Jane Austen's Persuasion Analysis

In the published ending of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, the character of Anne speaks much more as compared to the original ending written. One may find this to be inconsistent with the rest of this book, however it can be shown that she must speak more for her character to progress correctly. When reading through this book we become accustomed to Anne being the silent character, leading us to feel like something is wrong when she begins to speak more. Due to this we are naturally drawn to question why Anne is speaking so much. The reason Anne has come to speak much more in this new ending to the book, is because she believes her father to see her as higher now that she is in a relationship with Captain Wentworth.
To deduce this we must ask, why …show more content…
Previously it has been decided that this is due to her family’s disrespect of her voice. Another factor that we knew at the beginning of the story was that Anne's father did not like her relationship with Captain Wentworth, “Sir Walter . . . gave it all the negative of great astonishment, great coldness, great silence, and a professed resolution of doing nothing for his daughter. He thought it a very degrading alliance” (Austen, 27). If Anne has only started to speak more now that her family respects Captain Wentworth, a logical connection could be made here that she speaks based on her family’s view of Wentworth. Once more if we conclude that she does not speak because of her family’s disrespect for Wentworth, then we can tie these two together to say that at least in her own mind, Anne’s family’s view of her, is directly connected to their view of …show more content…
Sir Walter has made it clear that he does not like sailors or the navy, “There are few among the gentlemen of the navy, I imagine, who would not be surprised to find themselves in a house of this description." (Austen 20-21), and it was Anne’s family who did not want her getting married to Wentworth in the first place. One major thing has changed since Anne and Wentworth’s original engagement though. Now, Wentworth had earned quite a bit of wealth to his name. Anne would be aware that this would mean a great deal to her father, knowing that he needed a worthy heir to both his title and manor. The fact that “worthy” necessarily meant wealth in Sir Walter’s mind can be inferred from this description of the baron: “Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character; vanity of person and of situation.” (Austen, 10) Now that Wentworth has gained more wealth and made a name for himself in war, he is deemed worthy of Sir Walter’s acceptance as an