Persuasion by Jane Austen

VINTAGE READING GROUP:

STARTING POINTS FOR YOUR DISCUSSION

1. ‘Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot’s character; vanity of person and of situation.’ Eccentric, vain and amusing; Sir Walter is certainly one of these memorable characters. How does Austen employ characters, such as Sir Walter, to highlight elements of superficiality within the aristocracy?

2. ‘…she fell on the pavement of the Lower Cobb, was taken up lifeless!’ The excursion to Lyme is certainly a dramatic one. How does this event relate to the rest of the book in terms of the ‘youth versus experience’ conflict? Can you think of any other specific moments?

3. Typically of Austen, marriage is indisputably a, if not the, key theme of the novel. The reader is presented with several different marriages with varying success. In the world of Austen’s Persuasion , what do you feel construes a successful marriage?

4. ‘…as being the means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction.’ –The rising meritocracy, specifically in relation to the Navy, is another key tension throughout the novel. How does Austen illustrate this conflict? Which characters do you feel emblemise the two sects?

5. An appreciation of the value of money, but an avoidance of one’s obsession with it, is the way to survive in Austen’s world. How far do you agree with this statement?

6. ‘A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not.’ Captain Wentworth’s love for Anne seems lost forever. How does Austen subtly develop his desire for her to the reader as the novel progresses?

7. Do you think that Austen’s world, or parts of it, is still applicable in this day and age?

ABOUT THE BOOK Jane Austen’s Persuasion is certainly a unique work when contrasted with the rest of her wide and celebrated canon. Although the thematic of romantic-courtship and stifled love in the book are familiar to her other works, another factor played a part in the novel’s make-up. Despite being completed in 1816, Austen’s Persuasion was not published until 1818 and regrettably therefore the year after her death. Arguably, this imminent demise of the author is what gave the book its memorable character of Anne Elliot who, unlike the rest of Austen’s previous female protagonists, is well past her youth. A story of seemingly lost love, finding the balance between one’s emotion and sensibility, and all set against the backdrop of Austen’s archetypal English setting from grand country estates to the cobbled streets of Bath.

‘She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning.’

The novel begins some eight years after Anne Elliot bowed to pressure from her family and made the decision not to marry the man she loved, Captain Wentworth. Now circumstances have conspired to bring him back into her social circle and Anne finds her old feelings for him reignited. However, when they meet again Wentworth behaves as if they are strangers and seems more interested in her friend Louisa. In this, her final novel, Jane Austen tells the story of a love that endures the tests of time and society with humour, insight and tenderness.

QUOTES ‘In Persuasion , Jane Austen picks up the pen to tell us who we are and what we want’ The Independent

‘Female self-worth could have been invented by Jane Austen . No wonder we still value her’ The Guardian

‘It is a sort of a private novel. In the heroine, Anne Elliot, we have glimpses of Austen and what happened to her; the lost romance and the lost youth’ The Sunday Express

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jane Austen was born in Steventon rectory on 16th December 1775. Austen’s family were very close to her and she spent the entirety of her life with them. They were financially comfortable and enjoyed a life of gentry as her father, George, not only worked as an Anglican rector but was also from a substantial family, as was her mother Cassandra. Austen also had a large immediate family with six brothers and one sister. These brothers and her father were largely responsible for Jane’s educations as she was initially home schooled until she left for boarding school in 1785. However, this foray into social education was short-lived as by December 1786 her family were forced to pull her out due to lack of finance. When she returned her brothers and father took up the mantle again, guiding her in her reading whilst supporting strongly her emerging writing prowess.

This writing prowess obviously took hold as it is argued that as early as 1787 Austen began writing for her family and her own personal reasons. These young stages contributed to her boisterous Juvenilia which involved a large degree of parody and satire. As Jane grew older, still living with her close supporting family, she continued to write and socialize amid the circles of the gentry. It was around this time Jane had begun writing Sense and Sensibility under various different guises as well as her novel First Impressions which, in 1797, would become the revered Pride and Prejudice .

Due to her father’s retirement, the family was then relocated to Bath which shook Austen to the core and essentially disabled her for a period as a writer due to her depressive state. She received a marriage proposal from Bigg-Wither which she accepted and subsequently withdrew her acceptance from the morning after citing she had no affection for the man and would rather endure without marriage. Austen’s father then died and the family was forced to move again to Chawton.

Finally, in Chawton, Austen was able to publish four novels: Sense and Sensibility (1811) , Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815). After the publication of Emma Austen began writing another novel under the working title of the The Elliots which of course was later published as Persuasion (1818) the year after she tragically died 18 th July 1817 at Winchester. As well as the aforementioned Persuasion, her siblings simultaneously published Northanger Abbey as a set of two. Initially sales were lucrative, but then fell to a sharp decline after a year and led to Austen’s work being out of print for nearly twelve years. Not until 1832 did her works receive a republishing and illustrated revamp. Since then her celebrated canon circling of the romantic gentry and memorable characters have been cherished by generation after generation.

OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

Novels Sense and Sensibility (1811) Pride and Prejudice (1813) Mansfield Park (1814) Emma (1815) Northanger Abbey (1818)

Short Fiction Lady Susan (1794, 1805)

Unfinished Fiction The Watsons (1804) Sanditon (1817)

Other Works Sir Charles Grandison (1793, 1800) Plan of a Novel (1815)