Persuasion Jane Austen Character Traits

Improved Essays
Character Analysis Jane Austen created Anne Elliot as the protagonist in the novel, Persuasion. Anne plays a clever yet considerate character who becomes more attractive when exposing her positive qualities. Austen distances Anne from the catty and malicious image and projects her nature as a strong female in difficult situations while remaining consistent with her affections for the male roles. Anne supports her reasoning with a secure argument to explain her decisions. She clarifies with Captain Wentworth that she was “wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk (Anne Elliot, chapter 22).” Her character reveals her ability to back up her actions and make clear decisions with Wentworth. Anne’s rational behavior emphasizes her style and proper manner toward other characters. Therefore, her personal qualities advance the desire to marry with many males to choose from. While juggling with passion and practicality, she is respected for her duty as an independent female. Ms. Elliott suffers from a love tangle that persuades her into various directions. Anne comes to terms that she still has feelings for Wentworth and is …show more content…
Although Jane never married, Anne’s wedding may reflect the author’s fantasy or imagination of romantic events. Austen also includes guidance as one of Anne’s many characteristics. This could reveal her ability to project advice to her family and friends with a strong argument. Another favorite scene would be Anne’s realization of wanting a family of her own. Even though she does not long for the family image of her sister’s and mother, she has a different vision for herself. As Austen says in the novel, “the idea of becoming what her mother had been….first revived in herself.” This character development was clearly composed and showed how Anne can mature into a motherly

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Throughout the book we see Anne, the protagonist, grow up and mature. She starts off as a playful, silly, and didn’t really take anything seriously. After a while, she matures and grows up into a respectable woman. This is theme of growing up. You are going to have to grow up and be a bigger person.…

    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    When Miss Taylor leaves Hartfield to marry a man Emma matched her with, Emma is alone and bored which leads her to begin to make more matches. In order to conceal his secret engagement to Jane Fairfax, he flirts with Emma. Jane is Frank’s fiancé, but Frank had been flirting with Emma to hide their engagement. Emma tries to make matches for Harriet, but that backfires when Harriet has feelings for Mr. Knightley, who Emma loves. Harriet wouldn’t have feelings for Mr. Knightley if Emma had never befriended her and introduced her to him.…

    • 1900 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Not understanding her mother’s wishes, Anne mistakes her mother’s intensions. Rather than thinking of her family’s safety, Anne selfishly thinks of herself. “I was so damn mad after her letter, I felt like taking the NAACP convention to Centreville” (Moody 284). She acted like the typical defiant teenager, or a three-year-old, deliberately disobeying her parents. Moody thought that her mother’s reason to keep her in the house when she returned home was because Moody did not come home often; and so her mother wanted to spend as much time with her.…

    • 2070 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    By showing us that Marilla and Matthew now like Anne more, Anne seems like less of an outsider and is now appreciated for who being a girl. In ‘Anne of Green Gables’ Montgomery discusses how being from different places and not being wanted can make someone feel like an outsider and feel unwanted. In this segment you can see how people run on others’ approval, just like people run on…

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Anne Frank's Identity

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The following reasons plays a role on shaping her identity. Anne has the desire to be a women, and in order to be a women, she has to be self-reliant. As she gets older, she finds the need to be free. An example of her wanting to be free is, “We’re young, Margot and Peter and I!” When she said that, she was hinting at her wanting to be more independent.…

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Jane Austen was not known for her interesting or memorable life. Many label her life as “uneventful” or “dull.” The stories she creates in her novels seem as if they couldn’t be any more different from her own life. Jane Austen’s novels are exciting and full of romance and adventure. Jane Austen never married, but she did yearn for a husband, someone for her to love.…

    • 1760 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Mary In Persuasion

    • 2351 Words
    • 10 Pages

    In Jane Austen’s Persuasion, the youngest of the Elliot sisters, Mary, is described throughout the novel as somewhat of a difficult and needy person who is not easily satisfied. This persona is played out mostly in what others say of her and through the background information that Austen, or the narrator, gives of her. Although it may be characteristic of youngest siblings to want a great deal of attention, Mary’s actions and sentiments seem exaggerated to an almost laughable standard. She is described early on as “often a little unwell, and always thinking a great deal of her own complaints” which sets the reader up automatically to view her in a discontented and helpless light (32). It is interesting then to note, that the majority of what…

    • 2351 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This argument between Charlotte and Lizzie suggest that marriage is no business. It is not as necessary as it is emphasize in Austen’s novel. Another example is Jane’s pursuing her fashion career over Bing Lee. Early in the narrative Lizzie tells the viewers, “It frustrates our mom to no end that…

    • 1756 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Marriage is an important milestone in one’s life. It is a union of two people who vow to remain together and love one another until death does them apart. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen emphasizes the prominence of marriage based on loved rather than other influences. Through the experiences of Lydia and Wickham, Charlotte and Collins, and Elizabeth and Darcy, Austen criticizes marriages based on infatuation, convenience and money, and emphasizes that marriage can only be successful if they are founded on mutual love. Jane Austen criticizes the various different marriages in the novel.…

    • 1563 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Laura Gonzalez Professor William Marquat III British Literature 2323 Pride and Prejudice: The Importance of Marriage In Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen it talks about the struggles of a young women living in the early 19th century. The novel is about the point of view in the story is Elizabeth Bennet and how her daily life about social classes and the limit power of woman in England. This novel explains the obstacles and the need for a young woman in England to marry. Jane Austen, the author of the novel explain the obstacles that the story describes it.…

    • 1787 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, presents many different perspectives regarding marriage. Austen portrays this through a variety of characters such as, Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth Bennett and George Wickham. During this time period, males and females held different stances on the value of marriage and why or why not people should marry. At this time in history, women were highly encouraged to marry young, and if they did not, this was often looked down upon. As for males, it was highly encouraged, but not as crucial as it was for women.…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    The novel falls in the category of romantic and sentimental novels. In the first three chapters of the novel, the mastery of Jane Austen ensures that every situation and incident of the story contains subtle satire and irony. The author employs a transparent style and reveals the personalities of the characters through the use of direct speech. In the first three chapters, Jane Austen maintains an adequate distinction between the narrative and conversational tone of the novel. She illustrates unique artistic quality and presents her characters truthfully.…

    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In addition, it manages to strengthen Elizabeth’s feminist stance on marriage as she repeatedly expresses her disillusionment on Charlotte marrying for financial security abandoning the possibility of a romantic relationship. The third contrast with Elizabeth that Austen highlights is with her very own older sister, Jane which tends to enhance Elizabeth’s distinct feminist character traits from Jane. Jane is the quintessential ideal woman, beautiful, well mannered, and agreeable who confirms her typical Regency era woman characteristics by concealing her emotions from Mr Bingley. While she had hoped to please and attract Mr. Bingley’s attention, her passive display of interest nearly causes her to lose his affection.…

    • 1107 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As the title of the novel namely suggest, the primary theme of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is about the tragic flaws of pride and prejudice possessed by the characters in the novel. Throughout the course of the novel, Austen’s masterfully woven characters begin to show their own strengths and weaknesses revolving around the theme of having either pride or prejudice. However, over time and due in part to the resemblance of the words, the terms of pride and prejudice have come to take on a similar meaning.…

    • 1043 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Elizabeth Bennet Marriage

    • 1460 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Pride and Prejudice is a representative of the realistic novel. It undeniably plays a significant role in the history of British literature. The author, Jane Austen is one of the greatest women writers in the world. The novel shows vivid and complicated relationships between characters and reflect the importance of marriage for women in the early nineteenth century. Austen mainly depicts two disparate marriage attitudes between Elizabeth Bennet and Charlotte Lucas.…

    • 1460 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays