Persuasion

In these chapters, Austen reunites Wentworth and Anne while simultaneously creating romantic tension through the social norms and unresolved feelings that prevent an open, honest confrontation. In Austen’s time, gender roles were strictly adhered to, with aristocratic women consigned to cultivating taste in music, manners, and conversation, and aristocratic men often portrayed as hunting for sport or pursuing business. When Charles Musgrove argues to attend the dinner and meet Captain Wentworth, it is with the statement: “Nursing does not belong to a man, it is not his province” (53). A husband or father is not expected to give up their ability to socialize in order to care for their child, or at any other time. Nursing, as he calls it, is distinctly a woman’s purview and should not be expected of him. Through Wentworth, Austen also satirizes the notion that wives were expected to inspire sensitivity in their husbands, a popular romantic trope of her time. Here, Mary seems unable to inspire such a change of heart in Charles, and Anne refused even to attempt to do so by rejecting Charles’s proposal.

Anne’s age and appearance are again used as a way to indicate her as unsuitable for marriage. She is described as having lost her youthful bloom while Wentworth looks the same, if not better, than he did eight years before. Not only does this reveal the intense pressure that women felt to marry young so as not to be in danger of losing home and support in their later years, but Anne’s insecurity about her appearance also comments on the unrealistic standards women were expected to uphold solely for men’s benefit. This is seen clearly in Sir Walter’s character, who often comments on Mrs. Clay’s freckles or the degeneration of youth in the other women around him. Additionally, Captain Wentworth participates in upholding these unrealistic expectations in his comment on searching for a wife between the ages of fifteen and thirty. This skews his judgement of women in favor of younger and seemingly more attractive girls than women closer to his own age. That men are not only compelled to this evaluation of women, but supported in it by being encourage to marry much younger women, speaks to the patriarchal center of English middle class society. Austen seeks to address this by richly depicting the inner lives of women of all ages.

When Anne and Wentworth inevitably meet and interact again, their common tendency toward secrecy serves as both protection and isolation. They are able to smother their emotions in a set of prepared manners and decorum, but they also cut themselves off from any help or consolation that their friends may be able to provide. For Anne, Wentworth’s “cold politeness, his ceremonious grace” (67) erects a distance between them that is difficult to cope with as she must do it entirely alone. Seeking comfort would force her to risk the embarrassment of revealing the broken engagement. This distance then requires Anne to pretend that Wentworth’s courtship of Louisa and Henrietta does not affect her, even as it happens right in front of her. That she expresses a sense of shame for her confused and hurt emotions reveals the level of propriety she is expected to uphold, even privately and to herself.

Though Charles Hayter and Henrietta are cousins, their ability to marry is a common (and, in fact, desirable) outcome for this time period. Many Austen novels feature romances between cousins, which reflect her society’s preoccupation—and paranoia—with keeping wealth within the family. As Charles Hayter is the Musgroves’ heir, he inherits the large property and income that the Musgroves enjoy. This is common practice for landed middle class society in England, as the loss of land and/or income could be devastating for a class of people that largely do not work. This dynamic also foreshadows the appearance of the scheming Mr. William Elliot later in the novel and reminds the reader of Elizabeth’s failed attempt to marry him.