I get asked this question a lot: Which is your favorite Jane Austen novel? Anyone who knows me, knows I love Jane Austen novels, movies, memorabilia, so it is a fair question. For a long time it was a decidedly emphatic answer: Pride and Prejudice. But then I read Persuasion for my second time in November 2008 I decided that perhaps this, Jane Austen's last complete novel, was my favorite or at least co-favorite. There is something about this story that touched me on a personal level. Anne Elliot, the heroine, is overlooked and underappreciated by her family, she often feels invisible. This is a position I can relate to, though for different reasons than hers. I also could see the maturity of Jane Austen's writing in this book, something made more obvious this time through since I just finished reading Northanger Abbey, Austen's first novel.
In an interview on 'Austen and Feminism' with Marlene Longenecker the author asks if she thinks Persuasion is different from her earlier novels in terms of feminism. Longenecker replies,
I do think it is more feminist because the choice of a mature and reflective heroine gave Austen the chance to explore things earlier novels did not. Anne is of course the most self-aware and self-analytical of the all of Austen's heroines, and she controls the point of view almost exclusively... Austen is one the first to give a woman what Wordsworth called the "hard task" of analyzing the soul. (201)
It is hard to think of Austen being a feminist because her characters seem so traditional but much of her writing was groundbreaking.
For all the wonderful characters Austen created, like Anne Elliot, she also created some very irritating ones. Mary Musgrove, Anne's younger sister, wins the contest for being the biggest whiner in all the novels.
Mary Mosgrove wins as a whiner because she can't open her mouth without blaming someone. She is always convinced that everyone else has found the best seat, the best place at the table, the best sweetbread, the best of whatever is going; she therefore feels deprived at all times, writing to Anne, for instance, about how horrible it is to suffer dirty lanes at Uppercross while Anne is in Bath "with your nice pavements" (Jan Fergus interview, 206).
The worst father in all of the novels has to be Sir Walter Elliot. He is not only irresponsible with money and completely focused on class but is a narcissist of the first order. His house is full of mirrors, and he seems to only like people who reflect him, like his daughter Elizabeth. Anne does not, therefore she is not worth his regard. "Her word had no weight; her convenience was always to give way; -- she was only Anne" (208).
I get angry every time I think about the way Anne's family treated her.
In another interview, Jane Smiley remarks on the beauty of Austen's writing style. "It is very clear; it is sparkling and ironic." When Smiley reread all the novels she noticed Austen's evolution as a writer. In her earlier works her style is mainly indirect narration. In Emma it is more like a play. "We see scenes as they happen. People appear and they say things; then there's another scene and people appear and they say things." By the time Austen writes Persuasion she is almost in a stream-of-consciousness mode because she is much more in Anne's head (214).
Perhaps this is what I noticed when I claimed Persuasion as my Austen co-favorite novel. I noticed the maturity in writing style without recognizing what I noticed.
I probably cry more when reading this novel than any of the others. Because I know what Anne is thinking and feeling it breaks my heart for her. But all is not sad and serious, as Tony Hendra, the former editor of National Lampoon, notes, "I've always thought Jane Austen to be one of the funnier writers England has produced -- after P.G. Wodehouse and Oscar Wilde. She's beyond question the funniest woman writer who ever lit up that crepuscular isle" (213). He goes on to use an example from Persuasion. The scene is in Lyme after Louisa Musgrove sustains a bad fall and gets knocked unconscious. "The report of the accident had spread among the workmen and boatmen about the Cobb, and many were collected near them, to be useful if wanted, at any rate, to enjoy the sight of a dead young lady, nay, two dead young ladies, for it proved twice as fine as the first report."
I don't remember reading this quote on my way through the book but my impression of Austen's humor is it's often very sneaky -- there it is when you least expect it.
The last sentence of Persuasion is rather confusing and ambiguous. In the movies Anne and Captain Wentworth are hugging and kissing, a happily-ever-after-ending. This sentence implies that there is room for alarm, possibly even shortcomings in one or both of the partners: "She glorified in being a sailor's wife, but she must pay the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance." Funnily, Natalie Tyler points out, Austen poked fun in Northanger Abbey of conventional, tidy endings in novels, "and now, in her last novel, she seems to subvert the tidy ending by closing with a devilishly ambiguous sentence (217).
She still had surprises up her sleeve even in the sunset of her life.
Now I will turn my attention to Sanditon, Austen's incomplete novel. I've only read a version of it completed by "A Lady" and I want to read the original thirteen chapters penned by Austen before her death. That shouldn't be to difficult of a task, assuming I can find a copy.
All quotes from Persuasion are italicized. All other quotes come from The Friendly Jane Austen by Natalie Tyler (Penguin Books, 1999)
