It must be exhausting to be either Jenny or Anne. Both constantly in quiet service for others, trying to be all things to all people.
For Anne, that life was a way of giving up on her dreams, but for Jenny, it was a way of fulfilling her dreams. Anne eventually finds her voice and gets her adventure, while Jenny happily doubles down on the domestic life. Do you ever think about characters in other books meeting each other? I think Anne and Jenny (and Captain Wentworth and Captain Deveril) would be good friends.
Lady Russell had to assume the role of parent, and she did what she thought was best for Anne, so I can’t fault her for that. Whether refusing Captain Wentworth was for Anne’s betterment or detriment is a good question. If they had married at 19, would Wentworth be a commander eight years later – and a very rich one at that? Or would he and Anne have struggled financially, with him less inclined to fully devote himself to the sea with a wife and children to support at home?
So I’m not sure it was a bad idea to wait for a bit. But “wait for a bit” was not an option because of Wentworth’s pride (and hurt), so off he went. I think the greater misfortune happened two years later, when he returned, more established, and did not go to Anne:
"But I too have been thinking over the past, and a question has suggested itself, whether there may not have been one person more my enemy even than that lady? My own self. Tell me if, when I returned to England in the year eight, with a few thousand pounds, and was posted into the Laconia, if I had then written to you, would you have answered my letter? Would you, in short, have renewed the engagement then?”
“Would I!” was all her answer; but the accent was decisive enough.
“Good God!” he cried, “you would! It is not that I did not think of it, or desire it, as what could alone crown all my other success; but I was proud, too proud to ask again. I did not understand you. I shut my eyes, and would not understand you, or do you justice. This is a recollection which ought to make me forgive every one sooner than myself. Six years of separation and suffering might have been spared."
Interesting that the Kanopy version of Persuasion is different from the YoutTube version. I think I like the latter better, even with the commercials. I never saw the version made most recently though.
I did see the trailer of the newest version though and didn’t like it as much as the other two versions I saw. There was too much Anne monologue.
Love that review! I tried twice to watch the movie again (I think I did so when it first came out). But having just reread the book and watched the 1995 version, I could not go more than a couple of minutes without cringing. (At least I wasn’t yelling at the screen like I did when watching the movie Troy.)
I want to reiterate how much I’m enjoying the discussion. I have a nasty upper respiratory infection and the highlight of my last few days - other than med-induced napping - has been this thread.
Many thanks to all. Back to napping with plans to peek again later.
I’m so sorry you’re ill—this discussion sure is engaging, as always. I will always be grateful for being born NOW instead of long ago when women had so few options.
I just ran into this interesting comparison of Wentworth and Thornton (from North and South) and how they both could have shortened their years of despair if only they had tried a little sooner!
John Thornton had to swallow a double dose of pride. Like Wentworth (and Darcy), he had to deal with the rejection of his first proposal. But unlike Wentworth and Darcy, Thornton’s reunion with Margaret took place after the financial tables had turned: He was by then a much poorer man, having lost his business, while she was a much wealthier woman, having inherited a fortune.
Don’t get me started on the wonderful romantic complexities of North and South – y’all know it’s my weak spot.
I’d say Austen chose that time of year because Anne is in the autumn of her life. It’s mentioned that when she was first engaged to Captain Wentworth, Anne was “in bloom.” So that was Spring. Then came a parching Summer drought (metaphorically speaking), followed by a change in the air and the return of colors–and Captain Wentworth–in the Fall.
A Civil Contract covers all four seasons – some more than once, as the story covers about 18 months. Some Heyer fans online note that this is a longer timeframe than most of her other novels.
The seasons made me think of Adam’s chief and continually evolving interest: farming. A real historical character makes a cameo appearance: Mr. Coke of Norfolk, an agricultural expert “living in the inherited splendor of Holkham.”
He gave Adam wise counsel, conducted him over his own experimental farm, and patiently instructed him in the intricacies of successful agriculture. When Adam left Holkham, he carried with him, besides a sheaf of notes, a head crammed with so much information that he felt slightly dazed.
It’s about two hours by car from where my younger son lives, we won’t make it this trip though. I’d love to explore that part of England sometime. There were a bunch of Arthur Ransome books set in that general area.
We haven’t talked about the ranks of Anne’s father the Baronet and Adam, a Viscount.
I think that Jane Austen is making fun of the nobility a bit. A Baronet is below a Baron and above a Knight. It is really the lowest of the low, in the hereditary titles. Sir Walter was exceedingly proud of his title, as was shown in the first paragraph of the book. He didn’t care a bit about what he spent after Anne’s mother died and sunk into deep debt. “Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot’s character: vanity of person and situation”. He was the person that drove the property into debt.
Adam, on the other hand, came into the title after it was in deep debt. He did the honorable thing (if you can call it that) by marrying into wealth, which would save the property. He wanted to improve the property, instead of running away. Jenny’s father was disappointed that he couldn’t find an Earl to marry, but I do think that he came to like Adam a great deal and was overall happy with the match for his daughter.
If you remember in Pride and Prejudice Mrs. Bennet, on finding out that Elizabeth was going to marry Mr. Darcy, proclaimed that he was as good as an Earl!! Mr. Darcy had 10,000 pounds a year income (about $1.5 million today), so it really was a very good match.
I agree. Although it’s not really possible, it feels like Austen is juxtaposing two definitions of “class”: class meaning social status vs. class meaning high quality. I say “not possible” because I looked up the etymology of the latter definition and the word wasn’t used that way (i.e., “reflecting high standards of personal behavior”) until the 1870’s.
Still, etymology aside, I do think that’s essentially the point Austen is trying to make: that a society so focused on social status can be accepting of dolts like Sir Elliot and dismissive of those with real integrity like young Wentworth.
There is some of this in A Civil Contract as well. Adam may not want to admit it, but I think his longing for the silly Julia is an attraction to social class as much as it is to beauty.
I think Lord Rockhill has both types of class. He’s a Marquis, who always treats Jenny with gentle deference, deftly keeps Julia (“Miss Mischief”) from making a scene, and is interested and conversant in weightier matters:
To Julia he might affect ignorance of farming, but to Adam he chose to disclose a surprising amount of knowledge in one whose enormous revenues derived largely from urban districts. They paced up and down together for a little time, discussing such matters of agricultural interest as Corn Laws, trunk-drainage, and stall-feeding; and whatever boredom Rockhill felt he concealed admirably.
Certainly Austen was making fun of the nobility with the introduction of the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple and her daughter the Honorable Miss Carteret. (Not to be confused with Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who is the daughter of an earl.)
Anne was ashamed. Had Lady Dalrymple and her daughter even been very agreeable, she would still have been ashamed of the agitation they created, but they were nothing. There was no superiority of manner, accomplishment, or understanding.
But because of their rank, a family connection with them would raise the Elliott family in social esteem.
Poor Mrs. Clay! She is castigated for daring to try to rise above her station by presumably going after Sir Walter. But being the daughter of a lawyer, wouldn’t that be considered better socially than Jenny? So the social gap would be less than the daughter of a self made merchant who is continually described as vulgar, and a Viscount.
It would be fun to read a novel from the perspective of Mrs. Clay (sort of like Jo Baker did with Longbourn).
If Mr. Elliot’s primary goal was to be sure Sir Walter did not marry Mrs. Clay, how does marrying Anne help? The reason given seems weak to me, that marriage to Anne was “his best hope of keeping Sir Walter single by the watchfulness which a son-in-law’s rights would have given.”
In truth, his best hope of keeping Walter single is to use his undeniable charm to lure Mrs. Clay away, which he eventually does.
It’s true that Mrs. Clay is castigated for trying to rise above her station (and this is one area in which Anne is more guilty than her sister Elizabeth of being classist); however, I don’t think of her as “Poor Mrs. Clay.” Austen suggests at the end that Mrs. Clay will land on her feet and gives a grudging nod to her skills and her resilience:
Mrs Clay’s affections had overpowered her interest, and she had sacrificed, for the young man’s sake, the possibility of scheming longer for Sir Walter. She has abilities, however, as well as affections; and it is now a doubtful point whether his cunning, or hers, may finally carry the day; whether, after preventing her from being the wife of Sir Walter, he may not be wheedled and caressed at last into making her the wife of Sir William.
Also, just as an aside, I enjoyed the sentence that followed – such a funny dig at Sir Walter and Elizabeth (and at human nature in general):
It cannot be doubted that Sir Walter and Elizabeth were shocked and mortified by the loss of their companion, and the discovery of their deception in her. They had their great cousins, to be sure, to resort to for comfort; but they must long feel that to flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.
@Mary13 Yes, I’m still reading. I’ve gotten sidetracked by a few other things, partly because, for me, the books don’t really fall into the “They’re SO good I just can’t stop reading!” category. I’ll do my best to finish in a couple of days.
and the highlight of my last few days - other than med-induced napping - has been this thread.
with plans to peek again later.