silly-mutt

[bethanydelleman]

Other authors: My heroine was a poor orphan. Pity her.

Jane Austen: Pft, orphans have it easy! My heroine has two living parents and three extra guardians and all of them are the worst...

[queen-paladin]

I love you "boring" female characters. I love you ingenues. I love you female characters who aren't "modern" enough. I love you female characters who aren't "badass" enough. iI love you female characters who aren't "empowering" enough. I love you quiet female characters. I love you unappreciated female characters. I love you polite female characters. I love you female characters who "can't appeal to modern audiences." I love you frightened female characters. I love you female characters labeled as not complex just for being nice. I love you female characters who get criticism just for not being their tomboy or femme fatale counterpart. I love you silk hiding steel trope.

[redshoes-blues]

Francesca is so real and relatable. She wants to get married to have her own house because her family’s is too loud. She’d gladly spend all day playing her pianoforte. She blanches at the prospect of having eight kids and a loud household because again. Noise. She’d prefer to sit in companionable silence with a suitor than put on an act and vapidly flirt with one. And when the fellow introverted suitor does flirt with her in his own (and her own) way, through her love of music, she immediately leaves to play that music, not particularly caring about social norms or conventions. She’s so refreshing and I love her!

[firawren]

Persuasion 1995 text posts

More: Pride and Prejudice 1995 text posts | Sense and Sensibility 1995 text posts | Northanger Abbey 2007 text posts | Emma. 2020 text posts

[incognita-soul]

I've spent all afternoon thinking about the line from Wentworth's letter "you sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others" and about how that really is the most important part of the letter. Yes "you pierce my soul" and "I have loved none but you" and "I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago" are all more swoon-worthy. But the whole point of Persuasion is how Anne suffers because none of her friends or family acknowledge her needs or anything she says. She is made small by everyone around her. She is persuadable because she has been stripped of her agency; not by the circumstances of her life, but because the people in her life have talked over and down to her so much that she has stopped resisting. She knows that she won't be heard, so she just stops speaking. But then Wentworth hears her voice! He hears her, sees her, and he loves her for who she is, not what he wants her to be. I think Jane Austen knew exactly what she was doing by including that line. It's so subtle in such a purposeful way.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk

[haaam-guuuurl]

[alasforher]

I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it

[smolfangirl]

We as a reader see Anne's and Captain Wentworth's love story play out, but imagine the whole thing from the perspective of Uppercross.

Anne is at Uppercross for two months

In these two months, they're barely interacting

You have no idea about the child incident, and you see nothing suspicious in the carriage one

They're barely talking to each other at best, he's colder to her than anyone else at worst (if you even notice)

They acknowledge to have known each other in the year six "a little". All of their behavior seems to confirm how irrelevant this acquaintance was

Everyone but Mary expects him to marry Louisa

After the fall, he disappears to his brother

Next thing you hear is that he's going to Bath

When you travel to Bath as well, you see Anne and Captain Wentworth together again

There's no suspicious behavior here, either

When Anne feels unwell after The Letter (that you don't know about, although it happened right in front of your salad), Charles walks her home, hands her off to Captain Wentworth to go see a gun, and suddenly they're engaged

????????

So much of Persuasion is dependent on knowing about their history together, of knowing each other in a way no one else does. And so if you missed all that, their engagement takes you by complete surprise, while it's only a natural conclusion to us as the knowing reader

[cottagecore-raccoon]

The more I think about it, the more I think that Persuasion has my favorite premise of all of Jane Austen's novels

Anne Elliot as a character speaks to my soul. She feels tremendous guilt for a decision she made eight years ago. Her life is lonely, as she doesn't really have anyone she can truly confide in despite being surrounded by people. So she swallows her pain, the yearning she feels deep in her soul, and vows that if nothing else at least she'll be helpful.

And of course she is reunited with Frederick Wentworth (the one that got away) who seems to hate her now, and she just keeps going. She keeps being kind and supporting her loved ones while slowly carving out a life for herself. There's something about her classic heroism that just feels so attainable. I don't have Elizabeth Bennett's wit, or Jane Bennett's unwavering belief in the goodness of everyone, or even Elinor's constant composure. But I can be like Anne and just keep moving forward attempting to be helpful

Of course it all works out in the end, and Anne is finally surrounded by people who truly appreciate her, even if she had to wait an extra eight years. Others have observed the fairy tale quality of the ending, and perhaps that's why it speaks to me. The idea that if you just keep doing your best and being kind, you'll eventually find happiness

[besotted-with-austen]

First 3/4 of Persuasion: Anne has to see Wentworth getting progressively closer to another lady and hear everyone else speculate about their future marriage

Last 1/4 of Persuasion: Wentworth has to see Anne getting progressively closer to another gentleman and hear everyone else speculate about their future marriage

[mellpenscorner]

A Ranking of Jane Austen Heroines, in Ascending Order of Culpability

Fanny (Mansfield Park): Has done nothing wrong ever in her life (but would never say this as she is far too humble).

Elinor (S&S): Must have scoliosis from carrying the whole weight of the Dashwood family at the ripe old age of 19. Should probably have asked for help by now, but who's she going to ask? Her mother? Unlikely.

Anne (Persuasion): Pros: is the only functioning member of her family. Cons: took some really bad advice when she was 17.

Elizabeth (P&P): So dead-set on hating Mr. Darcy that she falls hook-line-and-sinker for the lies Wickham tells her with no questions asked. Otherwise has good sense.

Marianne (S&S): Throws herself headlong into the Romantic Experience™️ and gets her heart broken by a playboy when Colonel Brandon is literally RIGHT THERE. 

Catherine (Northanger Abbey): Good-hearted, but easily led astray. So obsessed with Gothic novels that she kind of accuses Mr. Tilney's father of murdering his wife and burying her in the basement.

Emma (Emma): Tells Harriet to refuse the nice guy she likes, too prideful to see that Mr. Elton is pursuing her instead of Harriet, gossips about Jane Fairfax, feels like the rules don't apply to her, won't listen to Mr. Knightly. Is a menace.

[bethanydelleman]

I love this part of Persuasion, everything is the best about it:

"but I should think, Miss Elliot," (looking with serious reflection), "I should think he must be rather a dressy man for his time of life. Such a number of looking-glasses! oh Lord! there was no getting away from one's self. So I got Sophy to lend me a hand, and we soon shifted their quarters; and now I am quite snug, with my little shaving glass in one corner, and another great thing that I never go near."

Anne, amused in spite of herself, was rather distressed for an answer, and the Admiral, fearing he might not have been civil enough, took up the subject again, to say--"

Anne wants to be respectful of her father but she is trying not to laugh. Six mirrors! I wonder how much that cost? Is this why Kellynch has fallen into debt? How is Sir Walter surviving in Bath without his flock of mirrors? I love it!

[kajaono]

Realizing that Jane and Anne say the same thing after seeing their crush again after being separted for a long time: The first meeting is over. Now it will get easier. We are acquaintances now."

Have to dig out the actual quotes but now I am thinking about that as lot!

[boltlightning]

Anne was tenderness itself, and she had the full worth of it in Captain Wentworth’s affection. His profession was all that could ever make her friends wish that tenderness less, the dread of a future war all that could dim her sunshine. She gloried in being a sailor’s wife, but she must pay the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance.

[firawren]

*Louisa Musgrove cracks her head on the ground at the Cobb*

Literally everyone (except Anne):

Anne Elliot:

[wildwildtarget]

PERSUASION (2007)