It is no secret that I am a Janeite. I live and breathe Jane Austen. My bound collection of her novels is one of my most prized possessions. And though my admiration for her is strong, it has taken a while for me to get through her entire body of work, mostly because of my rigorous reading schedule (so much to read, so little time). I first read Jane in high school. It was Pride and Prejudice and my love was instantaneous and thorough (I am a Darcy girl myself). I’ve never looked back.
Persuasion is Austen’s last complete novel and was published after her death. I found it to be one of her more serious novels, having an older and more mature protagonist (at the age of seven and twenty) with a boatload of heartache. (There are a lot of sailors in this book, so that was really funny if I do say so myself.) The novel follows Anne Elliot, our good and warm-hearted heroine, daughter of the vain and neglectful Sir Walter and sister of the equally vain, cold, and selfish Elizabeth (she is not doing great in the way of supportive family members, her own dear mother having passed away many years earlier). Despite these circumstances, Anne is the ideal lady, always looking to see how she can be of service, lending an ear or a hand, knowledgeable of her duty, agreeable, well-learned, and eloquent. However, she is plagued by heartbreak, having previously broken off an engagement with the man she loved when she was nineteen, the young and confident sailor Frederick Wentworth, who at the time was penniless but sure of his coming wealth and success. Her good friend and maternal guardian in the stead of her deceased mother Lady Russell, hoping for more of a match for her beloved Anne, persuades her to break off the engagement, leaving Anne forever heartbroken. All the while, she refuses any other man and embraces spinisterhood. Eight years later, Anne meets this man again, now Captain Wentworth with 20,000 pounds to his name and an esteemed naval rank to boot. From there, the drawing room antics and anxieties we know so well take off in rare form!
alittlejstillz 