COMIC, THEMATIC, AND MIMETIC IMPULSES
IN JANE AUSTEN’S PERSUASION

A Disserfaflon
Ion Hm Degree OI DI]. D.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
George Graeber

1977

 

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COMIC, THEMATIC, AND MIMETIC IMPULSES
IN JANE AUSTEN'S PERSUASION

 

presented by

GEORGE GRAEBER

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Ph 0 D 0 degree in English

 

 

 

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ABSTRACT

COMIC, THEMATIC, AND MIMETIC IMPULSES
IN JANE AUSTEN'S PERSUASION

 

By

George Graeber

Any attempt to interpret a Jane Austen novel must take into
account its thematic, mimetic, and structural impulses because it
is claimed that her contribution to the development of the genre is
her integration of these impulses, which earlier writers had devel-
oped separately. A methodology for studying her novels in this way
is suggested by the perspectival approach which synthesizes the
insights achieved from a variety of critical points of view. Berg
suasion is an ideal novel to study from the perspectival point of
view because of its fully developed comic structure, its clearly
articulated themes, and its rich mimetic characterization.

Anne Elliot's progress from the unloved daughter of Sir
Walter to the wife of Captain Wentworth parallels what Northrop
Frye identifies as the archetypal structure of comedy. The mythic
content of rituals which celebrate the renewal of life in spring is

echoed not only in the structure of Persuasion but in the autumnal

 

and vernal imagery of the novel. Sir Walter's preposterous vanity,
Louisa Musgrove's nearly fatal accident on the Cobb, William

Elliot's role as father-surrogate/false suitor, and the "fortuitous

George Graeber

circumstances" which make possible the triumphant resolution of the
conflict.all partake of a logic inherent in the nature of comedy.

In addition to presenting typically comic social themes,
Jane Austen sets up in Persuasion a moral dilemma concerning the
propriety of Anne's having yielded to Lady Russell's persuasion to
break her first engagement to Captain Wentworth. Because the narra-
tor does not comment on the issue, the reader must rely on other
rhetorical devices to determine the norms against which Anne's deci-
sion must be judged. These rhetorical devices, which together con—
stitute what Wayne Booth calls the implied author of a work, suggest
that Anne herself articulates the norms of the novel. At the moment
of Anne's comic triumph, Wentworth admits that he had misjudged her,
Lady Russell admits that her advice had been wrong, and Anne insists
that she had beenright all along. Anne's long period of suffering
for her adherence to her rigid sense of duty must finally be seen as
an ordeal which qualifies her for a role of moral authority in the
emerging society.

When we view Anne as a mimetic character we discover that
her self-image, emotions, and defensive reactions correspond to those
described by psychologist Karen Horney as characteristic of the
strategy of perfectionism. Anne attempts to model herself on the
example of her dead mother, both because it was from her that Anne
received the only unconditional affection and support she ever
received and because her mother's devotion to high principles and
right conduct had seemed to insulate her from the abuses of Sir

Walter's narcissism. The pride the perfectionist places in behaving

George Graeber

in accordance with principles of right conduct accounts for Anne's
susceptibility to Lady Russell's persuasion to break her engagement.
This pride is her solace through the eight years of estrangement
from Wentworth, and it explains why Anne solicits his acknowledgment
that she had been right to yield to Lady Russell's persuasion.

From the perspectival point of view, Persuasion seems less
well integrated but more powerful as mimesis. The expectation of
causal plot development generated by the realistic characterization
clashes with expectations generated by the comic structure, which
relies on coincidence to effect the desirable conclusion. Further-
more, the thematic interpretation offered by the novel seems inade-
quate to the mimetic portrayal of Anne's compulsive defensive

reactions. Although this interpretation of Persuasion requires that

 

we reject the traditional notion that Jane Austen synthesizes sepa-
rately developed conventions of the novel, it also demonstrates that

the genuine achievement of her novels is their mimetic portraiture.

COMIC, THEMATIC, AND MIMETIC IMPULSES
IN JANE AUSTEN'S PERSUASION

By

George Graeber

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1977

G>lobqqs

for Susan

her love, patience and optimism
inspire more dedication
than I can write on a page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Over the long period of composition of this study, I have
incurred many debts. I wish to thank the members of my committee,
Professors James Hill and John A. Yunck of the Department of English,
Michigan State University. Professor Howard P. Anderson has read
this paper in all its drafts; his suggestions have always been sen-
sitive and supportive. I am grateful, also, to the MSU College of
Arts and Letters for a summer fellowship which helped finance the
initial research for this project. My friend James F. Mullet pro-
vided me access to office machines which eased the drudgery and
financial burden of preparing the various drafts this study has
undergone. Finally, I gratefully acknowledge the contribution of
Professor Bernard J. Paris, my dissertation director. Readers of
this study will recognize my debt to Professor Paris's critical
methods, but no footnote could begin to suggest what I owe to his
inspiring teaching, his patient suggestions for revision, and his

sincere encouragement.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Chapter
I. THE ARCHETYPAL STRUCTURE OF PERSUASION . . . . . 9

The Mythos of Spring . . . . . . . . . . . ll
The Main Plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The Sub-Plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
The Comic Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 52

II. COMIC THEMES AND MORAL ISSUES IN PERSUASION . . . . 60
Social Judgments as Comic Themes . . . . . . . 60

The Moral Impulse . . . . . . . . . . . . ‘ 81

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . '. . . 103

III. THE MIMETIC CHARACTERIZATION OF ANNE ELLIOT . . . . llO

Mimesis in the Novel . . . . . . . . . llO
The Psychology of Karen Horney. . . . . . . . ll8
"She Has Only Anne“ . . . . . . . . . . 136
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

IV. SYNTHESIS: "THE NATURAL SEQUEL. OF
UNNATURAL BEGINNING" . . . . . . . . . 186

The Ironic Narrator and the Implied Author . . . l86
Conflicts and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . 200
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

iv

INTRODUCTION

One attempt to characterize the achievement of Jane Austen
rests on the premise that her novels successfully harmonize conven-
tions in the novel which earlier writers had developed separately.
The foremost proponent of this view is Ian Watt. In his The Rise of
the Novel,]Watt credits Samuel Richardson with developing in his
novels the technique of portraying characters by means of a minute
detailing of the particulars of an individual's life. Watt calls
this technique "realism of presentation," and he notes that its
premise is the premise of modern philosophical realism: that "truth
can be discovered by the individual through his senses" (Watt,

p. 12). The "truth" sought after is truth to human experience:
Formal realism, in fact, is the narrative embodiment of a
premise that Defoe and Richardson accepted very literally,
but which is implicit in the novel form in general: the
premise, or primary convention, that the novel is a full
and authentic report of human experience, and is therefore
under an obligation to satisfy its reader with such details
of the story as the individuality of the actors concerned,
the particulars of the times and places of their actions,
details which are presented through a more largely referen-
tial use of language than is common in other literary forms
(Watt, p. 32).

The strengths of realism of presentation are the strengths
of its premise: attention to particularizing detail helps to achieve
a sense of truth by allowing the reader to participate in the human
experience of another individual. What is achieved is phenomeno-

logical truth. Watt discusses also another kind of realism crucial

to the development of the novel: realism of assessment. It is
Fielding rather than Richardson among early English novelists who
exemplifies realism of assessment for Watt. As the term suggests,
realism of assessment focuses upon the wit and wisdom of the author
--his artistic skills in the service of his moral intentions--rather
than upon the authenticity of the characters:

Fielding brought to the genre something that is ultimately

even more important than narrative technique-~a responsible

wisdom about human affairs which plays upon the deeds and

the characters of his novels. . . . at the end of 19m_

Jones we feel we have been exposed, not merely to an inter-

esting narrative about imaginary persons, but to a stimu-

lating wealth of suggestion and challenge on almost every

topic of human interest. Not only so: the stimulation has

come from a mind with a true grasp of human reality, never

deceived or deceiving about himself, his characters or the

human lot in general. . . . his work serves as a perpetual

reminder that . . . the new genre . . . had to find a way

of conveying not only a convincing impression but a wise

assessment of life . . . (Watt, p. 288).

Fielding did not manage both realism of presentation and
realism of assessment, according to Watt, but Jane Austen did. It
is difficult to ascertain just how what Watt means by realiSm of
assessment differs from what most other critics mean by the moral
vision of a novel. In fact, Watt's dichotomy between realism of
assessment and realism of presentation parallels Erich Auerbach's
famous dichotomy between the classical-moralistic and the
problematic-existential impulses in Western literature.2 It would
seem that the adequacy of the realism of assessment of a work is to
be judged by the truth of the moral vision which informs the novel
or which the novel is intended to illustrate. Watt's expectation

of wisdom from a realistic novelist is in essence an expectation

that the reader will be able to acquiesce to what the novelist makes
of the characters and events he portrays.

Watt claims that Jane Austen successfully reconciled realism
of presentation and realism of assessment:

Jane Austen's novels, in short, must be seen as the most
successful solutions of the two general narrative problems
for which Richardson and Fielding had provided only par-
tial answers. She was able to combine into a harmonious
unity-the advantages both of realism of presentation and
realism of assessment, of the internal and of the external
approaches to character (Watt, p. 297).

In addition to the traditional elements of character and
theme accounted for by Watt, a third element must also be considered
in any discussion of fiction. The impulse to structure the events
recorded in a novel, to give them form, constitutes an important
factor in the equation which comprises the totality of any particular
work. This is especially true in Jane Austen's novels in that they
are comedies, because comedy is largely a matter of structure.
Structure in general, and comic structure in particular, carries
with it traditions and conventions which must be fulfilled for the
reader to experience satisfaction. These genre—based expectations,
however, may conflict with other expectations generated by a work,
expectations generated, for instance, by the novel's thematic or
mimetic impulses. A novel's success depends upon the author's hav-
ing harmonized or reconciled the competing conventions and expecta-

tions generated by the various impulses in the work.

Jane Austen's Persuasion is a particularly suitable work by

 

means of which to explore how structure, theme, and characterization

work together in a novel. It is suitable because it has a fully

developed comic structure, clearly articulated themes, and a rich
mimetic characterization of its heroine, Anne Elliot. Various

studies have attempted to interpret Persuasion in terms of some one

 

of its impulses, but no single study has yet tried to examine Jane
Austen's efforts to integrate structure, theme, and character in that
work.3 Article-length discussions could never fully accommodate all
of the implications of each impulse or incorporate the perceptions

of critics of this novel. And, since each of the separate impulses
requires a different critical approach, the methodology for such a
study has seemed problematic.

A methodology for exploring how Persuasion attempts to inte-
grate the conventions inherent in its structure, themes, and charac-
terization is suggested by Avrom Fleishman's study of Mansfield Park.
Fleishman attempts to reconcile different critical approaches to
that novel by synthesizing the insights achieved by each of them

"4

into "an approximation of a total reading. The diversity of

impulses in any particular novel (not to mention the sheer volume of
criticism directed at the works of important authors) demands
extended discussion and, more importantly, what Fleishman calls a
perspectival view. The novel, he says,

is organic to the degree to which its multitudinousness

creates the illusion of a living world; the escape of many

fictional details from any critical net cast to hold them

can substantiate an impression of life's heterogeneity.

If the novel is by nature various, our point of view on it

must follow suit.

Fleishman's "perspectival" approach to the study of Mansfield

Park is adaptable to the study of Persuasion. I propose that a valid

interpretation of Persuasion can be approximated only by examining

 

in depth the conventions and reader expectations generated by the
three dominant impulses in the novel: the comic, the thematic, and
the mimetic. The conventions and expectations inherent in the comic

nature of Persuasion are best understood by comparing the novel to

 

the archetypal structure of the comic myth9§_as identified primarily
in the work of Northrop Frye. Such a study reveals complicated and,
perhaps, unsuspected coherence among the scene descriptions, the
characters, and the structure of events in the work.

Many of Persuasion's themes emerge from its comic nature;

 

but, in addition, the novel has a quite separate moral impulse.
Using Wayne Booth's conception of the implied author, it is possible
not only to investigate the moral vision that informs this novel but
to understand how Jane Austen communicates it. The advantage of
using the concept of the implied author to elucidate the moral

impulse of a novel like Persuasion is that it obviates the practice

 

of utilizing biographical and historical data and of attempting to
find consistencies and relationships between its themes and the
themes of Jane Austen's other novels. The themes thus derived are
entirely a product of the novel under scrutiny.

While the understanding of the moral dimensions of Persua;
sign_advanced in this study is not radically different from that
achieved in other studies, the conception of character proposed here
represents something of a departure from more traditional interpre-
tations. Anne Elliot is best understood in terms of the patterns of

behavior and thought identified by the American Third Force

6 Once

psychologist Karen Horney as the strategy of perfectionism.
it is perceived that Anne's typical actions and responses correspond
closely to those Horney describes as perfectionistic, it can also be
seen how these behaviors were developed as a defense against the
pathogenic environment at Kellynch. The question of whether Anne's‘
development in the novel represents a genuine personality change or
merely a new manifestation of a personality structure which she
possesses all along is ultimately a psychological rather than a
thematic question. The analysis presented here focuses on Anne in
terms appropriate to her mimetic characterization: because she
achieves for the reader something like the identity of an actual
person, she can be studied and analyzed in the way in which actual
people are studied and analyzed.

It is when one attempts to synthesize the perceptions
achieved through separate analysis of the various elements of Per;
suasion that one becomes aware of the stresses among these impulses.
Each impulse arrives complete with its own set of conventions and
generating its own expectations, and this leads to tensions and
incongruities not easily resolved. For instance, the emphasis on
desirability inherent in comedy frequently results in plots which
are resolved by means of fortunate coincidences and unlikely changes
in character. There is nothing about these sudden turns of event
which violates the spirit of comedy, but they are contrary to expec-
tations of plausible plot development which are produced by the
mimetic characterization. The stresses which become apparent in

Persuasion are almost always between the conventions and expectations

 

associated with the mimetic characterization and those associated
with either the comic or the thematic elements of the work. In
essence, the mimetic characterization subverts the other elements in
the novel by accentuating both the artificiality of the comic struc-
ture as a vehicle for the characterization and the inadequacy of the
moral vision which the characterization is intended to illustrate.
Watt to the contrary notwithstanding, Jane Austen's novel embodies
powerful and unreconciled tensions, not a harmony among its elements.

It is not necessary to debunk Persuasion or its critics.

 

Its successes are remarkable, its critics perceptive. The perspec-
tival approach, however, helps us both to reconcile conflicting

critical responses to Persuasion and to see more clearly the nature

 

of its strengths and weaknesses. From the perspectival point of
view the novel seems less well integrated but more powerful as

mimesis.

NOTES: INTRODUCTION

1Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Rich-
ardson and Fielding (London: Chatto and Windus, 1957): my edition
is the University of California paperback (Berkeley, 1967). All
references to Watt are to this latter source and will be cited in my
text thus: (Watt, p. 12).

2Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in
Western Literature (Berne: Francke, 1946); English edition trans.
by Willard R. Trask (Princeton University Press, 1955).

3Because I deal extensively in my text and notes with the
pertinent articles and books concerned with Persuasion, I forgo in
my introduction the customary review of criticism.

4Avrom Fleishman, A Reading of Mansfield Park: An Essay in
Critical Synthesis, Minnesota Monographs in the Humanities 2 (Minne—
apolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1967), p. 4.

 

 

 

 

5Fleishman, p. 5.

6The technique of analyzing realistic characters in terms of
Horneyan psychology was developed by Bernard J. Paris. See espe-
cially his A Psychological Approach to Fiction: Studies in
Thackeray, Stendahl, George Eliot, Dostoevsky, and Conrad (Blooming-
ton: Indiana University Press, 1974). Paris also uses Horneyan
psychology to analyze the implied authors of realistic novels, a
strategy I adopt in Chapter IV of this study.

CHAPTER I

THE ARCHETYPAL STRUCTURE OF PERSUASION

 

Most attempts to study the comic impulse in Jane Austen's
works have been explorations of what she finds funny in society, or
of how she creates humorous characters, or of how she establishes a
comic mood. These studies are valuable contributions to the under-
standing of Jane Austen's adaptations of certain comic conventions,
and they often help to illuminate characteristics of her style.1
Such studies seem congruent with L. J. Potts' pronOuncement that
comedy is distinguishable by its philosophy:

I shall treat it as a literary form. But since it is dis-
tinguished from most of the literary forms by its philoso-
phy rather than its structure, I shall call it a mode of
thought; by which I mean that its character depends on the
attitude of the writer to life.

Without entering into a debate with Potts, it is perhaps
fair to observe that the writer's attitude to life manifests itself
in literature by the way in which he structures the events of his

3 It is thus by the identification of the structure of an indi-

work.
vidual work with the analogous structures in other works that we
classify them as belonging to the same genre. The most commonplace
observation, that comedy moves from unhappiness to happiness and
usually ends with a wedding, or that tragedy ends sadly and usually

with the death of the hero, implies a recognition of structural

principles.

10

It is not for the purpose of classification that a considera-
tion of the structure of a Jane Austen novel is valuable. It is
rather that, once one recognizes the comic structure in Persuasion,
one is able to account for many other features of that work which
are likewise attributable to its comic impulse. To identify the
comic impulse requires a comprehensive theory of comedy, one which
satisfactorily accounts for as many elements in a comic work as pos-
sible. To put it in other terms, one requires a genre description
which identifies as fully as possible the elements of a work which

are attributable to its comic impulse.

4 Northrop Frye's

There is no shortage of theories of comedy.
study (if the archetypal basis of comedy has several advantages
over other theories: (1) his study is capable of subsuming the
observations made by other theoreticians; (2) his explanation begins
with a recognition of the structural principles underlying comedy;
and (3) most importantly, Frye's account of the characteristics of
comedy includes more specific correspondences with Persuasion than
do other theories with which I am familiar. In brief, I use Frye
because Frye works.5

In this chapter I shall summarize the premises of Frye's
theory of archetypal criticism and the features of his discussion of
comedy which are appropriate to my analysis of Persuasion. I shall
investigate the ways in which Frye's observations illuminate fer;

suasion, especially its narrative structure, the details of its con-

clusion, and its imagery. Finally, I shall discuss what I consider

11

to be the limitations of archetypal criticism for accounting com-

pletely for all facets of the novel.6

The Mythos of Spring
From the point of view of archetypal criticism, narrative is

studied as

ritual or imitation of human action as a whole, and not
simply as mimesisgpraxeos or imitation of an_action. In
archetypal criticism the significant content is the con-
flict of desire and reality which has for its basis the
work of the dream.

 

Myth makes communicable the structure inherent in ritual which is,
by itself, pre-verbal and therefore incommunicable. Ritual, then,
is the inherent structure of myth. Rituals themselves can be under-
stood as the attempt to celebrate or to recognize the dependence of
man upon the cyclical processes of nature, a fact made clear by the
attachment of ritual to significant points of all natural cycles:
"Every crucial periodicity of experience: dawn, sunset, the phases
of the moon, seed-time and harvest, the equinoxes and the solstices,
birth, initiation, marriage, and death, get rituals attached to
them" (Frye, p. 105).

Myth is the literary form in which ritual structure is
isolated, that is, it is the literary form in which the narrative
structure is wholly determined by the ritual which the myth makes
communicable. The world of myth is apocalyptic or demonic, a world
in which action is the expression of human desire or its opposite
without regard for plausibility; and it is a "world of total meta-

phor, in which everything is potentially identical with everything

12

else, as though it were all inside a single infinite body" (Frye,
p. 136).

Literary forms other than myth exist between the pure white
of apocalyptic myth and the pure black of demonic myth. The hues of
these forms are determined by the degree to which they are influ-
enced by the impulse of plausibility. All of these forms are struc-
tured by the identical ritual design that structures myth, but in
realistic literature these structural principles are displaced away
from the mythical and toward the human. Where plausibility becomes
a factor, total metaphorical identification is displaced toward ana-
logical or coincidental identification.

Frye recognizes three structures of imagery intermediate to
the dialectical poles of undisplaced myth. The structure which "pre-
sents a human counterpart of the apocalyptic world . o . we may call

the analogy of innocence" (Frye, po 151). The corresponding human

 

counterpart of the demonic world Frye calls the analogy of experi-'
egge, Between these two structures is the analogy of nature and
regsgg, The action in the analogical structures consists of the
movement from one structure to or toward another; in the structures
of myth the action stays within the world in which it originates.
Thus, the total structure of the analogical modes is cyclical; the
poles between which the analogical modes revolve are the static
structures of archetypal and demonic myth. This cyclical movement
corresponds to the natural cycle of the seasons, and the narratives

typical of any phase of that cycle will have a structure

 

 

 

l3

paralleling the rituals and myths of the corresponding phase of the
natural cycle.

"There are thus four main types of mythical movement:
within romance, within experience, down and up" (Frye, p. 162). The
movement from romance to experience is tragic; the movement from
experience to romance is comic; the movement within romance Frye
calls romance; and the movement within experience, he identifies as
irony or satire. Tragedy, comedy, romance, and irony or satire con-
stitute the "four pregeneric elements of literature which I shall
call mythgi_or generic plots" (Frye, p. 162). Romance is the myth9§_
of summer; tragedy is the myth9§_of fall; irony and satire together
constitute the myth9§_of winter; and comedy is the myth9§_of spring.

In the cycle of the seasons, spring is the rebirth of nature,
a rebirth from its death-like state in winter. In myths associated
with rituals of spring (the myth of Proserpine is typical), the cen-
tral being is reborn or returns from some exile or is restored to a
lover to the accompaniment of festival and images of fertility and
fruitfulness. Typically, there is a sense that the desirable state
of affairs that emerges at the end of such myths is not merely a
triumph of the desirable over the undesirable, but a reclamation of
authority from the powers or beings who have usurped it from its
rightful possessors.

Comedy is a displaced version of such myths, structured by
the same rituals which structure the myths. Although the fact that

the triumph of the desirable characters represents a re-emergence

14

of a former golden age is not usually dramatized in comedy, it is an
element understood by the audience. Frye summarizes the usual action
of comedy in this way:

What normally happens is that a young man wants a young
woman, that his desire is resisted by some opposition,
usually paternal, and that near the end of the play some
twist in the plot enables the hero to have his will. In
this simple pattern there are several complex elements.

In the first place, the movement of comedy is usually a
movement from one kind of society to another. At the
beginning of the play the obstructing characters are in
charge of the play's society, and the audience recognizes
that they are usurpers. At the end of the play the device
in the plot that brings hero and heroine together causes a
new society to crystallize around the hero, and the moment
when crystallization occurs is the point of resolution in
the action, anagnorisis or cognitio.

The appearance of this new society is frequently sig-
nalized by some kind of party or festive ritual, which
either appears at the end of the play or is assumed to
take place immediately afterward. Weddings are most com-
mon . . . (Frye, p. 163).

 

The movement of comedy, thus, is from the parental society,
usually characterized by "folly, obsession, forgetfulness, 'pride
and prejudice,'" (Frye, p. 171) to the younger society of the hero
which is freer, perhaps revolutionary, and which is recognized as
embodying some moral norm with which the audience is in sympathy.
The action of comedy is determined by the obstacles which the usurp-
ing society places in the way of the hero's attempts to become
united with the heroine, and the resolution of that action which
unites the pair is often triggered by an event or discovery which
causes the dissolution of the blocking society and the formation of
a new society around the hero.

The fact that a comedy will often end with a wedding or a

feast points to its correspondence with rituals of spring, weddings

15

being the most obvious of fertility rituals. The dissolution of the
blocking society also corresponds to ritual, namely,the scapegoat
ritual. Wylie Sypher (following F. M. Cornford) has called atten-
tion to the presence of both of these ritual elements in comedy, the
sacrifice and the feast. Sypher maintains that the ritual from
which comedy derives celebrates the "double occasion" of the killing

8 While there

of the old king and the resurrection of the new king.
is an element of the scapegoat ritual in the dissolution of the
blocking society in which some irreconcilable character is expelled,
the mood at the end of comedy is festive, and usually most of the
blocking characters are in the end converted to or tolerated in the
new society rather than expelled from it.

Rather than suffering the actual expulsion that ritual would
assign to them, the blocking characters are made the subjects of
ridicule in comedy. Provoking laughter is one of the ways in which
comic characters heighten the comic mood, which is not only appro-
priate to the festive occasion of comedy but is also necessary to
keep the audience from taking "a serious action seriously."9 Taken
seriously the predicaments in which the comic hero finds himself
could be viewed by a sympathetic audience only with concern, thus
upsetting the comic balance. But the audience is not ever really
concerned because the characters who oppose the hero are less wicked
than absurd; and if the audience knows it is watchingaicomedy, it
never doubts that the hero will prevail.

The principle which makes the blocking characters ridiculous

is their state of what Frye calls "ritual bondage" (Frye, p. 168).

16

The blocking character is dominated by an obsession which charac-
terizes not only him but the society he represents. Repeated often
enough, this obsession becomes laughable, and it makes his society
laughable, as well. Making the blocking forces ridiculous is one
way in which comedy allows the hero's society to triumph. A society
which is ridiculous is not a viable alternative to a society which

is free from obsession and undeserving of ridicule.

The characteristics of comic structure summarized to this
point are descriptive of the middle range of comedy. When it is
recalled that Frye positions comedy opposite tragedy and between
irony and satire on the one hand and romance on the other, it is to
be expected that some varieties of comedy partake of ironic ele-
ments, and others have characteristics associated with romance.
Frye recognizes six phases of comedy from the most ironic to the
most romantic. We can summarize these phases briefly, and then
devote more careful attention to the phase the characteristics of

which are most descriptive of Persuasion.

 

"The first or most ironic phase of comedy is the one in
which a humorous [blocking] society triumphs or remains undefeated”
(Frye, p. 177). In this sort of comedy, the blocking forces are
less absurd than sinister, a condition appropriate to the proximity
of this phase to irony and to the demonic archetype. Very often the
hero averts death or catastrophe only by some deus ex machina, and,
in fact, Frye observes that the action in ironic comedy often seems

to move toward some inevitable tragedy before the hero miraculously

l7

escapes or is rescued. He calls this moment of narrow escape (apolo-
getically) the "point of ritual death" (Frye, p. 179), and cites as
examples a hero's imprisonment or a heroine's nearly mortal illness.

In the next phase of comedy, the quixotic phase, the block-
ing society does not triumph, but neither does the hero. Instead,
the hero runs away from the dominant society or creates a new
society which is based upon obsession as surely as is the blocking
society.

The comic norm is that in which the hero's society triumphs
over the blocking society. The generalizations made about comedy
earlier are descriptive of this third phase of comedy. Frye
elaborates on the action of comedy in this phase noting that "like
the Christian Bible, [it] moves from law to liberty. In the law
there is an element of ritual bondage which is abolished, and an
element of habit or convention which is fulfilled" (Frye, p. 181).
The "law," of course, is a displaced version of necessity.

The characteristics of fourth phase comedy are descriptive
of Shakespearian comedy. They are also constitutive of an element

in Jane Austen's Persuasion, and as such will be treated more

 

thoroughly below. Suffice it to say here that in this phase an
increasing influence of the analogy of innocence, and a decreasing
influence of the analogy of experience is apparent. Frye calls this
phase romantic comedy.

More romantic still is the fifth phase in which the hero's
society is already established, but in which the sympathetic charac-

ters undergo a kind of metamorphosis into childlike innocence. The

l8

society "takes on an increasingly religious cast and seems to be
drawing away from human experience altogether" (Frye, p. 185).

Ghost stories and Gothic romances are typical of the sixth
phase of comedy. Here the social units are small; the realism appro-
priate to the more ironic phases is completely absent; the mood is
not humorous but pensive. If the phases of comedy are thought of
as corresponding to the life of an individual society, the most
ironic being a story of its infancy, and each succeeding phase being
like some stage in its maturation and growing independence, then
this last phase is the stage when the "comic society has run the
full course from infancy to death, and . . . myths closely connected
psychologically with a return to the womb are appropriate" (Frye,

p. 186).

The phases of comedy are differentiated by the degree of
influence which is exerted on them by the ironic and satiric ele-
ments at one extreme and the romantic at the other. In all comedy
the direction of movement is from the ironic toward the romantic, or,
in terms of the dialectical forms of myth, from the demonic toward
the apocalyptic, or, in terms of the analogous modes, from the
analogy of experience toward the analogy of innocence. That being
so, the resolution of the comic plot is determined not by necessity,
but by desirability, the apocalyptic being that version of meta-
phorical identity which is shaped by human desire. And since
desirability and not plausibility shapes the outcome of the comic
plot, we expect and find frequent manipulation of the events of

comedy. As Frye observes, "Unlikely conversions, miraculous

l9

transformations, and providential assistance are inseparable from
comedy" (Frye, p. 170).

The characteristic action of comedy described by Frye as
generally true of comedy and typical of third phase comedy is
descriptive of some of the action in Persuasion. It is his descrip-
tion of fourth phase comedy, romantic comedy, however, that corre-
sponds most recognizably with the events of Jane Austen's last com-
pleted novel. In this phase the comic plot is "assimilated to the
ritual theme of the triumph of life and love over the waste land."
"Thus, the action of the comedy begins in a world represented as a
normal world, moves into the green world, goes into a metamorphosis
there in which the comic resolution is achieved, and returns to the
normal world" (Frye, p. 182). It is the presence of this metamor-
phosis in a green world and the symbolism of the victory of summer
over winter associated with the green world which distinguishes
this phase most clearly from the more realistic third phase.

A ritual frequently associated with the green world is
that of "carrying out Death," in which the triumph of summer over
winter is enacted in the ritualized death of some figure in the
green world. Another convention associated with the theme of
rebirth inherent in the green world motif is that of the death and
revival of some feminine figure, or her disappearance and return,
although this feature is sometimes displaced to the extent that her
"disappearance" is into male clothing. The disappearing figure is

usually, but not always, a woman.

20

One other feature of fourth phase comedy is appropriate to

Persuasion, namely the fact that the action in this phase often

 

takes place "on two social planes, of which one is preferred and
consequently idealized" (Frye, p. 182). What normally happens in
comedy is that the attention is focused on the blocking characters;
the emerging society is left undefined except in the most romantic
types of comedy in which it receives most of the attention and the
blocking characters are thinly drawn. In the romantic comedy of the
fourth phase both the blocking society and the hero's society exist
side-by-side and are defined with some specificity.

Frye points out that in the simple pattern of comedy in
which the lovers overcome obstacles and become united, complex ele-
ments of competing social orders are involved. The presence of

these two elements in Persuasion becomes clearer after the action

 

of the novel is analyzed in terms of its main plot and sub-plot. The
main plot consists of the events in the lives of Anne Elliot and Cap-
tain Frederick Wentworth which culminate in their reunion and mar-
riage. The sub-plot has to do with the parallel interests of Sir
Walter Elliot, Anne's father, and his heir William Elliot. The

theme of competing societies is inherent in the rival interests of

Sir Walter's society and the society of sailors.

The Main Plot
Comedy is ritually like the triumph of summer over winter,
and it therefore portrays the hero moving from a state contrary to

that which an audience might desire for him toward a state which is

21

deemed desirable by him and a sympathetic audience. But the total
mythos of comedy sees in the triumph of the hero a recollection of

a golden age in the past before the main action of the

play begins. Thus we have a stable harmonious order dis-

rupted by folly, obsession, forgetfulness, "pride and

prejudice," or events not fully understood by the charac-

ters themselves, and then restored (Frye, p. 171).
The existence of a golden age in the past which is re-established by
the triumph of the hero is an aspect of the mythos which comedy does
not ordinarily make very explicit. The audience is often aware of
an ideal state of affairs toward which the action of comedy tends.

In Persuasion the existence of a golden age in Anne's life

 

which has been lost by the time the main action begins is an impor-
tant element of the plot. That golden age was, of course, the brief
period of Anne's engagement to Wentworth some eight years before the

10

action of the novel begins. Anne was only nineteen at the time

and the engagement lasted only a few months, but for Anne it was a

1] Anne was persuaded (thus the

"period of exquisite felicity."
novel's title) by her friend and confidante, Lady Russell, and by
her father, Sir Walter Elliot, to break the engagement. Captain
Wentworth was without fortune and had no influence to assure him-
self of further advancement in the navy. To her status-conscious
family and friend this was enough for them to persuade Anne that the
engagement was "indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success, and
not deserving it" (27). Furthermore, Anne believed breaking the

engagement to be in Wentworth's interest, but he was "unconvinced

and unbending" (28), and felt himself ill-used by her.

22

Wentworth left the country in consequence of the broken
engagement, and when the novel begins Anne has not seen him for
eight years. From the "exquisite felicity" of the golden age of her
engagement Anne sinks into suffering and regret at its loss, a state
of mind which even eight years later is described as ”a sort of
desolate tranquility" (36). Wentworth's long absence and Anne's
desolation following the breaking of their engagement are ritually
like the withdrawal of vitality and fertility in nature during
winter. The analogy with the mythical stories of the disappearance
of some life-embodying personage (Proserpine, for instance) is clear.

In Persuasion the first phase and part of the second phase of the

 

ternary form of the comic mythg§_are constituted by events preceding
those dramatized in the novel. When the story begins, the eight-
year long winter of Anne's life is drawing to a close.

Much of that portion of Volume I which precedes the Lyme
chapters (i.e., Chapters xi and xii), when not concerned with the
interests of the sub-plot, delineates Anne's "desolate tranquility."
A microcosmic view of Anne's life since her broken engagement is
afforded at Uppercross where Anne ministers to her hypochondriac
sister Mary and her two boys. There Anne is always called upon to
play music at the little impromptu dances arranged by Mary's sisters-
in-law, Louisa and Henrietta Musgrove. The fact of Anne's never
having found a man to take Wentworth's place, her following of his
career by means of newspapers and navy lists, and her conviction
that, in similar circumstances, she would never have given the advice

Lady Russell gave to her because of the wretchedness she experienced

23

because of it, all bespeak Anne's continuing love for Wentworth and
regret at having lost him.

Wentworth returns to Kellynch as a guest of his sister and
her husband Admiral Croft, who are renting the Elliot home, the
owners of it having been unable to maintain it. Wentworth has given
the lie to Lady Russell's predictions for him by becoming rich, but
his arrival does not immediately result in a return of Anne's exqui-
site felicity. In fact, Anne's pain and regret are exacerbated by
his presence, and she soon must admit to herself that she still
loves him and recognize that he has not yet forgiven her.

Anne's state of desolation and wretchedness, and the pas-
sivity with which she conducts her life, contribute to the often
remarked upon autumnal quality of the first part of Persuasion. The
foremost factor contributing to the autumnal mood is the fact that
the action begins in autumn. The autumnal setting is appropriate to
the stage in Anne's life which has been described as one of desolate
traanility. The descriptions of the landscape associate Anne's
state of mind with the images of the dying year. For instance, at
the prospect of going to Bath with her father and older sister after
they quit Kellynch, Anne grieves "to forego all the influence so
sweet and so sad of the autumnal months in the country" (33).

A more extended description of the autumnal landscape, again
associated with Anne's mood, comes later, when on a November day
Anne walks from Uppercross to Winthrop in the company of Charles and

Mary Musgrove, Captain Wentworth, and Louisa and Henrietta. Of

24

course to be in the company of Captain Wentworth as the Musgrove
girls flirt with him is a source of pain_to her.
Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and
the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon
the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating
to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions
extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaust-
ible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness . . .
(84).

The noteworthy thing about these passages is not only the
correspondence between them and Anne's state of mind, but also how
appropriate the descriptions of the landscape are to the point in the
comic myth9§_at which they are found. These scenes occur near the
beginning of the novel, but in terms of the total comic myth9§_which
structures the events in the lives of the characters in the novel,
this is the middle action, the period following the loss of the
golden age of the past. Thus the landscape descriptions, Anne's
state of mind, and the stage in the comic mythg§_in which these are
found all contribute to and partake of the novel's autumnal mood.

The descriptions of Anne's physical appearance at this stage
in her life also correspond to the other autumnal qualities of Per:
suasion. The novel's first description of Anne is that she "had
been a very pretty girl, but her bloom had vanished early" (6).
Again, after summarizing the events of the first courtship of Anne
by Wentworth, and of Anne's breaking the engagement, the narrator
discloses that "her attachment and regret had, for a long time,

clouded every enjoyment of youth; and an early loss of bloom and

spirits had been their lasting effect" (28). When Anne is told by

Mary that Wentworth thought her "so altered he should not have known

 

25

you again," Anne can only admit to herself that "the years . . . had

destroyed her youth and bloom“ (61).

The obstacles in the way of the desired reunion between Anne
and Captain Wentworth are several. Whereas Anne has recognized that
she still loves Wentworth, he is not in love with her. He declares
to his sister that he is ready to marry, but the narrator announces
that "He had a heart for either of the Miss Musgroves, if they could
catch it; a heart, in short, for any pleasing young woman who came
in his way, excepting Anne Alliot" (61). His requirement that the
girl be one with a "strong mind, with sweetness of temper" is indica-
tive of his reason for excluding Anne. By the time the party of
young people departs for Lyme, he is already assumed to be courting
Louisa.

The short holiday to Lyme is proposed by Wentworth and under-
taken by him, Charles and Mary Musgrove, Louisa and Henrietta, and
Anne. They enjoy the scenery there and especially the hospitality of
Wentworth's friends, Captain and Mrs. Harville, and another sailor,
Captain James Benwick. Before leaving Lyme the sailors and the
visitors from Kellynch and Uppercross decide upon a last walk upon
the Cobb (a cobblestone pier). Emboldened by Wentworth's admiration
for her strong mind, Louisa insists that he help her jump down from
one level of the Cobb to another. In doing so, Louisa stumbles and
is nearly killed. The accident is the turning point of the action.
It provides Anne with the opportunity to display her resourcefulness,
and it causes Wentworth to re-examine his high regard for firmness

of character.

26

As a result of the accident, Wentworth must question the
basis upon which he has judged Anne, that is, upon the absolute
desirability of resoluteness of mind. That he might indeed begin to
change his mind on the subject occurs to Anne when, in the wake of
the accident, she muses perhaps somewhat gloatingly:

whether it ever occurred to him now, to question the just-
ness of his own previous Opinion as to the universal feli-
city and advantage of firmness of character; and whether
it might not strike him, that, like all other qualities of
the mind, it should have its proportions and limits. She
thought it could scarcely escape him to feel, that a per-
suadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of
happiness, as a very resolute character (116).

Anne and the reader must wait until the end of the novel
when Wentworth recapitulates the events at Lyme from his point of
view to have the satisfaction of knowing that such thoughts as these
.had indeed occurred to Wentworth at this time. Another event at
Lyme, however, shows that Wentworth is beginning to come around even
before the accident. While the party of young people is walking in
town, a young man (who is later discovered to be William Elliot,

Sir Walter's heir apparent) is attracted by Anne. In fact, the nar-

rator announces,

It was evident that the gentleman, (completely a gentleman
in manner) admired her exceedingly. Captain Wentworth
looked round at her instantly in a way which shewed his
noticing of it. He gave her a momentary glance,--a glance
of brightness, which seemed to say, "That man is struck
with you,--and even I, at this moment, see something like

Anne Elliot again" (104).

William Elliot's noticing of Anne calls attention to a trans-
formation that has taken place in her at Lyme. The sea air has

breathed back into Anne some of her lost youthful appearance:

27

She was looking remarkably well; her very regular, very
pretty features, having the bloom and freshness of youth
restored by the fine wind which had been blowing on her
complexion, and by the animation of eye which it had also
produced (104).
Later, back at Kellynch, Lady Russell notices Anne's revivified
appearance, too, a recognition which leads to Anne's "hoping that
she was to be blessed with a second spring of youth and beauty"
(124).

Just as the autumnal mood of the early chapters of the novel
is reflected in the landscape descriptions and in the accounts of
Anne's loss of youth and bloom, so is the return of her youthful
beauty accompanied by descriptions of the scenery around Lyme.
Instead of ”tawny leaves and withered hedges," the area around Lyme
offers images of growth and fertility. Among the views Anne admires
is the following:

--the woody varieties of the cheerful village of Up Lyme,
and, above all, Pinny, with its green chasms between
romantic rocks, where scattered forest trees and orchards
of luxuriant growth declare that many a generation must
have passed away since the first partial falling of the
cliff prepared the ground for such a state (95-96).

When all that is associated with Lyme is taken together, the
function of the Lyme chapters in the total comic mythos of Persuasion
can be understood. At Lyme Anne's relationship with Wentworth begins
to improve; at Lyme Anne's youthful bloom is restored; at Lyme the
autumnal imagery and mood of the earlier chapters give way to imagery
of growth and fertility. The scenes at Lyme Regis function precisely

in the way that Frye ascribed to the green world of fourth phase

comedy.

28

Frye says, in a passage already quoted, that the action of
fourth phase comedy "begins in a world represented as a normal world,
moves into the green world, goes into a metamorphosis there in which
the comic resolution is achieved, and returns to the normal world."
The description could serve as an outline for Volume I of Persuasion.
And if the Lyme scenes constitute a green world in the archetypal
structure of Jane Austen's comedy, Louisa's fall from the Cobb is
clearly a displaced version of the ritual of "carrying out Death."
Frye summarizes the ways in which Falstaff's function in The Merry
Wiye§_corresponds to that of a fertility spirit in rituals of the
defeat of winter. He is "thrown into the water, dressed up as a
witch and beaten out of a house with curses, and finally supplied
with a beast's head and singed with candles" (Frye, p. 183).

Louisa's fate is not so obviously ritualistic, but her nearly fatal
plunge from the Cobb, near the sea from which the hero returns, and
the breeze which restores the heroine's youthful bloom, in the
vicinity of Lyme which is described in images of growth and fer-

tility, points clearly to a ritual function.12

By the end of the scenes at Lyme, then, some of the obsta-
cles in the way of Anne's reunion with Wentworth have been removed.
He is no longer convinced of ”the universal felicity and advantage
of firmness of character," and he has displayed just enough jealousy
at William Elliot's noticing of Anne at Lyme to indicate a continu-
ing interest in and affection for her. Nonetheless, he is assumed
to have an understanding with Louisa, and Volume II requires further

twists in the plot before Anne and Wentworth are reunited.

29

A further complication in the way of the reunification arises
when it appears that Anne has attracted a new suitor in the person of
Captain Benwick. Anne and Benwick were often together at Lyme, with
many mutual interests. Not only do they both read, but he is, like
Anne, grieving because of the loss of one to whom he had been
betrothed. He had been engaged to Captain Harville's sister, Fanny,
who "had died the preceding summer, while he was at sea" (96). Ben-
wick's interest in Anne is further evidence of her revived attrac-
tiveness. His major function in the plot, however, is to become
engaged to Louisa, thus removing her as an obstacle in the way of the
eventual reunion of Anne and Wentworth. In the hints of an earlier
attraction between Benwick and Anne, the novel establishes Benwick
as a suitable consolation prize for Louisa. Anything less might have
impugned Wentworth's judgment and therefore his worthiness of Anne;
for although Wentworth insists that he was surprised to learn he was
supposed to be engaged to Louisa, by his actions at Uppercross and
at Lyme he encouraged such speculation. Neither Benwick nor Louisa
can be portrayed as entirely absurd characters if the judgments of
Anne and Wentworth are to be endorsed. Louisa and Benwick fell in
love over poetry, Anne surmises, without the least resentment over
Benwick's ficklenesso "He must love somebody" (167), she concludes.

In the meantime Anne seems to have attracted still another

13 The implications of Mr.

suitor in her cousin, William Elliot.
Elliot's pursuit of Anne are mor appropriately discussed later in
this chapter in the context of a consideration of the sub-plot.

Here it is important to note that by the time Wentworth arrives in

30

Bath immediately following the news of Louisa's engagement to Ben-
wick, it is already assumed that William Elliot and Anne have
reached an understanding.

What happens to Wentworth in Bath is a parallel set of
events to Anne's experiences in the novel. The central fact in this
double structure of events is the appearance of a false rival for
both characters. Wentworth was surprised to learn from Harville
that he is thought to be engaged to Louisa. Anne's belief in that
attachment further dampened her hopes that she and Wentworth might
ever find their way back to one another. Similarly, Anne is sur-
rised to learn from her friend Mrs. Smith of the assumption that she
will marry William Elliot. Wentworth's knowledge of this assumption
likewise makes him reluctant to make his renewed love for Anne known
to her. The reader experiences one set of misunderstandings and
disappointments from the inside (i.e., Anne's point of view) and the
other from the outside (i.e., Anne's view of Wentworth's misunder-
standings). It is not until Anne and Wentworth are finally rejoined
that all of the misunderstandings are unraveled by having Wentworth
retell the events of the main plot from his point of view.14

Anne is not unmindful of Wentworth's dilemma. From the time
she learns of Louisa's engagement to Benwick until Wentworth finally
confesses his love for her, Anne's activities are largely a series of
efforts to determine Wentworth's feelings for her, or to create
opportunities for him to know hers. She grows increasingly bold in
her maneuverings,15 the result of her rejuvenation at Lyme and her

knowledge that Wentworth is no longer attached to Louisa. The next

31

time they meet, at a concert, Anne draws out Wentworth on the sub-
ject of Louisa and Captain Benwick, and concludes from the conver-
sation that “He must love her" (186).

Finally, at a gathering of the Musgroves at the White Hart
Inn, Anne debates with Captain Harville on the relative constancy of

16 Anne remarks pointedly, "All the privilege I claim

men and women.
for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it)
is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone“
(235).
Anne, of course, is speaking of her own continued love for

Wentworth, and she is overcome by her own words. 50 is Wentworth
who has been writing at a desk nearby and has overheard the debate.17
As he leaves he thrusts a letter into Anne's hands, and Anne hastily
opens the letter and reads. The upshot of the letter is that Went-
worth has been moved by her words to Harville, that he loves her
still, and that he wishes for a sign from her if his suit is accept—
able. A short time later she meets Wentworth on the street and
gives the sign.

There they exchanged again those feelings and those promi-

ses which had once seemed to secure every thing, but which

had been followed by so many, many years of division and

estrangement. There they returned again into the past,

more exquisitely happy, perhaps, in their re-union, than

when it had been first projected; more tender, more tried,

more fixed in a knowledge of each other's character,

truth, and attachment; more equal to act, more justified

in acting (240-41).

In their returning "again into the past," Anne and Went-

worth's reunion recalls the first part of the ternary structure of

the comic mythos, the golden age which was lost when their first

 

32

engagement was broken. Now, however, their paradise is far more
felicitous, not only because they are older, wiser, and richer, but
because it is set off against their nearly having lost it. Appro-
priately, the comedy ends with marriage, not only Anne's to Went-
worth, but also Louisa's to Benwick, and Henrietta's to Charles
Hayter. The mood of the novel has moved from the autumnal quality
that prevailed at the beginning to the festive mood at the end. As
the plot moves toward the comic conclusion, the outcome depends
increasingly on coincidence, overheard conversations, and unlikely
interventions. All of these "fortuitous circumstances"18 are appro-
priate in a world that leaves necessity and plausibility behind and

moves toward marriages and reconciliations, a world shaped by human

desire.

The Sub-Plot
Frye observes that the form of comedy can be developed in
two different ways:

one is to throw the main emphasis on the blocking charac-
ters; the other is to throw it forward on the scenes of
discovery and reconciliation. One is the general tendency
of comic irony, satire, realism, and studies of manners;
the other is the tendency of the Shakespearean and other
types of romantic comedy (Frye, pp. 166-67).

Persuasion begins as if it were a traditional comedy of man-

 

ners. Until Jane Austen packs them off to Bath in Chapter v, Sir
Walter, Elizabeth, and later Mrs. Clay dominate the early action of
the novel. From the moment he is introduced, Sir Walter functions in

the role of the blocking character. He is not villainous but

33

absurd. Frye explains the source of the absurdity in blocking char;
acters by citing Jonson:

Ben Jonson explained this by his theory of the "humor,"

the character dominated by what Pope calls a ruling pas-

sion. The humor's dramatic function is to express a state

of what might be called ritual bondage. He is obsessed by

his humor, and his function in the play is to repeat his

obsession (Frye, p. 168).

Jane Austen does not leave the reader to infer Sir Walter's
humor: "Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's
character; vanity of person and vanity of situation" (4). Much of
the early action of the novel serves to illustrate the truth of this
generalization. It is the preposterous self-indulgence of Sir Walter
and Elizabeth which has gotten them so deeply into debt. Their utter
inability to separate their self-indulgence from their dignity
allows them to sacrifice residence at Kellynch rather than deny
themselves the luxuries which feed their sense of their own conse-
quence. Sir Walter's vanity is illustrated most clearly in his
estimate of the naval profession. The significance of his judgments
about the navy is not felt until later in the novel where so many
of the sympathetic characters are naval officers, but his statements
about the navy amply illustrate his peculiar prejudices:

"I have two strong grounds of objection to it. First, as
being the means of bringing persons of obscure birth into
undue distinction . . . , and secondly, as it cuts up a
man's youth and vigour most horribly; a sailor grows old
sooner than any other man; I have observed it all my life"
(19).

"Vanity of person and of situation." The two objects which
are consistently associated with Sir Walter are mirrors (vanity of

19

person) and the Baronetage (vanity of situation). Each of the

34

characters identifiable as a member of Sir Walter's society exhibits
this vanity in one way or another. Elizabeth has hardly any identity
except as an extension of Sir Walter. Mary Musgrove's ruling pas-
sion is hypochondria, certainly a variety of vanity. Even Lady
Russell shows more than a little vanity of situation: she was "gen-
erally speaking, rational and consistent--but she had prejudices on
the side of ancestry" (11).20

As Frye says, the action of comedy is determined by the
obstacles placed hithe way of the reunion of the hero and heroine by
the blocking characters. Lady Russell's original objection to Anne's
marriage to Wentworth, of course, was the crucial obstacle in Anne's
life. Sir Walter and Elizabeth continue to block Anne's development
and to insure her unhappiness because their snobbishness and insensi-
tivity exclude her from any comfort that might be derived from a
close feeling of family. Their failure even to include Anne in
their yearly trips to London prevents her from enlarging upon "the
small limits of the society around them" (28). A larger society
might have led to a "second attachment, the only thoroughly natural,
happy, and sufficient cure" for a broken heart, the narrator informs
us; but Sir Walter and Elizabeth are too bound up in their own con-
sequence to think of Anne.

As the consideration of the novel in terms of the character-
istics of Frye's fourth phase comedy makes clear, Persuasion is less
a comedy of manners than a romantic comedy. Typically in fourth
phase comedy the action is conducted on two social planes. The

action of the main plot reaches its turning point at Lyme, where all

35

of the characters are associated with the navy, and where the values
of the naval characters are affirmed by the novel. The action of the
sub-plot takes place against the background of the blocking society

2] The main interest of the

of Sir Walter at Kellynch and at Bath.
sub-plot is to see if Elizabeth will escape spinsterhood and whether
Sir Walter will marry, as well.

The form of the events of the sub-plot has a ternary struc-
ture which is the mirror image of the structure of events of the main
plot. The Elliots of Kellynch once enjoyed a golden age parallel to
Anne's period of exquisite felicity. The Baronetage provides some
of the details of Sir Walter's ancestors who had acquired distinction
for the family name, doing so by "serving the office of High Sheriff,
representing a borough in three successive parliaments, exertions of
loyalty, and dignity of baronet, in the first year of Charles
II" (4).

While Lady Elliot lived, some measure of that dignity
remained at Kellynch, but with her death the golden age of Kellynch
also died. The second phase of the ternary structure in the main
plot is the period of Anne's desolate tranquility; for the Elliots
of Kellynch the phase following the loss of the golden age is the
period in which Sir Walter's vanity, self-indulgence, and irrespon-
sibility culminate in his having to rent Kellynch in order to main-
tain himself and his daughter in some semblance of luxury. This
period is appropriately portrayed in the novel in correspondence
with the autumnal qualities which are associated with Anne's state

of mind preceding the Lyme chapters. Sir Walter is like the impotent

36

king of the wasteland society: his only son was still-born, thus
Kellynch will pass to William Elliot upon Sir Walter's death. The
world of Kellynch is static and sterile, a society in need of
rejuvenation or replacement by a younger, more vigorous hero of a
freer, more virile society. At the beginning of the novel Kellynch
is in a state which is ritually like that period in the contest
between summer and winter in which winter dominates. Of course,
such a judgment is made from the point of view of the naval society,
the values of which are affirmed by the novel. From their own point
of view the Kellynch characters are neither decadent nor sterile.
Anne's eight-year winter ended following the action at Lyme,
a green world which is the romantic counterpart of an archetypal
heaven. The blocking characters move not into a green world but to

22 In Bath, a winter watering place

its dialectic opposite: Bath.
(in contrast to Lyme, a summer resort), all of the follies and
absurdities of Sir Walter's society at Kellynch are magnified. Con-
tinuing in his ritual bondage, Sir Walter complains of the pre-
ponderance of plain women in Bath: "'once, as he stood in a shop in
Bond-street, he counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another,
without there being a tolerable face among them'" (141-42).

At Lyme a new set of characters is introduced: Went-
worth's brother-sailors, who embody the virtues which Anne admires,
and in whose presence Anne feels most poignantly her regret at the
life she forfeited when she broke the engagement: ”'These would

have been all my friends,’ was her thought; and she had to struggle

against a great tendency to lowness" (98). In Bath a quite

37

different set of characters is introduced. Anne finds her father
and sister in a great agitation to be in the company of their
cousins "the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple, and her daughter, the
Honourable Miss Carteret" (148), genuine Irish nobility. Even

Lady Russell and Mr. Elliot excuse and participate in the fawning
over the Elliots' noble cousins. Anne, of course, is vexed over the
behavior of her family and friend, being herself "'too proud to
enjoy a welcome which depends so entirely upon place'" (151).

From a world of winter following a decline from a golden age,
the novel traces Anne's life through a green world where her fortunes
begin to ascend, to her triumph in her marriage to Wentworth. The
descending fortunes of Sir Walter and Elizabeth are traced from a
world which, in terms of the values the novel affirms, is equally
fallen from a golden state, through a world which is the demonic
antithesis of the green world, to the defeat of all the schemes and
interests dear to the Kellynch society.

Not only are the main plot and the sub-plot inversions of
each other, but the characters in the main plot are seen to have
their opposite number in the sub-plot. Frye notes that "doubled
characters . . . [run] all through the history of comedy" (Frye,

p. 181). In Persuasion the characters of the main plot have ironic

 

doubles in the minor plot. Like Anne, Elizabeth had also been
attached to a man sometime in the past before the novel begins. In
this case, it was not the woman but the man who broke off the
acquaintance. Sir Walter had been promoting a match between his

eldest daughter and his cousin, William Elliot, heir presumptive of

38

Kellynch. Mr. Elliot, however, "Instead of pushing his fortune in
the line marked out for the heir of the house of Elliot, . . . had
purchased independence by uniting himself to a rich woman of
inferior birth" (8). William Elliot is the demonic counterpart of
Wentworth who also used his time following his break with a daughter
of Sir Walter to obtain wealth, albeit by somewhat more honorable
means.

Following the departure of William Elliot from the Kellynch
scene, Sir Walter and his connections learned that his heir had
spoken contemptuously of him and of the baronetcy itself. Conse-
quently, Mr. Elliot was much resented and never spoken of at Kellynch.
By the time Anne arrives in Bath following the scenes at Lyme, how-
ever, she finds Sir Walter and Mr. Elliot very much reconciled. Now
a widower, Mr. Elliot has set all to right by denying that he had
ever spoken disrespectfully of them, and by insisting that he had
married for love, not money. Mr. Elliot appears to be renewing his
courtship of Elizabeth, providing yet another parallel to the roman-
tic interest of the main plot. Of course, because we see the events
from Anne's point of view, we perceive Mr. Elliot as her suitor.
Elizabeth and Sir Walter remain oblivious to William Elliot's inter-
est in Anne; by them he is always viewed as Elizabeth's suitor.

In the main plot the reunion of Anne and Wentworth is for a
time delayed by Wentworth's attachment to Louisa, and Anne's inter-
est in Benwick. The complication is resolved offstage when Louisa
and Benwick become engaged to each other. A parallel complication

occurs in the sub-plot in the intrigue between William Elliot and

39

Mrs. Clay, but, of course, the resolution is much different. Mrs.
Clay had been assumed to be maneuvering herself into becoming the
wife of Sir Walter. Instead, she runs off to London to become the
mistress of William Elliot. In the main plot an offstage alliance
promotes the resolution which the characters deem desirable; in the
sub-plot an offstage alliance frustrates the marriage plans of Sir

23 The difference between the

Walter for his favorite daughter.
nature of the alliance which promotes the resolution of the main
plot and the alliance which frustrates a desirable resolution to the
sub-plot is itself a version of the apocalyptic-demonic tension
which exists between the idyllic society of sailors and the decadent
society of Kellynch and Bath.

The triumph of the sympathetic characters and the defeat of
the blocking characters is dramatized in the success and failure of
their respective efforts. Comedy involves more than this, however.
As Frye has pointed out, "the movement of comedy is usually a move-
ment from one society to another" (Frye, p. 163). In Persuasion,
this movement is seen in Anne's beginning as the daughter of Sir
Walter of Kellynch and ending as the wife of Captain Wentworth of
the navy. Anne's association with Wentworth and her identification
*with all the naval characters, in contrast with Sir Walter's objec-
tions to the navy, represent a triumph of Wentworth's society over
Sir Walter's. That the naval society replaces Sir Walter's society
as the dominant one is the clear implication at the end of the

24

novel. That event is foreshadowed by the replacement of Sir

Walter at Kellynch by Admiral Croft. When Anne visits the Crofts at

4O

Kellynch, "she could not but in conscience feel that they were gone
who deserved not to stay, and that Kellynch-hall had passed into
better hands than its owners'" (125).

Anne's marriage to Wentworth is not directly opposed by Sir
Walter, whatever his role may have been in breaking their original
engagement. The real force exerted by Sir Walter's society against
Anne's attachment to the naval society is embodied in William
Elliot's proposal to Anne that she become his wife. It has already
been noted that Mr. Elliot functions in the main plot as the false
suitor, a stock character in comedy. Frye notes of this character
that he is "generally someone who partakes of the father's closer
relation to established society: that is, a rival with less youth
and more money" (Frye, pp. 164-65). He concludes that this type of
character is a father-surrogate. Because Mr. Elliot is a father-
surrogate, his proposal to Anne is a proposal that she become the
next Lady Elliot, who, like her mother, Lady Elliot, would renew the
vitality and restore the dignity of Sir Walter's society. It is one
of the structural triumphs of the novel that Mr. Elliot's offer to
Anne to become the revitalizing force in the old society comes in
the very same chapter (Chapter viii of Volume II) in which she
realizes that Wentworth "must love her," and that she therefore is
likely to have the option to choose between suitors and between
societies. The main plot and the sub-plot, which to this point had
been developing along parallel but distinctly separate lines, inter-
sect in this event. As soon as it is clear that Anne has the

~ choice of becoming the wife either of Wentworth or of Mr. Elliot,

41

it is also clear that the resolutions of the main plot and the sub-
plot are interdependent.

The thought of becoming the next Lady Elliot is not without
its attractions for Anne. Lady Russell articulates the appeal the
idea has for Anne:

"I own that to be able to regard you as the future mis-
tress of Kellynch, the future Lady Elliot--to look forward
and see you occupying your dear mother's place, succeeding
to all her rights, and all her popularity, as well as to
all her virtues, would be the highest possible gratifica-
tion to me" (159-60).

Even Wentworth, in his retrospective summary of the events
of the novel from his point of view, must admit that when he came to
Bath and heard the rumors of Anne's attachment to Mr. Elliot he was
dismayed by "all the horrible eligibilities and proprieties of the
match!" (244). Although she toys only briefly with the idea of
becoming Lady Elliot, once Mrs. Smith discloses the damaging
information about Mr. Elliot's true character, Anne admits to her-
self that she might have yielded:

Anne could just acknowledge within herself such a pos-
sibility of having been induced to marry him, as made her
shudder at the idea of the misery which must have followed.

It was just possible that she might have been persuaded by
Lady Russell! (211)

That Anne does not yield, that she rejects the appeal to
revitalize the old order in favor of establishing a new order is the
substance of the triumph of the naval society over Sir Walter's
society.25 Anne's decision not to accept Mr. Elliot's offer does

not depend on Mrs. Smith's revelations about his true character.

In fact, she rejects him even before he makes his half-proposal, and

42

before Mrs. Smith tells her story. She will not marry him because
she loves Wentworth. Furthermore, she distrusts his motives for
renewing his relationship with Sir Walter, and she is suspicious of
a character which can please not only herself, but such diverse
personalities as Lady Russell and Mrs. Clay. Anne would have liked
him better had he displayed "any warm burst of feeling," and she
distrusted the sincerity of "those whose presence of mind never

varied, whose tongue never slipped" (161). There is also the matter

26

of his bad habits in his past--1ike Sunday-traveling. When Mr.

Elliot finally does utter his wish to Anne that her name "might
never change" (188), she is only vexed. She has by this time deter-
mined that Wentworth still loves her, and her interest is to let
him know of her feelings and to create opportunities to be near him.
Mrs. Smith's information plays no role in creating Anne's distrust
of Mr. Elliot. It merely confirms her suspicions.

The importance of Mrs. Smith's information about Mr° Elliot
is in the commentary it provides on the society and the characters
who are taken in by him. Frye observes of the false suitor/father-
surrogate chracters of comedy that they are "imposters, and the
extent to which they have real power implies some criticism of the
society that allows them their power" (Frye, p. 165). This is

indeed the case in Persuasion: the characters most enamored of

 

Mr. Elliot are Sir Walter, Elizabeth, of course Mrs. Clay, and Lady
Russell, the last of whom "could not imagine a man more exactly what

he ought to be than Mr. E11iot" (161).

43

Mrs. Smith's information reveals Mr. Elliot to be something
less than he ought to be. Anne's suspicion of his character and
his eagerness to re-establish a cordial relationship with his
cousins is borne out by the testimony of Mrs. Smith, who had once
been Anne's classmate and is now an impoverished widow. Mrs. Smith
shows Anne a letter from William Elliot (who had been associated
with her husband) in which he speaks insultingly of Sir Walter and
Elizabeth, and asserts that "'my first visit to Kellynch will be
with a surveyor, to tellrmahow to bring it with best advantage to
the hammer'" (203). As to the reason for renewing his association
with his family (he will inherit Kellynch and the baronetcy in any
case), Mrs. Smith also has an explanation. Now that he is rich he
has altered his opinion "'as to the value of a baronetcy'" (206).
The only event which could deny Mr. Elliot that title would be if
Sir Walter should yet produce a male heir. Having gotten wind of
Sir Walter's intimacy with Mrs. Clay, Mr. Elliot decided to prevent
their marrying in any way he could. Either by intimidating Mrs.
Clay orig/marrying Anne (presumably he had been ready to settle for
Elizabeth before meeting Anne) and including in the marriage articles
a provision that Sir Walter may not marry Mrs. Clay, Mr. Elliot
meant to insure his inheritance of Kellynch. After learning of
Anne's engagement to Wentworth, he succeeds in his endeavor by

establishing Mrs. Clay "under his protection in London" (250).

44

The Comic Conclusion

Sypher reminds us of the double occasion of comedy--the
festival and the sacrifice. Not only is there rejoicing at the tri-
umph of the hero and heroine, and renewal in their union, but there
is a contrapuntal mood of defeat of the blocking characters. The
scapegoat ritual of their sacrifice also contributes to the renewal
which comedy celebrates.

Having to confront the collapse of their plans and the
humiliation of recognizing themselves as the victims of the duplicity
of both Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Clay, Sir Walter and Elizabeth are
"shocked and mortified" (251). Lady Russell's coming to terms with
Anne's second engagement to Wentworth, and her recognition of Mr.
Elliot's true character represent an abandonment of the feudal values
of the blocking society by their most respectable proponent. She
must recognize that her "prejudices on the side of ancestry" and her
weakness for good manners (both versions of Sir Walter's vanity) are
inadequate standards, and the implication is that a society based on
such standards is not a viable one.

With all the guilt heaped upon her, Lady Russell becomes the
scapegoat of the piece, exonerating Anne from any blame, indicting
all the characters who opposed Anne's union with Wentworth, the
values behind that opposition, and the society based upon those
values. By the end of the novel, Lady Russell must "take up a new
set of opinions"; Sir Walter has been forced to vacate Kellynch for
a sailor and his wife; Elizabeth is not likely ever "to be certain

of being properly solicited by baronet-blood" (7), and Mary is

45

pretty effectively neutralized by her husband's society at
Uppercross.

There is also a suggestion of the scapegoat ritual in Mr.
Elliot's alliance with Mrs. Clay. The apparent triumph of Mr.
Elliot's plan to prevent Sir Walter from marrying is tempered by the
narrator's suggestion that Mrs. Clay's cunning may yet wheedle and
caress Mr. Elliot into making her the next Lady Elliot. His renewed
interest in the baronetcy, once he had obtained wealth through his
first marriage, was presumably based upon his conviction that the
title would give him dignity. Mrs. Smith suggests that "'Having
had as much money as he could spend, . . . he has been gradually
learning to pin his happiness upon the consequence he is heir to'"
(206-07). That Mrs. Clay, who from the beginning has been the butt
of the narrator's vilification, ridicule, and scorn, will share, and
that Sir Walter has shared in that "consequence” is surely an indi-
cation of the double-edged nature of Mr, Elliot's victory. The
defeat of the blocking characters and the novel's repudiation of
their society for the society and values of the naval characters
undermines any consequence Mr. Elliot seeks in his title.

Associated with the festive mood of the multiple marriages
at the end of comedy is a pervading mood of reconciliation. Frye
notes that the "tendency of comedy is to include as many people
as possible in its final society: the blocking characters are more
often reconciled or converted than simply repudiated" (Frye, p. 165).

In Persuasion, Lady Russell is the only one who is truly converted.

 

Her recognition of her own misjudgments of Captain Wentworth and

46

Mr. Elliot, and her having "to take up a new set of opinions and of
hopes," and the narrator's assurance that Lady Russell is still at
the end of the novel one of Anne's two friends, all indicate that
she is to be included in the new society.

Sir Walter is not converted to the new society, but he is in
some measure reconciled. His consciousness of Wentworth's twenty-
five thousand pounds and "superiority of appearance," "enabled Sir
Walter at last to prepare his pen with a very good grace for the
insertion of the marriage in the volume of honour" (248-49). Beyond
that consolation, and in the face of his later shock and mortifi-
cation at the discovery of Mrs. Clay's duplicity, Sir Walter has the
company of Viscountess Dalrymple and her daughter to flatter his
vanity.

Mary is pleased enough at the marriage, confident that her
own situation at Uppercross is superior to Anne's, "if they could
but keep Captain Wentworth from being made a baronet" (250). Eliza-
beth, besides sharing her father's mortification at being taken in
by Mrs. Clay, and in addition to facing the bleak prospect of spin-
sterhood, "did nothing worse than look cold and unconcerned" (248).
It is true of Anne's sisters as it is true of their father that
they are not so much converted as they are allowed to live on in the
illusions of their ritual bondages which have defined them from the
beginning, and which Anne has broken free of in her alliance with
the naval characters. They do not recognize, as Lady Russell recog-

nizes, that the events recorded in the novel constitute an indictment

47

against them, and that the society which is triumphant in the comic
conclusion dismisses them as irrelevant.

Mrs. Smith's timely information about the true character
of Mr. Elliot is duly rewarded by Wentworth's "putting her in the
way of recovering her husband's property in the West Indies" (251).
As Anne's only other friend besides Lady Russell, Mrs. Smith is
included in the triumphant society of Anne and Captain Wentworth, a
point made clear by the information that she was "their earliest
visitor in their settled life" (251).

In the triumph of the naval society and the defeat of the
society of Sir Walter, and in the marriage of Anne to Wentworth the
ternary structure of comedy is complete. The conclusion recalls and
improves upon the golden age of the exquisite felicity of the
couple's first engagement; the triumph of the naval society recalls
a golden age when power and social prestige were granted to Sir
Walter's ancestors as recognition of their service to society.27

Society renews itself by transferring power and status from those

who no longer serve to those who do.

The importance of viewing Persuasion from the perspective of

 

its archetypal structure is that in so doing many of the elements of
the novel are seen to have a coherence which is not otherwise
obvious. The autumnal mood which is so pervasive in the first half
of the novel is entirely appropriate to the second stage of the
ternary structure of comedy which defines the present at the opening

of the novel. As the heroine in need of rejuvenation, Anne partakes

 

 

 

48

of the autumnal mood, in her physical appearance as well as in her
mental state. The impotence of the characters of the dominant
society of Sir Walter, and their replacement by the lively sea char-
acters at Kellynch partake of a logic inherent in the association of
rituals of spring with the cycle of the seasons.

The emphasis on Wentworth's long absence and Anne's retreat
into passive life, the association of Lyme with fertility and
vitality, the ritual death of Louisa, and the marriages and the
atmosphere of qualified reconciliation which concludes the novel are
all seen to be not merely comic conventions, but conventions which
have their origin in the comic impulse to celebrate the triumph of
summer over winter, the impulse to celebrate life and to minimize
death. Because necessity, or fate, is a concept alien to the cele-
bration of desirability, even the arbitrary twists of the plot and
unlikely coincidences obtain legitimacy.

Persuasion is most obviously related to what Frye has iden-

 

tified as the third and fourth phases of comedy. Particularly in
the presence of a green world motif and in the presence of action

on two social planes does Persuasion partake of conventions that
Frye ascribes to fourth phase or romantic comedy. In its realistic
characterization and its emphasis on the bleakness of life for an
unmarried Anne, and in the inability of Mrs. Smith to act for her-
self to get possession of the property that is hers (and her conse-
quent poverty), the novel exhibits ironic elements associated with
phases of comedy closer to the demonic archetype. Anne's retrospec-

tive admission that she might indeed have been tempted or persuaded

49

to marry Mr. Elliot, an admission which "made her shudder at the
misery which must have followed," is an aspect of the story resem-
bling the narrow escapes characteristic of the most ironic first
phase comedies. Mr. Elliot's success in insuring his inheritance of
the baronetcy, and the consequent continuance of Sir Walter's soci-
ety through him are further ironic elements, even though that
society has been found absurd and even though it loses Anne. The
fact is that there are elements in Persuasion which are character-

istic of the full range of comedy, from the most ironic to the most

romantic.28

An understanding of the strength of the comic impulse in

Persuasion, then, provides a means of apprehending the structural

 

principles underlying the sequence of actions in the novel. But
there are other impulses at work as well. Although it is typical of
comedy that the values of a younger, more virile, more liberal soci-
ety are affirmed, the specific nature of those values is not inherent
in comic convention. Furthermore, whereas the comic structure
necessitates some stock character types, there is nothing about
comedy which requires realistic character development. In fact, the
comic impulse, with its goal of depicting the desirable, is in some
ways antithetical to a realistic impulse, which makes necessity the
structuring principle and grows out of an ironic as opposed to a
romantic point of view. Yet realistic characterization and an
affirmation of a specific value system are certainly present in the
novel. In the next two chapters the nature of those two impulses in

Persuasion will be considered in detail.

 

50

One value of analyzing exhaustively the comic conventions of
a work is that such a study accounts for the way in which the work
is capable of setting up a system of expectations in the reader. By
fulfilling, or by modifying and then fulfilling the reader's expecta-
tions, the work engenders aesthetic enjoyment in the reader in his
perception of patterns completed. The reader's expectations are
governed by his perception of the nature of the pattern under scru-
tiny; and his enjoyment of the work is governed by the fulfillment
of his expectations. To the degree that his expectations are not
fulfilled, or that he does not develop expectations, the reader will
conclude that he has made an incorrect guess about the pattern or
that the writer has set up (deliberately or ineptly) false pattern

signals.

In Persuasion, the reader recognizes such elements as the

 

humorous character of Sir Walter, the ternary structure of events,
the mood created by such characters as Admiral Croft and Mary Mus-
grove, and the quickening pace associated with the return of Went-
worth. Based upon his experience with similar sets of circumstances,
the reader concludes that Anne will get her man and that the charac—
ters in her way will be defeated. When these expectations are ful-
filled, the reader experiences pleasure at the rightness of the
conclusion (the ending being inherent in the beginning) and delight
in the manner in which his expectations are fulfilled.

Not all of the expectations the reader forms about Persga:
sjgg_are governed by his perception of the novel's comic form. If

critics are to be believed, readers are offended by the narrator's

51

reference to Mrs. Musgrove's "large fat sighings" over her dead

son. Some have objected to the deus ex machina of the introduction
of Mrs. Smith in order to assassinate the character of Mr. Elliot;
others have taken exception to Mrs. Clay's unlikely decision to
abandon her pursuit of Sir Walter to become the mistress of Mr.
Elliot. Unlikely twists in plot, coincidence, divine intervention,
and abuse of characters are the stuff of comedy, so the impatience
readers express with these developments in Persuasion is not based
on the violation of expectations developed by the perception of the
comic nature of the work. The unfulfilled expectations are those
developed from the perception of other impulses at work in the novel,
impulses which are to some extent in conflict with the novel's comic
impulse. It shall be the business of subsequent chapters to explore

those other impulses and the expectations they develop.

NOTES: CHAPTER I

1See for example Joseph Wiesenfarth, The Errand of Form: An
Assay of Jane Austen's A§£_(New York: Fordham University Press,
1967); Lloyd W. Brown, "The Comic Conclusion in Jane Austen's
Novels," PMLA 84 (1969): 1582-87; Earle Davis, "Jane Austen and the
Comic Flaw,Ii Kansas Quarterly 1 (1969): 23-34; William O. Binkley,
"Comic Self-Discovery in Jane Austen's Novels" (Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Wisconsin, 1961); Jean Eldred Pickering, "Comic Struc-
ture in the Novels of Jane Austen“ (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford,

1973).

2L[eonard] J[ames] Potts, Comedy (London: Hutchinson's Uni-
versity Library, 1949), p. 11.

3"The plot," says Lane Cooper in his adaptation of Aristotle's
remarks on tragedy to an "Aristotelian" theory of comedy, "is the
very soul of comedy." "The incidents of the action, and the struc-
tured ordering of these incidents, constitute the end and aim of
comedy." An Aristotelian Theory of Comedy (New York: Harcourt,
Brace and Company, 1922), p. 184.

4Two excellent anthologies of theories of and observations
about comedy are Robert W. Corrigan, ed., Comedy: Meaning and Form
(San Francisco: Chandler, 1965); and Paul Lauter, ed., The Theories
of Comedy, Anchor Books (Garden City, New Jersey: Doubleday, 1964).

 

5Joseph Wiesenfarth points to some of the correspondences
between the novel and Frye's account of the comic mythos in his
"Persuasion: History and Myth," The Wordsworth Circle 2 (Autumn,
1971): 160-68. Necessarily, some of my observations in this chapter
repeat those Wiesenfarth has already made. For the sake of expedi-
ence I have cited only those correspondences between his observations
and those in this chapter which seem to me uniquely his. Wiesen-
farth's use of Frye was to show that "history provides the realistic
context in which Jane Austen works out the myths of Persuasion"
(167). Some of his argument was deleted for publication due to lack
of space. My use of Frye is for a much different purpose, as will
become clear; and I am able to analyze in much greater detail in the
space of this chapter the full extent to which Persuasion partakes

of the mythos of spring.

 

6Anyone attempting an archetypal analysis of a Jane Austen
novel must be given pause by Douglas Bush's caustic spoof of such
activity in his "Mrs. Bennet and the Dark Gods: The Truth About

52

53

Jane Austen," Sewanee Review 64 (1956): 591-96. Hopefully this
chapter will justify itself against the implied objections to arche-
typal analysis in Bush's article. Nonetheless, I cannot be entirely
comfortable with the familiar ring of such mocking passages as the
following:

". . . hieroglyphics of pain and death, both mythic and

worldly are reinforced by the process of the seasons. The

book opens in early autumn, and in this season of harvest

and death there is a ritual dance, which, ominously, takes

place at Netherfield [which Bush previously has associated

with a nether or lower world], Bingley's house. It is dur-

ing the late autumn and winter that blows fall upon the

Bennets--Mr. Collins' unhappy visit, Bingley's departure

and abandoning of Jane Bennet and her heavy disappointment

and Elizabeth's sympathy for her. The worst blow, Lydia's

elopement with Wickham (note, by the way, the ancient view

of the shallow, sensual quality of Lydian music), does

occur in the summer, but it is this event which sets every-

thing in motion toward rebirth, or what is crudely called

a happy ending. Darcy--now a saving Hercules--rescues

Lydia and wins Elizabeth; Dionysus-Bingley returns and is

restored to Jane; and Mrs. Bennet, again a radiant Venus,

rises from the depths in a foam of rejoicing" (Bush, pp.

595-96).
Bush concludes with the wry prediction that "the subject of arche-
typal myth in Jane Austen needs a book, and will doubtless get one"
(Bush, p. 596).

 

7Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four ESsays (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1957). This citation is to the
Atheneum paperback edition (March 1970), p. 105. Hereafter all
citations will be to this edition and will be cited in the text
following the quotation thus: (Frye, p. 105). Most of my quotations
from Frye are from the third essay, "Archetypal Criticism: The
Theory of Myths," but a few of the preliminary remarks, such as the
present one, are from the second essay, "Ethical Criticism: Theory
of Symbols."

8Wylie Sypher, "The Meanings of Comedy," in Comedy, Doubleday
Anchor Books (Garden City, New Jersey: Doubleday & Company, 1956),
pp. 193-255. Sypher's essay is an appendix to an edition of Henri
Bergson's "Laughter" and George Meredith's "An Essay on Comedy,"
which edition also includes an introduction by Sypher. Sypher's
arguments are based primarily upon Francis M. Cornford's The Origin
of Attic Comedy (1914), but he also cites Frye's Essay "The Argument
of Comedy," published in 1948. Anatomy was published in 1957.
Sypher insists that both comedy and tragedy have their ori-
g1n 1n
"a prehistoric death-and-resurrection ceremonial, the rite
of killing the old year (the aged king) and bringing in the
new season (the resurrection or initiation of the adolescent

 

54

king). Associated with killing the old king and devour-

ing his sacrificial body was the ancient rite of purging

the tribe by expelling a scapegoat on whose head were

heaped the sins of the past year" (216).
Killing the old king saved the tribe from sterility, and expelling
the scapegoat (ritually the same thing) purged the tribe of its sins.

Following Cornford, Sypher suggests that tragic drama
descended from this ritual festival, but that it suppressed the
sexual and festive connotations, concentrating instead on the "por-
trayal of the suffering and death of the hero, king, or god."

"Comedy, however, kept in the foreground the erotic
action, together with the disorderly rejoicing at the
rebirth or resurrection of the god-hero who survives his
ago . In this sense comedy preserves the archaic 'double
occasion' of the plot formula, the dual and wholly incom-
patible meanings of sacrifice and feast, cruelty and fes-
tival, logic and license" (218).

We can accept Sypher's observation of the ritual "double
occasion" in comedy without agreeing that comedy is derived from some
historical ritual. "It does not matter two pins to the literary
critic whether such a ritual had any historical existence or not"
(Frye, p. 109). What Frye insists upon but Sypher neglects is that

"ritual is the content of dramatic action, not the source
or origin of it. The Golden Bough is, from the point of
view of literary criticism, an essay on the ritual content
of naive drama: that is, it reconstructs an archetypal
ritual from which the structural and generic principles
may be)1ogica11y, not chronologically, derived" (Frye,

p. 109 .

9The phrase is Henri Bergson's, from his essay "Laughter"

(1900), reprinted in Comedy, Wylie Sypher, ed. (ibid.. pp. 61-190),
153. Noting some characteristic differences between comedy and
"high-class drama," Bergson observes that comedy directs the atten-
tion of the audience to gestures instead of actions:

"to prevent our taking a serious action seriously, in

short, in order to prepare us for laughter, comedy uti-

lizes a method, the formula of which may be given as fol-

lows: instead of concentrating our attention on actions,

comedy directs it rather to gestures. By gestures we mean

here the attributes, the movements and even the language

by which a mental state expresses itself outwardly without

any aim or profit, from no other cause than a kind of

inner itching. Gesture, thus defined, is profoundly dif-

ferent from action. Action is intentional or, at any rate,

conscious; gesture slips out unawares, it is automatic"

(153; Bergson's emphasis).
Bergson's comic "gesture"is a version of what Frye calls "ritual
bondage" and what Bergson later identifies as the source of all
laughter: "something mechanical encrusted on the living" (84).

55

10The events of the earlier engagement are summarized by the
narrator in Chapter iv of the novel, which one early critic likened
to "an Euripidean prologue." See anonymous review article by
Richard Whately, "Northanger Abbey and Persuasion," Quarterly Review
24 (1821): 369.

HJane Austen, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, Vol. V of
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen, ed. by R. W. Chapman (3rd ed.;
London: Oxford University Press, 1933), p. 26. Hereafter citations
t: this(wo;k will be included in my text following the quotation
t us: 26 .

12Of course, in terms of the mythic archetype, Anne's loss
of vitality and bloom is the more significant instance ofzidisplaced
version of ritualistic death: it is her physical renewal which sig-
nals the renewal of society. Louisa's nearly fatal fall, however,
is a kind of substitute death, a scapegoat ritual in Persuasion.

13Anne is at one time or another in her life courted by
Wentworth, Elliot, Charles Musgrove (before he was Mary's husband),
and Captain Benwick.

14This doubling of the events of the plot is elaborated upon

by Alistair Duckworth:

"Wentworth's position in the second volume, it becomes
clear, repeats that of Anne in the first. In the first
volume, up to the trip to Lyme Anne was at a disadvantage,
since she was constrained to watch her former lover
flirting with Louisa before her eyes, as in the drawing
rooms at Uppercross (I, viii). In the second volume, how-
ever, it is Wentworth who must suffer seeing Anne and Mr.
Elliot in apparent league, as on the evening of the con-
cert in the Bath rooms (II, viii). Then again, at Upper-
cross it was Anne who overheard the conversation of
Wentworth and Louisa in the hedgerow, as (unaware of her
presence) Wentworth made his open avowals of affection to
Louisa (I, x). At Bath, however, it is Wentworth who
overhears Anne's impassioned defense of woman's constancy
to Captain Harville in the White Hart (II, xi)."

The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels
‘(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1971), p. 200.

15Henrietta Ten Harmsel sees these maneuverings of Anne's as
Jane Austen's "changing the characterization of her heroine from that
of passive acceptance to that of active participation, and by basing
her attitude throughout upon the delicate consciousness of a heart
made sensitive by an unchanging and painfully suppressed love, Jane
Austen skillfully transforms the conventional passive heroine into a
Inemorable and psychologically credible woman." Jane Austen: A Study
in Fictional Conventions (The Hague: Mouton, 1964), p. 173. In a

 

56

note, Ms. Ten Harmsel insists that this change is not an instance of
developing character, development of a Jane Austen heroine always
being a matter of overcoming moral weakness. This "change" is

based on Anne's consistent principle of not encouraging love unless
she thinks success possible.

16This scene between Anne and Harville is effusively admired
by many of Jane Austen's critics. Bishop Whately (see supra, note
10) thinks it exquisite. Richard Simpson is certain Jane Austen
had Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in mind while writing this scene,
and Viola in mind while creating Anne. See his unsigned review
article of J. E. Austen-Leigh's Memoir of Jane Austen (1870), North
British Review (April 1870): 129-52; reprinted in Jane Austen: The
Critical Heritage, ed. by B. C. Southam, Critical Heritage Series
(Eondon: Routledge and K. Paul; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1968),
pp. 241-65. Robert Liddell calls the scene "the most beautiful and
the most exciting love-scene in English fiction." The Novels of
Jane Austen (London: Longman's, 1963), p. 135.

17This overheard conversation is one of many in the novel.
An important one takes place in Volume I. On the walk from Upper-
cross to Winthrop, Anne overhears Wentworth lecture Louisa on the
value of a firm character, an idea very much responsible for Louisa's
fall from the Cobb. Mrs. Smith's knowledge of William Elliot comes
partly from conversations overheard by her nurse, Mrs. Rooke. Frye
observes that "overhearers of conversations or people with special
knowledge . . . are the commonest devices for bringing about the
comic discovery" (Frye, p. 166).

The scene which finally emboldens Wentworth to write his
confession of love for Anne and his proposal to her is that in which
Anne makes known her belief that women remain in love longer than do
men. In many respects the scene parallels that in which Anne
becomes convinced of Wentworth's love for her. In that earlier
scene at Lady Dalrymple's concert, Wentworth expresses his disap-
pointment in Benwick's recovering so quickly from the loss of Fanny
Harville: "'A man does not recover from such a devotion of the
heart to such a woman!--He ought not-~he does not'" (183). Nonethe-
less, Benwick has recovered, and Anne realizes that Wentworth is
speaking about himself, not Benwick, and that he therefore must love
her. In the latter scene at the White Hart, the subject is again
Benwick's hasty recovery from the death of his fiancee, only this
time the conversation is between Anne and Harville, but within
Wentworth's hearing. Whereas Wentworth had expressed his view that
men do not quickly relinquish deep attachment, now Anne professes
that women love longest "when existence or when h0pe is gone" (235).
Just as Anne had deduced that Wentworth had been projecting his own
feelings for her in the guise of a discussion of Benwick, Wentworth
now sees the applicability of Anne's sentiments about women in gen-
eral to her feelings for him. As a consequence he writes his letter:
a classic example of the overheard conversation bringing about comic
discovery and resolution.

 

 

 

 

57

18The phrase is Andrew H. Wright's. He claims that Anne's
"reconciliation with Captain Wentworth stems not from the resolution
of . . . opposites, but from a series of fortuitous circumstances
which makes the match possible after all." Jane Austen's Novels: A
Stugy in Structure (2nd ed.; New York: Oxford University Press,
1961), p. 161.

19Wiesenfarth takes note of the symbolic value of the book
and the mirrors when he calls attention to their disappearance after
Admiral Croft moves into Kellynch: "Happily, when Sir Walter moves
from his ancestral house, the symbols of rank and appearance, the
Baronetage and the looking glasses, disappear from Kellynch-hall"
(The Errand of Fonn, p. 148).

20Bergson identifies vanity as the perfect comic humor. His
requirements for "creating an ideally comic type of character,"
requirements which he says are met in vanity, are these:
"It must be deep-rooted, so as to supply comedy with inex-
haustible matter, and yet superficial, in order that it may
remain within the scope of comedy; invisible to its actual
owner, for the comic ever partakes of the unconscious, but
visible to everybody else, so that it may call forth gen-
eral laughter; extremely considerate to its own self, so
that it may be displayed without scruple, but troublesome
to others, so that they may repress it without pity, but
immediately repressible, so that our laughter may not have
been wasted; sure of reappearing under fresh aspects, so
that laughter may always find something to do; inseparable
from social life, although insufferable to society; capa-
ble--in order that it may assume the greatest imaginable
variety of forms--of being tacked to all the vices and
even to a good many virtues" (Bergson, p. 171).

21The different locations in Persuasion constitute an ever-
widening circle for Anne, a fact noted by Mary Lascelles: "the
story of Persuasion can be described not solely as the reconcili-
ation of Anne and Wentworth, but also as the bursting open, for
Anne, of the prison that Sir Walter and Elizabeth have made at
Kellynch--the expansion of her world." Jane Austen and her Art
(London: Oxford University Press, 1939), p. 181.

22Wiesenfarth says that "Bath is literally a 'fen of stag-
nant waters' belonging to a sick aristocracy." In a note to this
sentence Wiesenfarth writes: "Smollett had shown in 1752 that
Wordsworth's words ['fen of stagnant waters'] describing London were
literally true of Bath. See ffisIAn Assay on the External Use of
Water, ed. Claude E. Jones (Baltimore, 1935)." ("History and Myth,"
p. 165 and n. 20.)

58

23It is interesting to speculate upon the shape of the story
had Jane Austen carried out completely the symmetry of the main
plot and the sub-plot. Anne was once attached to a man, but the
. engagement was broken and the man disappeared. Anne's man returns,

but before the reunion, she seems to begin to form an attachment for
another (Benwick), and he seems to become attached to another woman
(Louisa). Elizabeth, like Anne, had had an earlier attachment, and
her man also returns, but he too becomes involved with another woman
(first Anne, then Mrs. Clay). Anne's dilemma is resolved when the
two false suitors marry each other (Benwick marries Louisa), thus
freeing Wentworth for Anne. Elizabeth's suitor marries Mrs. Clay,
who had been assumed to be attached to Sir Walter. A symmetrical
conclusion in the sub-plot paralleling that in the main plot would
require the two remaining unattached persons to marry each other,
i.e., that Elizabeth marry Sir Walter. The theme of incest and pos-
sible incest is frequent in comedy (e.g., Tom Jones), and although , .
there is no hint of it in Persuasion, Sir Walter and Elizabeth in 1 -e
the end have only each other, a fact which insures the continued
sterility of the Kellynch society.

Frye points out that "The possibilities of incestuous combi-
nations form one of the minor themes of comedy," where they are often
the demonic antithesis of the union of the hero and heroine.

"Oedipus and incest themes indicate that erotic attachments have in
their undisplaced or mythical origin a much greater versatility
[than in displaced forms]" (Frye, p. 181).

24Malcolm Bradbury extends the novel's judgment of the soci-
eties in Persuasion to Jane Austen's judgment of her own society.
He claims that the tension embodied in Anne is about "to put it at

 

 

its grandest, the question of who shall inherit England." "Persua-
sion Again," Essays in Criticism 18 (October 1968): 387-88.
25

Marvin Mudrick, like Bradbury and others, sees the charac-
ters in Persuasion as representative of competing classes in early
nineteenth century England. For him, the class conflict is the real
conflict of the novel:

"the conflict is between the feudal remnant, conscious of

its tradition, and the rising middle class, conscious of

its vitality, at the turn of the nineteenth century:

between Sir Walter and Mr. Elliot, between Lady Russell

and Wentworth, between Mary Musgrove and her husband; and

always at the center, mediating directly or as involved

onlooker, is Anne Elliot."
Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1952): 232. My citations are to the paperback
edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968); hereafter
they will be noted in my text thus: (Mudrick, p. 232).

59

26Mudrick finds the novel's and Anne's dismissal of Mr.
Elliot characteristic of Jane Austen:

"Jane Austen is not exasperated with Mr. Elliot: she sim-
ply cannot cope with his type, as she cannot cope with
Willoughby or Henry Crawford. Her plots require that all
these men be ultimately defined as rakes; but her genius
was either inadequate, or too blocked by moral taboos, to
develop events (and thoughts are the most signal events in
her novels) probable and vivid enough for the purpose"
(Mudrick, p. 221).

27Wiesenfarth puts it succinctly: "Sir Walter has lost
Kellynch because of his self-love and spendthrift indolence.
Admiral Croft has gained it because service to his country has
earned him a distinguished rank and made him a wealthy man. What
Sir Walter's ancestors once were to England, Admiral Croft now is"
("History and Myth," p. 163).

28Mudrick claims that while there are "comic scenes and
comic characters in Persuasion . . . its inner orbit and final
effect are not comic" (Mudrick, p. 239). The basis for this claim
is George Meredith's observation that the field of the comic poet
is "the operation of the social world upon [men's] characters." (Ag
Essay on Comedy and the Uses of the Comic_§pirit, New York, 1897,
79f. [Mudrick's note; see supra, my note 8].) Persuasion, Mudrick
insists, is more concerned with "the emotional resistance that men
put up against the perpetual encroachments of the social world"
(Mudrick, p. 239). Anne's triumph is a "lonely personal triumph"

Ibid. . '

A personal triumphiizcertainly is, but not a lonely one.
The conflict is not simply Anne vs. society, but one society vs.
another, as Mudrick himself observes. All of the naval characters,
Mrs. Smith, and the converted Lady Russell constitute a society
rejoicing and sharing in Anne's triumph. Frye's definition of
comedy, broader than Meredith's, reveals the novel's genuine comic
form.

CHAPTER II
COMIC THEMES AND MORAL ISSUES IN PERSUASION

Social Judgments as Comic Themes

Inherent in the comic nature of Persuasion are a number of
thematic elements which Jane Austen's novel shares with all comedy.
Frye, among others, notes that the ethical concern in comedy is less
often with moral than with social judgments. The resolution of
comedy which unites hero and heroine represents a triumph of one
social organization (the hero's society) over another (the blocking
society). Typically, the movement from the absurd society to the
desirable society is a movement ”from a society controlled by habit,
ritual bondage, arbitrary law and older characters to a society
controlled by youth and pragmatic freedom . . .” (Frye, p. 169).
Comedy affirms the values of the triumphant society, laughs at the
defeated society, and finds the transfer of authority from the latter
to the former a desirable event. Therein is the essence of the
social judgment inherent in the genre of comedy.

The preceding chapter was concerned to some extent with the
clash between the established society of Sir Walter and the emerging
society of sailors represented by Admiral Croft, Captain Harville,
and, of course, Captain Wentworth. The first part of this chapter
will consider in somewhat more detail the natures of these two soci-

eties and the qualities about them which entitle the one to success

60

61

and the other to ridicule. The last part of this chapter will
consider moral issues in the novel Ias they are perceived and
resolved by Anne herself. It will be shown that Anne's resolution
of these issues corresponds to the moral perspective of Jane Austen.

It has been noted that the sailors of Persuasion by virtue
of their service in the Napoleonic wars are to England what Sir
Walter's ancestors once were. The truth of this generalization is
illustrated in the characters who exist at the head of each of the
two groups, Sir Walter and Admiral Croft. As noted earlier, the
fact that the former vacates Kellynch-hall, the residence which is
symbolic of social prestige and authority, and that the latter takes
up residence there is a foreshadowing of the novel's judgment of the
two social groups those characters head. The opposition personified
in Sir Walter and Admiral Croft is repeated and modified in other
pairings of characters, for instance Lady Russell vs. Sophia Croft
and William Elliot vs. Captain Wentworth. Other characters, chiefly
the Musgroves, exist somewhere between Sir Walter's inherited dis-
tinction and Admiral Croft's earned distinction. Anne Elliot's is
the consciousness through which the rivalry of the two social sys-
tems is viewed, and their worthiness is to some degree measured by
the treatment she is afforded in each. Anne is also the prize
awarded to the triumphant naval society, a prize more significant
than Kellynch, which will someday pass to William Elliot.

Kellynch-hall is less an extension of Sir Walter's vanity
than a symbol of the dignity invested in the social position he

inherited. Early in the novel, when Anne and Lady Russell attempt

62

to formulate a plan for extracting Sir Walter from debt by having
him reduce his expenditures, Lady Russell is hopeful that he can be
persuaded that

Kellynch-hall has a respectability in itself, which cannot

be affected by these reductions; and that the true dignity

of Sir Walter Elliot will be very far from lessened, in

the eyes of sensible people, by his acting like a man of

principle (12).

Sir Walter, however, is unable to see that his residence at
Kellynch betokens dignity; he chooses to give up living in his
ancestral home rather than to stay there with every "'comfort oflife
knocked off! Journeys, London, servants, horses, table,--contrac-
tions and restrictions every where'" (13). It is Sir Walter's solici-
tor, Mr. Shepherd, who persuades him that the "character of hospi-
tality and ancient dignity" (13) of Kellynch requires him to abandon
Kellynch in order to maintain a style of living he considers con-
sistent with the resident of Kellynch-hall. For both Sir Walter and
Elizabeth, dignity is a matter of conspicuous consumption, and "they
were neither of them able to devise any means of lessening their
expenses without compromising their dignity" (10).

Lady Russell shares with Sir Walter his concern that dig-
nity be maintained, although for her dignity is enhanced less by
conspicuous consumption than by "acting like a man of principle."
Her plans for extracting him from debt attempt to balance what is
due to him as a gentleman against what is "due to the character of

an honest man" (12). But Lady Russell "had a value for rank and

consequence" (11) that Anne did not share. Anne "saw no dignity in

63

any thing short of" clearing away the claims of all her father's
creditors, and she thinks Lady Russell's proposals for his reduc-
tions "too gentle" (13). For Anne, the social position of her
family does not so much confer dignity as it requires duty.

She considered it as an act of indispensable duty to clear

away the claims of creditors, with all the expedition

which the most comprehensive retrenchments could secure,

and saw no dignity in any thing short of it. She wanted

it to be prescribed, and felt as a duty (12-13).

We are thus given a spectrum of views on what should be done
about the Elliots' indebtedness. Sir Walter and Elizabeth can
brook no curtailment whatever of their luxuries and comforts; Lady
Russell urges that they attempt to balance their style of living (to
which she agrees they are entitled by their rank) against action
that befits "the character of an honest man"; Anne thinks that true
dignity is achieved by fulfilling one's duty, and that duty dictates
that the claims of creditors be cleared at the expense of all of Sir
Walter's luxuries.

The point, of course, is not that the novel advocates paying
one's debts as opposed to living beyond one's means. Rather, the
point of this early juxtaposition of judgments is that it illus-
trates an aspect of the value system of Sir Walter's society. The
fundamental characteristic of that society is that it is one in which
the rituals and customs have become merely self-perpetuating,
divorced from any utilitarian function relevant to the operation of
society-at-large, and meaningful only in the limited way in which

the rules of a game are meaningful to those who have agreed to play

it. Thus, a display of wealth is a matter of dignity to Sir Walter

64

regardless of the fact that he attempts to display a wealth he does
not possess. His ancestors had been honored by society with position
and wealth because of the valuable contribution the family had made
to the functioning of that society. Displaying such position and
wealth may indeed have been a matter of dignity when the position
and wealth signified social contribution. Now it is only Anne who
insists upon a correlation between the family's duty and the symbols
conferred on it as a recognition of performance of duty; Sir Walter
and Elizabeth care only for symbols. The perfect image of the state
of Sir Walter's society is that presented in the first paragraphs
of the novel: Sir Walter contemplating his own consequence in the
Baronetage.
Sir Walter is merely inconvenienced by his financial straits.

The source of his dilemma is that he cannot afford to live as he
pleases. The source of the dilemma from Lady Russell's point of view
is that Sir Walter is unable both to live in his accustomed extrava-
gant style ggd_to act like a man of principle. The narrator tells
us early on that Lady Russell harbors “two leading principles" which
are in opposition:

She was of strict integrity herself, with a delicate sense

of honour; but she was as desirous of saving Sir Walter's

feelings, as solicitous for the credit of the family, as

aristocratic in her ideas of what was due to them, as any

body of sense and honesty could well be (11).
As "the widow of only a knight, she gave the dignity of a baronet
all its due" (11).2

The conflict between Lady Russell's two leading principles

is not resolvable. As long as she continues to embrace Sir Walter's

65

own conception of his rank, to conceive of it, that is, in terms of
what is due to him, her aristocratic ideas are irreconcilably at
odds with her feelings about what is "due to the character of an
honest man." Her "prejudices on the side of ancestry" put her in
Sir Walter's camp because they compromise her otherwise strict sense
of integrity.

Persuasion offers a second social group somewhat more

 

amenable to Anne's opinions and personality than the Kellynch group.
Sir Walter's youngest daughter, Mary, has married into a nearby
family of landed though untitled gentry. The warmth and affection
of the Musgroves for one another, their relative lack of rank-
consciousness, and their comparatively active and varied lives are
qualities which contrast pointedly with those seen at Kellynch, but
Uppercross falls short of the standards which would make it worthy
of Anne. And, as Anne is the embodiment of the novel's standards,
it is apparent that Uppercross does not qualify as the heroic society
of this comedy.

Mary brings all of the vanity, status-consciousness, and
false dignity of Kellynch to Uppercross. She complains to Anne
that her mother-in-law often failed "to give her the precedence that
was her due [as the daughter of Sir Walter], when they dined at the
Great House with other families" (46). For their part, the Musgroves
share Anne's unconcern for the privileges of rank. In a conversation
with Louisa and Henrietta, one of them observes to Anne:

"1 have no scruple of observing to ygg, how nonsensical

some persons are about their place, because, all the world
knows how easy and indifferent you are about it: but I

66

wish any body could give Mary a hint that it would be a

great deal better if she were not so very tenacious; espe-

cially, if she would not be always putting herself forward

to take place of mamma. Nobody doubts her right to have

precedence of mamma, but it would be more becoming in her

not to be always insisting on it. It is not that mamma

cares about it the least in the world, but I know it is

taken notice of by many persons" (46).
The Musgroves' relative unconcern for rank is displayed again in
their acceptance of Charles Hayter as a suitable match for Henrietta,
in contrast to Mary's objections to the proposed marriage.3

The Musgroves also differ from Sir Walter and Elizabeth in
their esteem for Anne. Whereas at Kellynch Anne's "word had no
weight," at Uppercross she is appealed to in disputes between Mary
and her husband, Mary and her mother-in-law, and Mary and her
sisters-in-law. Anne finds this particular recognition of her
judgment one of "the least agreeable circumstances of her residence
there" (44), but it is evidence of the esteem in which she is held,
and inasmuch as Lady Russell's consultation of Anne at Kellynch was
presented with approval, the reader is not inclined to be too dis-
approving of the same activity among the Uppercross characters.

The most striking difference between Kellynch and Uppercross
is less one of the opinions of the respective residents than of the
moods that attach to each place. To put it briefly, the mood of
exuberance, bustle, and even turmoil which is exhibited at Upper-
cross is in pointed and deliberate contrast to the mood of sterility
and indolence at Kellynch.

Mary, as the embodiment of Kellynch in residence at Upper-

cross, is first pictured in the novel lying on the sofa, exhausted by

67

the activity of her two children. It is a characteristic quite
consistent with the picture already provided of life at Kellynch.
Never in the first three chapters of the novel, which are concerned
exclusively with the characters of Kellynch, do we see any of them
engaged in any activity but conversation; the one exception is the
picture of Sir Walter contemplating the Baronetage. Kellynch is a
society grown stagnant by its attachment to meaningless symbols and
ceremony. It is a society which resents exertion. Sir Walter and
Elizabeth feel themselves "ill-used and unfortunate" (10) in their
financial difficulties, but the suggestions of Anne and Lady Russell
that they take action against their indebtedness are met with imme-
diate rejection. It is easier for them to flee to Bath than to
undertake more stringent measures.

Another instance of the disdain for action at Kellynch is
Sir Walter's dislike of the naval profession because it is a "means
of bringing persons of obscure birth'hru)undue distinction" (19);
it is precisely by their own exertion that men are able to raise
themselves, and Sir Walter resents it.

Anne, of course, does not share her family's resentment of
the need for exertion, as her plans for their retrenchment make
clear. Indeed, one of the reasons she now thinks she was ill-
advised to end her engagement to the then penniless Frederick Went-
worth is that such a decision seemed "to insult exertion" (30).

The contrast between the Kellynch indolence and Anne's own activity
is presented tellingly in the first scene at Uppercross. While

the hypochondriac Mary lies on the sofa, exhausted from the

68

activity of her two boys, Anne responds to her query about what she

can "'possibly have to do'":
"I have been making a duplicate of the catalogue of my
father's books and pictures. I have been several times in
the garden with Mackenzie, trying to understand, and make
him understand, which of Elizabeth's plants are for Lady
Russell. I have had all my own concerns to arrange--books
and music to divide, and all my trunks to repack, from not
having understood in time what was intended as to the wag-
gons. And one thing I have had to do, Mary, of a more
trying nature; going to almost every house in the parish,
as a sort of take-leave. I was told that they wished it"
(38-39).

With Anne's sentiments clearly on the side of activity
against indolence, and with the resentment of the need for exertion
one of the carefully delineated characteristics of the absurd
society, the bustle of Uppercross seems clearly intended as one of
its virtues.

The activity at Uppercross centers around Mary's sisters-
in-law, Henrietta and Louisa, "young ladies of nineteen and twenty,
who had brought from a school at Exeter all the usual stock of
accomplishments, and were now, like thousands of other young ladies,
living to be fashionable, happy, and merry" (40). Henrietta and
Louisa illustrate a characteristic of Uppercross about which Anne is
especially sensitive: their affection for one another. However
shallow Henrietta and Louisa's enjoyments appear to Anne, she can-
not observe their warmth and consideration for each other without
some regret.

Another of the more pointed contrasts between the Upper-
cross and Kellynch societies is the popularity of the Musgroves in

their neighborhood:

69

The neighbourhood was not large, but the Musgroves were

visited by every body, and had more dinner parties, and

more callers, more visitors by invitation and by chance,

€23? any other family. They were more completely popular
Their popularity seems an extension of their zest. This robustness
expresses itself in Charles Musgrove's love of hunting, and in the
long walks the girls seem to enjoy, such as the eventful walk from
Uppercross to Winthrop, with Anne and Wentworth in attendance.

The families at Uppercross, then, present many social char-
acteristics opposite to those found at Kellynch. The Musgroves dis-
dain rank consciousness, exhibit liveliness and exertion, maintain
some affection for one another, and hold Anne and the naval profes-
sion in high esteem. Uppercross would, on these grounds, seem to do
quite nicely for the heroic society with which comedy characteris-
tically supplants the absurd society.

The fact is that Anne had once had the opportunity to marry
into the Uppercross family. Before Charles married Mary he had first
proposed to Anne. Louisa tells Captain Wentworth on the walk to Win-
throp that the family would have preferred Anne, but that she
refused. The Musgroves assume, erroneously, that Lady Russell had
persuaded Anne against marrying Charles because he "'might not be
learned and bookish enough to please Lady Russell'" (89). In fact,
"Lady Russell had lamented her refusal" (28). The reason for Anne's
refusal was simply that Charles didn't measure up in her mind to the
standard of excellence she had found in Wentworth. When Anne visits

Uppercross, there is no discomfort on her part in the knowledge

that she could have occupied the social position now flaunted by her

70

younger sister: Charles was not possessed "of powers, or conversa-
tion, or grace, to make the past, as they were connected together,
at all a dangerous contemplation" (43).

Just as Anne is later presented with the opportunity to
repeat her mother's role as the stabilizing influence and the
possessor of values in the Kellynch society by marrying her cousin
and becoming Lady Elliot, she also has had the opportunity to act
the role of a stabilizing force and bringer of values in the Upper-
cross society. Anne and Lady Russell agree that Charles (and Upper-
cross) would have benefited by his marrying someone more like Anne
instead of Mary: "a more equal match might have greatly improved
him; . . . a woman of real understanding might have given more con-
sequence to his character, and more usefulness, rationality, and
elegance to his habits and pursuits" (43). But Anne rejected that
opportunity, too. She, of course, was not in love with Charles, but
the significant point is that he is not worthy of Anne. While his
character may have been improved by marriage to Anne, by himself, "he
did nothing with much zeal, but sport; and his time was otherwise
trifled away, without benefit of books, or anything else" (43). All
of the benefit of the marriage would have been his, except in the
fact that it would have insured social and financial security for
Anne. Charles's marriage to Mary, so much Anne's inferior, a year
after Anne's rejection of him demonstrates his lack of appreciation
of Anne's real value.

Like Charles, the rest of the Uppercross society, however

much of an improvement it represents over Kellynch, is unequal to

71

the qualities Anne embodies. The liveliness of Uppercross mani-
fests itself in Charles in a love for hunting, and in his sisters in
a desire to be "fashionable, happy, and merry." It can be said of
all of the characters of Uppercross, as it is said of Charles, that
they lack "usefulness, rationality, and elegance" in their "pur-
suits and habits." It is the channeling of energy into usefulness,
among other things, which distinguishes the naval characters from
those of both Kellynch and Uppercross, and it is the need to be use-
ful which is one of Anne's most characteristic traits.

Uppercross, then, will not serve as the heroic society of
this comedy. It is only in the naval characters that all of the
virtues of Uppercross are combined with a strong sense of duty and
a genuine dignity. Those qualities are exhibited, along with other
domestic virtues, in Captain Wentworth, in Admiral and Mrs. Croft,
and in the naval characters met with at Lyme Regis.

Sir Walter is induced to let Kellynch-hall to the Crofts
because, although "not very wise . . . still he had enough experi-
ence of the world" to know that an "admiral speaks his own conse-
quence" (24). Anne identifies Admiral Croft as a "'rear admiral of
the white [who] was in the Trafalgar action, and has been in the
East Indies since'" (21-22). Her information serves to create an
impression of naval officers as people worthy of honor and distinc-

4 in contrast with Sir Walter's society. The very first time

tion,
Anne is made to speak it is to defend the right of the naval offi-

cers to whatever comforts they can get:

72

"The navy, I think, who have done so much for us, have
at least an equal claim with any other set of men, for all
the comforts and all the privileges which any home can
give. Sailors work hard enough for their comforts, we
must all allow" (19).

From the very early chapters, then, by Anne's warm defense
of the rights of sailors to live at Kellynch, by the reference to the
strategic importance of the navy in the recent war with France, by
the snobbish attitude displayed against the navy by the absurd char-
acters such as Mrs. Clay, and even by Sir Walter's grudging admission
that an "admiral speaks his own consequence," the navy and the naval
characters to be met with later in the novel are cast in a highly
favorable light.

It is Sophia Croft, Wentworth's sister, who first displays
some of the qualities which belong uniquely to the naval characters,
qualities which set the naval society apart not only from Kellynch
but from Uppercross, as well. Interestingly, she exhibits one of
these characteristics by objecting to her brother's overly-
protective, patronizing attitude toward the idea of women aboard
ship. Whereas he would permit women aboard only for visits on the
grounds of "'rating the claims of women to every personal comfort
high,'" Sophia objects that "'Women may be as comfortable on
board, as in the best house in England'" (69).

There are two qualities evinced here which are not to be
found among the women of Kellynch or Uppercross. First, Sophia's
insistence upon the comforts of ship life is not so much a claim

that a ship really is as luxurious as a country estate, but that

women do not require such luxuries for their comfort and happiness.

73

She says to Wentworth, "'I hate to hear you talking so, like a fine
gentleman, as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational
creatures'" (70). Kellynch and Uppercross have "fine ladies"
enough. Even Henrietta and Louisa display more than a little demand
for luxurious living in their protestations to their father: "'I
hope we_shall be in Bath in winter; but remember, papa, if we do go
we must be in a good situation--none of your Queen-squares for

usl'" (42).

The other trait exhibited by Sophia Croft is the warm and
close relationship she has with her husband. In the marital rela-
tionships shown or talked of elsewhere in the novel, there is nothing
to suggest warm attachment or even much of mutual interest between
husband and wife. But Sophia Croft wants above all to be with her
husband, and she says so to Mrs. Musgrove. Her attitude manifests
itself not only in her being often aboard ship with him, but also in
her sitting contentedly at his side as he careens around the country-
side in their gig. In contrast to the picture presented at Upper—
cross of the men engaged with game and newspapers and the "females"
occupied with "house-keeping, neighbours, dress, dancing, and music"
(42-43), the narrator paints this picture of the Crofts in residence
at Kellynch:

Admiral and Mrs. Croft were generally out of doors
together, interesting themselves in their new possessions,
their grass, and their sheep, and dawdling about in a way

not endurable to a third person, or driving about in a
gig, lately added to their establishment (73).

74

It is to be assumed, of course, that Anne's marriage to Captain
Wentworth will emulate the Crofts' rather than the Musgroves' or the
Elliots'.

Sophia Croft, then, especially in her relationship with her
husband, embodies some of the qualities which belong peculiarly to
the naval society. That these qualities are indigenous to the naval
society and not peculiar to Sophia is demonstrated in the repetition
of some of those qualities in the naval characters met with at Lyme
Regis.

The immediate affinity that develops between Anne and the
Harvilles is another proof of the superiority of the naval group to

the other societies in Persuasion. The first and most striking

 

quality of the Harvilles is their genuine and unreserved hospitality
towards Captain Wentworth's friends. Anne is impressed by the
"bewitching charm in a degree of hospitality so uncommon, so unlike
the usual style of give-and-take invitations, and dinners of
formality and display . . ." (98). The Harvilles are "almost hurt
that Captain Wentworth should have brought any such party to Lyme,
without considering it as a thing of course that they should dine
with them" (98).5

Not only do the Harvilles display genuine hospitality, but
they are totally without pretentiousness or vanity. They feel no
dignity threatened in accommodating and entertaining the Uppercross
party in their tiny rooms at Lyme. Anne is struck by the way in
which Captain Harville has decorated his home with souvenirs of his

travels and articles he has fashioned by hand.

75

All of the virtues of the Harvilles come together in their
response to Louisa's accident. Captain Harville repeats the cool-
headedness displayed by Anne in his immediate decisions about what
was to be done:

Shocked as Captain Harville was, he brought senses and
nerves that could be instantly useful; and a look between
him and his wife decided what was to be done. She must be
taken to their house-~all must go to their house--and wait
the surgeon's arrival there (112).

For all that the Harvilles, and Captain Benwick and Admiral
and Sophia Croft contribute to the characterizatin of the naval
society, their roles are that of a supporting cast to the principle
embodiment of heroic virtues, Captain Wentworth. He shares with
Admiral Croft and Captains Harville and Benwick the distinction which
has been ascribed to the navy in general by virtue of their actions
in the war with France. But he likewise embodies some virtues which
are not otherwise emphasized by the naval characters, but which
nevertheless contribute to the general characterization of the naval
society by the fact of his possession of them. The most noteworthy
of these virtues is the compassion he exhibits towards Mrs. Musgrove
in her grief over her lost son, Richard.

While at sea, Dick Musgrove had been assigned for a brief
time to Wentworth's ship, the Laconia, and under his influence had
written home "the only two disinterested letters" (51) he had ever
written. Mrs. Musgrove muses to Anne at one point that her son, had
he lived, would have turned out to be "just such another" as Went;

worth, a thought to which Anne listens kindly, but which forces her

to suppress a smile. When Mrs. Musgrove expresses to Wentworth her

76

wish that her son had never left his ship, Anne is certain she
detects on Wentworth's face evidence "that instead of sharing in
Mrs. Musgrove's kind wishes, as to her son, he had probably been at
some pains to get rid of him" (67). But just as Anne listened kindly
to Mrs. Musgrove and suppressed a smile, Captain Wentworth commiser-
ates with her "with so much sympathy and natural grace, as shewed
the kindest consideration for all that was real and unabsurd in the
parent's feelings" (67-68). The whole purpose of introducing the
late Dick Musgrove at all seems to be that it illustrates the very
admirable quality in Captain Wentworth: his discernment of genuine
feeling beneath Mrs. Musgrove's sentimentalization of her son.6
The naval society is understood as the sum of its characters.
The Crofts contribute an impression of lively activity, self-
sufficiency, and a robust affection for each other, with little
regard for customary notions of sexual roles. The Harvilles exhibit
warm hospitality and an ability to adjust to their circumstances
without longing after material symbols of status and wealth. Cap-
tain Benwick evinces a perhaps exaggerated sensibility, but none-
theless a contemplative nature which is akin to Anne's, and he shares
with her a love of reading. Captain Wentworth shows, among other
things, an impulse of compassion towards people vulnerable to ridi-
cule. All of the naval characters share a disdain for rank—
consciousness, affection for one another, esteem for Anne, and above
all a strong value for usefulness which manifests itself in their
commitment to duty. The need to be engaged in purposeful activity

is perhaps the single most important trait which separates the naval

77

society from the otherwise genrally admired characters at Upper-
cross. Their sense of duty, their warmth and spontaneity attract
Anne to the society of sailors.

From the beginning of the novel, each character is measured
in part in terms of his sense of duty and commitment to usefulness.
Lady Elliot, Anne's mother, once she recognized the folly of her
marriage to Sir Walter,

had humoured, or softened, or concealed his failings, and

promoted his real respectability for seventeen years; and

though not the very happiest being in the world herself,

had found enough in her duties, her friends, and her chil-

dren, to attach her to life, and make it no matter of

Ezdifference to her when she was called on to quit them
This brief account of Lady Elliot's life sounds a theme which is to
be repeated elsewhere in the book. What is noteworthy in the passage
is the value attached to Lady Elliot's sense of duty, not only in
spite of the disappointment of her marriage, but to some extent as a
kind of narcotic to detach herself from the pain of that disappoint-
ment. The novel does not provide much in the way of details of how
Lady Elliot's sense of duty manifested itself in her actions, but
from the information that while "Lady Elliot lived, there had been
method, moderation, and economy, which had just kept [Sir Walter]
within his income" (9), it is possible to conclude that, like Anne
and Lady Russell, she had been kept busy devising schemes to balance
the claims of Sir Walter's vanity against the family's resources.
Anne's other activities, especially those connected with their

departure from Kellynch, provide a clue as to the kind of duties

that Lady Elliot must have busied herself with.

78

Elsewhere in the novel are other examples of usefulness and
dutifulness as a defense against emotional pain. Captain Harville
illustrates in the face of his ill health and modest accommodations
a determination to make the best of his situation:

His lameness prevented him from taking much exercise; but

a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him

with constant employment within. He drew, he varnished,

he carpentered, he glued; he made toys for the children,

he fashioned new netting-needles and pins with improve—

ments; and if every thing else was done, sat down to his

large fishing-net at one corner of the room (99).
Harville's refusal to submit to his misfortunes, and the genuineness
of his hospitality endear him to Anne. He shares with Anne the
determination to live a useful life, and the ability to distinguish
real pleasures in life from artificial ones. He lives, although
perhaps not without regret, without bitterness.

The introduction of Mrs. Smith in Volume II of Persuasion is
patently a device for providing material with which to round out the
plot. Nonetheless, it is important to note that Mrs. Smith must be
established as a sympathetic character if her gossip about Mr.
Elliot is to be received by Anne and the reader as anything more
than the self-serving character assassination it certainly is. One
of the ways in which the narrator attempts to create sympathy for
Mrs. Smith is by insisting upon her affection for Anne. But more
important (and more to my point) is that Mrs. Smith is portrayed as
exhibiting some of the same virtues glorified in the characteriza-
tion of Captain Harville.

Like Harville, Mrs. Smith suffers from a physical disability;

she "had been afflicted with a severe rheumatic fever, which finally

79

settling in her legs, had made her for the present a cripple" (152).
In addition, she is impoverished, widowed, and friendless. Yet her
circumstances cause only occasional melancholy in her. She resembles
Captain Harville not only in this respect, but in her determination
to remain active and useful. While at Bath, Mrs. Smith occupies her
time with more than just the gossip her nurse provides. In speaking
of Mrs. Rooke to Anne, Mrs. Smith says,

"besides nursing me most admirably, [she] has really

proved an invaluable acquaintance.--As soon as I could use

my hands, she taught me to knit, which has been a great

amusement; and she put me in the way of making these lit-

tle thread-cases, pin-cushions and card racks, which you

always find me so busy about, and which supply me the

means of doing a little good to one or two very poor fami-

lies in this neighbourhood. She has a large acquaintance,

of course professionally, among those who can afford to

buy, and she disposes of my merchandize" (155).

Unlike Lady Russell, who must first admit her misjudgments
before she can be admitted to the triumphant society, Mrs. Smith has
had the right virtues all along. Certainly, her timely revelations
about Mr. Elliot, what the narrator calls her "recent good offices
by Anne" (251), are partly responsible for her being included in the
emerging society; but she has a character of her own, traits which
identify her with the sympathetically drawn sea characters, with
Anne's mother, and with Anne herself.

The importance of usefulness is not only in its capacity to
carry one out of one's self, to adapt Anne's phrase about Mrs.
Smith.7 It is the recognition of duty, the determination to be use-

ful which confers genuine dignity. As had been noted, it is in its

sense of duty that the naval society differs most markedly from the

 

80

otherwise genial, hospitable society at Uppercross, and which iden-
tifies the naval society as the preferred society of this comedy.
The Elliots of Kellynch have a sense of dignity which is
conscious only of what is owed to them, never of what is required of
them. Thus, Mary Musgrove bristles at her mother-in-law's failure
to give place, and Sir Walter and Elizabeth blithely sacrifice resi-
dence at Kellynch in order to preserve the appearance of luxury at

Bath. When she visits them in their chambers at Bath, Anne is not

 

surprised but dismayed that they find so much to be proud of: 1
She might not wonder, but she must sigh that her father
should feel no degradation in his change; should see noth-
ing to regret in the duties and dignity of the resident
land-holder; should find so much to be vain of in the
littleness of a town; . . . (138).
At Kellynch, whatever real dignity belonged to the Elliots had been
preserved first by Lady Elliot, then by Anne. And it was in their
attendance to the duties associated with being the "resident land-
holder" that the dignity was maintained.

Not surprisingly, when the Crofts take possession of
Kellynch-hall, they are more scrupulous in attending to the duties
associated with residence there than were the real owners. Anne

considered her father so very fortunate in his tenants,

felt the parish to be so sure of a good example, and the

poor of the best attention and relief, that however sorry

and ashamed for the necessity of the removal, she could

not but in conscience feel that they were gone who

deserved not to stay, and that Kellynch-hall had passed

into better hands than its owners' (125).
Of course, it has been Anne all along who has set the standard of
dutifulness required of land-holders, as her account to Mary of her

leave-taking activities makes clear.

81

By the end of Volume I, the characteristics of each of the
three societies in the novel have been drawn clearly. From the per-
spective of Frye's observation that the typical movement of comedy is
from an absurd society to a heroic one, Volume I of Persuasion is
devoted to characterizing the competing societies (three in this
case); Volume II is concerned with seeing how the good society
becomes triumphant. The point here is that the thematic interests
inherent in the comic structure of Persuasion are largely those con-
nected with the conflict between the society of Sir Walter and the
society of sailors. The characteristics of those societies are
developed in Volume I; in Volume II those societies, and the char-
acters from Uppercross as well, are transplanted to Bath where the
comic resolution to the conflict is worked out. In Volume I the
naval society is shown to be the one most worthy of Anne because the
characters of that society display virtues which are glorified in
the character of Anne, and because the naval characters know best
how to value Anne's virtues. Volume II depicts the unfolding of
events by which Anne, as the embodiment of virtue and the symbol of
renewal, is joined to the naval society, in which resides the vir-
tues which qualify it for perpetuation. The naval profession, the
narrator says, "is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic

virtues than in its national importance" (252).

The Moral Impulse
The conflict between societies in Persuasion, which Mudrick

identifies as "the central opposition in the novel" (Mudrick, p. 231),

82

is the central opposition of comedy. The social themes inherent in
the novel's comic structure are based upon rather simplistically
drawn characterizations of the competing societies, too obviously
dependent on caricature to be taken seriously as the basis for a
consideration of genuine moral issues. Nonetheless, the novel does
concern itself with some complex and subtle moral questions. These
moral issues are resolved in the final chapters of the novel coinci-
dentally with the comic resolution of the novel and its inherent
social judgments.

The endorsements and repudiations of the societies repre-
sented in Persuasion are manifested by the degree to which their
respective members display qualities which are attributed to Anne
(or which are admired by her), and by the degree to which she finds
acceptance in each. Anne, in other words, embodies the norms of the
novel.

Anne embodies the moral virtues as well as the social vir-
tues which the novel endorses. The novel's position on the issues,-
and, indeed, the nature of the issues with which it is concerned,
are ascertainable by what Anne thinks and says about the events of
her life. The ironic narrator, although entirely reliable, has
little to say about the ethical dimensions of the novel. Nonethe-
less, the narrator, especially in her ironic commentary about char-
acters who represent views contrary to Anne's and in her sympathetic
treatment of Anne, helps to define the moral perspective that the
novel endorses. The ethical norms of the novel are further rein-

forced by the comic structure, i.e., by the way in which the events

83

are manipulated to vindicate Anne's judgments and to elicit the
reader's sympathy for the characters whose triumph is celebrated in
the comic conclusion.

In speaking about the ethical norms of the novel as they
are indicated by the combined elements of reliable narrator, sympa-
thetic heroine, and the novelist's structuring of incidents, it is
useful to adopt Wayne Booth's concept of the implied author.8 For a
satisfactory reading of a novel, the reader must be able to infer
the moral norms from the novel itself, without reference to extra-
neous data. In Booth's words, the reader needs "to know where, in
the world of values, he stands--that is, to know where the author
.wggt§_him to stand."9 The concept of implied author, however,
includes not only such "extractable meanings" as the moral perspec-
tive from which the action is to be viewed,

but also the moral and emotional content of each bit of
action and suffering of all of the characters. It
includes, in short, the intuitive apprehension of a com-
pleted artistic whole; the chief value to which this

implied author is committed, regardless of what party his
creator belongs to in real life, is that expressed by the

total form.

In sum, the "'implied author' chooses, consciously or unconsciously,
what we read; we infer him as an ideal, literary version of the real

man; he is the sum of his own choices."11

The central theme of the novel would seem by its title to be
1a consideration of the desirability of a persuadable temper. Indeed,
the subject gets a good deal of attention in Volume I of the novel.

'The narrator introduces this apparent theme when summarizing Anne's

 

84

earlier engagement to Wentworth. Lady Russell, "who had almost a
mother's love, and mother's rights" (27), persuaded Anne to dissolve
the engagement. After Wentworth returns to Anne's life, the narra-
tor resumes her role as the reliable observer with limited omni-
science to establish that after eight years he had not forgiven
Anne, and that he regarded her breaking of their engagement as "the
effect of over-persuasion. It had been weakness and timidity" (61).

With his attitude towards Anne thus firmly established, his expres-

 

sions to Louisa on the walk to Winthrop are not only consistent, ' 1
but they serve to develop the theme that has been emerging about the A
value of a persuadable temper. Emboldened by Wentworth's reception
of her expression of approval for Sophia Croft's determination to be
always with her hquand no matter the risk, Louisa says to Wentworth
of her insistence that Henrietta visit the Hayters as planned:
"And so, I made her go. . . . What!--would I be turned
back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and
that I knew to be right . . . ? No,--I have no idea of
being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I
have made it" (87).
Wentworth expresses delight in Louisa's determination (”'let
those who would be happy be firm'" [88]), and with this encouragement
Louisa makes her nearly fatal second jump from the Cobb. After
Louisa's fall, Anne, who has overheard the conversation near Win-
throp, and who has not missed the fact that she is the point of com-
parison in Wentworth's mind as he praised Louisa, wonders what his
opinion is now: "whether it might not strike him, that, like all

other qualities of the mind, it should have its pr0portions and

limits" (116).

85

Few can be in doubt that Wentworth has indeed seen the error
of his opinion. Anne has the pleasure at the end of the story of
hearing Wentworth confess as much to her. He says that at Lyme "he
had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the
obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness and the
resolution of a collected mind" (242).

The "problem," then, of which sort of temperament is more
"in favour of happiness" is apparently solved by the end of Volume I,
although Anne must wait awhile to hear Wentworth confess his mis-
judgment on the subject. Insofar as there is any conflict at all,
the resolution of it is clearly Anne's conclusion that qualities of
the mind should have "proportions and limits," and that neither a
persuadable temper nor a resolute character can be relied upon as
invariable desirable attributes in all circumstances.

The real moral concern which the action and the rhetoric of
the novel confront is not whether a persuadable temper is superior
to a resolute character.12 The larger question which engages the
moral faculties of both Anne and the implied author is much more
subtle and complicated than Wentworth's reduction of it to a ques-
tion of temperament. The essential focus of the implied author's
moral interest in the novel is on the importance of a sense of duty
as a guide to individual action, and upon a commitment to duty as a
prerequisite to moral authority in society. The moral interest is
not developed by having the heroine or the narrator resolve dilemmas.
Anne insists from first to last on the correctness of her judgment,

given the circumstances under which it was made, and her judgment is

 

86

affirmed by the novel. From the point of view of the moral interest
of the novel the action serves not to resolve a moral dilemma which
exists in Anne's mind but to vindicate Anne's judgment in the eyes
of the characters whose judgment matters, primarily Wentworth, and
thereby to recommend her value system to readers.

Kenneth Moler has shown how the question of a child's duty
regarding the wishes of his parents as to a marraige partner was one
that engaged a number of Jane Austen's predecessors and contempo-
raries.13 Even without considering the historical background of the
moral questions with which Persuasion concerns itself, it is possi-
ble to examine the ways in which the characters, the action, and the
rhetoric of the novel are related to this central moral interest.

In recounting the events of the earlier engagement and
Anne's present perspective on those events, the narrator carefully
distinguishes between the quality of Lady Russell's advice and the
propriety of Anne's having taken it. Even Anne believes Lady Rus-
sell was wrong to advise her to break the engagement, wrong because
her advice was based on excessive prudence and snobbish regard for
Anne's social position, and wrong because she had not considered
Anne's feelings for Wentworth:

Anne, at seven and twenty, thought very differently from
what she had been made to think at nineteen.--She did not
blame Lady Russell, she did not blame herself for having
been guided by her; but she felt that were any young per-
son, in similar circumstances, to apply to her for coun-
sel, they would never receive any of such certain immediate
wretchedness, such uncertain future good.--She was persua-
ded that under every disadvantage of disapprobation at
home, and every anxiety attending his profession, all

their probable fears, delays and disappointments, she
should yet have been a happier woman in maintaining the

87

engagement, than she had been in the sacrifice of it; and
this, she fully believed, had the usual share, had even
more than a usual share of all such solicitudes and sus-
pense been theirs, without reference to the actual results
of their case, which, as it happened, would have bestowed
earlier prosperity than could be reasonably calculated on.
How eloquent could Anne Elliot have been,--how elo-
quent, at least, were her wishes on the side of early warm
attachment, and a cheerful confidence in futurity, against
that over-anxious caution which seems to insult exertion
and distrust Providence!--She had been forced into pru-
dence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older
--the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning (29-30).

That passage has nothing of the ironic narrator in it: it

is a direct statement of Anne's own thoughts on the subject of pru-

 

dence versus romance, and her own misery that resulted from her hav-
ing been misguided on the subject. Several critics have noted that
Anne is unlike Emma Woodhouse or Elizabeth Bennet in that she is

not made to undergo a revaluation of her opinions. But insofar as
her value for prudence in the face of "early warm attachment, and a
cheerful confidence in futurity" is concerned, she certainly has
undergone a change of opinion, albeit that the change has taken
place before the novel begins.

Lady Russell's reasons for persuading Anne against Wentworth
were all prudential. She worried about Wentworth's lack of money and
social position, the danger of his profession, and his "sanguine
temper, and fearlessness of mind" (27), which she considered evidence
of a dangerous character. To these reasons Anne added her own pru-
dential reasons for breaking the engagement:

But it was not merely a selfish caution, under which she

acted, in putting an end to it. Had she not imagined her-
self consulting his good, even more than her own, she

88

could hardly have given him up.--The belief of being pru-

dent, and self—denying principally for hi§_advantage, was

her chief consolation, under the misery of a parting--a

final parting . . . (27-28).
Once again there is no evidence of distance between Anne's views and
those of the implied author, even though Anne has repudiated her
faith in prudence as an exclusive guide to decision making by the
time Wentworth returns into her life. Interestingly, we are never
told just what advantage Wentworth was to derive from Anne's "being
prudent, and self-denying principally for hi§_advantage," nor does
the narrator explain why Anne felt no necessity to consult Went-
worth about which of her actions might be for his own good, although,
to be fair, the advantages of an ambitious naval officer's not being
encumbered by a wife and perhaps a family are fairly obvious.

There is more than a little irony in the prudence vs. romance
issue. Anne never goes so far as to reject prudential values cate-
gorically, and the novel clearly repudiates imprudence. Lady
Elliot's ill-considered marriage to Sir Walter, Captain Wentworth's
thoughtless dalliance with Louisa, and Mrs. Smith's husband's
entrusting his fortune to William Elliot are all imprudent actions
that have dire consequences. Even Mrs. Croft, that personification
of the romantic naval values, agrees with Mrs. Musgrove at the end
of the novel that "To begin without knowing that at such a time
there will be the means of marrying, I hold to be very unsafe and
unwise, and what, I think, all parents should prevent as far as they

can" (231). The implied author's position seems to be that neither

"over-anxious caution" nor unrestrained romanticism insures

89

happiness, but that a certain openness to risk taking is acceptable
if the risks are understood and the love is real. Anne was forced
into prudential behavior and later learned to value the romantic
point of view, and the narrator tells us that such a process is the
natural conclusion to an unnatural beginning. The implied corollary
is that the natural conclusion to a natural beginning is for young
people to learn the value of prudence as a consequence of what they
suffer for having acted on romantic values. Lady Elliot's life (and,
perhaps, Mrs. Smith's) illustrates just such a process. Neither pru-
dential nor romantic values guarantee happiness, but Anne's convic-
tion that even had Lady Russell's prudential cautions been justified
she would have been happier had she continued the engagement is as
close as the novel comes to resolving this ironic dilemma.

Prudence versus cheerful confidence in futurity, however, is
no more the question at issue than are the relative merits of per-
suadable and resolute tempers. Both of these matters are settled
long before the novel winds toward its conclusion. Anne thinks "very
differently from what she had been made to think at nineteen," and
there is never the slightest doubt that the implied author concurs.

In a word, Lady Russell's advice was wrong. But did Anne
make a mistake in heeding Lady Russell's wrong advice? Lady Russell's
advice was based on prudence, and Anne's rationalization that she
was "being prudent, and self-denying principally for hi§_advantage,"
specifically evokes prudence as sufficient cause for her action.
Eight years later, Anne has repudiated prudence as a sufficient

motive for ending a genuine romance, and the implied author endorses

90

that repudiation. It would seem to follow, then, that Anne should
not have allowed herself to be persuaded by Lady Russell. Yet

Anne "did not blame Lady Russell, she did not blame herself for
having been guided by her." Anne's refusal to fault herself for
following bad advice while at the same time repudiating the ration-
ale which prompted that advice appears to embody a contradiction not
only in Anne's character but in the moral perspective of the implied
author.

The issue of the propriety of Anne's submitting to Lady
Russell's advice is not raised again in the abstract until after her
reconciliation with Wentworth. There, Anne again insists upon the
distinction between the advice itself and her having taken it:

"Do not mistake me, however. I am not saying that she did

not err in her advice. It was, perhaps, one of those

cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event

decides; and for myself, I certainly never should in any

circumstance of tolerable similarity, give such advice"

(246).
Indeed, Captain Harville's reduced circumstances and injury point to
events which could have made Lady Russell's advice seem better than
the actual events have shown it to be. But Anne had said to Went-
worth that afternoon, "'If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion
once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of
safety, not of risk'" (244). This marks the only occasion when she
seems to allow the possibility of her having been at fault. That
evening she takes it back:

"I have been thinking over the past, and trying impar-

tially to judge of the right and wrong, I mean with regard

to myself; and I must believe that I was right, much as I
suffered from it, that I was perfectly right in being

91

guided by the friend whom you will love better than you do
now. To me, she was in the place of a parent . . . and if
I mistake not, a strong sense of duty is no bad part of a
woman's portion" (246).

Anne's refusal to blame herself for taking bad advice, then,
does not embody any contradiction because that refusal is not based
upon a belief in prudence as a guide to conduct, but upon a sense of
duty that is owed to a parent, or in this case, a woman who is in
the place of a parent.14 The very factor which distinguishes the
naval society as worthy of the comic triumph which the action of the
novel moves to bestow on it is invoked by Anne herself as justifica-
tion for her having submitted to Lady Russell's persuasion.15

Anne's highly developed sense of duty is one of the most
consistently insisted upon aspects of her character throughout the
novel. As we have seen, her admiration for the navy and the naval
characters stems in part from her recognition of the importance of
duty in their lives and the distinction which their having acted out
of duty has brought to them. Additionally, Anne's own conduct is
often guided by her sense of the duty attached to the social posi-
tion of her family. It is Anne's sense of duty which prompts her
to urge her father to clear his debts, and it is out of that sense
of duty that she takes upon herself the responsibility to visit the
houses in the parish before the Elliots vacate Kellynch—hall.
Indeed, from the very first, Anne has been described as "glad to
have any thing marked out as a duty" (33), and among such duties

has been her sense of responsibility towards Mary and especially

towards Mary's sons.

92

Anne's sense of duty is particularly apparent in her rela-
tionship with her father. In the face of all his enormous vanity,
his lack of affection for her, and his contempt for her finer sensi-
bilities, Anne insists upon a show of respect towards him, to which
she feels he is entitled by the very fact of his being her father.
For example, when Sir Walter castigates Anne for associating with
the undistinguished Mrs. Smith, when she might be spending time
attending to Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret:

Anne could have said much and did long to say a little, in
defence of her friend's not very dissimilar claims to

theirs [Mrs. Clay], but her sense of personal respect to
her father prevented her (158).

Thus Anne's appeal to dutifulness as the justification for
her having heeded Lady Russell's advice is consistent with her char-
acterization elsewhere in the novel. From Anne's point of view, her
action was justified not because it was prudent, not because she was
of a persuadable temper, but because at nineteen she owed to Lady
Russell a duty as strong as that which is owed to a parent.

The soundness of Lady Russell's judgment (always excepting
her "prejudices on the side of ancestry") and the similarity of her
opinions to Anne's, as in the matter of the necessity for Sir
Walter's retrenchment, are conspicuous aspects of her characteriza-
tion. But even more significant than her usually sound judgment and
her stepmother-like relationship to Anne is the genuine affection
that exists between the two women. Since the death of Anne's mother,
Lady Russell was the only character before Wentworth to show Anne

affection or know how to value her properly. The clear intention of

93

the novel's repeated insistence on Lady Russell's devotion to Anne
is to justify Anne's sense of duty towards her. After Lady Russell
has been made the scapegoat of the comedy, having "to admit that

she had been pretty completely wrong, and to take up a new set of
opinions," the narrator steps in to qualify this harsh judgment by
asserting that Lady Russell was "a very good woman, and if her sec-
ond object was to be sensible and well-judging, her first was to

see Anne happy. She loved Anne better than she loved her own abili-
ties . . ." (249). Thus Lady Russell is purged of what the novel
finds faulty in her character and redeemed because of what it holds

up for admiration.

Persuasion's exploration of the requirements of duty upon

 

the individual is complicated by its apparent endorsement of a sys-
tem of values which also prizes love as a principle upon which action
may be based. In many of the oppositions in the novel, the values
being opposed constitute a dichotomy, with only one element of that
dichotomy consistent with the norms informing the novel. Thus Sir
Walter's rank consciousness is opposed to the sailors' lack of it,
and the novel endorses the sailors. In other oppositions the novel
contrasts two traits and leaves Anne to conclude that excessive
allegiance to either is an evil, and that what is required is a
mixture of both. Thus Wentworth's contrasting of Louisa's "firmness
of character" with Anne's apparent persuadability is resolved at the
Cobb when Anne wonders if Wentworth might now realize that "all

qualities of the mind" have their "proportions and limits."

94

The opposition between love and duty is not like either of
these conflicts, however. The novel appears to affirm both quali-
ties and the value systems attending to each. Anne's rejections of
the offers of marriage from both Charles Musgrove and William
Elliot were based upon her allegiance to the idea of love as a
prerequisite to marriage. All of the happy marriages in Persuasion
have in common that they were love matches.

The sailors entitle themselves to social triumph by virtue
of their dutifulness, but it is also true that they display or
express allegiance to a system of values which seems to esteem most
highly action which is motivated by love. Thus SOphia Croft is
embarrassed but not penitent about the short duration of her court-
ship with the Admiral. Captain Benwick's romantic melancholia at
the loss of Fanny Harville is exaggerated and somewhat comical, but
all of the heroic characters, including Anne, are sympathetic with
his feelings and both Wentworth and Harville are dismayed that he
recovers from his grief so quickly. His story seems intended as an
illustration of the dangers of postponing a love match, and thus pro-
vides a variation in microcosm of Anne's own lost love, although his
loss of Fanny Harville is, of course, permanent. When the announce-
ment comes that he and Louisa Musgrove plan to marry, Anne speaks
with approval her conviction that "they had fallen in love over
poetry" (167).

The famous debate in Bath between Anne and Captain Harville
about the relative constancy of men and women depends upon a shared

but unarticulated premise that constancy is evidence of commitment

 

95

to a value system which prizes love, and that such a value system

is an appropriate one to inspire action. One of the implications of
such a value system is that it allows action which is justifiable
emotionally rather than rationally. Thus Anne says to Harville that
women do not forget men as easily as men do women: "'It is, per-
haps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves'"
(232). Anne, of course, speaks out of her own experience, her eight
years of suffering being testimony to her own constancy. The point
is that each party in the debate insists that his sex is more capa-
ble of acting in a manner consistent with a commitment to love.

It is in the context of this love-centered value system that
Captain Wentworth's resentment of Anne is to be understood. A
genuine commitment to that value system on Anne's part, he reasons,
would have given her more firmness in resisting Lady Russell's
persuasions.

The apparent dilemma, then, is that while Anne claims to
have "learned romance as she grew older," she maintains at the very
end that she was right in dutifully yielding to Lady Russell's
prudential advice. This contradiction is irresolvable as long as
love and duty are regarded as mutually exclusive value systems.

However, in Persuasion they are not so regarded. The values implied

 

by the word love and those implied by the word duty are not, finally,
in opposition, but are elements in a hierarchy of values, insofar as
the norms of the novel are concerned.16 Anne's having had to choose
between love and duty, and her defense of her choice to Wentworth at

the end of the novel, are evidence of the priority which the implied

96

author accords to duty. Under normal circumstances, there would be.
no conflict between the two elements of the novel's value system.
Anne's was a special case, when, at nineteen, she still owed duty to
Lady Russell and was therefore "forced into prudence." Later, when
she was a few years older and Lady Russell's prudence was shown to
be unfounded, she would have been free to marry Wentworth had he
asked. When, after their reconciliation, Wentworth asks Anne if she
would have married him, "'when I returned to England in the year
eight, with a few thousand pounds,'" she replies with an enthusias-
tic "'Would I!'" (247).

Wentworth imagines Anne's decision to have been between love
and prudence, and blames her for choosing prudence. However, Anne's
dilemma was actually between love and duty, and she chose duty.

Anne discovers through her suffering that Lady Russell's prudential
values are inferior to Wentworth's romantic ones, but she persists
in thinking (and the novel affirms) that the requirements of duty
supersede those of love. Anne reprimands Wentworth for his failure
to distinguish her having yielded to persuasion in the name of duty
in breaking her first engagement to him and the possibility that
she would yield to persuasion and marry William Elliot, a case in
which neither duty nor love nor even prudence was a factor: "'In
marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred,
and all duty violated'" (244).

Interestingly, the ironic narrator is silent on the whole
issue of duty, and never specifically endorses Anne's justifications

17

of her actions. The attitude of the implied author, however, and

97

consequently the position which the novel takes towards Anne's self-
justification is clearly an endorsement of Anne. One proof of this
claim is, of course, the importance of duty as a characteristic of
the triumphant naval society. More important is the evidence that
Anne embodies the moral norms of the implied author. This is most
clear in the fact that Anne articulates her convictions and'her
self-justification to Wentworth at the moment of her own comic tri-
umph. The cumulative effect of the sympathetic characterization and
the manipulation of events by the implied author is to give the
novel's authority to Anne when she pronounces upon the moral issues

of her story.

In Persuasion, duty manifests itself as a guide to social
responsibility and as a guide to interpersonal relationships. As a
social responsibility, duty requires the individual to subsume his
personal interests to the common good, and to endure personal
danger for the sake of the survival of the society. Those who
accept their social duty, those who are most instrumental in the
protection of society, are rewarded by the society with social dis-
tinction. In the sphere of interpersonal relationships, duty
requires the individual to subsume his judgment of his own personal
interests to the judgments of individuals whose social or familial
position entitles them to moral authority. Those who recognize and
accept moral authority become, in turn, entitled to moral authority,
especially if they endure hardship and suffering for having fol-

lowed duty.

98

Anne's moral authority is conspicuous from the beginning of
the novel. It is evident in the distinctions she makes between
genuine dignity and Sir Walter's vanity; it is evident in her recog-
nition of the justice of Admiral Croft's replacing her father at
Kellynch-hall; it is evident in her judgments about Lady Russell's
aristocratic notions; it is evident in her admiration of Mrs.
Smith's "disposition to be comforted"; and it is evident in her
suspicions of William Elliot and in her rejection of his suit.

Most important, however, Anne's moral authority is evident in her
perspective on the events surrounding her first engagement to Went-
worth. When she announces to him at the end of the novel that she
was right in submitting to Lady Russell's persuasions, she is not
articulating a conviction just arrived at, but one developed during
the long period of "desolate tranquility" before Wentworth returns
into her life. The very fact of her speaking that conviction at the
moment of her comic triumph, and Wentworth's acquiescence to her
reasoning, betoken the acceptance of Anne's moral authority in the
new society.18

Anne has earned her triumph by virtue of the long years of
loneliness and the consciousness of being misunderstood which she
endured for having acted out of duty: "'1 was right, much as I
suffered from it.'" Her emergence as the moral authority of the
novel's society has been earned by her suffering as surely as the
naval society's triumph was earned in battle. Lady Russell's failure
as a figure of moral authority rests upon two errors in judgment:

her prejudice towards ancestry, which led her to judge both William

99

Elliot and Wentworth on the basis of their appearance, and her
inability to balance the claims of prudence against the suffering
which a too strict enforcement of those claims must cause. About
Lady Russell's failure to see beneath the surface of Anne's suitors,
Anne's judgment is harsh:
This however was what Lady Russell had now to do. She
must learn to feel that she had been mistaken with regard
to both; that she had been unfairly influenced by appear-
ances in each; that because Captain Wentworth's manners
had not suited her own ideas, she had been too quick in
suspecting them to indicate a character of dangerous
impetuosity; and that because Mr. Elliot's manners had
precisely pleased her in their propriety and correctness,
their general politeness and suavity, she had been too
quick in receiving them as the certain result of the most
correct opinions and well regulated mind (249).

The above passage is preceded by the statement that "Anne
knew that Lady Russell must be suffering some pain" as the result of
having been so much in error. That statement suggests that the
judgment of Lady Russell is Anne's own, and that no interpreting
narrator is required to speak for the norms of the implied author.
This fact reinforces Anne's emergence as the moral authority of the
novel's heroic society.

Admiral Croft replaces Sir Walter at Kellynch because his
acceptance of duty has entitled him to social prominence. In the
same way, Anne replaces Lady Russell as the figure of moral
authority in the triumphant new society because Anne has endured the
personal suffering which resulted from her having accepted duty.19

Society not only renews itself,it:improves. The naval
society is not only more dutiful than Sir Walter's society, it is

less rigid, more nearly democratic, and it knows better how to value

100

individuals of genuine worth. Anne's moral authority is superior to
Lady Russell's because it places less value on social position, is
more rigorous in its requirements of social responsibility, and
because it values the emotional side of human nature as well as the

rational (i.e., prudential) side.

The comic triumph of the heroic characters is manifested in
their acquisition of wealth and social prominence, and it depends
upon unlikely coincidences. The moral resolution of the novel
depends upon Wentworth's recognition that Anne's rejection of him
was based upon sound moral principles, not upon her persuadable
character.

From the perspective of the novel's thematic interests,
Anne's happiness, like Mrs. Smith's, has nothing to do with wealth
or social prominence. In fact, the narrator suggests, wealth may
prevent happiness in lesser creatures than Mrs. Smith and Anne:

[Mrs. Smith] might have been absolutely rich and perfectly
healthy, and yet be happy. Her spring of felicity was in
the glow of her spirits, as her friend Anne's was in the
warmth of her heart. Anne was tenderness itself, and she
had the full worth of it in Captain Wentworth's affection.
His profession was all that could ever make her friends
wish that tenderness less; the dread of a future war all
that could dim her sunshine (252).
In this final insistence upon Anne's participation in the romantic
values of the sailors, the narrator reaffirms the novel's celebra-

tion of those non-prudential values. But in her reservations upon

the permanence of Anne's felicity, the narrator recalls the theme

101

that the novel has illustrated: in the ideal society, duty super-

sedes even love when the two values are in conflict.

Just as the comic impulse raises and satisfies certain
expectations in the reader, so too does the moral dimension of the
work raise and satisfy expectations. In part, the reader's response
to the work will depend upon his perception of the degree to which
the action and the resolution of that action are shaped by the
implied author's moral vision; and, perhaps, at another level, his
response will depend upon the correspondence of that vision to his
own ethical and moral convictions.

Although the moral themes are not inherent in the comic

structure of Persuasion, the comic vision, which in Feibleman's

 

words "consists in the indirect affirmation of the ideal logical
order by means of the derogation of the limited orders of actu-

20 incorporates the implied author's moral vision: duty to

society and duty to moral authority are the preeminent virtues of
the socially and morally responsible individual. Anne's character,
her words, and her actions exemplify the virtues which the novel
affirms. Her story illustrates the scope of the implied author's
moral vision by contrasting that vision with the dialectically
opposed value system of the Kellynch society, by measuring it
against the amiable but amoral Uppercross society, and by incorpora-
ting it with the virtuous sailor society, whose chief representative

must re-align his own priority of values and reassess his judgment

of Anne before the comic resolution can take place.

 

102

A consideration of the moral dimension of Persuasion reveals

 

a coherence to many elements of the work which are not specifically
related to its comic structure. Particularly in those scenes
designed to force Wentworth's re-examination of his previous opinions
of Anne, and in Anne's own expression of Unamoral implications of her
story, the moral dimension of the work makes itself felt. Yet
neither the comic structure nor the moral impulse of Persuasion can
account for many of the details of the novel, especially those
details concerned with the characterization of Anne herself. If
Mudrick is right in observing that the interest of Persuasion "is to
illustrate the plight of a sensitive woman in a society which has a
measure for everything except sensitivity" (Mudrick, p. 239), then
neither the comic nor the moral aspects of the work provide a suf-
ficient context within which to consider that interest. It is

rather in a consideration of the mimetic characterization of Anne
Elliot for its own sake, unrelated to other impulses in the work,
that the full significance of Anne's character can be analyzed, and

a full appreciation of the impact of that characterization can be

realized.

NOTES: CHAPTER II

1In his discussion of comedy, James Feibleman identifies
the conflict between the emerging and absurd societies as a conflict
between the ideal and the actual. Comedy, he says,
"is a restorer of proportions, and signals a return from
extreme adherence to actual programmes, in so far as these
programmes are found to be faulty. Thus indirectly comedy
voices the demand for more logical programs.
"Needlessix1say, this kind of ridicule does service to
the ideal, to‘the truth of an unlimited community, an
ideal society, by jesting at things which in the limited
community, the current society, have come to be taken too

seriously."
In Praise of Comedy: A Study of Its Theory and Practice (New York:

MacMillan Co., 1939), p. 181.
Calling attention to the point of view inherent in such a
structuring of events and such a juxtaposition, Feibleman notes,
"Comedy is in the fullest sense a moral principle, an
ethical force. It ever reminds us that nothing thus far
attained is sufficient; it laughs at actual values for
their manifest limitations, which it takes great delight
in pointing out; and it calls for the girding up of loins
and the pressing ever forward toward fresh values and
original organizations, demanding new victories and new
achievements for the human race" (214-15).

21h his edition of Persuasion, Andrew Wright comments in a
note that "As a baronet Sir Walter ranked below the nobility and
was in fact a commoner--in effect an hereditary knight." Further,
Wright notes, Lady Russell's husband's rank, that of a knight,
"ranks just below a baronet. Thus Lady Russell's exalted view of
Sir Walter's rank is more than a trifle excessive . . . ." Jane
Austen, Persuasion, ed. with introduction and notes by Andrew Wright,
Riverside Editions (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965), p. 217.

 

 

3To be sure, the Musgrove insistence that Mrs. Musgrove does
loot care for rank is a little suspicious, especially since she has
1 ittle rank to be protective of. Furthermore, it will not do to
(Iverestimate the lack of rank consciousness among the Musgroves.
Imary's opposition to the marriage between Henrietta and her cousin
C11ar1es Hayter is based upon her belief that Henrietta has no "right
t<3 make a choice that may be disagreeable and inconvenient to the
prrincipal part of her family [i.e., the Elliots], and be giving bad
cxannections to those who have not been used to them [i.e., Mary]"
(76). When she expresses her opinion of the Hayters to Wentworth,

103

104

that it "'is very unpleasant, having such connexionsl'" she is
treated to his "contemptuous glance" (86). Anne "perfectly knew
the meaning of" that glance, and she and the narrator and the
reader are presumed to share in Wentworth's contempt. But to read
too much of a democratic spirit into the novel is to misread it.
While the narrator and the sympathetic characters are contemptuous
of Mary's overblown class consciousness, to modern sensibilities
they are not without it themselves. For instance, there is no sug-
gestion at all that Charles' rebuttal of Mary's disparagement of a
marriage between his sister and his cousin is intended with irony,
or does not have the complete sympathy of the narrator. He says,

"'. . . and you will please to remember, that he is the

eldest son; whenever my uncle dies, he steps into very

pretty property. The estate at Winthrop is not less than

two hundred and fifty acres, besides the farm near Taun-

ton, which is some of the best land in the country. I

grant you, that any of them [the Hayters] but Charles

would be a very shocking match for Henrietta, and indeed

it could not be; he is the only one that could be possi-

ble; . . .'" (76).

4Wright's edition of the novel notes that at Trafalgar the
British defeated "the combined French and Spanish fleets in 1805."
Persuasion, ed. by Andrew Wright, p. 217. For a fuller discussion
of the historical background of the naval characters in the novel,
see Joseph Wiesenfarth, "Persuasion: History and Myth."

5The quality of the Harville's hospitality becomes espe-

cially apparent when contrasted with the spirit in which invitations
are given and received by Sir Walter's crowd at Bath. When the Mus-
groves arrive in Bath, Elizabeth finds herself in a quandary over
how to get around an obligation to invite them to dinner:

"She felt that Mrs. Musgrove and all her party ought to be

asked to dine with them, but she could not bear to have

the difference of style, the reduction of servants, which

a dinner must betray, witnessed by those who had been

always so inferior to the Elliots of Kellynch. It was a

struggle between propriety and vanity; but vanity got the

better, and then Elizabeth was happy again. These were

her internal persuasions.--'01d fashioned notions--country

hospitality--we do not profess to give dinners--few people

in Bath do-—Lady Alicia never does; did not even ask her

own sister's family, though they were here a month; and I

dare say it would be very inconvenient to Mrs. Musgrove--

put her quite out of her way. I am sure she would rather

not come--she cannot feel easy with us. I will ask them

all for an evening; that will be much better--that will be

a novelty and a treat. They have not seen two such draw-

ing rooms before'" (219-20).
Of course, Elizabeth and Sir Walter displayed quite a different
attitude toward their noble cousin, Lady Dalrymple, in an effort to
insinuate themselves into her company.

 

 

105

6R. S. Crane's reading of the whole Dick Musgrove incident

is more clearheaded than most critics':

"Dick's worthlessness and Mrs. Musgrove's sentimentality

are perhaps overplayed; but the artistic function of the

incident is clear enough: it is a device for emphasizing

Wentworth's intelligence and goodness of heart at the

moment when we most need to perceive these virtues in him

--just before and just after his painful first meeting

with Anne. It is made plain that he has no illusions

about 'poor Dick' but has nevertheless treated him kindly

at sea (before getting rid of him) and is now equally kind

to Mrs. Musgrove, though he sees as clearly as Anne does

the false pathos of her feelings: the boy and his mother

had to be depreciated if the point about Wentworth was to

come out."
"Jane Austen: Persuasion," in his The Idea of the Humanities and
Other Essays Critical and Historical, Vol. II (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1967), p. 300.

 

7Anne's admiration of Mrs. Smith is based on her recogni-

tion that her friend's resilience in the face of misfortune betokens
more than mere submissiveness:

"--A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong under-

standing would supply resolution, but here was something

more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition

to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil

to good, and of finding employment which carried her out

of herself, which was from Nature alone. It was the

choicest gift of Heaven; . . ." (154).

8The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1961).

9
10

1lBooth, pp. 74-75. In an expanded verSion of chapter VI of

Rhetoric, Booth includes this instructive observation, only part of
which is included in Rhetoric:

"Even the novel in which no narrator is dramatised creates

an implicit picture of an author who stands behind the

scenes, whether as stage-manager, as puppeteer, or as an

indifferent God, silently paring his fingernails. This

implied author is always distinct from the 'real man'--

whatever we may take him to be--who creates a superior

version of himself as he creates his work; any successful

novel makes us believe in an 'author' who amounts to a

kind of 'second self.‘ This second self is usually a

 

Booth, p. 73.
Booth, pp. 73-74.

106

highly refined and selected version, wiser, more sensi-

_tive, more perceptive than any real man could be.“
"Distance and Point-of—View; An Essay in Classification," Essays
in Criticism 11 (1961). The article is reprinted in The Theory of
the Novel, ed. by Philip Stevick, The Free Press (New York: Mac-
millan, 1967), pp. 87-107. The excerpt above is from the latter

SOUY‘CE.

 

12Critics who have reduced the moral impulse in Persuasion
to a question of persuadability have not much liked the thematic
aspects of the work. Gilbert Ryle, for instance, is certain that
the "theme notion of persuadability was . . . too boring to repay
Jane Austen's selection of it, and I believe that she herself found
that her story tended to stray away from its rather flimsy ethical
frame." "Jane Austen and the Moralists," Oxford Review 1 (1966);
reprinted in Critical Essays on Jane Austen, B. C. Southam, ed.
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968). My quotation is from the
latter source, pp. 109-10.

13Moler points to the specific implications of the word
"persuasion" for Jane Austen's contemporaries:
"The term 'persuasion' was used in a rather specialized
sense in Jane Austen's day. Conflict between a parent who
wishes his child to make a marriage that is socially and
economically acceptable and a child who wants to follow
the inclination of his heart seems to be an eternally
interesting subject: it was particularly appealing to the
writers and readers of Jane Austen's period. Case his-
tories of the sad results of parental despotism or filial
imprudence in affairs of the heart abound in the novels and
appear in many of the other literary forms of the period.
And a parental attempt to influence a child's choice of a
matrimonial partner was frequently described as 'persua-
s1on. "
Jane Austen's Art of Allusion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1968), p. 193.

14E. Rubinstein states that "Anne is the only Jane Austen
heroine who refuses a suitor on primarily financial grounds."
Jane Austen's Novels: The Metaphor of Rank, Literary Monographs,
Vol. 2, ed. by Eric Rothstein and Richard N. Ringler (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), p. 185. Wentworth's financial
position at the time of his first engagement to Anne may, indeed,
have been the grounds for Lady Russell's persuading Anne to refuse
him, but, if the word of Anne and the implied author is granted any
credibility at all, Anne's yielding to Lady Russell was not pri-
marily a financial decision.

15Andrew Wright, for one, fails to distinguish between
prudence and duty as the justification for Anne's breaking the
original engagement. He gives the long passage just quoted in my

 

 

107

text as evidence that "Never, even at the end of the book can she
abandon her commitment to the prudential values, even when she is
happily betrothed to Captain Wentworth." (A Study of Structure,
p. 161). As we have seen, not only does she abandon her commit-
ment to prudence, but she has already done so before the novel
begins. Wright's reading of the novel as the exploration of an
ironic dilemma in the conflict between love and prudence depends upon
his failure to heed Anne's early repudiation of Lady Russell's
excessive prudence, and her attachment to "cheerful confidence in
futurity," and it ignores the implied author's manipulation of the
events of the novel in support of Anne's repudiation.

16William Binkley notes the importance of the conflict
between love and duty in many eighteenth century novels:

"Another . . . didactic theme which was a favorite
with novelists of the late eighteenth century is the con-
flict of love and duty, a part of the larger problem of
the conflicting claims of personal and social obligations.
Duty is generally the least appealing at the moment of
choice, but the proper, the sensible heroine must always
decide in favor of duty, most often the duty owed to
family. Though she may suffer as a result of having cho-
sen duty, the suffering that follows mere personal grati-
fication is inevitably much keener. Fanny Burney's
Cecilia must decide between her feelings of duty toward
Mrs. Delville and her love for young Delville; her lover
must choose between responding to her love or to his fami-
ly's intense and selfish pride. Cecilia's weakness is
that though she acts with determination whenever there is
no doubt that she is acting correctly, she wavers when
there is a more difficult choice and is too sensible of
others' suffering, whether it is Mr. Harrel's threats of
self-destruction or Delville's argument for a secret mar-
riage. As a result she sometimes weakens and makes her
choice in favor of love and not duty. Her suffering,
which culminates in madness, is a consequence of her set-
ting aside duty for love in marrying Delville. Emily St.
Aubert must decide between her love for Valancourt and her
duty to the guardian her father has appointed. She
chooses in favor of duty even though her decision means a
prolonged separation from her lover and leads to her per-
secution by Montoni at Udolpho. What ever the consequences
the higher claims are never to be the merely personal
ones.I

"Comic Self-Discovery," pp. 15-16.

17While it is true that the narrator does not specifically
develop the theme of the conflict between love and duty, it must not
be overlooked that the perimeters of that conflict are established by
the narrator in the first few chapters. Booth notes, "Once the

108

ethical and intellectual framework has been established by the
narrator's introduction, we enter Anne's consciousness and remain
bound to it . . . ." 800th, P. 251.

18Thomas P. Wolfe calls attention to the theme of the hero-
ine's search for a society in Persuasion and finds parallels to it
in Pridejand Prejudice and Emma:
"Anne, like Elizabeth Bennet and Emma, finds herself
in a society in which the full extent of her intellectual
and moral qualities cannot find expression. We are aware
that the characters possess what we might call a super-
fluous or unutilizable knowledge; the movement of the
three novels can be understood as the heroines' attempts
to find a society or sub-society that can appreciate their
better selves."
"The Achievement of Persuasion," Studies in English Literature,
1500-1900 11 (Autumn 1971): 694.

19In his book on Jane Austen, Joseph Wiesenfarth has also
taken note of the pervasiveness of the theme of duty in Persuasion.
Much of my argument and evidence in this chapter parallels his
chapter on Persuasion. However, as with his article in which he
considers Persuasion in terms of Northrop Frye's discussion of
comedy (see my Chapter I), he uses similar evidence in the service
of a much different point.

Wiesenfarth believes that the theme of Persuasion is the
relationship between dignity and duty. From the perspective of this
thesis he understands the plot to be "a series of episodes which
draw out [Anne's] dignity and measures that of others in relation
to it" (144). The moral purpose of the novel, in Wiesenfarth's
view, is to delineate true dignity, which quality Anne embodies.
Acting out of a sense of duty is, in turn, the quality which confers
genuine dignity, and it is Anne's dutifulness to Lady Russell which
imparts dignity to Anne:

“The novel moves to its close by reminding us of the
ironic truth that set it in motion. Anne's suffering
comes to her because at one moment in her life two people
loved her dearly enough to want the best for her. Their
notions of what that best might be were irreconcilable.
In the moment of doubt, Anne followed the path of duty.
On that path she met the hard reality of true dignity.
Persuasion is thus a love story in which rank, conse-
quence, and sundry artificialities at first prosper but
ultimately suffer their just deserts and in which love and
duty first suffer but ultimately prosper as nature con-
ducts mature lovers to the mellow fruitfulness of an
autumn love. The harvest of that love reaps [§i£] the
reconciliation of those who love Anne best.“ (Errand of
Form, 163).
The difficulty with this argument is that it seems to insist
that dutifulness precedes dignity, which may be true, but there is

 

 

 

 

109

nothing in Persuasion which justifies Wiesenfarth's thinking so.
Truly, characters in the novel who lack dignity also fail to act
dutifully, but the suggestion that duty is a kind of ordeal which

one endures for the purpose of achieving dignity is not justified

by the novel. Insofar as the evidence is concerned, every indication
is that Anne possessed dutifulness and dignity all along.

Similarly, Wiesenfarth's insistence that "Anne's reward is
Wentworth's recognition of her personal dignity" (161) is not based
upon any evidence in the novel--there is never any suggestion that
he suspected her of lack of dignity. Wiesenfarth says that Went-
worth sees dignity in Anne

"with little Charles at Uppercross cottage, in Anne at the

piano in the Great House, in Anne with the fallen Louisa

on the Lower Cobb at Lyme, in Anne in conversation with

Captain Harville in Bath. And he sees it finally even in

Anne's rejection of his first proposal . . ." (161).
His evidence that Wentworth sees Anne's dignity in her "rejection of
his first proposal" is her_long speech of self-vindication to him in
which she invokes duty as the justification for her action. The
question of dignity never comes up at all, and it is only Wiesen-
farth's equation of dignity and duty which makes Anne's speech seem
to him evidence of Wentworth's recognition of her dignity.

The fact is that what Anne meets on "the path of duty" is a
lot of suffering and loneliness. Her having suffered in the name of
duty entitles her to a place in the triumphant society. That place
is a position of moral authority, and it is her moral authority
which is recognized by Lady Russell and by Wentworth in their recon-
ciliation with each other.

20

 

In Praise of Comedy, pp. 178-79.

 

 

CHAPTER III
THE MIMETIC CHARACTERIZATION OF ANNE ELLIOT

Mimesis in the Novel

The roles that Anne Elliot plays as the central figure in
both the comic and the thematic structures of Persuasion help to
develop our sense of her character. Yet neither her archetypal nor
her thematic function can account for the fact that we also respond
to Anne as we might to a real human being. Much of the detail of
her characterization has little to do with her being either a comic
heroine or the embodiment of the moral issues with which the novel
is concerned. Rather, many of the actions in which we see Anne
involved, her emotional responses to the situations in which she
finds herself, and the idiosyncrasies of her behavior seem to have
no other function than to establish her as a fully realized person
about whom we care as we would any person whom we have come to know
so intimately. Yet most discussions altogether ignore what is per-
haps the greatest achievement of Persuasion: the mimetic creation
of Anne Elliot. This chapter is a study of Anne Elliot as a mimetic
character. In my final chapter I shall examine the relationship of
the characterization of Anne to the formal and thematic functions
of the novel.

Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg1 provide a useful the-

oretical basis for discussing characterization by differentiating

110

111

among several types of characters according to their function in a

novel. The three types of characters enumerated by Scholes and

Kellogg are the esthetic, the illustrative, and the representational.

The characteristics of each of these three types also help to
define the various roles that a single complex character might play
in a work of fiction.

The esthetic character is defined entirely by the structural
requirements of the work in which he appears. Our response to such
characters is, therefore, emotional rather than intellectual. In

Persuasion, insofar as they do not exceed their roles as stock char-

 

acters in comedy, Sir Walter, William Elliot, Captain Wentworth, and
Anne, herself, embody characteristics of esthetic types. Our
impulse to hiss Mr. Elliot and to rejoice at Anne and Wentworth's
eventual triumph over Sir Walter and his society is clearly an emo-
tional response shaped by the esthetic function those characters
fulfill. We do not require that we be convinced of the reality of
these characters. In fact, esthetic characters "do not represent
real individuals or types, nor do they illustrate essences or con-
cepts. They merely borrow human shapes or human characteristics
because these have become in most Western fiction a necessary mini-
mum of narrative equipment" (S & K, p. 99).

The second type of character,iflwaillustrative, exists as a
product of the impulse to create characters who embody some aspect
of the novelist's vision of truth. The impulse of illustration,

say Scholes and Kellogg. seeks

112

to present selected aspects of the actual, essences refer-

able for their meaning not to historical, psychological,

or sociological truth but to ethical and metaphysical

truth. Illustrative characters are concepts in anthropoid

shape or fragments of the human psyche masquerading as

whole human beings (S & K, p. 88).
Whereas characters fulfilling an esthetic function serve as part of
the narrative machinery and require an emotional response from the
reader, characters in their illustrative aspect are creatures of the
thematic impulse of a work and require an intellectual response.
Anne's embodiment of the correct balance of duty, sensibility, pru-
dence, and love reveals her illustrative role in the implied
author's impulse to dramatize her moral vision.

Scholes and Kellogg suggest a third kind of characterization,
which they call "representational." Representational characters owe‘
their traits neither to the formal requirements of the plot nor to
the intellectual or moral content of the work, but to a quite sepa-
rate impulse: the mimetic impulse. A mimetic character differs from
an illustrative one primarily in the fact that the mimetic character
has nothing to do with meaning. In this the mimetic character is
like the esthetic, but he is different from the esthetic type in
that the impulse which created the mimetic character has to do only
with the artist's attempt to create the impression of lifelikeness,
and nothing to do with the structural requirements of the narrative:

. . . we can say that [esthetic types] have little to do
with "meaning" . . . . In a quite different way the most
mimetic characterizations seem also to exist largely out-
side the area of meaning. The highly individualized char-
acter draws the reader into a very intimate connection

with the fictional world and makes the world assume some-
thing like the solidity of reality. By awakening complex

113

correspondences between the psyches of character and
reader, such characterization provides a rich and intense
"experience" for the reader--an experience which may not
only move him but also exercise his perception and sensi-
bility, ultimately assisting him to perceive and compre-
hend the world of reality more sharply and more sensitively
than he otherwise might (S G K, p. 103).

The individualization of a literary character permits us to
view him and to respond to him outside of the formal and thematic
functions he serves in the work. Additionally, mimetic characteriza-
tion involves the reader in the character's world of reality. We
not only perceive his reality, we participate in it. We come to
know phenomenologically what it is like to be a particular character,
with that character's perception of the world. We experience the
choices which present themselves to a character in his world and we
likewise experience his motivations for choosing as he does. We are
allowed to empathize with his thoughts and emotions--with the life
of another person.

The problem for the literary critic is to determine how to
discuss the phenomenological experience of a character and the
details of a character's behavior when those details are not related
to the author's formal or thematic intentions for the work.

An approach to the analysis of mimetic characters is sug-
gested by Scholes and Kellogg's observation that such characters
are the product of an impulse to create "highly individualized fig-
ures who resist abstraction and generalization and whose motivation
is not susceptible to rigid ethical interpretation" (S & K, p. 101).

Scholes and Kellogg make clear that the impulse to create psycho-

logically accurate portraits "does not inevitably include reference

114

to systems of psychological classification" (S & K, p. 101). To be
sure, the artist's psychological impulse is not an attempt to create
characters who illustrate or conform to categories invented by psy-
chologists. It does not follow from this truth, however, that the
ggjtig_may have no recourse to the psychologist's categories to
illuminate and account for those patterns of thought and behavior
which constitute a mimetic portrait.2

In a persuasively argued rationale for the psychological
study of fictional characters, Bernard J. Paris proposes that,
because the achievement of much realistic fiction is precisely the
lifelikeness of its central characters, "in certain cases it j§_pro-
per to treat literary characters as real people and that only by
doing so can we fully appreciate the distinctive achievement of the
genre."3 Insofar as literary characters are like real people, that
is, insofar as they convince us that their actions, thoughts, and
feelings are motivated by their own unique psychological composition
and not by the esthetic or thematic requirements of the work, the
discipline of psychology provides us with a vocabulary for talking
about such characters.

The inevitable charge against treating literary characters
as if they were real people is that such a supposition ignores the
obvious fact that characters are, after all, the creations of their
authors; they cannot do or think or feel anything not prescribed
for them by their creators. It is carrying the illusion too far, the

argument goes, to probe the psychological depths of a character

whose author may never have understood or intended to portray the

115

workings of the subconscious. Furthermore, psychological analysis
of characters frequently describes them in ways which are not only
beyond what an author intended but positively subversive to thematic
and structural functions the character is supposed to fulfill. That
being the case, psychological analysis of literary characters cannot
help us interpret fiction.
Paris notes, however, that novelists themselves, as well as
many critics of realistic fiction, have testified to the frequency
with which mimetic characters overflow what was intended for them and
take on a life of their own. E. M. Forster, in particular, observes
of "round characters" that they
arrive when evoked, but full of the spirit of mutiny. For
they have these numerous parallels with people like our-
selves, they try to live their own lives and are conse-
quently oftefl engaged in treason against the main scheme
of the book.

Paris also quotes Georg Lukacs, who states succinctly how characters

develop according to the logic of their own personalities:
The characters created by the great novelists, once con-
ceived in the vision of their creator, live an independent
life of their own; their comings and goings, their devel-
0pment, their destiny is dictated by the inner dialectic
of their social and individual existence. No writer is a
true realist--or even a truly good writer, if hg can
direct the evolution of his characters at will.

The testimony of novelists and critics is, perhaps, less to
the point than are our own experiences with mimetic characters. We
feel their uniqueness, their aliveness, their human dimension. We
remember characters long after we have forgotten stories (not to

mention themes). But is it the inevitable conclusion of this obser-

vation that the way to discuss such characters is in terms of modern

116

psychology? W. J. Harvey, whose study of the problems of analyzing
literary characters begins with a recognition of the failure of
critics to develop a vocabulary for talking about mimesis, argues
that psychological criticism "tends to fall into one of two errors":

Either it leads to a naive kind of naturalism, seeking to

supply motives and explanations for characters who in fact

are being used conventionally; or it tends to translate

the character into its own terms. But this is reductive

and wrongly abstract; Falstaff or Heathcliff, we protest,

are ggt_drgmatizations of the id; Mr. Knightly is ggt_a

super-ego.

The argument that it is reductive is, in fact, among the
most frequently heard objections to the psychological study of
mimetic characters. Of course, every critical strategy is ultimately
reductive: no theory accounts for everything in a novel; all
select details which together seem1x>form meaningful patterns. Psy-
chological criticism, at least, begins from the premise that mimetic
characters are ruled by the same laws of human behavior which govern
actual persons.

Some readers resist psychological interpretation of literary
characters because it appears to them that the critic reduces the
rich mimetic creation to a mere case study. Such objections, how-
ever, seem based on a frequent error which Frederick Crews identi-
fies as "the common but unreasonable demand that a theory 'feels
like' what it describes.“7 No intellectualization about phenomena
can reproduce the experience of phenomena, nor does it attempt to

do so. Psychology and mimetic literature offer distinctly different

ways of knowing the same kinds of phenomena. Paris notes the

 

 

 

 

117

different perspectives provided by psychology and realistic litera-
ture upon the same areas of experience:
If we understand by phenomenology the descriptive analysis
of subjective processes, we can say that realistic fiction
gives us a phenomenological grasp of experience. It gives
us immediate knowledge of how the world is experienced by
the individual consciousness and an understanding of the
inner life in its own terms. It enables us to grasp from
within the phgnomena which psychology and ethics treat
from without.

Objections to the psychological analysis of mimetic charac-
ters stem, I think, from the wrong notion that to interpret a char-
acter's actions, thoughts, and feelings as neurotic is to deprecate
him, to blame him for not being what he ought to be. In the case of
a character like Anne Elliot, the proper focus should not be measur-
ing her against twentieth century standards of psychological health,
but evaluating the nature of the society which blocks the full
realization of her rich potential. Anne, after all, does the best
she can. A sociological evaluation is certainly implicit in some of
the conclusions about Anne derived from a psychological study of her
character. But the real point is that interpretation, psychological
or otherwise, precedes criticism; it seeks to understand, not judge.
Besides, the ideal of complete psychological health as defined in
the next section of this chapter is so rare that none of us can
safely equate neurosis with moral weakness.

We look to psychology, then, not to reproduce our esthetic

experience of Anne Elliot, and certainly not to condemn her, but to

provide us with a terminology for talking about the structure which

underlies the mimetic quality of her characterization.

 

118

The Psychology of Karen Horney
The psychological system I intend to employ to analyze the
mimetic characterization of Anne Elliot is that of the American
Third Force psychologist, Karen Horney. As with my rationale for
using psychology to analyze character, I am following Professor
Paris in my use of Horneyan psychology. Before proceeding with an
analysis of the character of Anne, it is necessary for me to summa-
rize some of the basic tenets and classifications of Horneyan psy-
chology. In doing so, I duplicate some of the second chapter of
Paris's book.9
A fundamental premise of Horneyan psychology is that each
individual has within him not only inherent talents but a basic
desire to develop and realize his potentialities. Given the right
kind of love and attention to his basic needs, a child will develop
"the unique alive forces of his real self":
the clarity and depth of his own feelings, thoughts,
wishes, interests; the ability to tap his own resources,
the strength of his will power; the special capacities or
gifts he may have; the faculty to express himself, and to
relate himself to others with his spontaneous feelings.
. All this will in time enable him to find his set of values
and his aims in life. In short, he will grow substan-
tially undiverted, toward self-realization.10
Without the required love, understanding, and encouragement, however,
a child does not develop the necessary sense of security about him-

self in the world, "but instead a profound insecurity and vague

apprehensiveness, for which I use the term baSic anxiety" (Horney,

 

p. 18). The energy which in a healthy person would be channeled

119

into the realization of the potentialities of his real self is
diverted instead into allaying this basic anxiety.

Horney identifies the consequences of basic anxiety as an
alienation of the person from his real self, which he regards as
worthless and unlovable because it has not secured for him the satis-
faction of his basic need for support and affection, and the develop-
ment of strategies for dealing with other people "in ways which do
not arouse, or increase, but rather allay his basic anxiety" (Horney,
p. 18). There are essentially three strategies by which a person
attempts to relate to others: he may move toward them, clinging to
people he perceives as more powerful than himself; he may move
against them, developing an antagonistic or rebellious relationship
with others; and he may move away from them, shutting out others
from his inner life. Characteristically, all three strategies are
explored, but gradually one becomes dominant because it is perceived
as most successful.

In an effort to compensate for his self-image of worthless-
ness and unlovableness, the alienated person employs an intra-
psychic strategy of self-glorification, a process of endowing him-
self in his imagination "with unlimited powers and exalted faculties"
(Horney, p. 22). The idealized image thus developed becomes for the
individual an idealized self, "not primarily because it is more
appealing but because it answers all his stringent needs" (Horney,

p. 23). Expectedly, the energy which in a health person would be
directed toward self-realization is directed in the alienated per-

son toward actualization of the idealized self. To attempt to

120

actualize the idealized self the individual embarks upon a quest
which Horney labels "the search for glory." The elements of this
search for glory are a need for perfection, neurotic ambition, and
a need for vindictive triumph. All three aspects of the search for
glory have in common that they are compulsive (as opposed to spon-
taneous) and that they are imaginative (i.e., distortions of
reality).

The search for glory which an individual pursues through his
development of an idealized self and through his interpersonal
strategies can never produce the self-confidence and spontaneity he
needs so desperately; instead, when his strategies are working well,
he achieves a kind of substitute for self-confidence: neurotic
pride. The neurotic invests enormous pride in whatever tendency
serves to actualize his idealized self; but, because at bottom his
pride is only a counterfeit for genuine self-confidence, it makes him
extremely vulnerable. He responds to attacks on his pride, real or
imagined, with automatic (i.e., compulsive) efforts to restore
pride, and one of the most frequent endeavors to restore pride is
the search for vindictive triumph. Other efforts to restore pride
include a tendency to forget or distort incidents which threaten
pride, a loss of interest in activities in which his pride might be
hurt, and the use of humor to remove the sting of injured pride.

Two kinds of threat exist to an individual's pride: those
that result from his failure to behave consistently with his ideal-
ized image of himself and those related to the failure of others to

treat him with the deference due to a person of his lofty

121

self-image. The former threat is based on the individual's ruthless
requirements of himself, inner dictates which Horney calls the
neurotic's "shoulds." The latter threat is based on his demands not
only upon others but upon life itself. Horney calls these demands
neurotic claims. Both shoulds and claims are manifestations of the
search for glory which is, in turn, the essential element in the
attempt to actualize the idealized self.

Co-existing with the desperate attempts to actualize an
idealized self is a profound self-hate directed at the ggtggl self
as viewed from the imperial perspective of the jdegl_self:

The best way to describe the situation is in terms of two

people. There is the unique, ideal person; and there is

the omnipresent stranger (the actual self), always inter-

fering, disturbing embarrassing (Horney, p. 111).
The actual self becomes offensive to the ideal self, and the neuro-
tic in his glorified image turns against his actual self with anger
and contempt. The person is at war with himself. He expresses this
self-hate in his relentless demands on himself, self-accusation,
self-frustration, self-tormenting, and, occasionally, self-
destruction.

The self-hate generated by the conflict between the ideal
self and the actual self is, of course, a source of enormous ten-
sion. Just as the individual attempts to allay the tension of his
basic anxiety by a process of self-glorification, so, too, does he
attempt tension-reducing measures to minimize the hate engendered

by the confrontation between actual and ideal selves. The most

important of the general measures to relieve such tension is further

 

122

alienation from self: an attempt to obviate the conflict by elimi-
nating from consciousness one of the selves giving rise to the con-
flict. The ultimate victim is not merely the actual self (who the
person is at any given time), but the real self (the force toward
unique individual growth and fulfillment):
if we exile our real self the conflict between it and the
pseudoself not only disappears from awareness but the dis-
tribution of forces is so changed that it actually abates.
Naturally this release of tension can be achieved only at
the cost of an increased autonomy of the pride system
(Horney, p. 178).

Other general measures to relieve tension mentioned by
Horney which are appr0priate to a discussion of Persuasion include:

(a) the externalization of inner experiences, i.e.,

experiencing "the intrapsychic processes . . .

not . . . as such but . . . as occurring between

the self and the outside world" (Horney, p. 178);
(b) automatic control, i.e., unconsciously checking

feelings, thoughts, and actions which threaten

a person's feeling of equanimity;

(c) belief in the supremacy of the mind, i.e.,
attempting to control the emotions and the
physical manifestations of the real self by dint
of pure intellect.

Because of his alienation from his real self, the neurotic
person does not know who he really is. Sometimes he will experience
himself as the realization of his idealized image of himself: his
proud self. But this proud self is an imaginary construction, cre-
ated by the alienated person as a denial of qualities in himself he
most needs to suppress. At times the qualities he most loathes
emerge to constitute a different identity: his despised self. The

individual identifies completely with one or the other self at any

123

given time; his self-evaluation, his behaviors, drives, and relation-
ships to others are determined by whether the proud self or the
despised self prevails at the moment.

Eventually, to eliminate the tension of being defined by two
opposite personalities, the alienated individual attempts to achieve
integration by suppressing completely and permanently either the
proud or the despised self. Alternatively, he may attempt to solve
the internal conflict "by withdrawing interest from the inner battle
and resigning from active psychic living" (Horney, p. 190). We are
thus presented with three intrapsychic strategies for resolving con-
flicts, and Horney uses these strategies to establish and classify
neurosis into three major types. Essentially, they are the expansive
type, who identifies with his glorified self, the self-effacing type,
who identifies with his despised self, and the resigned type, who
declares himself uninterested in the conflict between his proud and
his hated selves.

We shall now look at each of these solutions in some detail.
In summarizing Horney's delineationscfl’each of the defensive strate-
gies, I shall include the goals of each, their intrapsychic and
interpersonal manifestations, the pathogenic circumstances which
typically give rise to them, and the result of each strategy when
it is pursued to its ultimate conclusion. Where appr0priate, I
shall also include a discussion of subspecies within the major

categories of neurosis.

The expansive solution encompasses at least three distinct

variations, but all are based upon a need to control:

124

The appeal of life lies in mastery. It chiefly entails
[the neurotic's] determination, consciously or uncon-
sciously, to overcome every obstacle--in or outside him-
self--and the belief that he should be able, and in fact
j§_able, to do so. He should be able to master the adver-
sities of fate, the difficulties of a situation, the
intricacies of intellectual problems, the resistances of
other people, conflicts in himself. The reverse side of
necessity for mastery is his dread of anything connoting
helplessness; this is the most poignant dread he has
(Horney, p. 192).

The expansive person attempts self-glorification through
ambitiousness and vindictiveness, and he prides himself on the
strength of his will power and intelligence. He despises in himself
any evidence of “softness" which might hinder the actualization of
his idealized image. He is exceptionally sensitive to criticism
because he is proud of his capacity for fooling others, and criti-
cism signifies to him that his bluff has been called. Unconsciously,
of course, he fears he is nothing more than bluff.

There are several kinds of expansive solutions: the narcis-
sistic (in which the person identifies with his idealized image),
the perfectionistic (in which he identifies with his standards), and
the arrogant-vindictive (in which he identifies with his pride).

The narcissistic type has no doubts about himself: "he j§ythe
anointed, the man of destiny, the prophet, the great giver, the
benefactor of mankind" (Horney, p. 194). He possesses great charm
and buoyancy and self-confidence. He is capable of overlooking
imperfections in his own character or of transforming them into

virtues, and he is often tolerant of imperfections in others, as

well.

125

While the narcissistic type apparently needs to confirm his
self-image by captivating others with his charm, he "does not seem
to mind breaking promises, being unfaithful, incurring debts,
defrauding" (Horney, p. 195). He rather feels entitled by his own
self-importance to abuse or exploit others in this way. Having
already actualized his idealized image (in his own mind), he is
unable to recognize limitations; he is too expansive, his pursuits
are too numerous, and he therefore encounters failures. Failure,
being entirely alien to his idealized self-image, often provokes
self-hate, which in turn causes spells of depression and pessimism
and even suicide.

Whereas the narcissistic type identifies with his idealized
image, the perfectionist identifies with his standards. He

feels superior because of his high standards, moral and
intellectual, and on this basis looks down on others. His
arrogant contempt for others, though, is hidden--from him-
self as we11--behind polished friendliness, because his
very standards prohibit such "irregular" feelings (Horney,
p. 196).
The perfectionistic type achieves flawless standards of excellence
by the mere fact of his possessing high standards: " nowing about
moral values and ggjgg_a good person" (Horney, p. 196) are in his
mind the same thing.

The perfectionist has made a "deal" with life: he will
behave in accordance with his rigorous shoulds, he will be honest,
fair, dutiful, mannerly, and in turn he is entitled to justice from

others and from life itself. He thereby "deserves" good fortune;

bad luck, accidents, and failure are unfair because they violate his

126

"deal" or call into question his having lived up to his shoulds.
From others the perfectionist demands first that they honor the
bargain he has made with life, second that they respect him for his
rigid standards, and third that they also hold such high standards if
they are to avoid his contempt.

The third sub-species of the expansive solution is embodied
in the arrogant-vindictive type. Identifying with his pride, this
type is motivated by a need for vindictive triumph as a way of con-
firming his mastery of life and allaying his anxieties about
himself.

In human relationships, vindictiveness manifests itself in
extreme competitiveness and in intolerance for any person who exhi-
bits superiority to him in any endeavor. The vindictive neurotic is
subject to violent rages when his claims are not met. He is dis-
trustful of others, arrogant and rude, and thrives on humiliating
or frustrating others. He regards any flow of warm feeling in him-
self, any failure to assert his rights or to retaliate for injuries
done, as evidence of his "getting soft."

Horney suggests that experiences of sheer "brutality, humili-
ations, derision, neglect, and flagrant hypocrisy" (Horney, p. 202)
may have caused a child to harden his sensitivity to such abuses in
order to survive. Concluding that affection is unattainable for
him, the child no longer seeks it, but substitutes mastery over
others for winning their affection. The two basic ingredients in

his recipe for dealing with others are the need to triumph and the

127

need to reject positive feelings, both those which he feels toward
others and those which he perceives that others feel toward him.

The intrapsychic factors in the arrogant-vindictive strategy
are related to the interpersonal factors. The vindictive person
takes pride in not allowing himself to feel hurt by others. Unable
to admit to being hurt or to recognize that his vindictiveness is a
retaliation for such hurts, the individual transforms in his mind his
vindictive rages into "warranted wrath at a wrong done and into the
right to punish the wrongdoer" (Horney, p. 205). Between vindictive
rages, this person appears to monitor his expressions of emotions
carefully--to be over-controlled. This is not due to any desire to
be liked but to his fear that his aggressive impulses will provoke
retaliation, and because if others successfully retaliate his pride
will be undermined.

Whereas all expansive types identify with their proud
selves, self-effacing types identify with their despised selves.
Consequently, the self-effacing solution glorifies exactly those
tendencies which the expansive solution is most anxious to eliminate
or deny. The self—effacing person

must ggt_feel consciously superior to others or display
any such feelings in his behavior. On the contrary he
tends to subordinate himself to others, to be dependent
upon them, to appease them. Most characteristic is the
diametrically opposite attitude from that of the expansive
type toward helplessness and suffering. Far from abhoring
these conditions, he rather cultivates and unwittingly
exaggerates them; accordingly anything in the attitude of
others, like admiration or recognition, that puts him in a

superior position makes him uneasy. What he longs for is
help, protection, and surrendering love (Horney, p. 215).

 

128

Almost every sort of behavior that is characteristic of the -
expansive type finds its opposite hithe self-effacing person. He
has taboos against pride, self-assertion, ambition, vindictiveness,
and triumph. Not only does he avoid arrogance, conceit, and pre-
sumptuousness, but he often regards the most innocent (and healthy)
recognition of his own attributes, virtues, and accomplishments as
evidence of his conceit, and he hates himself and feels guilty for
it. Although he generates much hostility in himself, his taboo
against expressing such hostility prevents him from striking back
against real or imagined abuses. He prefers to forgive others, Or
to "understand" them. He is unable to carry a grudge-~consciously.

The shoulds of the self-effacing neurotic are largely should
ggtg, But, while he has taboos against almost any endeavor in his
own behalf,

he is not only free to do things for others, but, accord-
ing to his inner dictates, should be the ultimate of help-
fulness, generosity, considerateness, sympathy, love and
sacrifice. In fact love and sacrifice in his mind are
closely intertwined: he should sacrifice everything for
love--love i§_sacrifice (Horney, p. 220).

Although the self-effacing person abhors aggressiveness and
vindictiveness in himself, he often admires these traits in others,
or, at least, is unable to distinguish between healthy self-
assertion and neurotic ambition and arrogance in others.

According to Horney, as we have seen, the expansive type
often developed his strategies in a hostile, neglectful, and deri-

sive environment in which he concluded that love was unattainable.

In contrast, the self-effacing strategies emerge when affection of a

129

sort is avaiable, but affection which requires the person to abandon
his real self and to adopt compliant, self-subordinating traits. He
cultivates lovable qualities in himself, and winning the affection
of others is of paramount importance to him.

In addition to the "lovable" qualities that the self-
effacing individual glorifies in his idealized image of himself he
also cultivates secondary qualities of helplessness, suffering, and
martyrdom. The cornerstone of these secondary qualities is his
capacity for deep feeling:

In contrast to the arrogant-vindictive type, a premium is

also placed on feelings--feelings of joy or suffering,

feeling not only for individual people but for humanity,

art, nature, values of all sorts. To have deep feelings

is part of his image (Horney, p. 222-23).
Needless to say, having deep feelings is not in itself evidence of
neurosis, but the self-effacing person may actually exaggerate his
deep feelings and his suffering as evidence of his helplessness in
response to attacks from others and as a way of appeasing his self-
hate.

In spite of suffering a great deal from others, for their
real or imagined neglect or abuse, the self-effacing person desper-
ately needs their affection and appreciation. In Horney's words,
he "is worth as much as he is loved" (Horney, p. 227). He needs not
only emotional support from others but their help. His profound
need for emotional support and help turn into the expectation that
such help will be forthcoming, and even into the feeling that he is

entitled to such support because his need for it is so great. His

suffering is a means of coercing others into fulfilling his claims,

130

as is his character of usefulness and duty. The frustration of his
claims perpetuates his suffering and his feeling of being abused,
which in turn increases his need to have filled his claims for sup-
port and help.

Suffering in the self-effacing person is an automatic
response to his feeling abused, having his feelings hurt, failing
to live up to his shoulds, and feeling unloved or unappreciated.
But suffering also acquires another function: "that of absorbing
rage and making others feel guilty, which is the only effective way
of getting back at them" (Horney, p. 233). This functional suffer-
ing (as Horney calls it) is nearly the only way the self-effacing
person has of venting his hostility and his vindictive tendencies
while remaining consistent with his other shoulds. In addition,
functional suffering provides him with an alibi for failing to
achieve much in his own life. "To put it briefly: his suffering
accuses others and excuses himself!" (Horney's emphasis, p. 235).

The self-effacing person needs not only to be loved, but a
also to love.

To love, for him, means to lose, to submerge himself in
more or less ecstatic feelings, to merge with another
being, to become one heart and one flesh, and in this
merger to find unity which he cannot find in himself. His
longing for love thus is fed by deep and powerful sources:
the longing for surrender and the longing for unity
(Horney, p. 240).
This longing for love helps to account for the self-effacing per-

son's overriding desire to cultivate lovable qualities in himself.

Often he can develop fairly satisfactory love relationships and

131

achieve a measure of happiness, provided his partner can respond
positively to his weakness and dependency.

"The third major solution of the intrapsychic conflicts con-
sists essentially in the neurotic's withdrawing from the inner
battlefield and declaring himself uninterested" (Horney, p. 259).
The resigned person attempts to find peace from his inner conflicts
by settling for less, by giving up striving and struggling altogether
and undergoing "a process of shrinking, of restricting, of curtail-
ing life and growth." The "picture of resignation when maintained
consistently, is one of life at a constantly low ebb--of a life
without pain or friction but also without zest" (Horney, p. 260).

Resignation exhbits several characteristics which distin-
guish it from the other neurotic solutions discussed. Firstly, the
resigned person senses himself an onlooker on life, not only on the
life around him, but on his own life. Secondly, the resigned indi-
vidual avoids striving for achievement. Toward any kind of sus-
tained effort he deve10ps a profound inertia, or he resists tasks
through procrastination or listless effort. Thirdly, he lacks any
sense of direction or planning in his life. All of these character-
istics indicate his basic strategy of restricting his wishes for
anything. Among his neurotic claims the two outstanding ones are
"that life should be easy, painless, and effortless and that he
should not be bothered" (Horney, p. 264).

The resigned person's relationships with other people are
characterized by detachment. Although he can maintain distant rela-

tionships with others, he endeavors to avoid emotional involvement

132

with them. He expects neither good nor bad from others--in fact, he
doesn't expect much of anything. Although he does not have a taboo
against deep positive feelings in himself as does the arrogant-
vindictive type, he considers that his feelings are his own business,
not to be shared with others. Wishing to avoid ties of any kind, he
develops an aversion to anything that feels to him like coercion or
pressure from others. He also resists change of any kind.

The resigned person may display some characteristics of the
expansive solution, the self-effacing solution, or both, but these
traits are always in the service of his own solution of detachment
and withdrawal. Where expansive trends predominate he may develop
elaborate fantasies about what he is capable of or about his general
attributes. His attributes, however, exist mainly in his imagina-
tion, and he does little or nothing by way of attempting to accom-
plish any ambitious plan. Neither does he seek vindictive triumph
through any active means.

If self-effacing trends predominate in a resigned person's
solution, he may develop a low opinion of himself. People in this
class

'are frequently keenly sensitive to the needs of other
people, and may actually spend a good deal of their lives
in helping others or serving a cause. They often are
defenseless toward imposition and attacks and would
rather put the blame on themselves than accuse others.
They may be overanxious never to hurt others' feelings.
They also tend to be compliant. This latter tendency,
however, is not determined by a need for affection, as it

is in the self-effacing type, but by the need to avoid
friction (Horney, pp. 271-72).

133

Resignation is largely an attempt at integration through
negation. The primary positive appeal of the solution is the impor-
tance to it of the idea of freedom in contrast to mastery in the
expansive solution or love in the self-effacing solution. Basically,
the resigned person wants to do what he pleases. The problem is,
of course, that he often does not know what it is he wants because
of the taboo he has placed upon wishing or on setting goals for him-

self. He is sure of what he does not want, however; he does not

want to be forced into doing anything.

An individual may develop resigned traits in childhood if
the influences upon him then were cramping and too restrictive to

permit open rebellion.

In short there was an environment which made explicit and
implicit demands for him to fit in this way or that way
and threatened to engulf him without sufficient regard for
his individuality, not to speak of encouraging personal
growth.

So the child is torn for a longer or shorter time
between futile attempts to get affection and interest and
resenting the bonds put around him. He solves this early
conflict by withdrawing from others. By putting an emo-
tional distance between himself and others, he sets his
conflict out of operation. . . . by withdrawing into a
world of his own, he saves his individuality from being
altogether cramped and engulfed. His early detachment
thus not only serves his integration, but also has a most
significant positive meaning: the keeping intact of his
inner life (Horney's emphasis, p. 275).

 

Horney distinguishes three distinct forms of the resigned
solution. Those people in whom the traits described heretofore are
present consistently she characterizes as persistently resigned. In
spite of their general inertia, neurotics of this type are generally

able to struggle to do daily work if it does not involve initiative

 

134

or the need to fight for something. In its more extreme form, how-
ever, persistent resignation can lead to a parasitic existence and
finally to a resistance even to thinking and feeling.

A second form of resignation is that in which expansive ten-
dencies are more predominant. Persons in this category tend to
become rebellious toward internal and external restrictions.
Although rebellion against his own taboos may have a certain libera-
ting effect and may therefore free the individual for more creative
and productive work, such rebellion does not alter his detachment .
from others and his indifference toward his personal life.

A third variation of the resigned solution Horney calls
shallow living. This seems to be a development of persistent resig-
nation, but with the positive factors such as being in touch with
one's own feelings removed. Only the negative aspects of the solu-
tion are manifested in shallow living. People of this type may seek
to allay feelings of futility by pursuing distracting pleasures;
they may seek an artificial self-esteem through money, prestige, or
opportunistic success; or they may become "well-adapted" automatons.
The "well-adapted" person seems to fit in with others by complying
with their codes and conventions, but such an attitude betokens his
complete loss of touch with his own thoughts and feelings and a

"general flattening out of the personality" (Horney, pp. 287-88).

This quick overview of Horney's penetrating and subtle
analyses of neurotic processes gives the illusion of a much more

rigid system of classification than she intends. Not only does my

135

summary do injustice to her careful insistence that neurosis is not
so easily pigeonholed, but Horney herself qualifies the very attempt
to create categories of neurosis, and prefers to think in terms of
directions of development rather than types of individuals. The
particular traits which she isolates and labels help to characterize
certain neurotic strategies, but these strategies seldom exist in a
"pure" form in real people. People can have tendencies from any or
all of the solutions in addition to entirely healthy motives and
drives. Often traits from one solution are employed in the service
of another. The question becomes less one of identifying particular
behaviors as belonging to a specific neurotic solution than of dis-
covering the primary motives for such behavior.

If rigid categorization of neurosis serves no valid function
in psychoanalysis it can hardly have heuristic value in the study of
literary characters. My purpose in attempting a psychological
explanation of a character like Anne Elliot, then, is not to "prove"
that she is neurotic. Nor is it to rubricize her experiences. But
if by isolating those elements of Persuasion which are identifiable
as characteristics of comedy we can better perceive the comic struc-
ture of the work, and if by isolating the thematic elements we can
better understand its thematic structure, perhaps by identifying
those patterns of behavior which correspond to patterns of behavior
ir1 real human beings we can better understand the structure of
Anne's personality. In the next section I shall attempt to illus-
trate how Karen Horney's analysis of human behavior illuminates

Jane Austen's mimetic portrait of Anne Elliot.

136

"She Was Only Anne"

It is not until Chapter iv of Volume I of Persuasion that
Anne's story begins to be told. While the focus of attention is
upon Sir Walter at Kellynch-hall, Anne comes in for only peripheral
attention. It is appropriate that we learn so little of Anne while
we learn of Sir Walter's struggles to reconcile his inflated sense
of dignity with his financial straits. Compared to his regard for
himself and for his eldest daughter, Anne is "of very inferior
value" (5) to him.

Sir Walter's characterization as a comic glgggg_signals the
nature of the work from the very first pages of the novel. With
that indication of genre in mind, the reader is not likely to miss
the Cinderella motif in the brief references to Anne in the early
chapters. Nor is he likely to take very seriously the really mon-
strous treatment to which she is subjected by her father and older
sister. Such oppressive family backgrounds are de regueur for
Cinderellas and comic heroines. When Anne's identity as a mimetic
character begins to emerge, however, the harshness of her family
environment assumes a new dimension. The reader not only sympa-
thizes with Anne and wishes her to overcome her unfair circumstances,
but he begins to understand the sources of her personality traits,
especially those which may strike him as compulsive.

Anne's personality develops in reaction to the pathogenic
environment at Kellynch. After the death of her mother, she did not
enjoy even the love or esteem which her father bestowed upon Eliza-

beth. Having to live in the shadow of both her vain father and her

137

favored sister, Anne becomes alienated from her real self. Her
energies are directed not toward growth and self-realization but
toward the development of an image of herself which will give her a
sense of worth and protect her from the pain caused by the callous-
ness of her treatment at home.

The lack of affection with which Anne is treated by Sir
Walter and Elizabeth is demonstrated in a number of instances. For
example, Elizabeth determines that the family might retrench by
"taking no present down to Anne, as had been the usual yearly cus-
tom" (10). Anne is never invited to accompany Sir Walter and Eliza-
beth on their spring excursions to London. Elizabeth advises that
Anne had better stay with Mary at Uppercross after the family
vacates Kellynch-hall, "for nobody will want her in Bath" (33). But
the low esteem in which Anne is held appears most consistently in
the failure of Sir Walter and Elizabeth to consult Anne or to con-
sider her opinions on any subject. She is excluded from any meaning-
ful participation in the affairs of the family. Her advice is not
sought on the matter of the family's retrenchment because she "never
seemed considered by the others as having any interest in the ques-
tion" (12). When she expresses a desire that the family take up
residence in a smaller house in the country, "the usual fate of Anne
attended her, in having something very opposite from her inclincation
fixed on" (14). When Anne presumes to caution Elizabeth about the
danger of putting Sir Walter in constant company with Mrs. Clay,

Elizabeth is positively incensed. Anne "was nobody with either

138

father or sister: her word had no weight; her convenience was
always to give way;--she was only Anne" (5).

Although these instances of the pathogenic nature of Anne's
environment all take place when she is an adult, it can be assumed
that they represent Anne's lifelong relationship with her father and
sister. Anne never remembers a time when she received affection
from her father. The references to Lady Elliot's unhappiness in her
married life indicate that Sir Walter has always been the strutting
peacock we meet in the first pages of the novel. In fact, the whole 1
atmosphere of stagnation which characterizes life at Kellynch-hall
reinforces the impression that the situation there, at least with
regard to Anne's status with her father and older sister, has always
prevailed.

An environment like that at Kellynch could only produce in
Anne a frustration of her basic needs for love, safety, and a sense
of belonging. While she lived, Anne's mother was an important
source of reinforcement for her, but "never since the loss of her
dear mother, [had she] known the happiness of being listened to, or
encouraged by any just appreciation or real taste" (47). Having
received support and affection from her mother, Anne models herself
on her mother's example. Her success in doing so also wins for her
the affection of Lady Russell, who believes that "it was only in
Anne that she could fancy the mother to revive again" (6). Anne's
self-esteem now rests upon her estimation of her success in living

by the values which she admired in her mother and which won affection

139

from both her mother and Lady Russell. She also requires Lady Rus-
sell's confirmation of her success in emulating her mother.

The terms in which Lady Elliot is described offer an insight
into the kind of person into which Anne tries to mold herself.
Except for her decision to marry Sir Walter, "Lady Elliot had been
an excellent woman, sensible and amiable; whose judgment and conduct
. . . had never required indulgence afterwards" (4). She had relied
upon Lady Russell "for the best help and maintenance of the good
principles and instruction which she had been anxiously giving her
daughters" (5). Her preoccupations had been with duty, principles,
judgment, and right conduct. It was these interests which served as
an antidote to the unhappiness of her life with Sir Walter and
which, apparently, served as a bond between her and Lady Russell.
While her virtues seem to have been lost on her husband her other
two daughters, they made a strong impression on Anne, whose adoption
of her mother's values won her mother's love and Lady Russell's
affections. [She now uses those values, as her mother had used them,
as a basis for her self-esteem and as a defense against loneliness.
In a word, Anne's self-esteem depends upon her conviction of her
moral superiority.

In both her defensive responses to threats against her self-
esteem and in the kinds of reassurance she seeks from others, Anne's
behavior parallels that which Karen Horney associates with the
strategy of perfectionism. The central characteristic of the per-
fectionist is that he identifies with his high standards. Anne

displays this characteristic in abundance, but analysis of her

 

 

140

personality is complicated by the fact that she also possesses char-
acteristics of the self-effacing and the resigned solutions. I
shall attempt to demonstrate that the basic structure of her person-
ality is perfectionistic, and that her self-effacing and resigned
traits are best understood in relationship to that central solution.
One evidence of Anne's perfectionism is her strategy for
insulating herself from her lovelessness at home. Because she has
received little confirmation of her worth since her mother's death,
Anne does not devote much energy to seeking reinforcement from
others. Instead, she maintains her self-esteem by assuring herself
of her own superior standards whenever she is threatened.
An instance of Anne's characteristic defensive reaction
occurs at Uppercross, when she observes the warmth and good nature
with which Henrietta and Louisa Musgrove regard each other and with
which they are regarded by their parents. Conscious of the dissimi-
larity between their environment and her own, Anne responds to that
recognition by assuring herself that she would not trade places with
them:
Anne always contemplated them as some of the happiest
creatures of her acquaintance; but still, saved as we all
are by some comforting feeling of superiority from wishing
for the possibility of exchange, she would not have given
up her own more elegant and cultivated mind for all their
enjoyments; and envied them nothing but that seemingly
perfect good understanding and agreement together, that
good-humourednmtualaffection, of which she had known so
little herself with either of her sisters (41).

Certainly, there is some irony in that "saved as we all are," but

not so much irony that we disbelieve the genuineness of Anne's

preferring her "more cultivated mind." In fact, Anne's evoking her

 

141

high principles and superior taste in situations which remind her
that she is "of inferior value" at home or which show the ability of
others to win love is a quite consistent pattern in her behavior.
Anne's opinion about the family's retrenchment is unsolicited, but
she urges "more vigorous measures, a more complete reformation, a
quicker release from debt, a much higher tone of indifference for
everything but justice and equity" (12) than even Lady Russell is
prepared to suggest. The pattern is repeated in Anne's response to
Elizabeth's preferring Mrs. Clay's company to Anne's in Bath. Lady
Russell is aggravated by the affront Elizabeth's attitude presents
to Anne, but "Anne herself was become hardened to such affronts"
(34). Consciously, Anne does not feel hurt by Elizabeth's prefer-
ence for Mrs. Clay, but she does feel compelled to suggest to Eliza-
beth the danger of putting Mrs. Clay in frequent company with Sir
Walter:

Anne was so impressed by the degree of their danger, that

she could not excuse herself from trying to make it per-

ceptible to her sister. She had little hope of success;

but Elizabeth . . . should never, she thought, have reason

to reproach her for giving no warning (34).

The primary thing to Anne is not that her advice be heeded,
but that she gives it--that she is able to determine proper conduct,
right principles, and correct behavior to the satisfaction of her
own lofty standards. Her need to be right operates in place of
resentment, jealousy, or hurt feelings. When Henrietta seems to be
a candidate for Wentworth's affections, Anne becomes sensitive to

the potential harm of a rivalry between the Musgrove sisters and

especially to the unfair treatment Charles Hayter suffers as a

142

result of Henrietta's interest in Wentworth: "Anne longed for the
power of representing to them all what they were about, and of
pointing out some of the evils they were exposing themselves to"
(82). Likewise, when Louisa seems destined to marry Wentworth,

Anne becomes critical of the firmness of character by which Wentworth
is so charmed. Following Louisa's accident, of course, Anne hopes
that the lesson has not been lost on Wentworth.

In Horney's terms, Anne's attempts to maintain self-esteem
by evoking her high standards are defenses by which she protects her
lofty image of herself in circumstances which seem to cast doubt on
her worth. These defenses are primarily intrapsychic responses in
the sense that they do not depend upon reinforcement from others;
Anne reassures herself instead of attempting to seek reassurance
from others.

Another factor to be considered in analyzing the structure
of Anne's personality is the way in which she relates to other
people. For the perfectionist, interpersonal relationships are in
some respects affected by his need not to recognize his own failure
to live up to his rigid standards. He must not acknowledge weakness
or helplessness in himself. To do so suggests that he has lost con-
trol of his life because of a failure to fulfill his shoulds. Con-
sequently, the perfectionist externalizes the self-hate he may feel
for not achieving his high standards or for any evidence he detects
in himself of self-effacing trends. He feels contempt for others

when he perceives in them qualities he cannot admit in himself.

 

143

The perfectionist's relationship to others is also influ-
enced by his need for some confirmationcn’hisinmge of himself. The
admiration of those he does not respect is of little consequence to
him. His contempt for the judgment of people with standards or
accomplishments he regards as appreciably beneath his own leaves him
immune to their failure to recognize his superior values. But from
those whom he regards as nearly equal, from people whose values and
accomplishments he admires, the perfectionist needs respect. His

failure to earn their respect calls into question the validity of l

 

his image of himself and, therefore, his ability to master his own
life. Without confirmation of the superiority of his judgment and
his standards, the perfectionist feels vulnerable and helpless.

As Persuasion begins, Anne's only real friend is Lady Rus-
sell; and Lady Russell's distinguishing characteristic is that she
maintains standards nearly as high as those held by Anne. Anne
repeats both her mother's value for Lady Russell's judgment and her
close friendship with her; in turn, Lady Russell's regarding Anne as
"a most dear and highly valued god-daughter, favourite and friend"
(6) is based upon her perception that Anne alone, among Lady Elliot's
daughters, seems to have adopted her mother's dedication to high
principles. None of the other characters, either at Kellynch or at
Uppercross, holds Anne in the same high regard as does Lady Russell.
Anne's need for respect is satisfied by Lady Russell's esteem for
her, and Lady Russell's own high principles earn her Anne's friend-

ship.

144

Most of the other characters in Persuasion are esteemed by

 

Anne in proportion to the respect they evince for her and to the
height of their standards. If one were to rank the characters
according to their exhibition of just these two traits, one would
have a pretty accurate guide as to how positively Anne responds to
them. At the top of the scale are the Crofts and the Harvilles,
whose principles are beyond reproach, and who receive Anne warmly
and acknowledge her goodness. Mrs. Smith ranks highly because of
her affection for Anne, although her early promotion of Mr. Elliot
as a suitor for Anne makes her principles a little suspect. The
Musgroves are friendly enough and seem to acknowledge Anne's good
judgment, but they are not fully appreciative of all her talents and
they display no serious interest in moral principles. Sir Walter and
Elizabeth come near the bottom, of course, and Mrs. Clay, who is a
kind of vulgar Elizabeth, ranks dead last.

Mary is a special case. Although she is not a fully devel-
oped character, Mary is shown to have a relationship with Anne that
is a good deal more complex than Elizabeth's. Anne anticipates her
two-month stay at Uppercross, if not with pleasure, at least without
dread: "Mary was not so repulsive and unsisterly as Elizabeth, nor
so inaccessible to all influence of hers" (43). (It is typical of
Anne to hold people in some regard if they acknowledge her superior
judgment.) Nonetheless, Mary's values do not bear a comparison with
Anne's. The fact that Mary married Charles Musgrove, whose proposal

Anne had rejected, bespeaks Mary's inferior standards.

145

Mary's personality, like Anne's, has been shaped by the
pathogenic environment at Kellynch. Unlike Anne, however, she has
attempted to resolve the resultant anxiety by a strategy of self-
effacement. She relates to people by displaying helplessness and
overt suffering. Mary's hypochondria is a plea, a demand, for help;
and her suffering provides an alibi for her mismanagement of her
children. When her claims are met, she is reasonable enough, but
when they are not, she is miserable:

Mary had not Anne's understanding or temper. While well,

and happy, and properly attended to, she had great good

humour and excellent spirits; but any indisposition sunk

her completely; she had no resources for solitude (37).
Her fear of being left alone and her complaints about not being
visited often enough are based upon her neurotic claims for the
support of others. Mary's image of herself is focused through her
sense of victimization.

Anne never admits to feeling contempt for Mary. Among the
"irregular feelings" which are taboo in the mind of a perfectionist
must certainly be contempt for one's own sister. It is something
akin to contempt, however, which prompts Anne to think Mary's happi-
ness at going to dine with Wentworth "oddly constructed" (58) con-
sidering that little Charles had just broken his collarbone.
Following the accident at Lyme, when Mary insists that she, rather
than Anne, stay with Louisa, Anne acquiesces; but she "had never
submitted more reluctantly to the jealous and ill-judging claims of

Mary" (115). While Anne does not admit to feeling contempt toward

her sister, in the face of all of Mary's hypochondria, her

 

146

snobbishness, and her incompetence at child-rearing, we are likely
to feel the contempt for her that Anne suppresses.

Anne experiences her contempt for Mary as a sense of moral
superiority. For instance, she is sympathetic to the distress of the
Musgrove girls about Mary's snobbish insistence upon Mrs. Musgrove's
recognizing her higher social rank. Characteristically, when con-
fronted by evidence that Mary has achieved at least some degree of
happiness and, perhaps, love with Charles, Anne comforts herself
with the conviction that she would have made a better wife for him
than Mary. The basic reason that Anne needs to feel superior to
Mary is the necessity she feels to reject her sister's self-effacing
traits. Because Mary tries to cope with life by projecting an image
of herself based upon helplessness and suffering, her solution
threatens the validity of Anne's own strategies. Anne's need to
feel superior to--to reject--Mary's self-effacing traits is grounded
in part on the fact that she is not without self-effacing traits her-
self. Because she cannot admit to helplessness in herself, she
externalizes her perception of it, and despises it in the exaggerated
form in which it is embodied in Mary.

Expansive strategies differ from self-effacing strategies
primarily in the fact that the former develop from the individual's
identification with his proud self, the latter from his identifica-
tion with his despised self. Anne's self-effacing tendencies, which
co-exist with her other trends, can be seen in her need to be needed
and in her sympathizing with almost everybody. When Mary claims

that she "cannot possibly do without Anne," Anne is "glad to be

 

147

thought of some use": "To be claimed as a good, though in an
improper style, is at least better than being rejected as no good
at all" (33). There is something in these sentiments beyond mere
dutifulness: this is Anne, feeling a little sorry for herself,
feeling victimized, and being grateful that Mary acknowledges her
usefulness. A similar tone is heard in the description of Anne's
feelings about Lady Russell's esteem for her. She thinks "with
heightened gratitude of the extraordinary blessing of having one
such truly sympathising friend as Lady Russell" (42). Certainly,
some part of the reason for Anne's yielding to Lady Russell's per-
suasions was her gratitude for her affection.

Related to Anne's need to be thought of as useful is another
self-effacing trait: her apparently limitless capacity for sympa-
thy, which endears her to many characters. She earns more than
respect; she earns affection. Anne sympathizes with Lady Russell's
depression at the Elliots' need to vacate Kellynch-hall, sympathizes
with what is genuine in Mrs. Musgrove's grief for her dead son, sym-
pathizes with Charles Hayter's moritification at Henrietta's flir-
tation with Wentworth, sympathizes with Henrietta's wish for Dr.
Shirley to retire so that Hayter might get his parish, and, at one
point, sympathizes with Benwick's grief over having lost his bride-
to-be, Fanny Harville, and, at another point, sympathizes with Cap-
tain Harville's grief over Benwick's not having grieved long enough.
It is Anne's capacity for offering sympathy to almost anyone who
seeks it which accounts for her being made privy to all Sides of the

complaints at Uppercross.

 

148

These compliant characteristics are related to Anne's need
to be perfectly good, but, more to the point, they also serve to win
for Anne a place in the hearts of those she serves or to whom she is
sympathetic. Anne's self-effacement does not much resemble the
trait as it is found in Mary. Her need to control life through her
perfection militates against her expressing an Open appeal for sup-
port and affection by displaying helplessness. In fact, as we have
seen in her feelings toward Mary, Anne displays contempt masked as
moral superiority for the self-effacement she finds in others. Anne
allays the tension produced by the conflict between her perfection-
istic and her self-effacing tendencies by directing her contempt at
others who display self-effacing characteristics.

The narrator's open contempt for Mrs. Musgrove's "large fat
sighings" (68) is shared with the reader, but not attributed to Anne.
Mrs. Musgrove indulges her feelings and romanticizes her dead son
to the point of imagining that he would have been "just such
another" (64) as Captain Wentworth had he lived. Anne's knowledge
of the real character of Dick Musgrove and the unlikelihood of his
ever having amounted to much is expressed in a smile as Mrs. Mus-
grove laments her loss, and in amusement when she detects Wentworth's
fleeting expression of contempt for "poor Richard." But Mrs. Mus-
grove is not the only character in the novel who languishes over an
extended period of time, and whose grief might be at least par-
tially based upon a sentimentalization of the lost loved one.

Anne's own suffering for Wentworth expresses a dependence and a

vulnerability which in some ways conflict hfith her need to feel in

 

149

control of her own life. She externalizes her contempt for her own
self-effacing tendencies by finding these traits amusing in Mrs.
Musgrove.

Captain Benwick evokes in Anne some genuine sympathy and
positive response, but also a degree of condescension for his grief
over Fanny Harville. A knowledge of Benwick's misfortune and an
intuition that "'he has not, perhaps, a more sorrowing heart than I
have'" (97) incline Anne to befriend him. Typically, Anne feels
"the right of seniority of mind" (101) toward Benwick, so much so
that she advises him to indulge less in romantic poetry:

She ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in
his daily study; and on being requested to particularize,
mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collec-
tions of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of
worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as
calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest
precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and reli-
gious endurances (lOl).

Anne sees in Benwick's romantic grief a self-indulgent senti-
mentality which she does not admit in her own suffering over Went-
worth. She exercises her moral superiority over Benwick's ostenta-
tious grief in a way which parallels her attempts to master her own
tendency to wear her broken heart on her sleeve. While she does not
admit that Benwick has a heart as sorrowing as her own, she does
recognize and is amused by her preaching "patience and resignation"
to a man she has just met: "nor could she help fearing, on more
serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and
preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct

would ill bear examination" (101). It is an unintended irony, I

think, that Anne includes herself among "other great moralists and

 

150

preachers." The real point, however, is that Anne's condescension
toward Benwick, like her amusement with Mrs. Musgrove and her feel-
ings of moral superiority toward Mary, is a kind of displaced con-
tempt for her own self-effacing traits. Recognizing in others
those compliant tendencies which she despises in herself, Anne
directs her self-contempt outward in feelings of moral superiority
toward those who display such self-effacing characteristics.

Anne is far more complex than she would be if she were
motivated only by her comic and thematic functions in the novel.
When we view Anne as a person who is conditioned by the frustration
of some of her basic needs and whose responses to others are related
to her defensive drives for perfection, we begin to understand the
dynamics of her interpersonal relationships. In most instances,
Anne's response to a character is simple and one-dimensional,
because the character with whom she interacts is simple and one-
dimensional. Her responses can be complex and sometimes contradic-
tory, however, as is seen in her ambiguous relationship with Lady
Russell.

We have seen that Anne's perfectionistic tendencies and her
need for approval govern her attachment to Lady Russell. We have
also seen that gratitude for Lady Russell's affection accounts for
Anne's somewhat compliant relationship to her mother's old friend.
It is curious, therefore, that Anne spends a great deal of time
assuring herself of the extent to which her own opinons differ from
those of Lady Russell. The basic difference between Lady Russell's

values and Anne's is the farmer's "prejudices on the side of

 

151

ancestry" (11). These prejudices account for her more lenient
recommendations for Sir Walter's retrenchment, her misjudgment of
Admiral Croft, and her promotion of William Elliot as a husband for
Anne.

Anne's insistence on the superiority of her own judgment
seems based upon a need to fix the blame for her loss of Wentworth
on Lady Russell. Of course, Anne insists that she does not blame
her, that it was "one of those cases in which advice is good or bad
only as the event decides" (246). But Anne is convinced that she
would never have given Lady Russell's advice, and Lady Russell has
"to admit that she had been pretty completely wrong" (249) with
regard to both William Elliot and Captain Wentworth. These facts
suggest that, at least unconsciously, Anne blames Lady Russell. Her
reminding herself that her own judgment is superior to Lady Russell's
absolves Anne of responsibility for her own unhappiness. Anne was
only being dutiful.

Another factor suggests that Anne has externalized the
blame for the dissolution of her engagement. Anne is incapable of
harboring vindictive feelings, even toward one whom she blames for
frustrating her chance at happiness. But Anne suffers for eight
long years because of Lady Russell's persuasions; and Lady Russell,
who genuinely cares for Anne, begins to feel "the anxiety which
borders on hopelessness for Anne's being tempted" (29) by some
worthy suitor. Whatever else may be behind Anne's loss of bloom and
spirits, and her long-suffering in Lady Russell's presence, there is

a quality of perverseness about them, which recalls Karen Horney's

 

 

152

description of "functional suffering." Anne's suffering, like that
of Horney's self-effacing neurotic, is a way "of absorbing rage and
making others feel guilty" (Horney, p. 233). Her loss of vitality
and youth accuses Lady Russell and exonerates herself.

In addition to the perfectionistic and self-effacing tenden-
cies she evinces, Anne also reveals a tendency toward resignation.
This is particularly apparent early in the novel, and there is
enough reference to her early life to suggest that she developed
resignation as a defense against the low esteem afforded her by Sir
Walter and Elizabeth. While her intrapsychic strategies for restor-
ing pride are clearly determined by her perfectionism, her efforts
to avoid conflict and her minimal expectations of others are charac-
teristic of detachment. Even Anne's relationship with Lady Russell,
for all her gratitude for the affection the older woman gives her,
seems distant. Anne's liking for lonely walks, her reading, her
love of poetry all signify her active inner life, but they also help
to isolate her from others. The detachment Anne exhibits in the
novel is attributed to her loss of Wentworth, but there are strong
suggestions that she developed the strategy much earlier in her life.

Now that we have seen the extent to which Anne's personality
is structured by the three defensive strategies outlined by Karen
Horney, we shall review the major events of the novel from the
perspective of that understanding. It will become clear that, from

a psychological perspective, Anne's actions and responses assume

 

153

a quite different significance from what may be construed from a

structural or thematic perspective.

Most of the time, Anne's defenses work pretty well. Her
conviction of her moral superiority, her lack of vindictiveness, her
dutifulness, and her knowledge of right conduct are successfully
integrated. She receives enough recognition of her sound judgment
from the Musgroves and enough affection from Lady Russell to rein-
force her image of herself as the embodiment of perfect goodness;
and that image is vital to her defense against the lack of esteem
she experiences in her own family.

At one point in her life, however, Anne's various defensive
strategies were in conflict. That was, of course, during the brief
period of her first engagement to Wentworth. Wentworth fulfilled
Anne's highest standards of perfection, and she his: "It would be
difficult to say which had seen highest perfection in the other, or
which had been the happiest" (26). The attributes of each were
complemented rather than duplicated in the other. "He was, at that
time, a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence,
spirit and brilliancy; and Anne an extremely pretty girl, with gen-
tleness, modesty, taste, and feeling" (26). Except that Anne is at
least as intelligent as Wentworth, each represented to the other the
perfection of qualities he admired but did not possess. They seemed
ideally suited for each other, and their engagement was the natural

sequel to their having met.

154

Wentworth's romantic dash, self-confidence, and hearty spirit
are typical enough heroic virtues in comedy; but for Anne these
traits must have been especially appealing. For all the reasons pre-
viously discussed, Wentworth and the navy represent a repudiation of
Sir Walter and his value system. For Anne, who is the major victim
of Sir Walter and his values, Frederick Wentworth of the navy repre-
sents the ideal vehicle for her triumph over those who have hurt her.
Anne's own values and her ideal image of herself prohibit her from
seeking vindictive triumph, but her marriage to Wentworth would
have offered a measure of vindictive triumph, nonetheless. As even
Sir Walter recognizes, the navy's heroic actions have raised to
distinction men to whom he once would not have spoken. The navy's
assault on the closed ranks of the landed gentry foreshadows the
diminution of Sir Walter's society, and Anne's marriage to the
young, aggressive naval captain would have insured her participation
in the dismantling of Sir Walter's world. Wentworth's aggressiveness
and his confidence in his luck and his own ability constitute the
very qualities required for Anne's retaliation against the abuses of
her father, but they are qualities she lacks.

Lady Russell's opposition to the match precipitated a con-
flict among some of the elements basic to Anne's character. Anne's
pride in her own judgment prompted her to trust Wentworth's self-
confidence about making his fortune in the navy: "Such confidence,
powerful in its own warmth, and bewitching in the wit which often
expressed it, must have been enough for Anne" (27). Yet Lady Rus-

sell's prudential objections were not without foundation, as Anne

 

155

recognized. Lady Elliot's marriage had been contracted in a moment
of "youthful infatuation" (4); and Anne's consciousness of her
mother's unhappiness justified prudence. Additionally, Anne's
veneration of her mother made her especially vulnerable to the per-
suasion of Lady Russell, on whom her mother had relied for advice in
matters of principle. These factors and Anne's somewhat submissive
attachment to Lady Russell, as well as her need to exhibit perfec-
tion in matters of principle and conduct, conspired to convince her
to break the engagement.

We must accept the genuineness and the intensity of the con-
flict Anne experiences because of Lady Russell's opposition to the
engagement if we are to understand the eight years of Anne's suffer-
ing. As we have seen, Anne's only really effective defense against
the lovelessness of her home is to invest all her pride in her knowl-
edge of correct behavior. In addition to providing her with a
self-concept which protected her from the pain of her inconsequence
at Kellynch-hall, Anne's high standards won for her Lady Russell's
affection. Thus, when Lady Russell questioned Anne's discretion and
her sense of pr0priety in contracting the engagement, she appealed
to Anne at the point where she was most vulnerable. In doing so,
in calling into question the efficacy of Anne's ideal image of
herself, she conjured up Anne's compliant self.

Yet the high standards by which Anne judges others found
perfection in Wentworth, and the aggressive qualities she requires
were available through him--he was one of the very few men she could

love and she knew it. She was unable to resolve the dilemma

 

 

156

presented by her genuine love for him and Lady Russell's prudential
objections to the marriage until she convinced herself that the dis-
solution of the engagement was "principally for his advantage" (28).
She could not yield to Lady Russell's persuasion on the basis of
what was prudent for her when breaking the engagement meant reject-
ing her own evluation of Wentworth's character and hurting him in
the process. Her need to be good prohibited her from hurting
others, particularly the man she loved. By convincing herself that
Wentworth's interests were better served if she relieved him of the
responsibility of a wife while he was trying to make his way in the
navy, Anne tried to reconcile the conflict between her desire not to
hurt anyone--to be perfectly good--and her desire to conform to
Lady Russell's concept of propriety and discretion. Anne's deci-
sion, because she chose against her own happiness, satisfied her
self-effacing demands upon herself as well as those demands dictated
by her perfectionism.

From Anne's point of view, the ideal sequel to this diffi-
cult period in her life would have been for Wentworth to go off,
make his fortune, and then return and renew the engagement. All of
Lady Russell's prudential objections would have been obviated by
then; and Anne's decision to break the engagement, as well as her
original estimation of Wentworth's character, would have been vindi-
cated. In fact, Wentworth considered just such a course, as he
confesses after their reconciliation, but "'I was proud, too proud to

ask again. I did not understand you. I shut my eyes, and would not

 

157

understand you, or do you justice'" (247). Earlier, the narrator
provides a more complete picture of Wentworth's resentment:
He had not forgiven Anne Elliot. She had used him ill;
deserted and disappointed him; and worse, she had shewn a
feebleness of character in doing so, which his own deci-
ded, confident temper could not endure. She had given
him up to oblige others (61).

Anne's own perception of Wentworth's attitude is a source of
her grief. She cannot reconcile her high regard for him with his
"unconvinced and unbending" (28) resentment of her. She cannot
defend herself against his bitterness toward her in the way in which
she characteristically defends herself against the abuse of others--
by assuring herself of the superiority of her standards and her
values. She is, therefore, completely vulnerable to his resentment.

The "only thoroughly natural, happy, and sufficient cure"
(28) for her pain would be for her to fall in love with someone else.
But Anne persists in maintaining her standards in spite of what she
suffers; no one suited to "the nice tone of her mind, the fastidi-
ousness of her taste" appeared within "the small limits of the
society around them" (28). Anne suffers her loss of Wentworth for
eight years.

The basis upon which the perfectionist deals with the world
is a "conviction of an infallible justice operating in life [which]
gives him a feeling of mastery":

His own perfection therefore is not only a means to superi-
ority but also one to control life. The idea of undeserved
fortune, whether good or bad, is alien to him. His own

success, prosperity, or good health is therefore less some-
thing to be enjoyed than a proof of his virtue. Conversely,

 

 

158

any misfortune befalling him . . . may bring this seem-
ingly well-balanced person to the verge of collapse. He
not only resents ill fortune as unfair but . . . is sha-
ken by it to the foundations of his psychic existence. It
invalidates his whole accounting system and conjures up
the ghastly prospect of helplessness (Horney, p. 197).

Anne's "deal" with life is nullified by Wentworth's failure
to understand the reasons for her breaking their engagement and to
return when he was financially secure enough to marry. Anne
responds to this invalidation of her accounting system, this attack
on the foundations of her psychic existence, just as she did in
response to her father's failure to love her: by withdrawing from
an active participation in life: "Her attachment and regrets had,
fer a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth; and an early loss
of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect" (28).

The rationale for Anne's withdrawing from others is clearly
to avoid the pain she endured because of the whole episode with
Wentworth. Her defensive strategies of perfectionism had been
developed to protect her from the pain of her lovelessness at home.
Her moral superiority had seemed to insure her sense of self-worth
and to secure for her the esteem of people of real understanding.
With Wentworth, her exercise of her moral judgment brought her more
lovelessness and more pain. Anne has no weapons with which to cope
with life 'if her strategies of perfectionism are invalid. Conse-
quently, instead of seeking love, she forsakes it, resigns herself

to doing without it, and comforts herself with her usefulness to her

nephews, the affection she receives from Lady Russell, and the

 

159

interest she derives from the tame pursuits in which she engages in
the neighborhood of Kellynch.

Karen Horney suggests that a person who develops resigned
tendencies often does so following some period of distress, "of
anxiety, of depression, of despair about some failure or about some
unfortunate life situation in which he has become involved" (Horney,
p. 269). Anne's failure simultaneously to maintain her high stan-
dards and to claim her reward for doing so constitutes such a situ-
ation. The "desolate tranquility" which characterizes Anne following
Wentworth's departure resembles the persistent resignation described
by Horney.

Anne never really abandons her perfectionistic image of
herself. The glimpses we get of her psyche show that her defensive
strategies for maintaining her self-worth in her own mind are still
bound up with her identification with her high standards. But Anne
has curtailed her openness to emotional involvement with others as a
result of her experience with Wentworth.

One of the positive functions served by detachment is "tgg_

keeping intact of'anHs] inner life" (Horney's emphasis, p. 275).

 

The inner life Anne strives to keep intact is the consciousness of
her moral superiority. By withdrawing from others, she eliminates
the risk of having that conviction threatened by circumstances, as
it was by her involvement with Wentworth. In effect, Anne takes a
second step back from love and the emotional risk connected with
loving. The first step was her creation of her image of moral

superiority as a defense against her futile attempt to win love from

 

160

her father. Now she takes a second step and tries to eliminate the
need for romantic love as confirmation of her worth.

Anne's resignation is manifested in several ways. Before
Wentworth returns, Anne's life is lived without zest or enthusiasm.
In a life which seems to lack goals or direction, one of Anne's
chief pursuits is the avoidance of conflict. And, although she feels
strongly about many things, and although she experiences many emo-
tions, she strives to conceal her feelings from others.

Among the attractions which make Uppercross preferable to
Kellynch in Anne's mind are Mary's children, in whom "she had an
object of interest, amusement, and wholesome exertion" (43). Except
for her walks and her reading, there is very little else in Anne's
life which she regards with enthusiasm. Her dutifulness at Kellynch
is largely defensive, and her friendship with Lady Russell is unful-
filling. But Uppercross has its disagreeable circumstances, as
well. Anne is "treated with too much confidence by all the parties,
and [is] too much in the secret of the complaints" (44) between
Charles and Mary, and between the residents of the Great House and
the residents of the Cottage. Anne's judgment and sympathy are
appealed to by all, but she cannot abide conflict. I'How was Anne to
set all these matters to rights?" wonders the narrator on Anne's
behalf. Anne tries to "listen patiently, soften every grievance,.
and excuse each to the other" (46) to eliminate the conflicts which
disturb her tranquility.

One of Anne's most distinguishing characteristics is that

she feels things deeply but struggles to hide her deep emotions from

 

161

others. The view we get of Anne at the piano at Uppercross, "very
much preferring the office of musician to a more active post,"

being used to feeling "alone in the world" (47), epitomizes her
withdrawal from others and her effort to conceal her emotions from
them. Where Wentworth is concerned, Anne strives to deny even to
herself that she retains strong feelings for him. When she first
hears that Wentworth's sister, Sophia Croft, is to live at Kellynch-
hall, she struggles to suppress the surge of emotion she feels:
"many a stroll and many a sigh were necessary to dispel the agitation
of the idea" (30). Following her first encounter with him since his
departure eight years before, her agitation increases:

Soon, however, she began to reason with herself, and

try to be feeling less. Eight years, almost eight years

had passed, since all had been given up. How absurd to be

resuming the agitation which such an interval had banished

into distance and indistinctness (60).
But she reasons in vain: "Alas! with all her reasonings, she found,
that to retentive feelings eight years may be little more than noth-
ing" (60). She even begins to hate herself for wondering what Went-
worth's feelings were toward her.

The conflict is instructive. Whatever tranquility Anne had
achieved by resigning herself from involvement with others is now
threatened. She resists now the loss of that tranquility, but her
feelings are overpowering. She searches for evidence that her
resurgent emotions are groundless. When Mary repeats Wentworth's

observation that he thought Anne "so altered he should not have

known you again" (60), she rejoices. His words "were of a sobering

 

162

tendency; they allayed agitation; they composed, and consequently
must make her happier" (61).

Anne's composure is short-lived; Wentworth's return has
destroyed her equanimity. When she plays the piano, she is still
"glad to be employed, and desired nothing . . . but to be unob-
served," but now "her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she
sat at the instrument" (71).

Each time she encounters Wentworth her emotions reassert

themselves and she attempts to scold them back. When Wentworth I

 

removes young Walter from Anne's back as she is attending little
Charles, Anne becomes "ashamed of herself, quite ashamed of being

so nervous, so overcome by such a trifle; but so it was; and it
required a long application of solitude and reflection to recover
her" (81). Anne fears that if Lady Russell were to see her in Went-
worth's company she might "think that he had too much self-
possession, and she too little" (93).

Gradually, however, Anne comes to recognize that her resig-
nation no longer works and to accept the inevitability of her feel-
ings toward Wentworth. On the walk to Winthrop Anne begins to
become more accepting of her feelings for him. When, conscious of
her fatigue, he hands her into the gig with the Crofts, she cannot
contemplate his gallantry "without emotions so compounded of pleasure
and pain, that she knew not which prevailed" (91). Her response here
is something quite different from her nervous, embarrassed reactions

to their earlier encounters. Although Wentworth has yet given no

163

indication that he might have renewed his interest in her, Anne
begins to accept her emotional attachment to him.

Anne does not suffer the less in Wentworth's company for
having accommodated herself to the fact that she still loves him.
She is able, nonetheless, to harden herself to Wentworth's presence.
Conversing with him "becomes a mere nothing" (99) for Anne.

Anne's gradual abandonment of her restrictions on her own
feelings renews her vulnerability. In admitting to herself that she
still loves Wentworth, she forsakes detachment and becomes more
like the Anne Elliot with whom Wentworth had fallen in love. Anne
has no thought of winning Wentworth back; in her mind he is as good
as engaged to Louisa; but she shows greater willingness to become
emotionally attached to others, as her warm response to the Crofts
and the Harvilles makes clear. More importantly, she appears once
again to be open to romantic attachment.

Anne's early interest in Benwick derives from a combination
of her desire to be sympathetic to others and a certain presumption
of moral authority. Neither attitude is especially contrary to a
strategy of detachment but her emotional involvement with him j§_
contrary to that strategy. By the time she leaves Lyme, Anne has a
decidedly undetached interest in Benwick: "she felt an increasing
degree of good-will towards him, and a pleasure even in thinking
that it might, perhaps, be the occasion of continuing their acquain-
tance" (115). Early in Volume II, when Charles Musgrove intimates
that Benwick may be in love with Anne, her "good-will . . . was not

to be lessened by what she heard" (130-31).

 

 

 

164

The return of Anne's bloom is accounted for by the narrator
as the result of "the fine wind which had been blowing on her com-
plexion“ (104) at Lyme. It is noteworthy, however, that the restora-
tion of Anne's bloom accompanies her gradual willingness once again
to involve herself emotionally with others. When Anne first
encounters William Elliot on the beach at Lyme, she is not insensi-
ble to his "earnest admiration" (104) of her, and even Wentworth
begins to see "something like Anne Elliot again" (104). Anne's wish
to know who her admirer is suggests more than a detached curiosity
and, in context with her warm relationship with Benwick, suggests
further a renewed receptiveness to romantic attachment. Although
once learning Mr. Elliot's identity Anne cautions Mary of the inad-
visability of seeking an introduction, she is not the less pleased
at "that cousinly little interview" (107).

Identifying the causes of Anne's abandonment of resignation
as a strategy for dealing with others is less important than recog-
nizing that it happens. Anne begins to accept the risks inherent
in emotional involvement with others in part because as she breaks
out of the restrictive environmentcfliKellynch and moves first to
Uppercross then to Lyme Regis, she encounters people who respond to
her perfectionistic traits. The older Musgroves praise her and rely
on her judgment; the worthy Crofts befriend her; the Harvilles
include her in their extended family; Captain Benwick may even be
falling in love with her. The Harvilles and Captain Benwick present
object lessons to Anne: the Harvilles show her the necessity of

living a full and open life in spite of loss; Benwick shows her the

165

essential self-destructiveness of disporportionate grief. Coupled
with the reinforcement she receives from the naval characters,
their examples provide the impetus for Anne's new openness. The
sea breeze blowing on Anne's complexion and restoring her bloom is
an apt metaphor for the influence that the sea characters have on
Anne's psyche.

It is chiefly Wentworth's softening toward Anne that
accounts for the change in her. Wentworth observes her attentiveness

to little Charles, learns that she had rejected Musgrove's proposal, 1

 

perceives her kindness to Benwick, and witnesses her strength, deci-
siveness, and cool-headedness following Louisa's accident at Lyme.
Gradually, his attitude evolves into friendship and an earnest reli-
ance upon her competence at Lyme.

Anne is aware of Wentworth's changing attitude toward her,
although she never allows herself to hope that it will become love.
His softening opinion of her is nonetheless vital to her abandonment
of her restrictions upon emotional attachment. Wentworth's superior
manners, virtues, and judgment make him a person whose esteem Anne
solicits. His low opinion of her character has wounded her as
deeply as the loss of his love. As she becomes aware of his increas-
ing friendship toward her, she becomes more and more able to admit
her feelings toward him. In doing so, Anne re-integrates her per-
fectionistic defensive strategies with perfectionism as a way of
dealing with others. Her apparently irredeemable loss of Wentworth
is accepted her her in a kind of romance of hopeless love, but she

no longer sees her separation from him as an invalidation of her

166

"accounting system." Her reacquisition of his friendship and esteem
restores her faith in her superior values as a basis upon which to
gain reassurance of her individual worth from others of real under-
standing.

In the first seconds following Louisa's accident, Wentworth
reveals his most deeply-felt and, perhaps, unconscious estimation of
Anne. With all of his studied reserve and whatever remains of his
hurt pride swept aside by the traumatic event, he exhibits his intu-
itive conviction of her knowledge of the proper course of action.
Both he and Charles Musgrove "seemed to look to her for directions"
(111), and Anne responds by supplying them. Wentworth's reliance
upon Anne is revealed even more strongly when he suggests that she
stay to nurse Louisa: "'no one so proper, so capable as Annel'"
(114).

Wentworth's entreaty moves Anne deeply--it "seemed almost
restoring the past" (114). When he solicits her opinion on a rela-
ted matter, Anne almost glows: "the remembrance of the appeal
remained a pleasure to her--as a proof of friendship, and of defer-
ence for her judgment, a great pleasure" (117). Without attempting
to prove to Wentworth that he has misjudged her, by simply being
herself, Anne succeeds in winning back, if not his love, his
respect, which is even more important to her. By deferring to her
judgment he appeals precisely to that element in her character
structure in which she invests all of her pride. It proves to her

the validity of her perfectionism as a way of relating to others,

 

167

and she is ready at the end of Volume I to try her newly
re-integrated strategies in the world.

By the time she returns to Kellynch to visit Lady Russell
at her apartments there, Anne has completely abandoned her resigned
strategies. Having had her pride restored by Wentworth's changed
opinion of her and by the admiration of the Crofts, the Harvilles
and Captain Benwick, Anne is ready to allow her proud self to
re-emerge. The revival of her proud self is reflected in her
improved appearance.

Anne's renewed receptivity to the risk of emotional attach-

ment is expressed in her response to the news from Charles that

Captain Benwick had shown an interest in her. Upon hearing so, she

boldly acknowledged herself flattered" (131). That is a new senti-
ment for Anne, especially in its suggestion of her openness to
romance. But Benwick is never a serious contender for Anne's newly
vulnerable heart. Admiral Croft once observes to Anne that Benwick
"is rather too piano for me" (172), and she must certainly agree.
It is William Elliot who first attracts Anne, and who displays some
of those qualities Anne demands from those who would win her respect
and love.

Anne's first impression of Mr. Elliot at Lyme is that he
"was undoubtedly a gentleman, and had an air of good sense" (106).
This estimation is re-inforced when she finally meets him in Bath,
where she is even able to compare his manners to Wentworth's: "they
were not the same, but they were, perhaps, equally good'' (143). She

also compares him favorably with Lady Russell in his earnest concern

168

about the accident at Lyme. In fact, Lady Russell becomes his advo-
cate; she is the first to imagine that he would make a suitable hus-
band for Anne. The qualities she admires in him are those which
appeal to the high standards of both women:

Every thing united in him; good understanding, correct

opinions, knowledge of the world, and a warm heart. He

had strong feelings of family-attachment and family-

honour, without pride or weakness; he lived with the

liberality of a man of fortune, without display; he judged

for himself in every thing essential, without defying pub-

lic opinion in any point of worldly decorum. He was

steady, observant, moderate, candid; never run away with

by spirits or by selfishness, which fancied itself strong

feeling; and yet, with a sensibility to what was amiable

and lovely, and a value for all the felicities of domestic

life, . . . (146-47).

To be sure, Anne is suspicious from the first of Mr. Elli-
ot's desire for reconciliation, but she does not dispute that he
really seems to possess those qualities that Lady Russell admires.
In spite of her suspicions, Anne regards him as "without any ques-
tion their pleasantest acquaintance in Bath; she saw nobody to
equal him" (148).

In my preceding chapter, Anne's rejection of William
Elliot's suit was examined in the context of the thematic structure

of Persuasion. Because it is Anne who articulates the moral dimen-

 

sions of her action, and because anything a character says contrib-
utes to our understanding of his personality, Anne's reasons for
rejecting Mr. Elliot are equally significant from the point of view
of her mimetic characterization. Anne's initial attraction to Mr.
Elliot and her ultimate rejection of him can be understood psycho-

logically as well as thematically.

 

 

169

William Elliot really loves Anne, as even Mrs. Smith admits.
He is not only attracted to her physically, but he genuinely admires
her perfectionistic traits. In their friendly dispute over the
family's efforts to renew the acquaintanceship with Lady Dalrymple,
Mr. Elliot says to Anne, "'My dear cousin, you have a better right
to be fastidious than almost any other woman I know; but will it
answer? Will it make you happy?'" (150). He shames her with his
flattery for her translation of an Italian song into English. To

him Anne is "'one who is too modest, for the world in general to be I

 

aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for
modesty to be natural in any other woman'" (187).

William Elliot's flattery is highly gratifying to Anne.
Fastidiousness is the very quality the narrator singled out as the
basis for Anne's having remained unmarried all these years. Mr.
Elliot's recognition of that quality in her attracts Anne to him in
spite of her suspicions. His acknowledgment of her accomplishments
and modesty is sufficiently flattering to her that her attention is
momentarily diverted from Wentworth--at the very moment that she
has decided that Wentworth must love her.

Becoming the next Lady Elliot represents to Anne becoming as
much like her mother as is possible; and Anne's whole life has been
an attempt to emulate her mother. Lady Russell confesses to her
that Anne's "'occupying your dear mother's place . . . would give me
more delight than is often felt at my time of life!‘" (159-60).
Pleasing Lady Russell, her one "truly sumpathising friend," has like-

wise been no small object in Anne's life. And, certainly, becoming

 

170

the next mistress of Kellynch would represent the ultimate in vindic-
tive triumph over Elizabeth, and would gain for her an admiration and
gratitude she has never known from Sir Walter. Coupled with the
facts that Mr. Elliot seems really to love Anne and that he is in a
position to make her financially and socially secure, these other
inducements are compelling, indeed.

But Anne will not make her mother's mistake by compromising
her high standards for social position, or even for love. If Lady

Elliot could be excused the youthful infatuation which made her Sir i

 

Walter's wife, Anne could never excuse such misjudgment in herself.
Her moral sense is the basic element of her character structure,
and that sense tells her that to marry William Elliot would be a
violation of her responsibility to herself. Anne scolds Wentworth
for not distinguishing between her having allowed herself to be per-
suaded by Lady Russell to break her engagement with him, which she
had done in the name of duty, and her allowing herself to be per-
suaded to marry Mr. Elliot, whom she did not love. Anne does not
love Mr. Elliot because she distrusts his character; and for Anne
love and respect for one's character are very nearly the same thing.
Anne's suspicion of William Elliot's character seems insub-

stantial and priggish, the more so because his transgressions are
never dramatized:

She distrusted the past, if not the present. The names

which occasionally dropt of former associates, the allu-

sions to former practices and pursuits, suggested suspi-

cions not favourable of what he had been. She saw that

Sunday—travelling had been a common thing; that there had
been a period of his life (and probably not a short one)

171

when he had been, at least, careless on all serious mat-

ters; and, though he might now think very differently, who

could answer for the true sentiments of a clever, cautious

man, grown old enough to appreciate a fair character? How

could it ever be ascertained that his mind was truly

cleansed? (160-61).
This is hardly creditable as a basis for moral judgment, but it is
crucial in Anne's strategy of perfectionism. Anne must ascertain
the moral character not only of a man she might marry but of every-
one she meets. Before she has Mrs. Smith's evidence about William
Elliot, Anne's objections to him stem more from her inability to
penetrate his social facade than from his actual violations of her
private code of morality. Thus, he threatens a fundamental attri-
bute in which she invests her pride, her discernment of the moral
character of others, and she rejects him. Mrs. Smith's information
is an unlocked-for corroboration.

Anne's rejection of William Elliot is based on his not let-
ting slip evidence of his true feelings which might sabotage his
mastery of social propriety. Comparing him with Wentworth, Anne
finds Mr. Elliot wanting:

There was never any warm burst of feeling, any warmth of
indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others.
This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection. Her early
impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the
open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others.
Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt
that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of
those who sometimes looked or said a careless thing, than
those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue
never slipped (161).
Anne's tongue never slips; carelessness and hastiness are anathema
to her code of personal conduct. The only "burst of feeling" she

allows herself in the whole novel is in her conversation with

   

 

172

Captain Harville on the subject of constancy. Although Anne demands
moral standards from others as high as her own, her need never to
allow her emotions to overcome her decorous behavior is not a
requirement she makes of others. In fact, her superiority is con-
firmed by her ability to maintain her poise in situations in which
everyone else gives way to emotion and confusion, as the scene on
the Cobb illustrates. Although she regards Mr. Elliot's ability to
guard his emotions as "a decided imperfection," her own capacity for
that kind of control is basic to her self-esteem.H

It is Frederick Wentworth, not William Elliot, who combines
high moral standards, aggressiveness, and open-heartedness to Anne's
satisfaction. Although Anne once admits that ”had there been no
Captain Wentworth in the case" (192) she might have felt differently
abouthhg Elliot, for as long as she is able to maintain her standards,
she will resist the charm of William Elliot and the seduction of
becoming the next Lady Elliot, even at the risk of an unfulfilled

life. Her renewed openness does not come at the expense of her moral

superiority.

By the time Anne arrives in Bath, she has had the efficacy
of her perfectionistic strategies confirmed by the admiration she
wins from the Crofts and the Harvilles. She has even regained Went-
worth's respect. Although she still suffers from the loss of Went-
worth's love (having been newly reminded of his great merit), she
has learned to live with that regret and has no thought of winning

back his love. But at Bath she finds a new virtue to try to develop

173

in herself. If her admiration of Mrs. Smith is any indication, she
now appears ready to progress beyond mere fortitude and resignation
to find what happiness she can in life in spite of her disappoint-
ment.

Anne's beginning to take responsibility for her own happiness
becomes apparent following the revelation that Wentworth is once
again eligible. Anne determines to discover if he is hurt by
Louisa's engagement to Captain Benwick: "If she could only have a
few minutes conversation with him again, she fancied she should be
satisfied; and as to the power of addressing him she felt all over
courage if the opportunity occurred" (180).

Of course, Anne is eager to learn of Wentworth's response to
the engagement, but she is emboldened to create opportunities to
talk with him by her recognition of and mortification at the slights
presented to him by her family. When she first encounters him in
Bath, Anne sees Wentworth's willingness to acknowledge his acquaint-
ance with Elizabeth, "and she had the pain of seeing her sister turn
away with unalterable coldness" (176). Because of Elizabeth's snub
and because "Lady Russell overlooked him," Anne feels "that she owed
him attention" (180). At the concert, therefore, she is more forward
than she might otherwise have been. In spite of the presence of her
"formidable father and sister in the background," Anne feels "equal
to everything which she believed right to be done" (l81). Her con-
viction of her knowledge of proper conduct, developed as a defense

against her lovelessness at home, now serves her in her pursuit of

174

love. Anne engages Wentworth in a conversation from which she
becomes convinced by what he says and does that he must love her.

Once Anne is certain that Wentworth loves her, she experi-
ences emotions ranging from utter joy at the prospect of fulfillment,
to anxiety over his jealousy of Mr. Elliot, to determination to pro-
voke him into declaring himself, to disbelief in the liberties she
takes with social decorum in creating opportunities for him to know
her heart. As she perceives her reunion with Wentworth becoming
increasingly likely she experiences a nearly overwhelming excitement.

To send Wentworth the right signals, Anne embarks upon a
series of maneuvers to create situations and to engage in conversa-
tions in which she can make known her receptiveness to his love.

The series of events in Volume I which returns Anneto her former
self and which reveal to Wentworth the Anne with whom he first fell
in love is paralleled in Volume II by a series of events in which
Anne seekS'u) make her sentiments known to him so that he might
declare his love for her.

At the concert, Anne endeavors to create a space beside her
to entice Wentworth to sit with her and to continue a promising
conversation. Later, at the White Hart Inn, Anne declares for
Wentworth's benefit that she would rather attend a play with the
Musgrove party (which includes Wentworth) than the reception for
Lady Dalrymple given by her own family. She next encourages a con-
versation in which he alludes to the time of their first engagement.

All of these maneuvers by Anne produce in her feelings of

great anxiety and confusion. After she protests her indifference to

175

the party for Lady Dalrymple, for instance, "she trembled . . . ,
conscious that her words were listened to, and daring not even to
try to observe their effect“ (225). There is always the possibility
that she has misinterpreted Wentworth's feelings for her, and being
wrong on that score would be especially traumatic to Anne, given her
pride in her judgment, not to mention her disappointed feelings.

But even if she is right, she is risking a great deal in being so
forward in her attempts to draw Wentworth out. Anne has internalized
many of the rules of propriety which govern women of her social
class. Her strict adherence to her society's conception of decorum
and elegant behavior is an important element in her perfectionistic
demands upon herself. Yet she comes close to violating some of the
articles in her code of conduct as she encourages Wentworth to
become bolder. Throughout the time that she creates opportunities
for Wentworth to know her feelings and to express his own, and

even after they are finally reunited, Anne struggles to keep her
forwardness and to contain her felicity within her principles of
conduct.

To avoid letting her emotions override her sense of proper
behavior, Anne often seeks or longs for intervals of solitude in
which she might sort out her feelings. Instances of this behavior
occur through the whole novel, but they become especially frequent
following Wentworth's appearance in Bath. Following a short con-
versation with him at the concert, she anticipates that they will

speak their love for each other that evening, so she is happy to be

apart from him awhile: "'it was as well to be asunder. She was in

 

 

176

need of a little interval for recollection'" (185). After she
declares her preference for the Musgroves' plan to see a play, in
company with Wentworth, she is so drained by the tension of awaiting
the outcome of her strategem that she excuses herself and returns to
her room at Camden-place, “where she might be sure of being as
silent as she chose" (227). When she finally reads Wentworth's let-
ter declaring his love for her, she experiences such "an overpowering
happiness" that she cannot attend to the conversation of those around
her:
The absolute necessity of seeming like herself pro-

duced then an immediate struggle; but after a while she

could do no more. She began not to understand a word they

said, and was obliged to plead indisposition and excuse

herself (238).
She feels the need for solitude: "Would they only have gone away,
and left her in the quiet possession of that room, it would have been
her cure" (238).

Of all the many scenes in Persuasion which render Anne's

varied and tender feelings in such precise and sympathetic detail,
I find these the most moving. Anne Elliot, who has always prided
herself on her ability to control her life by her perfect understand-
ing of how to act, is thrown into complete confusion by the fulfill-
ment (or the anticipated fulfillment) of the one need that has gone
unrequited in her life. The expectation that Wentworth will shortly
declare his love causes her to mistrust her ability to maintain con-
trol over her own actions, or even to know how to act. Yet, she

insists upon the "absolute necessity of seeming like herself," which

I take to mean the necessity of maintaining her perfectionistic

 

 

177

demands upon herself, the efficacy of which is proven by her imminent
reunion with Wentworth. Under the circumstances, "seeming like her-
self" is an "absolute necessity" to Anne because her self-image as
the embodiment of perfect goodness, perfect understanding in matters
of principle, and perfect conduct is absolutely necessary to her
belief in her ability to compel life.

In spite of the conflict she experiences between her princi-
ples of conduct and her emotions, Anne never betrays her excitement
to the assembly at the White Hart. In fact, for all her anxiety
over her deliberate attempts to signal Wentworth of her receptivity
to his love, Anne never compromises her standards or society's stan-
dards of acceptable feminine behavior. Her maneuvers are not efforts
to win his love; they follow her conviction that he already loves
her. She merely endeavors to encourage him to say so. More impor-
tantly, the event which finally does embolden him to write his letter
is not even a conscious maneuver on Anne's part. The debate with
Captain Harville resembles not Anne's bold creation of a place beside
herself at the concert but the scenes in Volume I in which Anne
undesignedly reveals her real character to Wentworth. At the White
Hart, she expresses her constancy and depth of feeling, the recogni-
tion of which at last moves Wentworth to declare himself.

In defending her belief to Harville in the greater constancy
of women, Anne argues from experience. Her insistence that women
love longest "'when existence or when hope is gone'" (235) is a
thinly veiled expression of her own suffering because of her loss of

Wentworth as well as her constancy to him. It is a highly emotional

 

178

scene--perhaps the most emotional in Jane Austen's whole canon.
Certainly, Anne has never before come so close to an open admission
of her continuing love for Wentworth. She is overcome with emotion
herself after articulating her own suffering and hopelessness for
the sake of the very person to whom she has once again become vul-
nerable: "She could not immediately have uttered another sentence;
her heart was too full, her breath too much oppressed" (235).

Anne really does love Wentworth; she has genuinely suffered
from having lost him; and she has despaired of ever being reunited
with him. And it is especially true that Anne has been constant,
although it is not quite true that she has been conStant to Went-
worth. The narrator revealed long ago that Anne has never loved
another because "No second attachment . . . had been possible to the
nice tone of her mind, the fastidiousness of her taste, in the small
limits of the society around [her]" (28). Everything we have learned
about Anne substantiates that judgment. It is not so much Wentworth
to whom she has been constant as her own high standards. Her earlier
rejection of Charles Musgrove and her more recent rejection of Wil-
liam Elliot are based upon their failure to measure up to the quali-
ties Anne demands in those who would win her respect or affection.
Her conviction that marriage to Wentworth I'could not divide her
more from other men, than their final separation" does not come
until well after she is already sure that Wentworth loves her. Her
admission that Lady Russell might have persuaded her to marry Mr.

Elliot belies her insistence that she could marry only Wentworth.

 

 

179

Anne loves Wentworth now for the same reasons she fell in
love with him eight years earlier. Only Wentworth embodies those
ideals of perfect manners, a high sense of duty, "sympathy,"
"natural grace," “kindest consideration," "intelligence, spirit, and
brilliancy," self-confidence, frankness and open-heartedness, and
"warmth and enthusiasm" which Anne finds so bewitching. And it is
still Wentworth whose aggressiveness and expansiveness complement
Anne's perfectionism in her need for vindictive triumph over her
father and his society. He appeals both to her overt perfectionism
by his own high standards and to her covert self-effacing need to
delegate the responsibility for her vindictive triumph. Marriage
to William Elliot would have given her a measure of triumph over
Elizabeth and would have proven to Sir Walter that he had misjudged
Anne. But it would have been a triumph by Sir Walter's own stan-
dards at the expense of her own. Marriage to Wentworth gives triumph
to Anne on her own terms with her lofty standards still intact. It
finds Sir Walter irrelevant.

The high standards by which Anne measures the character of
others have not changed since she was a persuadable girl of nine-
teen. Even more important, her sense of having maintained her
principles underlies her sense of her own undiminished personal
integrity. Not even in the flush of excitement and fulfillment that
she experiences at being reunited with Wentworth is she prepared to

question the validity of her demands upon herself or the justice of

her breaking their first engagement: "'1 was right, much as I

 

180

suffered from it . . . if I had done otherwise, . . . I should have
suffered in my own conscience'" (246).

Anne's conscience--her sense of her superior moral judgment--
is too basic to her defense system for her to question it. Her
powerful need for self-justification compels her to solicit Went-
worth's admission that she had been right and to insist on Lady
Russell's admission that she had given Anne wrong advice and that
she had misjudged both Wentworth and William Elliot: "There was
nothing left for Lady Russell to do, than to admit that she had been
completely wrong, and to take up a new set of opinions and of hopes"
(249).

We have already examined from a thematic point of view the
importance of the distinctions Anne makes to justify her having been
persuaded by Lady Russell to break the first engagement. From a
psychological point of view, what is impressive is the self-
congratulatory casuistry in her final conversations with Wentworth.
Anne needs to feel not only that her reunion with Wentworth betokens
future happiness but that her happiness has been delayed because of
the failure of others to appreciate herhigh standards, and that it
has been earned by her suffering to maintain her standards.

Anne's constancy to her high standards, in both her demands
upon herself and her expectations of others, is the key to her char-
acter. In being constant to her superior values, she keeps up her
end of her bargain with life. She wins Wentworth's love and protec-
tion, she achieves status in the society which triumphs over her

family, and she hears Lady Russell's acknowledgment of her superior

 

 

181

judgment, not because she has sought these things, but because she
has been true to her moral code. The perfectionist's "conviction of
an infallible justice operating in life" leads Anne to expect fair
treatment from the world. She has been dutiful, has forsaken vin-
dictiveness, has suffered, and above all has been constant to her
high standards. At last the world fulfills her claims on it. With
Wentworth's letter in her hand, Anne does not regard its contents as
something earned by her pursuit of happiness or her efforts to win
Wentworth's love. Convinced that she has played by the rules, Anne
reads the letter to discover how well the world has kept its end of
the bargain.

Anne's and Wentworth's reunion (on Union street) is the
occasion for their discussion of his conduct since his arrival at
Uppercross. That evening at the card party at Camden-place the
subjects are Anne's conduct in breaking their first engagement and
Wentworth's failure to attempt to renew the engagement after he had
become financially secure. We have examined the nature of those
conversations earlier; the significant point in this context is
that Wentworth admits he has been wrong, and Anne insists that she
was right. Wentworth concludes: “1 must endeavour to subdue my
mind to my fortune. I must learn to brook being happier than I
deserve" (247). Anne has no such thoughts. She deserves what fortune
has given her; or rather, what fortune has given her is evidence of

the validity of her perfectionistic demands upon herself. She has

 

 

182

fulfilled her end of the bargain with life, and now, at last, life
comes through for her. To William Elliot's question about whether
her fastidiousness will make her happy, Anne can finally say with

assurance, "Yes!"

 

NOTES: CHAPTER III

1Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative
(London: Oxford University Press, 1966). Hereafter, references to
this work will be included in my text following the quotation.

2Scholes and Kellogg reach their conclusion that mimetic
characters are not susceptible to systems of psychological classifi-
cation by means of an interesting non-seguitur. They admit to a
division in representational portraiture between psychological and
sociological values. Sociological representation, by its very
nature of portraying an historical, geographical, or class milieu
through characters, is somewhat of a self-contradiction. To claim
that a character is a true portrait of a sociological type is to
deny his individuality and to make him illustrative of values apart
from his unique identity. Therefore, conclude Scholes and Kellogg,

"the psychological is more mimetic than the sociological.
Characterization by sociological type involves an inevita-
ble generalizing process; it opens the way to illustrative
characterization and allegory; whereas, characterization
by presentation of thought process does not inevitably
include reference to systems of psychological classifica-
tion" (S & K, p. 101).

The non-seguitur is that there is nothing about sociological
representation that necessarily refers to systems of classification
of the discipline of sociology any more than psychological repre-
sentation necessarily refers to systems of classification of the
discipline of psychology. Scholes and Kellogg confuse their obser-
vation that sociological representation makes use of the same phe-
nomena as does the discipline of sociology with the unwarranted
assumption that the author must have intended his characters to
represent the classifications formulated by sociologists. Thegggy-
ation of characters who are sociologically representational has
nothing whatever to do with systems of sociological classification.
The analysis of characters who are sociologically representational,
however, may have a great deal to do with such systems of classifi-
cation. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how a critic would go
about analyzing the sociological portraits of a work without refer-
ence to one sort of system of classification or another. When the
critic observes that Jane Austen's characters are representative of
the country gentry in late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth century
England, he makes reference to sociological classifications. If he
attempts to demonstrate the validity of his generalization, he will
be led inevitably to some historical or sociological study of the

 

 

183

 

184

mores and rituals, the taboos and customs, the sexual roles and the
class distinctions which existed in specific social groups.
Similarly, as Scholes and Kellogg note, a character may be
a highly accurate psychological portrait without the author's
intending that the character represent a psychological type: ,"char-
acterization by presentation of thought processes doesvuytinevitably
include reference to psychological classification." But is is also
true that while the presentation of thought process does not require
the artist to refer to a classification system, the analysis of
those thought processes may well require the critic to refer to such
a system. The artist as creator of psychological portraits and the
psychologist as classifier and analyst of real human beings have a
common subject matter: the "thought process" and the behavior of
real people. Just as the critic makes use of the generalizations
and classifications of sociologists to illuminate sociological repre-
sentation in fiction, he can refer to the generalizations and classi-
fications of psychologists to illuminate psychological representation
in fiction. Scholes and Kellogg observe that the psychological
impulse creates characters "whose motivation is not susceptible to
rigid ethical interpretation." It does not follow, however, that
the motivation of such characters is not susceptible to any kind of
classification; the very fact that a character is the product of a
"psychological impulse" suggests the susceptibility of his motiva-
tions to psychological understanding and classification.

3Paris, p. 4.

4E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (New York: Harcourt,
Brace & World, 1927; reprint ed., Harvest Books, n.d.), p. 66.
This passage is cited in Paris, p. 11.

5Georg Lukacs, Studies in European Realism (New York, 1964),
p. 10. This passage is cited in Paris, p. 10.

6W. J. Harvey, Character and the Novel (Ithaca, New York:
Cornell University Press, 1965; also in Cornell Paperbacks, 1968),
p. 210. Hereafter, references to this work will be cited in my text
following the quotation thus: (Harvey, p. 210).

7Frederick Crews, "Anaesthetic Criticism," Psychoanalysis
and Literary Process, ed. by Crews (Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop
Publishers, 1970), p. 19.

8Paris, p. 23.

9Because I will discuss only those features of Horneyan
psychology which seem to me applicable to Persuasion, I omit much
of what is compelling in her work. For a discussion of the rela-
tionship of Karen Horney to other Third Force psychologists and of
Tliird Force psychology to other schools of psychology, see Paris's
Chapter II: "The Psychology Used: Horney, Maslow and the Third

Force."

185

10Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle
Toward Self-Realization (New York: W. W. Norton, 1950), p. l7.
Hereafter, references to this work will be cited in my text follow-
ing the quotation thus: (Horney, p. 17).

HJane Nardin has also noticed that Anne does not possess
the qualities she professes to admire in Wentworth:
I'Anne never consciously reflects that she herself does not
exhibit the spontaneity of manner she most admires, but in
fact of all the characters, she alone is described as ele-
gant: 'the elegant little woman of seven and twenty, with
. . . manners as consciously right as they were invariably
gentle' (p. l53 [Nardin's ellipsis]). And Anne never com-
mits a real breach of propriety, in spite of the fact that
her sufferings, as she bears slights and injustices with
perfect decorum, are often severe."
Those Elegant Decorums: The Concept of Propriety in Jane Austen's
Novels (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1973), pp.
141-42.

 

CHAPTER IV

SYNTHESIS: "THE NATURAL SEQUEL OF
AN UNNATURAL BEGINNING"

The Ironic Narrator and the Implied Author

In the last chapter of Persuasion, the narrator addresses

 

the reader directly to comment upon the inevitability of Anne's
marriage to Wentworth once the couple is reconciled. Young people
are pretty sure to marry once they make up their minds to do so, no
matter how imprudent the match, she says. "This may be bad morality
to conclude with, but I believe it to be the truth" (248), the narra-
tor tells us; but she hastily adds that Anne's marriage to Wentworth,
given the history of their relationship, cannot be thought imprudent.
The observation marks the only occasion in the novel when the narra—
tor refers directly to herself, but the ironic tone of the observa-
tion is characteristic of the narrator, especially in the introduc-
tory chapters.

In fact, only occasionally between the first chapters and the
last chapter does the narrator insinuate her ironic point of view

into the narrative. Much of Persuasion could have been related to

 

us by Anne herself; we learn most things as Anne learns them, and
usually we know only of Anne's internal responses to characters and
events. Anne is, in effect, the narrator of most of her own story,

because the story unfolds for us through Anne. As Wayne Booth

186

 

187

observes, the relationship between narrator and heroine is much dif-

ferent in Persuasion than the relationship which exists in Emma:

 

Anne Elliot's consciousness is sufficient, as Emma's is

not, for most of the needs of the novel she dominates.

Once the ethical and intellectual framework has been

established by the narrator's introduction, we enter

Anne's consciousness and remain bound to it much more

rigorously than we are bound to Emma's. It is still

true that whenever something must be shown that Anne's

consciousness cannot show, we move to another center; but

since her consciousness can do much more for us than

Emma's, there need be few departures from it.

When the narrator does emerge as an identity distinct from

Anne, it is often to express an ironic observation or a caustic
judgment of which Anne would be incapable. The introduction of the
characters at Kellynch and the history of events that brought them
to their predicament are related to us in the mocking, ironic voice
of the narrator. The introduction of Sir Walter is typical:

--Be it known, then, that Sir Walter, like a good father,

(having met with one or two private disappointments in

very unreasonable applications) prided himself on remain-

ing single for his dear daughter's sake (5).
The narrator sabotages Sir Walter's posturing with the double-
barrelled indictment that not only did his determination to remain
single for Elizabeth's sake follow his failure to secure a second
wife for himself, but his offers of marriage were probably made to
women of significantly higher station. The narrator leaves no room
for sympathy; we are required to laugh at every gesture Sir Walter
makes on behalf of his own dignity.

The ironic narrator similarly intrudes to call attention to

the self-delusion of a somewhat more sympathetically drawn character

at Uppercross. Mrs. Musgrove's lamentations over her dead son,

 

188

Richard, must be seen to be ridiculous if the reader is to be prop-
erly annoyed at her diverting Wentworth's attention from Anne to
talk about her son and if he is to appreciate Wentworth's gesture of
sympathy. The narrator, therefore, provides the background to
Richard's having gone to sea in such a light that the reader is
unlikely to waste much sympathy on Mrs. Musgrove:

The real circumstances of this pathetic piece of family his-

tory were, that the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a

very troublesome, hopeless son; and the good fortune to

lose him before he reached his twentieth year; that he had

been sent to sea, because he was stupid and unmanageable

on shore; that he had been very little cared for at any

time by his family, though quite as much as he deserved;

seldom heard of, and scarcely at all regretted when the

intelligence of his death abroad had worked its way to

Uppercross two years before.

He had, in fact, though his sisters were now doing all
they could for him, by calling him "poor Richard," been
nothing better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofit-
able Dick Musgrove, who had never done any thing to
entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name,
living or dead (50-51).

The information that Richard had been "scarcely at all
regretted" provides the reader with the necessary perspective from
which Mrs. Musgrove's ostentatious grief becomes ironic. But the
narrator does not merely mock Mrs. Musgrove's sentimentality, she
derides her for being fat and for indulging her feelings. She
declares Mrs. Musgrove's "large fat sighings" ridiculous because her
bulk and her expressions of "deep affliction" constitute one of those
"unbecoming conjunctions . . . which taste cannot tolerate" (68).
She betrays utter disdain for a rather harmless foible in a rather
innocuous character for no other apparent reason than that Mrs. Mus-

grove inadvertently sits between Anne and the man she loves.

 

189

The narrator's impatience with characters who, however
innocently, fail to promote Anne's reunion with Wentworth or who
remain imperceptive of her virtues is apparent once again in a
scene in Bath. Shortly after Anne determines that Wentworth must
love her, her happiness is played off against that of Elizabeth,
who basks in the reflected light of Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret.
The sisters are about to parade into the concert room, each appar-
ently at the zenith of her own individual fulfillment:

Very, very happy were both Elizabeth and Anne Elliot

as they walked in. Elizabeth, arm in arm with Miss Car-
teret, and looking on the broad back of the Dowager
Viscountess Dalrymple before her, had nothing to wish for
which did not seem within her reach; and Anne-~but it
would be an insult to the nature of Anne's felicity to
draw any comparison between it and her sister's; the ori-

gin of one all selfish vanity, of the other all generous
attachment (185).

Perhaps nowhere else in the novel does the narrator so
clearly indicate, indeed demand, that her readers respond to the
characters in such a prescribed manner. Not that there is ever much
doubt about what is being held up for admiration and what for ridi-
cule, but here is the narrator in her own voice expressing impatience
with the very effort required to delineate the contrast between the
two sisters, a contrast the scene seems intended to dramatize.
Whatever distance existed between narrator and heroine collapses
entirely here, and we discover a narrator completely identified with
the interests of the heroine.

Marvin Mudrick, among others, has taken note of the emo-

tional involvement of the narrator in the events of the novel:

 

190

In Persuasion, Jane Austen's tone has acquired a sharp,
personal edge. This edge, which she does not vindicate by
any claim of aesthetic or social propriety, emerges in the
novel as a compulsive exasperation, turned, at unpredict-
able moments against any character who fails--for whatever
reasonS-to advance the interests of her heroine (Mudrick,
p. 207 .

 

Mudrick further notes that among all of Jane Austen's novels, "Only

in Persuasion does the irony coarsen to sarcasm, the judgment become

 

ardently personal" (Mudrick, p. 218). He attributes the sarcasm and
the personal judgment to a "new element" in Persuasion, absent in
the other novels: personal feeling. Anne's carefully delineated,
precisely rendered emotional states are the core of the novel,
according to Mudrick, and the deeply personal attachment Jane Austen
betrays in her condemnation of the absurd characters is the "waste
energy" of the creative effort required to produce the element of
feeling in the heroine and in the novel. The animosity expressed
towards Elizabeth (and Sir Walter, Mrs. Clay, and the Musgroves, as
well) represents "a failure of technique and a misdirection of feel-
ing" (Mudrick, p. 219) in Persuasion.

The "ardently personal" judgments Mudrick ascribes to Jane
Austen are more verifiably attributable to the narrator of the novel.
Mudrick's accounting for the narrator's sarcasm as a waste product
of the creative effort that infused feeling into the characterization
of the heroine, however poetic, fails to trace the sarcasm and the
emotional involvement to its demonstrable source: the personality
of the narrator, and through the narrator to the personality of the

implied author.

 

191

One of the functions of the narrator is to reinforce Anne's
moral perspicacity, thus establishing the heroine's authority to
pronounce upon the ethical implications of her story. For instance,
the contrast between Anne's proposals for extracting the family from
debt and the strategies adopted by Sir Walter and Elizabeth is one
means by which Anne's superior moral judgment is established. The
narrator's irony (and sarcasm) directed at Sir Walter and Elizabeth
clearly indicate in which character the norms of the novel inhere.

A similar contrast is resolved by the narrator's tone in the matter
of Mary's and Anne's opinions on childrearing.

Both Anne and the narrator, then, embody the norms of the
novel in the sense that both express views upon characters and
incidents which represent how the reader is to regard those charac-
ters and incidents. Of course, because there is little distance
between the narrator's moral perspective and Anne's there is little
irony directed at Anne. Yet Anne and the narrator emerge as dis-
tinctly different and, in some ways, antithetical personalities.

The narrator ridicules Mrs. Musgrove, castigates Sir Walter, and
expresses exasperation with Elizabeth. In contrast, Anne merely
smiles to herself at Mrs. Musgrove's self-delusion; she demands from
herself a show of respect for her father; and she admits to no
sentiment harsher than embarrassment and regret at Elizabeth's
behavior. Anne displays qualities of patience and magnanimity which
are decidedly uncharacteristic of the narrator.

For the reader fully to appreciate the depth of Anne's good-

ness and perfection he must share the narrator's caustic evaluation

 

192

of the characters who absorb the brunt of the narrator's irony. The
narrator expresses the animosity and vituperation which such charac-
ters deserve when viewed from the perspective of the novel's norms.
Anne's gentler, less worldly responses are all the more to be
admired in contrast to the narrator's justifiable disdain for the
characters. The reader who would judge Persuasion in terms of its
own norms is required both to acquiesce to the narrator's caustic
treatment of many of the characters and to admire Anne's benign--
even unrealistic--response to those characters.2
The contrast between the narrator's clear—eyed, unsentimental
treatment of characters and Anne's less worldly, benign response to
them parallels an important contradictory element which Karen Horney
identifies in the perfectionistic personality. The perfectionist's
superior standards lead him to regard with contempt those who fail
to live by his lofty principles. Yet those same high standards pre-
vent him from acknowledging his contempt for most of his fellow men.
He hides his "arrogant contempt for others . . . behind polished
friendliness, because his very standards prohibit such 'irregular'
feelings" (Horney, p. 196). In Persuasion the arrogance and con-
tempt inherent in perfectionism are expressed by the narrator, leav-
ing Anne to exhibit only those qualities consistent with her
glorified image of herself. Together, Anne and the narrator display
the full range of responses typical of perfectionism, but the less

benevolent aspects of that strategy are expressed only by the

narrator.

 

193

Since Anne and the narrator reveal different and somewhat
conflicting elements of perfectionism, yet equally incorporate the
norms of the novel, it is clear that they may be regarded as mani-
festations of a personality in whom all of the norms of the novel
inhere. That personality is, of course, the implied author of

Persuasion. The implied author of a work, as the term is defined

 

by Booth, is that personality, that "second self," whom we infer
from the totality of the novel. The identity of the implied author
is constituted by all of the conscious and unconscious choices that
have gone into the creation of a novel. These choices are shaped
not only by ethical impulses, but by psychological impulses. We can
infer not only the moral structure of an implied author's person-
ality, but the psychological structure, as well.

Anne is not simply a character created in the implied
author's own image. We infer an author who is more worldly, less
sentimental, more perceptive about others, and less introspective
than is Anne. An indication that Anne is something other than a
representative of the implied author is the fact that the narrator
is permitted an occasional jibe at Anne in which the reader is invi-
ted to laugh (albeit sympathetically) at the romantic side of
Anne's personality.3 For the most part, however, the implied
author endorses Anne's perfectionism and vindicates her defensive
strategies. If her psychological makeup is not identical with
Anne's, it is one which is greatly attracted to and completely sym-

pathetic to the way in which Anne responds to her world.

 

194

The implied author's sympathy for Anne is demonstrated by
the reliable narrator's warm and largely unironic descriptions of
the heroine. In addition, the implied author's glorification of
Anne's perfectionism is apparent in the way in which the events of
the novel and the utterances of the sympathetically drawn characters
are manipulated to vindicate her. Anne's rejection of the prospect
of marrying William Elliot is the central decision she makes in the
course of the novel. Events prove her intuitive suspicion of her
cousin to have been correct. The series of coincidences which
uncovers Mr. Elliot's duplicity, especially Mrs. Smith's fortuitous
previous acquaintance with him, reveals the implied author's deter-
mination to vindicate Anne's judgment by marshaling the events of
the novel to bear out Anne's intuition, even when those events are
improbable. Likewise, for maintaining her high standards at the
price of much personal unhappiness and for resisting the appeal of
becoming the next Lady Elliot, Anne is rewarded by being reunited
with Wentworth. The triumph which Anne enjoys is entirely a func-
tion of the implied author's determination to reward her. There is
little about Anne's final happiness that can be said to develop
causally from her character.

In a real sense, the implied author structures and manipu-
lates the events of the novel to conform to the "deal" which Anne
has made with life. In return for her goodness and rectitude, Anne
is rewarded with marraige to a man who comes to recognize her full
worth in her own terms. The implied author is completely sympathetic

to the terms of Anne's "deal": she 1nSTStSlflXNlAnne'S having

 

 

195

fulfilled her shoulds, glorifies her defensive responses, and
finally grants her claims on life. From this perspective, Persuay
sign is a fantasy of the perfectionistic solution in which the hero-
ine finally achieves all of the recognition and triumph which she
has earned by her lonely adherence to her lofty standards. The per-
fectionism is Anne's but the fantasy is the implied author's.

Not only does the implied author manipulate events in the
service of Anne's triumphs, but she absorbs the responsibility for
the vindictiveness of these triumphs. When characters who opposed
Anne are humiliated, the implied author allows (perhaps requires)
the reader to feel vindictive triumph on Anne's behalf without ever
permitting that emotion to be attributed to Anne. That strategy is
apparent in the reconciliation scenes between Anne and Wentworth.
His confession provides an occasion for Anne to feel vindictive tri-
umph (in addition to vindication), but she never betrays it,
except, perhaps in her insistence that he "should have distinguished"
(244) between her having yielded to duty once and the violation of
duty which would have been necessary to allow herself to be per-
suaded to marry a man she did not love. The sense of vindictive
triumph which emerges from the scene is entirely between the implied
author and the reader. It is never attributed to Anne.

The pattern of placing Anne in situations in which the
reader can feel vindictive triumph on her behalf is a consistent one

in Persuasion. For example, Louisa's fall on the Cobb not only

 

teaches Wentworth to distinguish between heedlessness and stead-

fastness, with all the vindication of Anne which that implies, but

 

196

it also provides Anne with a measure of triumph over her major rival
for Wentworth. William Elliot's liaison with Mrs. Clay vindicates
Anne's earlier rejection of him because of her suspicions about his
character; but it also humiliates Lady Russell, Sir Walter, and
Elizabeth because they have been taken in by him.

At the end of the novel, with all of her claims fulfilled
and all of her enemies defeated, Anne experiences only those emotions

consistent with her self-image:

Glowing and lovely in sensibility and happiness, and more 1
generally admired than she thought about or cared for, she

had cheerful or forbearing feelings for every creature

around her. Mr. Elliot was there; she avoided, but she

could pity him. The Wallises; she had amusement in under-

standing them; Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret; they

would soon be innoxious cousins to her. She cared not for

Mrs. Clay, and had nothing to blush for in the public man-

ners of her father and sister (245-46).

 

Nothing of vindictiveness in any of this. But in the con-
cluding pages the narrator, as spokesman for the harsher judgments
in the novel's norms, takes over once again to distribute the
rewards and punishments. Sir Walter must admit Wentworth to be
"quite worthy to addressthe daughter of a foolish, spendthrift
baronet, who had not had principle or sense enough to maintain him-
self in the situation in which Providence had placed him" (248).
Lady Russell "must learn to feel that she had been mistaken" (249).
Elizabeth "had soon the mortifcation of seeing Mr. Elliot withdraw"
(250). And Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Clay, having undone each other's
best schemes, now appear to be joined in mutual misery for the fore-
seeable future. By assuming to herself the responsibility for all

of this vindictive triumph, or by ascribing it to the narrator,

197

or to events, the implied author permits Anne to keep intact her
perfectionistic and self-effacing characteristics while at the same
time allowing the vindictiveness to be expressed.4
The implied author not only grants Anne's vindictive tri-
umphs, she enjoys them and expects the reader to enjoy them. This
is especially apparent in the fact that Anne's triumphs constitute
the substance of the comic conclusion of the novel. The mood of

celebration which accompanies the defeat of the blocking characters

in comedy works in Persuasion to enlist the reader's participation

 

in the implied author's enjoyment of Anne's triumph over her adver-
saries. The perfectionist's vision is fulfilled in the triumph that
Anne has never sought. Her triumph is presented as the natural
development of the characters' being the kind of people they are.
Good people triumph and bad people are humiliated. Even if the
reverse seems true for a time, fate has a way of making it all come
right in the end. Of course, in Persuasion, fate is the implied
author, manipulating events to conform to her vision.

Another tactic by which the implied author glorifies Anne
is to put into the mouths of sympathetically drawn characters words
which reinforce for the reader the validity of Anne's defensive
strategies, and the superiority of her character. Wentworth's
admission of guilt for not having renewed his engagement to Anne
when he was financially able to do so, and, therefore, his respon-
sibility for Anne's unhappiness--and his own--is the most signifi-
cant instance of a character's reinforcing Anne's own estimate of

the superiority of her standards. Wentworth confesses that he had

 

198

misjudged Anne's reasons for breaking their engagement, and had
tried to deny to himself the feelings he still held for her:

He had imagined himself indifferent, when he had only been
angry; and he had been unjust to her merits, because he
had been a sufferer from them. Her character was now
fixed on his mind as perfection itself, maintaining the
loveliest medium of fortitude and gentleness; but he was
obliged to acknowledge that only at Uppercross had he
learnt to do her justice, and only at Lyme had he begun
to understand himself.

At Lyme he had received lessons of more than one
sort. The passing admiration of Mr. Elliot had at least
roused him, and the scenes on the Cobb, and at Captain
Harville's, had fixed her supriority (241-42).

Furthermore, he continues, it was at Lyme that

 

he had seen every thing to exalt in his estimation the

woman he had lost and there begun to deplore the pride,

the folly, the madness of resentment, which had kept him

from trying to regain her when thrown in his way (242).

Wentworth's confession is a positive orgy of fulfillment of

Anne's claims, a fantasy of the vindication of her shoulds. He
praises her fortitude, her superior standards, her resolve, and her
gentleness, and he assumes all of the guilt for their estrangement.
The catalogue of perfectionistic and self-effacing shoulds which

constitute Anne's glorified self is mirrored in Wentworth's cata-

logue of virtues to which he responds.

We infer the implied author of Persuasion largely from our

 

perception of the norms which are embodied in the completely unex-
ceptionable heroine and in the completely reliable, ironic narrator.
No one character fully embodies our conception of the implied author.
Our understanding of the social and ethical norms which constitute

the moral identity of the implied author is shaped by those social

 

 

199

attributes which qualify the naval group for social prestige, and by
those personal qualities for which Anne is rewarded with personal
triumph. Additionally, the qualities which constitute social and
personal evils in the universe of Persuasion contribute to our
impression of the implied author by helping to define the dichotomies
between which her moral impulse moves. Similarly, the psyche of the
implied author is defined not only by the psychological constructs
which are glorified in the characterization of Anne, but by the

psychological patterns which are ridiculed or condescended to as

 

they are embodied in other characters. Furthermore, the very fact
that Anne's eventual triumph comes about through the beneficence of
the author rather than because Anne sought it is itself revelatory
of the psychological vision which informs the novel. The implied
author is in complete sympathy with the perfectionist's interpreta-
tion of his relationship with the world--his "deal" with life. One's
happiness is bestowed in recognition of one's virtue because, for
the perfectionist, there is a system of "infallible justice operat-
ing in life." The implied author of Persuasion first presents a
heroine who embodies all of the qualities which constitute her ver-
sion of perfectionism, and then, with infallible justice, manipu-
lates the events of the novel to engineer her vindication and her
triumph.

From a psychological point of view, Persuasion is a fantasy
in the mind of its implied author, a fantasy in which a heroine
develops her perfectionistic tendencies in the constricting environ-

ment of an insensitive family. The heroine first suffers for her

200

trict adherence to her high standards, but eventually moves into a
larger world in which her perfectionism is recognized and rewarded.
The implied author does not perceive Anne with any irony or detach-
ment because she identifies completely with her defensive strategies

and her vision of her world.

Conflicts and Conclusions
The mimetic impulse is manifested in Persuasion in the rich
characterization of Anne Elliot, whose complexity and depth far

exceed the demands of her formal and thematic functions in the novel.

 

As we have seen, the realistic dimension of Anne's portrayal intro-
duces a whole new range of possibilities to our response to her, and
it provides an entirely different set of criteria against which we
measure both her character and her characterization. In fact, the
fidelity to psychological actuality which v“: perceive in the por-
trait of Anne becomes the most compelling achievement of Persuasion:
Anne's believability as a representation of an actual person over-
shadows the comic structure and the thematic interests of the novel.
Yet the comic and the thematic impulses exert their force as well,
and the relationship between them and the mimetic impulse is not
always harmonious.

In my discussion in Chapter III of the mimetic element in

Persuasion, I suggested that the idea of mimesis connoted a percep-

 

tion by the reader that his experience of the novel was analogous
to his responses to people and situations in his own life. In his

study of the realistic character in fiction, W. J. Harvey defines

 

201

four "constitutive categories" (Harvey, p. 21) of experience which
are shared by realistic fiction. The categories are "Time, Identity,
Causality and Freedom" (Harvey, p. 22). While each of these ele-
ments is certainly important to any theoretical consideration of
mimesis, and each provides an interesting perspective from which

Persuasion might be discussed, I will consider only the matter of

 

causality. It is the lack of causality in the resolution of fer?
suasion which has troubled many readers, and I intend to examine

whether causality is a factor in the conclusion of the novel, and,

 

if it is not, whether readers are justified in objecting to its
absence.

Our sense of the mimetic adequacy of a novel depends, in
part, on our perception that the events develop because the charac-
ters make choices and take actions in situations in which alterna-
tives are available. This is not to say that the action of novels
must be seen as inevitable once a character chooses. Quite to the
contrary, as Harvey observes, coincidence plays an important role in
many realistic novels, just as it is a factor in our own lives.
Nonetheless, our sense that a novel develops in ways which are
analogous to the way in which the events of our own lives develop
is related to the novel's establishing that what happens to a char-
acter is a logical consequence of the choices he makes.

In many important ways, Persuasion conforms to our expecta-
tion for causal development. The desolate state in which Anne is
discovered early in the novel is causally related to her decision to

break her engagement to Wentworth eight years before. That choice

 

202

colors not only her anxiety about confronting him again, but her
general resignation from life because of the pain she has endured
due to his misinterpretation of and anger at her decision. Indeed,
the central interest of the novel is to see Wentworth realize his
misjudgment of Anne's character and to accept the validity of her
decision to break their engagement. In this sense, all of the

action of Persuasion is causally related to Anne's having chosen as

 

she once had.

In addition to the expectation that action will have its
consequences, mimetic adequacy is contingent upon the reader's
acceptance of the plausibility of the action, that is, upon his
perception that action grows out of character. A good example of
the cause-and-effect relationship between character and events is
the series of incidents which characterize Louisa Musgrove, cul-
minating in her fall on the Cobb. Wentworth's articulation of his
preference for people who demonstrate determination to act upon
their convictions without regard to the persuasions of others fixes
in Louisa's mind the characteristics she must display if she is to
impress him. We accept Louisa's impressionableness because every-
thing we have learned about her up to that point suggests that,
however good-natured, she is not very intelligent or introspective.
She is concerned with enjoying herself and finding a suitable hus-
band; one has the impression she would have been at home among the
younger Bennet girls in Pride and Prejudice. When she insists to
Wentworth that he jump her down from the Cobb a second time, in

spite of his protestations of the danger involved, we accept her

 

 

203

willfulness as consistent with the character we have come to know.
Her injury provides a convenient occasion for Wentworth to question
his over-simple dichotomization of persuadability and determination,
and it allows Anne an occasion for a little gloating; the scene is
crucial to Wentworth's eventual reunion with Anne, but we are never
troubled by its implausibility or its being inconsistent with the
characters involved. The scene reinforces our sense of the mimetic
adequacy of the novel.

Plausibility is not, however, a factor in Louisa's second

 

important role in the novel. When Anne receives the news of Lonisa's
engagement to Benwick, her sense of shock and surprise is no greater
than the reader's. The utter desirability of this "fortuitous cir-
cumstance" conceals for a time its unlikelihood. Nothing we know
about Louisa (or Benwick, for that matter) has prepared us for the
sudden turn of events. Anne's lame attempt to reconcile the engage-
ment with the characters ("of course they had fallen in love over
poetry") has no relevance whatever to the ”high spirited, joyous-
talking Louisa Musgrove" (166), met with in Volume I. The fortuity
of this particular circumstance is not mitigated by any sense of its
having developed out of the characters' personalities, however much
Anne may try to make it so.

Although the development of the story of Persuasion from the
choices which set it in motion is consistent with our expectations
for plausibility and causality, the resolution of the story seems
implausible and arbitrary. The clumsy introduction of Mrs. Smith

to substantiate Anne's intuitive distrust of William Elliot, and the

 

204

unlikely tryst between Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Clay are central to
Anne's final vindication; but both developments reveal the author's

arbitrary hand so blatantly that most readers find the episodes

regrettable.

Of course, all the events in a novel are there because the
author put them there, and they are in that sense, arbitrary. As

Harvey notes:

in any work of fiction we know that . . . there is an
omniscient hand--the author's--governing his imagined
chessboard. Our feelings about mimetic adequacy of any
novel will, therefore, depend in large part upon the
tact with which the pieces are moved (Harvey, p. 132).

 

The lack of tact with which characters and events are
manipulated to effect Anne's triumph compromises the mimetic ade-

quacy of Persuasion by frustrating the reader's expectation for

 

plausibility and a sense of causality in the development and resolu-
tion of the events of the novel.5

Wentworth's recognition that Anne still possesses the quali-
ties for which he first fell in love with her, and his admission
that he had misjudged her motives for breaking their engagement con-
stitute the resolution of the central action of the novel. The
basis for the transformation of Wentworth's attitude is the seriescyf
incidents at Uppercross and Lyme Regis in which he observes Anne's
kindness, presence of mind, sense of duty--the entire range of per-
fectionistic and self-effacing virtues. The efficacy of the traits
.Anne displays in winning over Wentworth is less a function of his
personality than an extension of the fantasy of perfectionism which

governs Persuasion. We are never troubled by implausibility in

 

 

205

Wentworth's falling in love again with Anne because his character-
ization rarely exceeds the comic and thematic requirements of the
novel. He does not achieve much individual identity beyond his role
as the dutifully responsive Prince Charming in this Cinderella fan-
tasy of restored youth and overdue recognition. He is an agent of
the novel's reward mechanism, a prize by whom Anne's virtue is
recognized and articulated. He exists as the realization of the
perfectionist's claims on the world; he reacts, not according to any

laws of his own individually realized mimetic identity, but accord-

 

ing to the expectations implicit in the strategies of perfectionism
--Anne's and the implied author's.

The insubstantiality of Wentworth's characterization is con-
sistent with the other comic conventions in Persuasion. So, for
that matter, are the other arbitrary devices by which the comic
resolution is effected. In fact, the comic structure itself is
ideally congruent with the perfectionistic fantasy of reward and
recognition which constitutes the essential vision of Persuasion.
As Frye observes, it is desirability rather than plausibility which
governs the resolution in the comic mythgs, The resolution of Per:
suasion is entirely desirable from the perspective of Anne's inter-
pretation of her relationship with her world. And to the extent
that we are sympathetic with Anne, we also perceive the resolution
as desirable. It is difficult to imagine a more rewarding or
gratifying end to Anne's long years of isolation and sadness.

However satisfying the conlcusion in terms of what we might

desire for Anne, and however congruent the ending of Persuasion is

 

206

with the expectations generated by its comic structure, the novel
frustruates other expectations generated by its mimetic elements.

The comic and the mimetic impulses impose competing sets of expec-
tations. The mimetic characterization of Anne, and the mimetic
development of much of the early novel creates an expectation for
causality and plausibility in the resolution which is not satisfied
by the comic ending. There exists an unresolved tension between the
6

archetypal structure and the mimetic characterization in Persuasion.

Theoreticians of the novel have long observed that realistic

 

characters do not accommodate themselves to archetypal structures.
E. M. Forster attributes what he regards as the unsatisfactoriness
of the endings of most novels to a conflict between plot and charac-
ter: "In the losing battle that the plot fights with characters,

it often takes a cowardly revenge. Nearly all novels are feeble at
the end. This is because the plot requires to be wound up."7
Scholes and Kellogg suggest that "With respect to plot the mimetic
is the antithesis of the mythic" (S & K, p. 229). They believe, as
did Forster, that the "ultimate form of mimetic plot is the 'slice
of life,’ virtually an 'unplot'" (S & K, p. 232). In an essay later
than Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye expresses a similar point
of view, but insists that mimesis is always a matter of content,
never of fomn:

fidelity to the credible is a feature of literature that
can affect only content. Life presents a continuum, and a
selection from it can only be what is called tranche de
.ng; plausibility is easy to sustain, but except for
death life has little to suggest in the way of plausible
conclusions. And even a plausible conclusion does not
necessarily round out a shape. The realistic writer soon

 

207

finds that the requirements of literary form and plaus-
ible content always fight against each other. Just as a
poetic metaphor is always a logical absurdity, so every
inherited convention of plot in literature is more or less
mad. The king's rash promise, the cuckold's jealousy, the
"lived happily ever after" tag to a concluding marriage,
the manipulated happy endings of comedy in general, the
equally manipulated endings of modern realism-~none of
these was suggested by any observation of human life or
behavior: all exist as story-telling devices. Literary
shape cannot come from life; it comes ogly from literary
tradition, and so ultimately from myth.

While many' commentators have noted the conflict between
archetypal structure and mimetic characterization, not all agree
that the conflict is invariably destructive. Scholes and Kellogg
express the belief that the great European novels (The Red and the
Black, Madame Bovary, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, Fathers
and Sons) owe their greatness in part to just that conflict:

These great artistic novels generate their power by the
tension they exploit between their mimetic and mythic
characteristics. The characters are highly individualized
versions of recognizable social types, and the patterns
through which they move are woven out of the mythos of
tragic drama (S & K, p. 234).

Whether or not these great Eur0pean novels do, in fact, suc-
cessfully exploit the tension between their mythic and mimetic

9 But in Persuasion the

impulses is beyond the scope of this study.
mimetic characterization of Anne subverts the archetypal structure
of the novel. Although the reader's perception of the realistic
nature of the heroine leads him to expect events to develop
causally and plausibly, the implied author instead develops events

to glorify Anne's strategies and to fulfill her needs, and she does

so within the conventions of comedy.

 

 

208

The fictional shape which is imposed upon life by the comic
myth9§_is more congruent with the "vision of the world" of the
implied author than are the mimetic demands for causal development.
The neurotic's "deal" with life is an attempt to impose a fictional
order upon his relationship with the contingencies of life with which
he feels himself otherwise unable to cope. It is not surprising,
then, that the neurotic vision manifests itself in an effort to
effect the fulfillment of Anne's needs and claims through coinci-

dence--really a kind of magic, or at least good luck. Jane Austen

 

is writing comedy, and comedy provides her with the conventions by
which she manipulates Anne's triumph. But the implied author's
identification with Anne's solution prevents her from recognizing
that Anne's mimetic characterization demands a causally developed
resolution of the conflicts in the novel. It is only from the per-
spective of the implied author's own perfectionism that the con-

trived conclusion could appear consistent with the charac-

terization.10

The mimetic characterization of Anne subverts not only the

comic structure of Persuasion but the thematic structure, as well.

 

Because the narrator is silent on the thematic implications of
Anne's story, it is through Anne that the novel's norms are under-
stood. As we have seen, the essence of Anne's position is that the
*wisdom of Lady Russell's advice to break her engatement was less an
issue than the duty she owed to the woman "who had almost a

inother's love, and mother's rights." Anne tells Wentworth after

their’reconciliation:

 

209

"I was right in submitting to her, . . . if I had done
otherwise, I should have suffered more in continuing the
engagement than I did even in giving it up, because I
should have suffered in my conscience. I have now, as far
as such a sentiment is allowable in human nature, nothing
to reproach myself with; and if I mistake not, a strong
sense of duty is no bad part of a woman's portion" (246).

Many readers have bridled at this self-serving justification
with which Anne lectures Wentworth. In his often-quoted disparage-

ment of Persuasion, Andor Gomme takes issue with Anne's interpreta-

 

tion of her duty:

To say (as, a little complacently, Anne does) that she now
has nothing to reproach herself with implies that all her
duty then lay away from the man she loved and towards
obeying a person for whose judgment and discretion the
reader is by this time likely to have scant respect. And
it is one thing to take such advice at nineteen, quite
another to congratulate oneself on it at twenty—seven.
Wentworth's 'own good' has been entirely dismissed.

The issue is not really the relationship between Anne's duty
and the quality of Lady Russell's advice, for, as I demonstrated in
Chapter 11, Anne carefully distinguishes between the correctness of
Lady Russell's counsel and her own dutifulness. But Gomme's other
quarrel with Anne, his objection to her complacent self-justification,
is a genuine issue. Anne's reduction of her decision to break the
engagement to a simple matter of duty contradicts not only the moral
oppositions developed in the novel, but also another explanation
offered earlier in the novel.

Anne says to Wentworth after they are reunited, "'When I
,yielded I thought it was to duty'" (244). But when the events of
the engagement are first recounted early in the novel, the reliable

narrator says that Anne "was persuaded to believe the engagement a

 

210

wrong thing--indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success, and
not deserving it" (27). Submitting to one to whom duty is owed and
being convinced that another's arguments are valid are not the same
'thing. Anne sometimes seems to say she was wrong to have been con-
vinced by Lady Russell and at other times to deny that she had been
convinced at all, claiming that she merely submitted to the advice
of the woman to whom she owed a duty. In either case, she now

expresses the opinion that the advice was wrong--or, at least, that

 

it was "good or bad only as the event decides" (246)--and that she
would never give such counsel in a similar situation.

More important than Anne's vacillation about her reasons
for having broken the engagement is the contradiction her evocation
of duty presents to other moral dichotomies in the novel. Of
course, it is true that the naval group earns its triumph by its
dutifulness in wartime, and the implied author seems determined to
equate Anne's dutifulness with that displayed by the navy, bestowing
on both whatever triumph the novel can offer. But the navy's duti-
fulness is presented in a context of other virtues quite contrary to
those from which Anne's dutifulness is derived. Among the virtues
the naval characters display are cheerful confidence in futurity
and trust in Providence (to adapt Anne's phrase), esteem based on
merit and accomplishment, and a disregard and even contempt for
archaic notions of propriety and dignity. In the context of these
other virtues, the naval dutifulness is seen to be calculated
acceptance of risk and responsibility for the sake of insuring a

social order in which they believe, and, not incidentally, for the

 

211

opportunity for financial and social personal advancement. But, as
Anne says herself, her action was a yielding to "'persuasion exerted
on the side of safety, not risk'" (244). Her dutifulness must
finally be seen to be based on prudence, after all--on a reluctance
for risk—taking, on an abdication of responsibility.

In her evocation of duty in order to absolve herself of
responsibility for the consequences of her actions, Anne echoes
Lady Russell, whose "over-anxious caution" (30) she has repudiated,
rather than Sophia Croft, whose confident acceptance of risk-taking
and disregard for petty rules of propriety Anne admires. Blind
dutifulness, without regard for the consequences of action taken in
the name of duty, is a trait more appropriate to the society in
which distinction is inherited than to the one in which it is
earned. The society in which distinction is inherited cannot com-
mand the rational allegiance of intelligent individuals; it there-
fore requires the individual to subsume his sense of responsibility
for the consequences of his actions to a rigid and unquestioning
sense of the duty owed to those in whom authority is invested. The
triumph of the naval characters seems to represent the novel's
rejection of the social structure which absolves a person of
responsibility for actions undertaken in the name of duty. Anne's
citation of duty contradicts the novel's endorsement of the naval
virtues.

Jane Nardin, among recent commentators on Persuasion, has
rwaticed the apparent conflict between the values Anne endorses and

those she exhibits. Nardin resolves the conflict by claiming that

 

212

we are not to take Anne as completely representative of the norms of

the novel:

Jane Austen does not, in Persuasion as a whole, endorse
Anne's beliefs concerning the major rules of propriety as
correct. Critics who, relying on the narrator's warm
affection and approval toward Anne, have concurred whole
heartedly in Anne's final judgment that she was right in
obeying the dictates of prudence and the major rules of
propriety in breaking off her engagement with Capt. Went-
worth, have been forced to be rather ingenious in justi-
fying a decision which seems to pull in the opposite
direction from the rest of the novel. A close examina-
tion of the complex way Persuasion treats how the major
rules of propriety relate to and govern fallible indi-
vidual judgments will, I think, clarify this point by
showing that, whatever the narrator's tone toward Anne
may imply, the heroiqs's opinion on this matter is not
totally trustworthy.

 

While Nardin's perception of the inherent contradiction in
Anne's position is correct, her resolution of that contradiction is
difficult to accept. Jane Austen certainly had at her disposal the
means to indicate the novel's distance from the heroine's moral per-
spective, but the narrator's irony is never directed at Anne's
moral judgments. The whole weight of comic convention, indeed, the
entire array of evidence by which we infer the implied author--that
conception by which we discover "where in the world of values . . .
the author want§_[us] to stand"--suggests that Anne's position and
the novel's are identical.

The source of the contradiction in Anne's self-justification
in the name of duty, on the one hand, and her admiration of the
naval virtues, on the other, is to be understood psychologically
rather than morally. Likewise, the failure of the novel to recon-

cile the contradictoriness of Anne's moralizations is a function of

 

213

the implied author's identification with Anne's defensive strate-
gies and her determination to vindicate those strategies in the
course of the novel.13

The powerfully imagined fantasy of fulfillment which is the
core of the structure of events in Persuasion is denied by Anne's
moralizations. The need for defensiveness which existed in her
small environment is lifted during the course of the novel. Anne's
perfectionism achieves its recognition in a society with values more
conducive to those which Anne cherishes. The self-protectiveness
which she developed by her rigid adherence to narrowly defined
dutifulness is no longer necessary among the naval characters who
prize openness, frankness, and warm affection, and who value
achievement and reward merit. But Anne falls back on her most
defensive responses at the moment of her fulfillment; she defends
her sense of worth from the attack which is implicit in her own
admission that she may have been wrong in yielding to persuasion.
In doing so she denies her capacity to accommodate herself fully to
the society which most prizes her perfectionism, and she reveals
that although the events of the novel have liberated her from a
psychologically destructive world, she has not been able to liberate
herself from the protective self-image she developed to defend her-
self in that world.

Because Anne is a mimetic character, readers may form
judgments about her independent of the novel's moral perspective.
It seems to me that the inevitable conclusion reached by a considera-

tion of the mimetic character of Anne is that her evocation of duty

 

214

is not the final word on the subject of the broken engagement with
Wentworth. We do not doubt that Anne would "have suffered in [her]
conscience" had she defied Lady Russell, but her sense of duty must
finally be seen as a psychological defense rather than a moral
absolute.

To say that the psychological analysis of Anne and of the
novel subverts the moral impulse in Persuasion is not to claim that
mimetically conceived characters cannot behave from genuine moral
principles. It is interestingix>note in this respect that Karen
Horney considered it "one of Frued's gravest errors to regard the
inner dictates [shoulds] (some of the features of which he had seen
and described as superego), as constituting morality in general"
(Horney, pp. 72-73). The point is that from a psychological per-
spective one need not take at face value the moral perspective of
the characters or even of the implied author. Moral choices, we
might argue, are possible only when an individual has the capacity
for genuine choice between realistically perceived alternatives.
Decisions which are compelled by psychological needs, which are
qualitatively indistinguishable from other attempts to glorify one's
self-image or restore one's pride, are not genuinely based on
morality. It is in this sense of the distinction between psycho-
logically and morally inspired action that the mimetic characteriza-

tion of Anne subverts the moral impulse of Persuasion.

The judgment made by Ian Watt and cited in my introduction

that Jane Austen successfully combined realism of assessment (theme)

 

215

and realism of presentation (mimesis) into an harmonious unity is
plainly wrong; at least, is is wrong insofar as it was meant to

apply to Persuasion. We are left to conclude that we understand

 

Anne Elliot better than did Jane Austen, and that we even understand
why the implied author failed to perceive her creation accurately.
Perhaps Watt asks too much of the novelist. He admires
Fielding for the "responsible wisdom about human affairs" that he
brings to Tom Jones, but he regrets that Fielding's characters are

not rendered in greater depth, with more subtlety and complexity,

 

that he did not approach characters internally, in the manner of
Richardson. But the very convincingness of Fieldings' wisdom, it
can be argued, is due in part to the fact that he gives us no
mimetic characters about whom we can form independent judgments
which might embarrass that wisdom. That Fielding's characters
always exist as illustrations of his “wisdom? Watt recognizes; that
they could not be given an identity in excess of that illustrative
dimension without threatening to subvert that wisdom, he fails to
consider.

Watt's judgment of Richardson is applicable to Jane Austen.
Essentially, Watt claims that the success of Clarissa is its
powerful mimetic portraiture, and that success survives even the
constricted Puritan morality which was applied to the story and
which it, in part, was intended to illustrate. No doubt Jane
Austen's social and moral vision, as well as the irony with which
much of her judgment is delivered, is more palatable and a good deal

more entertaining to the modern reader than is Richardson's morality.

 

216

But it is nonetheless true that in Jane Austen as well as in Rich-
ardson the interest lies in the character, not in the author's
morality, and that the characters tend to overflow and subvert that
morality.
Watt claims that realism of presentation and realism of

assessment are not

two opposite and irreconcilable kinds of novel, but merely

rather clearly constrasted solutions of problems which

pervade the whole tradition of the novel and whose appar-

ent divergencies can in fact be harmoniously reconciled

(Watt, p. 296).
But unless the novelist's wisdom is so complete that it transcends
all of his most deeply rooted psychological predilections and sur-
vives all manner of later philosophical and moral inquiry, which
factors inevitably come into play when assessing mimetic characters,
realism of presentation and realism of assessment do indeed seem to
be irreconcilable impulses in the novel. It can be said with some
certainty, at least, that they are unreconciled in Persuasion.

Yet, I think Watt is correct about what Jane Austen intends.

She attempts both an internal or phenomenological understanding of
Anne Elliot by supplying details of her personal history, her emo-
tional responses, her behavior, and her environment, and she
attempts an external or judgmental understanding, especially in that
Anne herself is made to draw out the implications of her story in
terms of individual duty. The consummate success of the former

subverts the adequacy of the latter. We realize that the implied

author identifies too closely with the personality of her heroine,

 

217

and that she is therefore unable to generate a reliable judgment

about her character's motives and behavior.

The major problems which readers have identified in Persua:
sjgg_are ultimately functions of the implied author's lack of dis-
tance from Anne's defensive strategies. The narrator's brutal
recapitulation of Dick Musgrove's life and death and her insensitive
treatment of Mrs. Musgrove are expressions of the perfectionist's
contempt for people who fail to measure up to his standards. The
narrator's overt contempt for "inferior" characters is an extension
of the perfectionism glorified in Anne. Clearly, Jane Austen mis-
calculated her reader's response to the narrator's expression of
disdain for other characters, especially inasmuch as the novel cele-
brates Anne's sensitivity and her depth of feeling. The implied
author fails to perceive the contradiction between the implicit and
the explicit norms of the novel, between the narrator's failure of
human sympathy and the novel's glorification of Anne's sensibility.

More destructive to the integrity of the novel is the sub-
versive effect worked on the structure and the themes of Persuasion
by the mimetic characterization of Anne. The realistic portrait of
Anne raises expectations that the structure within which that por-
trait develops will be shaped according to principles of causality
and probability. Instead, Jane Austen works out Anne's destiny
according to the conventions of comedy. Anne's fulfillment comes
as a result of the implied author's manipulation of fate rather than

a realistically conceived development of events. The result is the

 

 

218

frustration of the reader's legitimate expectation for realism,
leading to the conclusion that, at least in this novel, mimetic
characters cannot be accommodated within the conventions of comedy.
Likewise, the mimetic portrait of Anne undermines the moral themes
which Jane Austen intends her story to illustrate. Anne's explana-
tion of her actions in terms of her sense of duty, while wholly
consistent with her perfectionism, is inadequate as a moral assess-
ment of her behavior. The depth of characterization generates the
expectation that if the moral dimension of Anne's story is to be
articulated it will be done with attention to the complete psycho-
logical portrait of the protagonist provided by the novel. But it
is Anne, not the narrator, who provides the novel's moral perspec-
tive, and Anne is still too trapped within her defensive strategies
to be a reliable judge. FUrthermoreslAnne's psychologically motiva-
ted rationalizations contradict the moral perspective inherent in
the novel's glorification of the naval virtues of cheerful self-
confidence and responsibility for one's own actions. The reader's
expectation for a thematic perspective consistent with the novel's
depth of characterization is also frustrated. He is left to con-
clude that, in this novel at least, mimetic characters cannot suc-
cessfully illustrate didactic themes.

Jane Austen's Persuasion is, finally, a flawed novel

 

because it fails to reconcile the conflicting expectations it
generates. And, as I have suggested, perhaps the conflicting
demands of these elements are inherently irreconcilable. In spite

of its failure to create an harmonious unity, there remains about

 

". '.'_'.fi_. L "-_I‘—il - r-

219

Persuasion a powerful impression of the authenticity of the character

 

of Anne Elliot. The truth which prevails in Persuasion is the truth
of experience. We have come to know what it is like to be a sensi-
tive woman among the early nineteenth-century English gentry facing
her middle years in the likelihood that the only prospect for her

is spinsterhood, because she chose to sacrifice her engagement to
the man she loved to please those to whom she felt she owed a duty.
And we have experienced with that woman the paintyfhaving the only
man she ever loved re-enter her life, the tenuous stirrings of hope
that their love might be renewed, and, finally, the joy she feels

at the fulfillment of her deepest wishes. That we cannot acquiesce
in her own assessment of her experience, or that we balk at the
framework within which her creator has revealed her character do not
diminish the authenticity or the value of that creation. To have
come to know phenomenologically what it is like to be a person like

Anne Elliot is a very precious thing.

 

 

NOTES: CHAPTER IV

'Booth, pp. 250-51.

2E. Rubenstein has also noted the division between the
qualities glorified in Anne and those exhibited in the narrator,
although Rubinstein assumes that the narrator is Jane Austen. Jane
Austen fails, says Rubinstein,
"to evince precisely those qualities of 'sweetness of mind
and elegance of temper' that she exhibits and praises in
Anne. One example should serve to show the gulf between
heroine and novelist: Anne manifests 'shock and mortifi-
cation' when she sees the letter containing William Elliot's
abusive repudiation of Sir Walter and the name of Elliot
. . , yet William's contempt for Sir Walter and his sta-
tion is hardly greater than that which Jane Austen herself
feels and clearly expects the reader to share. Beyond
question, Anne demonstrates exemplary conduct for a person
in her situation, but Jane Austen and the reader, being
free of Anne's personal and familial obligations, are mor-
ally free to hold and express far more severe opinions."
The Metaphor of Rank, p. 185.

3Whenever the narrator expresses ironic distance from Anne,
it is always a case<yfher being amused at Anne's romantic nature.
Anne's moral superiority is never the object of the narrator's
irony. When Anne engages in self-deception about her interest in
Wentworth's arrival in Bath or when she experiences the exuberance
of romantic triumph because of Wentworth's renewed affection, the
narrator pokes fun at her:
"Prettier musings of high-wrought love and eternal

constancy, could never have passed along the streets of

Bath, than Anne was sporting with from Camden-place to

Westgate-buildings. It was almost enough to spread puri-

fication and perfume all the way" (192).
Earlier the narrator says that among the reasons for Anne's first
falling in love with Wentworth were that "he had nothing to do, and
she had hardly any body to love" (26). These ironic observations
indicate that Anne's romantic nature is taken less seriously by the
narrator than by Anne. They further suggest that Anne's romantic
nature is less central to the implied author's identification with
her than is her moral superiority, about which the narrator is
never ironic.

220

 

221

4The cancelled version of Chapter x of the second volume
reveals Jane Austen's discomfort with vindictiveness and feelings of
triumph attributable to Anne. As in the published version, the
manuscript of the cancelled version of Chapter x begins with Anne's
leaving Westgate Building, after learning from Mrs. Smith of William
Elliot's real character. In the final version Anne is "concerned
for the disappointment and pain Lady Russell would be feeling" (212)
when she discovered William Elliot's real nature. In the cancelled
version Anne is "pained for Lady Russell, whose confidence in him
had been entire" (258). The alteration reveals Jane Austen's
determination to eliminate any suggestion of Anne's sense of triumph
over Lady Russell; the change eliminates Anne's consciousness of
Lady Russell's mistaken judgment and reinforces her sensitivity to
Lady Russell's feelings.

Chapman discovers an even more revealing passage in the
manuscript. Following "Lady Russell" in the sentence just quoted
from the cancelled version is an erased passage which Chapman trans-
cribes thus:

"& glancing with composed Complacency & (possibly Lenient)
Triumph upon the fact of her having been right and Lady R.
wrong (herself above line) the most discriminating of the
two. She had never been satisfied. Lady Russell's confi-
dence had been entire." (Chapman's note to line 6, p. 258,
the first page of the cancelled manuscript.)

To be sure erased passages in cancelled chapters do not
constitute admissible evidence for the interpretation of published
texts. It is perhaps fair, however, to note that Jane Austen's
progressive elimination of vindictiveness and gloating in Anne is
consistent with Anne's own taboos against such feelings.

. See also B. C. Southam's analysis of the manuscript: Jane
Austen's Literary Manuscripts: A Study of the Novelist's Develop-
ment Through the Surviving Manuscripts, OxfordTEnglish Monographs
(London: Oxford University Press, 1964).

5It can be argued, of course, that to demand cause-and-

effect development in Persuasion is to impose standards upon the
novel which were never intended by Jane Austen. In fact, Darrell
Mansell takes just such a position. Incidents such as the coinci-
dence of Mrs. Smith's acquaintance with Mr. Elliot occur in Peg;
suasion, he argues, because Jane Austen's intellectual scheme for
dramatizing the psychological process of her heroine requires them
to occur:

"Jane Austen has never been particularly interested in

making every episode in her novels seem to follow time-

and-place logic of 'real life' or of a novel aiming at a

very thoroughgoing representation of life. The strong

governing 'plot' in the novels has always been the drama

taking place in the heroine's mind as she becomes spiritu—

ally prepared to take her place in the world; and at cer-

tain crucial points Jane Austen has never hesitated to

 

 

 

 

222

influence the heroine's development by interfering in the

plot, in veiled or open defiance of the laws of proba-

bility."
The Novels of Jane Austen: An Interpretation (London: The Macmil-
lan Press, 1973), pp. 199-200.

It is no doubt accurate to observe that the incidents in
Persuasion occur to reveal the drama which takes place in Anne's
mind. But the larger point is that the mimetic characterization of
Anne is evidence of Jane Austen's interest in a "thoroughgoing
representation of life," and that characterization itself engenders
the expectation that events in the novel will develop causally. The
very fact that Anne's psychological defenses are so clearly related
to the pathogenic environment in which she was raised and to the
unhappy results of her first romance creates the expectation that
the resolution will be plausible. Mansell merely begs the issue
when he says:

"We simply have to accept that events in her fiction are
often not 'caused' by whatever laws of cause and effect
conceivably govern our real world and fiction which aims
at some kind of painstakingly realistic imitation of the
world" (Mansell, p. xi).

6Although he has a much different basis for saying so, I am
in essential agreement with Wiesenfarth's general observation that
the problems with Jane Austen's novels are "all of a piece":
"They arise from the tension that exists between the demands of
structural pattern and the demands of characters to be persons"
(Errand of Form, p. viii). Wiesenfarth specifically identifies the
unsatisfactoriness of the Dick Musgrove and Mrs. Smith episodes as
a function of the tension between characterization and structure in
Persuasion. His understanding of "the demands of characters to be
persons," however, is entirely thematic.

 

 

7Forster, p. 95.

8Northrop Frye, "Myth, Fiction, and Displacement, " Daedalus:
Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Summer 1961).
Reprinted in Frye's Fables of Identity: Studies in Poetic Mythology
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963). My text is the Har-
binger Book paperback, p. 36.

9Professor Paris argues that the tension between form and
mimetic character is rarely a constructive element in fiction. See
especially his Chapter I, pp. 1-27.

10At least one critic has suggested that Jane Austen deliber-
ately makes the "fortuitous circumstances" seem perfunctory in
order to "drive home to the audience that the pleasing results are
only the products of the writer's fantasy, designed to fulfill
unrealistic human wishes." Paul N. Zietlow, "Luck and Fortuitous

 

223

Circumstances in Persuasion," Journal of English Literary History 32
(June, 1965): 194. In PauTTZietTow's thinking, the comic re501ution
to the problems of a mimetically conceived character in Persuasion
serves to highlight "the dark possibilities of human life--to em ha-
size them without actually bringing them about" (Zietlow, p. 195)
It is all "Jane Austen's means for treating tragic effect while
preserving comic form."

Zietlow's observation about the conclusion of Persuasion
being a product of the writer's fantasy concurs with the argument I
have been advancing here. We disagree about whether Jane Austen
intended us to see the unrealistic nature of the conclusion. His
argument is reinforced by the ironic tone of the narrator as she
begins the final chapter in which the rewards and punishments are
dispensed and the loose ends tied up: "Who can be in doubt of what
followed?" (248). That irony suggests to Zietlow that Jane Austen
intends that readers recognize that the happy conclusion is merely
a literary device and probably not the fortune that would befall a
person in Anne's situation in real life. The difficulty with
Zietlow's argument is that the very real ironic tone with which the
final chapter begins is not directed at the artificiality of the
comic ending at all. It is directed at the way in which a declara-
tion of love between young people inevitably leads to marriage, "be
they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little unlikely
to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort" (248).

Far from regarding Anne's and Wentworth's marriage as a
mere literary contrivance, the narrator insists upon the truth of
the observation (whatever its morality) that couples generally do
as they like, regardless of the counsel of others. Anne and Went-
worth are exempted from the narrator's ironic observation, however,
because they have "the advantage of maturity of mind, consciousness
of right, and one independent fortune between them .~. ." (248).

Of course, they are further exempt because their history puts the.
lie to the narrator's observation that young people do not allow
themselves to be persuaded from marriage once they have decided upon
it. The fact that Anne once did allow herself to be so persuaded
provides an additional dimension to the narrator's irony, an irony
directed at human nature, not at literary convention.

Lloyd Brown has also concerned himself with the problem
posed by the comic endings to Jane Austen's stories about realistic
heroines. For Brown, "the principles of realism are confirmed
rather than contradicted by the exaggerated mechanics of [Jane
Austen's] happy endings." "The Comic Conclusion in Jane Austen's
Novels," PMLA 84» (October 1969): 1582. Brown argues that

"the emphasis in Persuasion is on realism rather than on
the schematic dispensation of rewards and punishment.
Indeed, instead of arbitrarily imposing these idealistic
conventions on her fictive societies, Jane Austen uses her
comic conclusions to expose the prevailing norms that fre-
quently)undermine and replace traditional values" (Brown,
p. 1584 .

 

 

 

 

224

Brown's evidence for this contention that realism is opera-
tive in the conclusion of Persuasion is the narrator's insistence
that although both Anne and Mrs. Smith receive comic rewards, those
rewards are not the source of their happiness. Rather, their hap-
piness is a result of their being the kind of persons they are, just
as the punishment of the antagonists (Sir Walter, Elizabeth, Mary,
William Elliot, and Mrs. Clay) is in their remaining true to their
characters. The narrator says of Mrs. Smith: "Her spring of
felicity was in the glow of her spirits, just as her friend Anne's
was in the warmth of her heart" (252).

If that narrative assertion were substantiated by dramatized
illustration, one might have to concur with Brown that realism does
indeed govern the conclusion of Persuasion. No such development
exists, however; we have only the narrator's insistence that Anne's
felicity had nothing to do with her vindication and triumph. And
the reason for Jane Austen's wishing to renounce vindictiveness as
part of her character's motivation is clear from a psychological
understanding of Anne and the implied author.

Both Brown and Zietlow are misled by the ironic tone of the
narrator at the conclusion of Persuasion. It is true that there is
a note of mockery in the minimization of Mrs. Smith's being rewarded
for having helped Anne:

“Mrs. Smith's enjoyments were not spoiled by this

improvement of income, with some improvement of health,
and the acquisition of such friends to be often with, for
her cheerfulness and mental alacrity did not fail her; and
while these prime supplies of good remained, she might
have bid defiance even to greater accessions of worldly
prosperity. She might have been absolutely rich and per-
fectly healthy, and yet be happy" (252).
This parody of literary convention does not extend to the rewards
Anne receives or deservingness of them.

Brown finds in the opening statements of the final chapter
of Persuasion a parallel to the mocking attitude taken by the narra-
tor toward the end of Northanger Abbey:

"The anxiety which in their state of attachment must

be the portion of Henry and Catherine, and of all who

loved either, as to its final event, can hardly extend, I

fear, to the bosom of my readers, who will see in the

tell-tale compression of the pages before him, that we are

all hastening together to perfect felicity" (Northanger

Abbey, p. 250).
This is a parody of literary convention with a vengeance. But parody
of the Gothic novel is a major theme in Northanger Abbey. There is
no evidence that parody of literary convention is part of the design
of Persuasion. Both Brown and Zietlow fail to distinguish the ironic
tone of the narrator of Northanger Abbey, which is directed at lit-
erary convention, from the ironic tone of the narrator of Persuasion,
which is directed at human nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

225

HAndor Gomme, "On Not Being Persuaded," Essays in Criticism
(Oxford) 16 (1966): 181. See also a rejoinder to Gomme's article by
Brian Southam, 16: 480, and a reply to Southam by Gomme, 16: 481.

12

13Jane Nardin suggests a psychological motive for Anne's

inability to completely relinquish her prudential value system:
"Anne, it is true, is a person of good feeling, fair and
generous, but there are two important reasons, neither of
them especially to her credit in a moral sense, why she
has developed a deeply rooted habit of behaving with
strict propriety however much the necessity galls her
feelings--a habit which has become so automatic to her
that she is scarcely even aware of its existence. First,
Anne, despite her mental superiority, has been raised as
an Elliot and though her more mature judgment has rejected
most of the Elliot values, she has apparently found it
more difficult to alter the habitually decorous demeanor
which, presumably, she was taught as a child, than she has
to reject the Elliot idea that status and beauty are the
important elements of human nature. Second, and more
importantly, Anne has just passed eight unhappy years dur-
ing which she has been forced to conceal the deepest feel-
ings of her heart for [sjgj everyone around her. And in
this concealment the minor rules of propriety have been a
great aid to Anne, for they enabled her to interpose a
conventional and impersonal mode of behavior between the
world and the secret she must conceal" (Nardin, p. 142).

I would quarrel with Nardin only in insisting that Anne
develops her knowledge of the rules of propriety as a means of
restoring pride and of protecting herself from the insensitivity and
lack of affection she experienced at Kellynch-hall. Nardin means
something different from this when she says Anne developed her
"decorous demeanor" because she was raised an Elliot. Anne's pride
is invested in her moral and mental superiority. The important
thing about the rules of propriety which govern Anne's behavior is
that she has internalized those rules so thoroughly that her adher-
ence to them is a basis of her sense of worth.

Nardin comes closer to my view of Anne's inability to reject
her earlier reliance upon her prudential value system by suggesting
that the complete repudiation of her defensive strategies repre-
sented too great a threat to her conception of her moral superiority:

"And surely Anne, at the end of the novel, would not at
all like to accept the idea that her long unhappiness was
her own fault, the result of a mistaken conception of
duty. It is emotionally much easier and more satisfying
for her to deny the individual the right to break a major

Nardin, p. 144.

 

226

social law on his own discretion and to conclude that her
own suffering was an unavoidable result of the fact that
codified social wisdom must sometimes be mistaken in par-
ticular instances; the hard price that duty sometimes
exacts" (Nardin, p. 151).

Anne's inability to confront the invalidity of her defensive
strategies and her own responsibility for her unhappiness is paral-
leled by the implied author's similar unwillingness to admit such
possibilities. The implied author's unreserved identification with
Anne's defensive strategies, her lack of distance from Anne's per-
fectionism, accounts for her failure of distance from Anne's per-
spective on her life and her inattention to the contradiction of the
novel's glorification of the naval values which is inherent in
Anne's self-exoneration.

 

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Ph.D. Dissertation, Washington University, 1966.

 

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Link, Frederick Martin. "The Reputation of Jane Austen in the
Twentieth Century with an Annotated Enumerative Bibliography
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Pickering, Jean Eldred. "Comic Structure in the Novels of Jane
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A Critical Analysis of Persuasion." Ph.D. dissertation,
University of California at Davis, 1971.

 

   

 

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