wheedles, guilt-trips, and manipulates people's emotions by professing herself ill or very ill-used whenever something doesn't suit her fancy or she feels too neglected. Somehow, out of all of this, Anne emerged as a gentle soul, primarily concerned with maintaining the peace and comfort of others.

The selfishness of others is less obvious. Mr Elliot had formerly scorned an acquaintance with his relatives, but when he suspects that Sir Walter may remarry and thereby jeopardize Mr Elliot's position as heir of the Elliot title, he insinuates himself into their family with flattery and good manners to make sure it doesn't happen. In fact, there are very few major players in the whole story that are at all worthy of a positive opinion, since everyone seems to be operating out of purely selfish motives--even Captain Wentworth, who admits that everything he does through the whole book is motivated by his love for Anne. The only one apparently totally free of this vice is, again, Anne herself, whose first concern is always to make sure that everyone around her is happy at the sacrifice of her own happiness, contentment, solitude, or companionship.

I knew how this book would end when I started it--I knew that Anne would eventually reconcile with Captain Wentworth--so all I really needed to know was how they got there. Although I didn't dislike it, I didn't like it much, either; there was far too much of Anne being confused and upset but sacrificially hiding it so that no one might have any idea that, I don't know, something important might be going on in her life. Although granted, since almost all the people around her are self-absorbed snobs, they probably either wouldn't care or treat her as a nuisance, so maybe she has a point.

Although I assume Persuasion is, indeed, about persuasion, it seems to me that it's also a good close look at the different types of selfishness and pride in this particular rank and style of life at the time, and how the character of Anne defies what was, I imagine, rather typical of the time. Anne is humble, charitable, and giving; she visits a poor friend in need; she does chores and volunteers for work that other people don't want to do so that they can enjoy themselves, and she gets little thanks for any of it. I guess the problem for me is that she's so perfect as to be a bit irritating, compounded by her apparent inability to assert herself. Really, I prefer Emma.

That You Must Teach Me: I think, given that I'm now sure that I won't be teaching any of these books in the foreseeable future, I'm going to discontinue this section, since I can do research later if I have to. I would say, though, that if I were to pick one of Austen's books to teach, it wouldn't be Persuasion; there simply isn't enough happening, clever social commentary or no.