Persuasion - Austen 's Canonical Final Words

Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is frequently described as a novel about reading—reading novels and reading people—while Pride and Prejudice is said to be a story about love, about two people overcoming their own pride and prejudices to realize their feelings for each other. If Pride and Prejudice is indeed about how two stubborn youth have misjudged each other, then why is it that this novel is so infrequently viewed to be connected to Austen’s original novel about misjudgment and reading one’s fellows, Northanger Abbey? As one of Austen’s first novels, Northanger Abbey is often viewed as a “prototype” to her later novels, but it is most often compared to Persuasion (Brown 50). However, if read discerningly, one can see in Pride and

From my point of view, Jane Austen should be seen as a ‘feminist’ writer. As she wrote in one of her novel Persuasion, she considers that ‘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’ (Anne Elliot, in Jane Austen’s Persuasion). Such feminist ideas are expressed in many of her literary works. In her another novel Northanger Abbey, there are various issues discussed, which include not only marriage, social criticism and Gothic, but also feminism as well. The essay is to discuss Jane Austen and her feminist thoughts by analyzing Northanger Abbey.

In Bath, Anne renews a schoolgirl friendship with Mrs. Smith, who is now a poor, crippled, helpless widow (Austen 101) that lives in the humble Westgate Buildings. At one point in the novel, Anne passes up spending time with her cousin of royalty, Lady Dalrymple, in order to honor a prior engagement with Mrs. Smith (Austen 103). While life has not been kind to Mrs. Smith, Anne observes that she is not bitter, but content:

    "Like all true literary classics, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is still capable of engaging us, both emotionally and intellectually" (Twayne back flap) through its characters and themes. This essay illustrates how Jane Austen uses the characterization of the major characters and irony to portray the theme of societal frailties and vices because of a flawed humanity. Austen writes about the appearance vs. the reality of the characters, the disinclination to believe other characters, the desire to judge others, and the tendency to take people on first impressions.

or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense

    In Persuasion Jane Austen tells the story of Anne, a young woman who suffers terrible losses yet does not let these losses embitter her.  But the death of her mother during Anne's youth and the loss of her true love in her early adulthood certainly leave their mark on Anne.   She survives with great strength of character, yet she withdraws from life.  But Anne does not withdraw alone; she takes her music with her.  Music has been called the language of the heart.  It has an enduring quality, and it can cross barriers and build bridges.  Music moves us.  Words, too, can cross barriers, build bridges, and touch our hearts; and like beautiful music, a good story is timeless.  In Persuasion, Austen

Austen has set out to save the rising art form of the novel. In this address to the reader she glorifies what a novel should be: the unrestrained expression of words conveying the wide range of raw human emotion. This veneration of the novel is necessary to the development of Catherine's fiction-loving character as it justifies the narrator's right to remain fond of this flawed heroine.

In the early 1800s Jane Austen wrote what would be her last novel, Persuasion. Persuasion is set during the “Georgian Society” which greatly affects the character's views and actions throughout the novel. Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth quickly fell in love when Anne was just nineteen years old, but because he wasn't wealthy enough, Anne was not given the permission by her father, Sir Walter, to marry him. Eight years after this incident, the roles have reversed; Sir Walter has lost all of his money and Frederick Wentworth is now known as Captain Wentworth. Throughout the novel, Anne tries to overcome struggles with social class in order to fulfill her longing of being with Captain Wentworth. Therese Anderson's statement about the

In Persuasion, the last of Jane Austen’s works, the readers are immediately intrigued by the autumnal tone of the piece, and the mellowness of the main character, Anne Elliot. Anne, a twenty-seven year old upper middle class woman, met and fell in love with Captain Frederick Wentworth at the age of nineteen. She was however, forced to break off the relationship at the time because Wentworth was deemed an unsuitable match. Eight years later, they meet again and by that time Captain Wentworth has made his fortune in the navy and has become an attractive catch. Anne was now uncertain about his feelings for her. Persuasion examines English society’s view of marriage and

Jane Austen impacted the world of literature in more ways than one. Museums located around the United Kingdom are dedicated to her works which many people still enjoy to this day. Audiences around the world continue to read the love stories she shared many years ago. She portrayed a sense of female strength and hefty feelings of true love in her writing. Austen’s wording and her particular writing style are recognizable among those who enjoy 18th century literature, her distinct approach to the realities of the time is one reason her fan base has grown over the years. Jane Austen pioneered romantic literature because she was among the first authors to write a happily ever after type story, and she used her work to portray this feeling

In this passage from Jane Austen’s novel, Persuasion, she highlights Anne’s distracted thoughts and emotions of distraught as she had overheard the conversation between Wentworth and Louisa. Through the literary devices of speech and point of view of the author, Austen illustrates Anne’s inner struggle of her past sentiments.

Pride and Prejudice (whose original title was First Impressions) was written in 1796-1797 when Jane Austen was 21 years old and first published in 1813. It tells us the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, who will overcome the pride and prejudice they feel towards each other to find mutual happiness. Persuasion was written between 1815 and 1816. The main character, Anne Elliot, has suffered unhappiness after taking her family’s and friend’s advice to reject a man she loves.

Through the use of literary devices, Pride and Prejudice reveals Jane Austen’s attitude towards the novel’s theme of true love through the actions of the suitors; the process of courtship in the 1800s articulates characterization, foreshadowing, and irony. The novel opens with the line, “it is a truth acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of wife,” (Austen 1) which foreshadows the conflict of finding a significant other . During the Victorian age, men and women courted others of the same education, wealth, and social status; it was considered uncommon for someone to marry beneath them or to marry for love. Jane Austen uses Elizabeth Bennett’s encounters with different characters of varying

In Jane Austen's last completed novel, Persuasion, England is one large family with two distinct branches, the navy and the aristocratic upper class-it is no accident that the two large books consulted in the novel are the Baronetage and the Naval Lists. The naval family poses a threat to the aristocratic family; in fact, undertones of social instability riddle the text, through imagery of death, illness, and accident. The marriages of Anne Elliott, Louisa Musgrove, and Harriet Musgrove reveal a gentry which can only redeem itself through intermarriage with the professional meritocratic class, symbolically taking on their values of utility and social responsibility, and

Jane Austen only ever had six completed novels the last to be published being Persuasion (1818), all of which were based around the realist and novel of manners genre. Persuasion which falls into both these categories follows the tale of Anne Elliott, a character based upon the Cinderella archetype. Romanticism and novels of manners still to this day serves the same purpose, it provides the reader with a window in which to peer into someone else's life, some may have seen their reflections, especially the landed gentry of the day, who were of course Austen's subject matter, for the poorer classes, who were able to read or even afford a book, it revealed what was going on behind those close doors. Persuasion is unique amongst Austen's