Jane Austen - Persuasion

So far I've read 4 Jane Austen novels. Northanger Abbey and Pride & Prejudice are from Austen's earlier writing career, while Mansfield Park and Persuasion are from her later period.

There's a world of difference between the two groups. Early Austen is funny, sarcastic, full of observational comedy - poking fun at society - while the 2 later Austens are more mature, moral tales almost. The later Austens are better written, I think, with more realistic main characters - more "interiority".

You probably know the story of Persuasion already. We meet Anne Elliot, an old maid at age 27, a typical Austen heroine - the only calm sensible one in a family of idiots - and learn she threw over an engagement with Captain Wentworth (despite being very much in love) 7 years ago. Why? Because she had been persuaded by her family, most notably her esteemed aunt/mother figure Lady Russell, that he wasn't accomplished or high-status (i.e. not rich) enough for her.

It all sounds very shallow, but during Jane Austen's time marriage was the only source of wealth for a woman without her own fortune - indeed the one and only financial investment a woman had the power to make! So the language and thinking around marriage, for both sexes, was necessarily financial. (Explaining her decision to Wentworth, Anne uses the word "risk" - it was too high-risk a venture for her.)

Both Anne and Wentworth remained single, only to bump into each other in Bath 8 years later. Wentworth has become a Captain and made his fortune; Anne meanwhile is said to have faded in her youth and beauty. 

At first we think Anne is doomed to pine for Wentworth forever, because the latter resolutely ignores his former lover in favour of the young and lively Louisa Musgrove. In one of the former lovers' tense exchanges, Wentworth bitterly compares Anne's character (easily swayed by the opinions of others) with that of Louisa's (direct, wilful, knows what she wants).

Later we learn that Wentworth never loved Louisa; never gave her much consideration, in fact. Upon realising that everyone thought that they were "for each other", Wentworth quickly went into hiding. During this absence, Louisa fell for another officer, Benwick. After they announced their engagement, Wentworth deemed it safe to pop up again, and in short order confessed his feelings to Anne. Happy ending.

I confess I somewhat lost interest after Benwick and Louisa got engaged. I thought Benwick and Anne Elliot would have been cute together. Benwick is melancholy, mourns his dead wife, reads Romantic poetry. Anne certainly saw a fellow heartbroken soul in him. And they definitely had a thing for a while. In one exchange they talk about poetry and books, and Anne recommends that Benwick add more prose to his reading diet, rather than picking at his wounds via lovelorn poetry.

Meanwhile, Benwick/Louisa is a union of opposites. Louisa is as upbeat as Benwick is emo. Then again, who's to say that this relationship wouldn't work? In the book we also meet the "perfect" married couple - Admiral and Mrs Croft - where the defining trait isn't so much compatibility as mutual devotion (involvement in each other's lives).

Which brings us back to Anne and Wentworth. In the last 50 pages of the book the tension builds as they  both realise there's never been anyone else, and there's the famous letter scene, masterfully written, that probably made a lot of people swoon.

After finishing the book I felt thankful I'm not a woman in Jane Austen's time. Male characters like Wentworth and Bingley (from Pride and Prejudice) get to gallivant around, staying wherever they please, country or city, while the women they left behind could only discreetly hope they made enough of an impression for their return. Men can acquire and read any books they fancy; women have to be thankful if the house they're staying in has a library at all. 

In the last bit of Persuasion there is a little debate between Anne and Captain Harville (Wentworth's friend) where they argue about whether men or women are more steadfast in their love. Anne says: 

“We certainly do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You are forced on exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions.”

Harville's rebuttal:

“But let me observe that all histories are against you—all stories, prose and verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side the argument, and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.”

And Anne says:

“Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.” 

:)