Showing results for title "Persuasion", by author "Jane Austen" in Women's Fiction

This rich and charming novel about a virtuous young woman's search for love amidst the fickle world of country gentry in Regency England is one of Jane Austen's most memorable works. Anne Elliot exists in a world where shallowness and hypocrisy present a challenge to her centered values and tender emotions. Anne vies for the affections of the man she loves while at the same time her willpower is threatened as she battles the conventions of a proper parochial society.

Persuasion was the last novel completed by Jane Austen and was first published posthumously in December, 1817. The story represents an interesting configuration of Austen’s characteristic narrative patterns. The heroine, Anne Eliot, is something of an old maid—she is twenty-seven years old, still single and is considered by family and friends to have lost her youthful beauty. Several years earlier, her engagement to Captain Frederick Wentworth had been broken off, due to the insistence of her family that the Captain lacked the wealth and status needed for a suitable husband.

At 19, Anne Elliott was deeply in love with Captain Wentworth, but she was persuaded by Lady Russell - her dead mother's closest friend - to break off her engagement with him because he had neither status nor fortune. Anne loses her bloom until eight years later, when chance brings Captain Wentworth back into her world. Success at sea has earned him wealth and honours, but can he ever get over his anger and hurt pride, and can or should Anne now resist the influence of Lady Russell, who still does not approve?

Anne Elliot, es la hija mediana de Sir Walter Elliot y la más sensata dentro de su familia. A los 19 años, Anne fue persuadida a rechazar al joven al que amaba, al no ser considerado como un matrimonio conveniente para ella. Ocho años más tarde, las circunstancias han cambiado. Cuando el joven aparece de nuevo en su vida, ella, ya una mujer madura, se reencontrará de nuevo con sentimientos y esperanzas pasadas. Así, toda la tensión de la novela girará en torno a la pregunta: ¿Tendrá Anne una segunda oportunidad en el amor?

Publicada póstumamente en 1818, presenta un cuadro de familia sumamente austeniano: un viudo pomposo que sólo lee el baronetario, una hija soltera llena de pretensiones, una hija casada hipocondríaca y caprichosa, una multitud ruidosa de parientes y vecinos que aparecen por todas partes… y, al fondo, en el último rincón, una heroína sensible, paciente y menospreciada.