Review of Jane Austen's Persuasion

Jane Austen's Persuasion depicts a young woman's struggles with love, friendship and family. Anne Elliot who is pretty, intelligent and amiable, had some years before been engaged to a young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but had been persuaded by her trusted friend Lady Russell to break off the engagement, because of his lack of fortune and a misunderstanding of his easy nature. The breach had brought great unhappiness to Anne. Pre-Victorian England offers a romantic and whimsical backdrop for the characters.

When the story opens Anne is twenty seven, and the bloom of her youth is gone. She is the daughter of Sir Walter Elliot, a spendthrift baronet and widower, with a swollen sense of social importance and personal elegance. His eldest daughter, Elizabeth, haughty and unmarried, is now twenty-nine. Captain Wentworth, who has had a successful career and is now prosperous, is thrown again into Anne's society by the letting of Kellynch (her family estate) to his sister and brother-in-law.

Jane Austen, Watercolour and pencil portrait by he...

English: Back View of Jane Austen, Watercolor

Jane Austen lived here, in Chawton, during her fin...

Throughout the years Anne has remained unshaken in her love for Wentworth. Thus Austen creates a emotional fairy tale which keeps you dreaming and makes you believe that true love never dies.

Austen presents her strongest feminist character in this novel. The roles of hero and heroin are reversed and men and woman are presented as moral equals. It is interesting that the most explicit feminist protests by Austen in her novels all have to do with literature. In Persuasion Anne Elliot debates Captain Harville on who loves longest, women or men:

Captain Harville:

'I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. ... But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.'

Anne Elliot:

'Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please,