Class In Jane Austen's Persuasion Essay

In Jane Austen’s book, Persuasion, she eludes on her audience that class within society is of the greatest importance to those in Britain. She uses examples such as Sir Walter Elliott and his favorite daughter Elizabeth and their economic problems or aspirations as evidence toward this. The story starts off with Elliott reading his family ancestry to show nobility and significance of class and goes all the way to not calling a specific person “Gentleman” because of their wealth by the end of chapter five. I hope that this essay will prove that point, and you will have a good sense of the significance of class that takes place in Austen’s book. Austen gave her book the title Persuasion because she is telling a story of an affluent family who …show more content…
Austen may seem a little hostile in making a wealthy family go poor because of bad spending habits, but in deeper thought, she is actually very sympathetic. She finds a good fit family for renting their home at Kellynch Hall, and she is going to move the family to Bath where most people of upper class might retire to or move to in old age for comfort. The temptation of moving them to a lower class in the eyes of society seems to have a prolific negative impact on their outlook and legacy. Austen probably got this idea from her real society and sees how bad it affects people, so she does not want to put it in her book where everything just goes wrong for the Elliott family. Back to the “Class in Britain” article we see what class is and how bad it can be for the poor. They have no political representation, and during economic or agricultural downturns, they suffer the worst. They are usually the last ones to get food or supplies in the case of bad weather. Since they are not allowed to hunt or fish, it makes it that much harder for them to get food sometimes. These people do not own land, and if the Elliott’s had gone this far, they could have faced the same situation. That would have made for a depressing