Captain Wentworth’s Letter: The Rewritten Chapters of Persuasion and the Narrative Impact of Letters
Persuasion (1817), was Jane Austen’s last completed work, it was published posthumously along with Northanger Abbey a year after the author’s death in 1816. It is the only complete novel for which an original manuscript exists allowing a unique insight into the workings of Austen’s writing process. This essay will provide a close reading of the two final chapters of Persuasion focusing on the narrative impact of the writing, receiving and reading of Captain Wentworth’s letter to Anne Elliot and the overheard conversation between Anne Eliot and Captain Harville. When Jane Austen originally wrote Persuasion she wrote a different ending one that …show more content…
In “Structure and Idea in Jane Austen’s Persuasion” Joseph Duffy argues, “that the lovers are shown in a tangential rather than direct relationship to one another” (285).Whilst staying at Uppercross the party go for a walk. Anne, who is sitting in the hedgerow, “overhears Louisa and Captain Wentworth, who have gone “gleaning nuts.” When Louisa declares, “I have no idea of being so easily persuaded, [w]hen I have made up my mind I have made it,” Captain Wentworth enthusiastically endorses her statement. When he utters the words “It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character that no influence over it can be depended upon – you are never sure of a good impression being durable...let those who would be happy be firm,” he might as well be speaking directly to Anne. She responds as if they are directly addressed to her, by “imagin[ing] what Louisa is feeling” (63). She overhears Louisa telling him that “[Lady Russell] persuaded Anne to refuse [Charles], and realises “how her own character is considered by Captain Wentworth” (64). His “degree of feeling and curiosity about her” is enough to throw her into a state of extreme agitation”(64). Reflecting on the conversation in the Musgrove’s carriage on the way home afterwards Anne “understood him, he could not forgive her”
Persuasion (1817), was Jane Austen’s last completed work, it was published posthumously along with Northanger Abbey a year after the author’s death in 1816. It is the only complete novel for which an original manuscript exists allowing a unique insight into the workings of Austen’s writing process. This essay will provide a close reading of the two final chapters of Persuasion focusing on the narrative impact of the writing, receiving and reading of Captain Wentworth’s letter to Anne Elliot and the overheard conversation between Anne Eliot and Captain Harville. When Jane Austen originally wrote Persuasion she wrote a different ending one that …show more content…
In “Structure and Idea in Jane Austen’s Persuasion” Joseph Duffy argues, “that the lovers are shown in a tangential rather than direct relationship to one another” (285).Whilst staying at Uppercross the party go for a walk. Anne, who is sitting in the hedgerow, “overhears Louisa and Captain Wentworth, who have gone “gleaning nuts.” When Louisa declares, “I have no idea of being so easily persuaded, [w]hen I have made up my mind I have made it,” Captain Wentworth enthusiastically endorses her statement. When he utters the words “It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character that no influence over it can be depended upon – you are never sure of a good impression being durable...let those who would be happy be firm,” he might as well be speaking directly to Anne. She responds as if they are directly addressed to her, by “imagin[ing] what Louisa is feeling” (63). She overhears Louisa telling him that “[Lady Russell] persuaded Anne to refuse [Charles], and realises “how her own character is considered by Captain Wentworth” (64). His “degree of feeling and curiosity about her” is enough to throw her into a state of extreme agitation”(64). Reflecting on the conversation in the Musgrove’s carriage on the way home afterwards Anne “understood him, he could not forgive her”