Week 16 Post 2 - Persuasion
The final chapter of Persuasion by Jane Austen acts as a rounding out of all the issues presented within the book. It shows how all the family and friends love Captain Wentworth as Anne’s husband, it shows how Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Clay left the family after the marriage of the couple, and it shows how better off Mrs. Smith is from the relationship. However, Mary Elliot’s feelings towards the relationship are the iffiest. Austen writes,
“It was creditable to have a sister married, and she might flatter herself with having been greatly instrumental to the connexion, by keeping Anne with her in the autumn; and as her own sister must be better than her husband's sisters, it was very agreeable that Captain Wentworth should be a richer man than either Captain Benwick or Charles Hayter. She had something to suffer, perhaps, when they came into contact again, in seeing Anne restored to the rights of seniority, and the mistress of a very pretty landaulette; but she had a future to look forward to, of powerful consolation. Anne had no Uppercross Hall before her, no landed estate, no headship of a family; and if they could but keep Captain Wentworth from being made a baronet, she would not change situations with Anne” (Ch. 24).
Mary is happy that Anne being married to a prominent man elevates Mary’s own status. However, the realization that Anne has now become of a higher status than her causes her to feel slightly unhappy about her sister being married off. She consoles herself by reminding herself that she gets to have Uppercross someday, and Anne has no great manor to inherit from her husband’s family. She also has to remind herself that she wouldn’t ever trade places with Anne, but only if Anne’s husband never becomes a baronet. This one paragraph does a good job at showing Mary’s personality and obsession with having a good name and fortune. She wants her sister to be happy and well-off, but not happier or better off than Mary is. She still wants to be of higher status than Anne even though she is the youngest child.
Austen, Jane. “Persuasion” The Complete Novels, Kindle ed., Centaur Editions, 2015.
