“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me that I am not too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever.”
Frederick Wentworth
Persuasion has been my favorite Jane Austen novel for years. Unlike the bubbly youthfulness of her other works, Persuasion follows the life of Anne Elliot, a spinster at 27, who has lost the bloom of youth and has no expectations for marriage. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded to break her engagement to Frederick Wentworth because of his lack of money and stability. This situation gives a more melancholic air to
the novel.
Through Anne, the life of a spinster is shown as the bleak future that it was. Passed around to relatives’ households, Anne is seen as a burden rather than a family member to be cherished. Frederick returns to her circle of acquaintances leads to a sense of heartbreak for Anne. She must now watch him court Louisa and Henrietta, the 19 and 20-year old daughters of her sister Mary’s in-laws, the Musgroves.
Like other Austen novels, the beauty of Regency England is shown in full-force. From the boisterous community in the countryside to the off-season Cobb in Lyme and onward to the halls of Bath, England comes to life. The characters are just as varied and colorful as the settings. Anne’s travels bring her into circles with the snooty and haughty, the carefree and funloving, the mourning, the ill, and the conniving.
Overall, Jane Austen’s last novel is a bittersweet journey for Anne and Frederick. Reconciling the hurts of the past and finding a way back together, no matter how others may seek to persuade them otherwise.
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