‘No One So Proper, So Capable’
I’ve saved the best for last. The best heroine that is. Anne Elliot of Persuasion is Austen’s most brilliant character in terms of social intelligence. She has the most developed sense of empathy—an exquisitely astute reflective capacity and an unerring sense of attunement. Beyond this ability to understand other people and herself, she is able to use her mindreading skills to act with wisdom and compassion.
We have special access to the thought processes that comprise these abilities. Austen is famous for doing some mindreading of her own, “eavesdropping” on the thoughts of her characters. Literary scholars have observed that she accomplishes this feat through a narrative technique called “free indirect discourse,” known as FID—literary scholars as well as mind-brain scientists can use acronyms! If Austen wasn’t the first author to use this technique, as many believe, she certainly perfected it. Free indirect discourse means that the narrator reports the thoughts of a character (who of course thinks in the first person, as “I”) from a third-person perspective so that the two identities merge rhetorically. You can often hear the character’s voice through the narrator’s report, even though the narrator is writing in the third person.
Here’s an example that shows this especially well; the narrator tells us Lady Russell’s opinion of Anne’s engagement to Wentworth:
Anne Elliot, with all her claims of birth, beauty, and mind, to throw herself away at nineteen; involve herself at nineteen in an engagement with a young man, who had nothing to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connections to secure even his farther rise in that profession; would be, indeed, a throwing away, which she grieved to think of! Anne Elliot, so young; known to so few, to be snatched off by a stranger without alliance or fortune; or rather sunk by him into a state of most wearing, anxious, youth-killing dependence! It must not be, if by any fair interference of friendship, any representations from one who had almost a mother’s love, and mother’s rights, it would be prevented.
In this vehement account of Lady Russell’s feelings, which include fear, indignation, and determination, you can hear her voice coming through in the choice of words and sentence structure. The narrator would never take this view or express herself in this way. Yet, it is clearly the narrator who is speaking (“which she grieved to think of”), not Lady Russell. FID has a lot in common with empathy because both involve an outsider (third person) thinking and feeling from the perspective of another person (first person). It’s fitting that Austen developed a narrative technique—a form—that is the equivalent of empathy—a perceptual mode—in novels that revolve around the topic of social intelligence.
Using FID frequently, the narrator shows us that Anne analyzes her own thoughts and feelings, and those of others, in greater detail and with greater astuteness and accuracy than any of Austen’s other heroines. Even those who are socially astute most of the time tend to see the broad outlines rather than the fine lines of character and action. Fanny knows that Edmund is in love with Mary, Elinor understands that Marianne has been floored by trauma and depression, Elizabeth realizes that she’s been mistaken and learns to know herself. Ditto for Emma and Marianne.
But Anne has an active, searching, and analytical wisdom, as well as an intense awareness of the weaknesses that the human mind is heir to. Persuasion almost makes social intelligence into a spectator sport, tracing the scope of Anne’s extraordinary thinking, the source of her superlative social skills. Anne constantly deals with difficult people who have conflicting agendas, perceptions, and desires, handling situations with unparalleled judgment and tact.
Well might we wonder how Anne could emerge from the same family that produced the other Elliots, including those with personality disorders: her father, Sir Walter (NPD) and her cousin, Mr. Elliot (APD). Austen might have sacrificed psychological realism for the demands of plot, character, and theme, a rare decision on her part. Or maybe Anne was the only one who had sustained contact with her mother for reasons having to do with eighteenth-century child-rearing practices. Temperament certainly intersects with the environment to produce personality, but we must admit that the gap in social intelligence is huge between Anne and the rest of her family.
Persuasion not only has the “best” heroine, but it is the most romantic of Austen’s tales. (This reader weeps with joy at the ending, every time!) Anne Elliot had become engaged to Captain Wentworth eight years ago. She was nineteen at the time, and Wentworth was an unknown quantity. Their love was solid—they had true knowledge of one another’s minds and a sense of being on the same wavelength. Anne’s father, Sir Walter Elliot, thought the match was beneath her, but his opinion weighed little with Anne, even at that young age. However, her deceased mother’s best friend, Lady Russell (quoted above), persuaded Anne to think that the engagement was wrong, and after “a few months of exquisite felicity,” Anne ended it.
We are told this history in a flashback in the fourth chapter. When the novel begins, Anne has been immured in the country for the past eight years, living with her simply dreadful father and his equal in narcissism, her older sister Elizabeth. Her married sister Mary lives nearby, and although also very self-centered, at least Mary values Anne’s company for the support and help Anne so freely gives. And of course, Anne is still close to her mentor, Lady Russell. But, as Lady Russell knows all too well, Anne is wasted where she is. Anne should be the wife of a man who deserves her, and associating with people who appreciate her.
All of this changes when the Elliots must rent out their country estate to pay their debts because of Sir Walter and Elizabeth’s extravagance. Anne stays first with Mary in the village of Uppercross; then with Lady Russell, closer to Kellynch, her family’s estate; and finally with her father and sister, who have rented rooms (an apartment) in Bath. In the course of events, she acquires new friends, gets closer to old friends, makes herself beloved and useful, and, in the end, is reunited with Wentworth. (Yes, that’s a collective sigh you just heard from all of Austen’s most romantic readers.)
But let’s return to Anne’s capacity for empathy—in a technical sense—for inferring what people are thinking, and resonating with them emotionally. The person we see her mindreading in this special way much of the time is Wentworth. To begin with, Anne understands that Wentworth has not forgiven her for rejecting him, and that his coolness to her stems from anger rather than apathy. At a gathering early on in his reappearance in her life (his sister and her husband have rented the Elliot estate), he discusses the succession of ships he has captained, addressing his reminiscences to his two admirers in particular, Louisa and Henrietta Musgrove, Anne’s young relatives (by marriage). Anne knows that he’s thinking of her as he speaks of the past: “Anne felt the utter impossibility, from her knowledge of his mind, that he could be unvisited by remembrance any more than herself. There must be the same immediate association of thought, though she was very far from conceiving it to be of equal pain.” In this, she’s correct. Wentworth doesn’t feel equal pain, not because it isn’t there, but because he has defenses against it. More of that presently.
Anne has confirmation of her insights about Wentworth’s continued anger when she overhears him talking to Louisa on a walk (she is unseen behind a hedgerow and can’t help but hear). Wentworth discusses the value of firmness, of character, of not yielding to “persuasion” as Anne had done, saying, “If Louisa Musgrove would be happy in her November of life, she will cherish her present powers of mind.” (It’s harsh to think that Wentworth might consider Anne to be in the November of life at age twenty-seven, but he has noticed that she looks drawn and generally faded.) Yet even though Anne feels hopeless about a future with Wentworth, and believes he might be becoming attached to Louisa, she sees “there had been just that degree of feeling and curiosity about her in his manner [when Louisa mentions her], which must give her extreme agitation.” Why agitation? Because it shows he’s not apathetic to her. He has shown other marks of consideration that convey the same sentiment.
Anne knows Wentworth better than he knows himself. Everyone in Anne’s circle, including Wentworth, thinks that he’s going to propose to one of the Musgrove sisters. While they try to predict who will be his bride, Anne “could not but think, as far as she might dare to judge from memory and experience, that Captain Wentworth was not in love with either of them.” Her fear, a legitimate one, is that the situation “might, probably must, end with love with some.” And if this is one or both of the sisters, there’s potential for great unhappiness for all parties involved. When Wentworth finally does know his own mind—that he doesn’t want to marry Louisa and that he does want to marry Anne—he realizes that to abandon Louisa after having led her on would indeed be dishonorable; he would rather make the mistake of his life in marrying Louisa than impeach his honor. Wentworth leaves Lyme, where Louisa is recovering from her concussion, and a short time later, she and Captain Benwick become engaged. A lucky escape!
After Anne realizes that Wentworth might still have positive feelings for her, that at the very least he’s forgiven her, it takes a while for her to figure out that he loves her. But this isn’t because of a lack of astuteness; circumstances make it difficult for her to speak to him or observe him long enough to understand his feelings. When she encounters him in Bath (she doesn’t know that he has come to seek her out), she sees that he’s “not comfortable” talking to her and that he gives her “a momentary look of arch significance” when he mentions Louisa. She also sees he’s “changed.” But she doesn’t yet have sufficient information to realize that the change consists of his having realized he still loves her.
It’s only when they get to talk at some length, precious moments snatched before a concert begins, that Wentworth says enough for Anne to understand that “he had a heart returning to her.” He doesn’t speak of his feelings overtly, but simply observes that his friend Benwick had chosen unwisely in engaging himself to Louisa because she isn’t smart or intellectual enough to be a true companion for “a reading man,” and of course, Anne knows Wentworth is a reader. Even more important, he says that Benwick ought not to have gotten over the death of his fiancée so quickly because “[a] man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman!—He ought not—he does not.” Of course, she understands that he’s speaking of himself. And when Anne sees evidence that same night that Wentworth is jealous of Mr. Elliot, who has indeed been paying attention to his cousin in pointed ways, she understands that Wentworth loves her, that he has never stopped loving her. And so Anne is thrilled but not surprised when he confesses this love. She’s been reading Wentworth all along.
But it isn’t just in her understanding of Wentworth that we see Anne’s social capability. She accurately assesses everyone around her. To begin with, she deals with her own family as well as anyone could, even enabling Mary to behave herself better than she ordinarily would. Considering the Musgrove sisters, Anne realizes that neither Louisa nor Henrietta truly loves Wentworth: “They were more in love with him [than he was with either of them]; yet there it was not love. It was a little fever of admiration.” And Anne is able to empathize with the sorrows of a young man everyone seems to have forgotten in the rush of feverish admiration for Wentworth (on the part of all the Musgroves, not just the sisters): poor Charles Hayter, whom Henrietta had been all but engaged to marry before Wentworth’s arrival. Anne “had a delicacy which must be pained by any lightness of conduct in a well-meaning young woman, and a heart to sympathize with the sufferings it occasioned.” But Anne knows that it’s better to cause such suffering sooner rather than later, and that Henrietta should call the engagement off if she doesn’t love him.
And there’s Captain Benwick. Everyone believes that he will mourn the early passing of his fiancée for a long time to come. When he becomes engaged, Wentworth isn’t the only one who’s surprised and disappointed in Benwick, although thankful that this engagement clears him of any obligation to Louisa. Captain Harville, the deceased young lady’s brother, is grieved and upset at this turn of events. But Anne understood early on that Captain Benwick would soon attach himself to another woman, despite his tragic loss.
And of course, Anne finds Mr. Elliot untrustworthy while everyone else in the Elliot-Musgrove circle accepts his reform at face value. They believe it’s natural, right, and proper that Mr. Elliot should be in touch with Sir Walter and his family, since he is the heir to the title of Baronet and the Elliot estate. As in Pride and Prejudice, the estate has been entailed to descend through the male line. Sir Walter and Elizabeth are so blinded by their narcissism that they also believe Mr. Elliot is angling for a match with Elizabeth. Of course, they’re very wrong; it’s Anne he likes, and who intrigued him even before he learned she was an Elliot.
Lady Russell agrees with the prevailing view of Mr. Elliot, although with more common sense than Sir Walter and Elizabeth. She clearly sees that Mr. Elliot finds Anne attractive, and fervently hopes for a match between them. How fitting that Anne should become Lady Elliot, taking her dear deceased mother’s place and restoring Kellynch to its moral as well as financial glory. Even Anne finds this tempting: “The idea of becoming what her mother had been; of having the precious name of ‘Lady Elliot’ first revived in herself, of being restored to Kellynch, calling it her home again, her home for ever, was a charm she could not immediately resist.”
In addition, Anne has been flattered by her handsome cousin and is grateful to him for the attention. Mr. Elliot first noticed Anne when he passed by her twice at Lyme, where she was with the Musgroves on the fateful outing that ended in Louisa’s fall. Both times his interest clearly showed that she had made a strong impression on him. And she becomes even prettier afterward, for even more than the fresh air and the company, which have done a lot to restore Anne’s faded “bloom,” Mr. Elliot’s interest has a beneficial effect on her looks and her spirits. She has felt herself to be not only isolated but “on the shelf” for eight long years, and suddenly she realizes all isn’t necessarily over for her. She actually connects her improved appearance with her cousin’s attentions.
But despite these moments of temptation and gratitude, Anne knows that she won’t be Mr. Elliot’s wife. And it isn’t just that she’s still emotionally attached to Wentworth. To begin with, she distrusts him on account of the past, his conduct of eight years ago when he disrespected and broke with her father. She thinks there must be more in Mr. Elliot’s reestablishing contact than simple goodwill. (At first, she wonders if perhaps he really does like Elizabeth, but as she later learns from Mrs. Smith, he’s there to prevent Sir Walter from marrying Mrs. Clay because a son would inherit the title and property.) Although Mr. Elliot now speaks and behaves with perfect propriety, and seems to be good-natured, Anne suspects his sincerity. She wonders, “who could answer for the true sentiments of a clever, cautious, man, grown old enough to appreciate a fair character? How could it ever be ascertained that his mind was truly cleansed?” The present influences her as much as the past. As aforementioned, Anne detects a lack of warmth and spontaneity in Mr. Elliot that signals danger to her. Wishful thinking clouds Lady Russell’s judgment, as is the case with so many of Austen’s fictional people, but Anne keeps her wits about her.
One potential benefit of social intelligence is the capacity for leadership. I’ve focused on empathy and its concomitant qualities throughout Jane on the Brain, and leadership isn’t necessarily a consequence of such skills. But a good theory of mind is a prerequisite for leadership in many cases. This was certainly true for our early human ancestors. Recall that among chimpanzees, excellent social skills are important to achieving and maintaining high rank within the troupe. Looking around me at those in leadership positions today and in the recent past, I can’t help but conclude that the lack of such a prerequisite among humans is one of the less laudable ways we’ve managed to transcend our evolutionary heritage. Bullies and dictators don’t rise to the top among our great-ape cousins, but they’re rife in human societies. Be that as it may, social intelligence is certainly important for ethical, compassionate leadership.
We see that Anne is just such a natural leader. Although she’s devalued by her family at home, everyone in both Musgrove households (that includes her sister Mary’s household) recognizes Anne’s superior capabilities. Indeed, they’re in the habit of confiding in her and appealing to her to arbitrate disputes, or agree with their points of view. People sense her capability, and they turn to her for guidance.
Anne wishes there were a little less involvement of such kind, but she handles it well, finding solutions when possible, and listening attentively and validating feelings (although not always agreeing with what someone has to say) when solutions are unavailable: She’s especially skillful with Mary. For instance, Mary continually feels she’s unwell when she doesn’t receive sufficient attention (she too has narcissistic traits), especially from her husband, Charles. But Anne knows how to jolly her along, and after a few minutes in Anne’s company, Mary is completely recovered. A drawback to such skills—all the Musgroves recognize them, and so they’re continually asking Anne to make Mary see reason.
While not eager to put herself forward, Anne quickly takes charge when others around her falter. We see this early on, when Mary’s older son has a fall and dislocates his collar bone. Austen doesn’t make a fuss about this but tells us that “Anne had every thing to do at once—the apothecary* to send for—the father to have pursued and informed—the mother to support and keep from hysterics—the servants to control—the youngest child to banish, and the poor suffering one to attend and soothe.”
Of course, this incident foreshadows Anne’s management of the crisis at Lyme. When Louisa insists on jumping off a high ledge (the Cobb) into Captain Wentworth’s arms, she miscalculates the distance and falls, hitting her head. Everyone on this pleasure party panics: Mary and Henrietta faint and have hysterics while the men—Wentworth, Charles Musgrove, and Captain Benwick—freeze. Wentworth then calls out for help, clueless about what to do. It is Anne who acts, telling Charles and Benwick, who have caught the fainting Henrietta, to go to Wentworth, who is holding Louisa, to rub her temples and offer her smelling salts (Anne has these on hand) to see if these can revive her. She then sends Benwick for the apothecary. When the party is discussing who will stay to care for Louisa (still unconscious, she has been moved to the Harvilles’ home), it is initially decided that Anne will be the one, until Mary makes such a fuss that Anne changes places with her. Wentworth’s opinion speaks for all: “[N]o one so proper, so capable as Anne.”
If Anne knows when to act, she also knows when to refrain. There’s nothing she can do to make things better for herself at home, living with such emotionally and ethically stunted people. She very occasionally tries to intervene to save them from their foolishness. But most of the time she’s a prisoner of circumstances, sequestered in an environment where she’s forced into passivity and her talents are wasted. Her friendship with Lady Russell and her usefulness at Uppercross offer some relief, but they certainly don’t provide a full and satisfying life. Anne languishes, and it’s not surprising that when Wentworth first sees her again, he finds her altered beyond his knowledge [recognition], or at least that’s what he says to Mary. However, we should take this with a grain of salt because he’s still very angry at her and likely glad to see that she has languished.
Yet, despite the neglect and devaluing that would have eaten away at the assurance of many in her situation, Anne retains an unassailable and realistic sense of self-esteem. She knows Louisa and Henrietta are far happier than she is, but “she would not have given up her own more elegant and cultivated mind for all their enjoyments; and envied them nothing but that seemingly perfect good understanding and agreement together, that good-humoured mutual affection, of which she had known so little herself with either of her sisters.” As always, Anne wisely knows what to value.
As this assessment of her own mind demonstrates, Anne doesn’t just possess the ability to understand what people are thinking and feeling, which is the basis for her prodigious social intelligence, but she also thinks about thinking—what people think about, how they think, the quality of their minds. Many people do this intuitively, but Anne actually reflects on the process. Take her perception of Mr. Elliot. Her understanding of the ways minds work enables her alone to distrust him while all around her are falling for the glitz—the fantasy of a contrite, reformed man who will behave as Sir Walter’s devoted heir ought to do. (Actually, the irony is that he does behave like Sir Walter’s heir—heir to his extraordinary solipsism and lack of empathy as well as his estate!) In order to do so, she must understand that a lack of spontaneous emotional expression indicates that something is wrong. She must further understand that the expression of emotion escapes control, that social signals as well as what people say convey authenticity and sincerity.
One of her most important insights is an observation we see in all of Austen’s novels, usually on the part of the narrator, or left implicit: that people’s desires skew their perceptions. Perhaps it’s Anne’s awareness of this bias that enables her to escape its pitfalls. If you understand the tendency to solipsism, you can work on attentively taking other perspectives. Anne’s awareness of this human failing is an important building block of her social capabilities as well as her wisdom, for understanding that people are cognitively and emotionally self-centered gives her an advantage in dealing with them. Of course, all mindreading confers an advantage; if you can understand what someone is thinking, you can respond appropriately. But if you can grasp someone’s overall patterns of thought, the forms their solipsism will take, you can formulate overall strategies for dealing—and coping—with them.
Several passages in Persuasion stress the ubiquity of solipsism—the tendency to take our own perspectives for granted, and so to believe they are shared and valued by others. Such limitations signal a lack empathy in a technical sense, the inability to take other perspectives cognitively and emotionally. One of these passages is in the voice of the narrator, which means it is the narrator’s perception rather than Anne’s. This is important because the narrator in Persuasion is reliable, one whose views we trust. Anne’s observations are frequently validated by according with the narrator’s.
The narrator’s observation comprises a rather famous passage about perception. Anne and Lady Russell have spent Christmas with the Musgroves, amid a level of noise that both have found nerve-racking. Anne wonders that the Musgroves aren’t bothered by it, considering the anxious time they’ve had with Louisa. But Mrs. Musgrove observes that “after all she had gone through, nothing was so likely to do her good as a little quiet cheerfulness at home.” Lady Russell’s views are even stronger than Anne’s: “‘I hope I shall remember, in future,’ said Lady Russell, as soon as they were reseated in the carriage, ‘ not to call at Uppercross in the Christmas holidays.’” The narrator comments,
Every body has their taste in noises as well as in other matters and sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather than their quantity. When Lady Russell, not long afterwards, was entering Bath on a wet afternoon, and driving through the long course of streets from the Old Bridge to Camden Place, amidst the dash of other carriages, the heavy rumble of carts and drays, the bawling of newsmen, muffin-men, and milkmen, and the ceaseless clink of pattens, she made no complaint. No, these were noises which belonged to the winter pleasures; her spirits rose under their influence; and, like Mrs. Musgrove, she was feeling, though not saying, that after being long in the country, nothing could be so good for her as a little quiet cheerfulness.
What I find so extraordinary about this paragraph is the insight that feelings influence not only thoughts about other people and our evaluations of experience, but our very sensory perceptions. The larger implication is that if desires and tastes can influence pure sense perception, then of course they influence what we think about, what we deem important, and how we assess people and situations around us. This isn’t an unusual insight today, although it took until midway through the twentieth century for us to figure this out, but empiricism, the idea that all knowledge comes from sensory experience, and that such experiences are therefore trustworthy, was a dominant Enlightenment idea. Even Hume, who understood the power of emotion, didn’t extend its sway to simple sensory perception; Hume was an empiricist.
Persuasion makes a point of showing that Anne, like the narrator (and Austen, of course!) similarly reflects on this cognitive bias. When it is decided that the Elliots will rent out Kellynch, everyone connected with the household is full of the subject. Sir Walter and Elizabeth worry about maintaining their dignity, of living in a style that broadcasts their superior rank and fortune, the latter, of course, greatly diminished, while Anne mourns leaving her beloved home, especially in autumn, the peak of the countryside’s beauty. Sir Walter and Elizabeth assume everyone must be interested in their affairs. (In fact, their lawyer tells them they need not advertise the rental because people will just hear about it. One wonders what Mr. Shepherd actually did to get the word out!) But Anne knows better. Here is another passage worth citing at length:
Anne had not wanted this visit to Uppercross, to learn that a removal from one set of people to another, though at a distance of only three miles, will often include a total change of conversation, opinion, and idea. She had never been staying there before, without being struck by it, or without wishing that other Elliots could have her advantage in seeing how unknown, or unconsidered there, were the affairs which at Kellynch Hall were treated as of such general publicity and pervading interest; yet, with all this experience, she believed she must now submit to feel that another lesson, in the art of knowing our own nothingness beyond our own circle, was become necessary for her; for certainly, coming as she did, with a heart full of the subject which had been completely occupying both houses in Kellynch for many weeks, she had expected rather more curiosity and sympathy than she found [at Uppercross] . . . She acknowledged it to be very fitting, that every little social commonwealth should dictate its own matters of discourse; and hoped, ere long, to become a not unworthy member of the one she was now transplanted into. With the prospect of spending at least two months at Uppercross, it was highly incumbent on her to clothe her imagination, her memory, and all her ideas in as much of Uppercross as possible.
The passage is pure Anne. She understands that the focus at Uppercross will be different from that at Kellynch. And even further, Anne takes it as a lesson for herself about the necessity of blending in and entering into the life and concerns of those she’ll be living among. This won’t affect her behavior, because the way she’s treated at Uppercross, as a combination of mediator, wise elder, and therapist, suggests that she’s acted on this lesson many a time in past visits. But by figuring out even more about the limitations and the failures in empathy to which even well-meaning, benevolent people are all too vulnerable, Anne adds to her stock of knowledge about human nature.
Anne’s social intelligence doesn’t manifest itself only in her dealings with others, but in her own life as well. Of all Austen’s heroines, Anne is the only one who doesn’t need to learn a lesson in the course of the novel, whose maturity and acumen are as good as it gets for an imperfect species such as our own. That Marianne, Elizabeth, and Emma have dramatic increases in self-knowledge is evident in their respective novels. The others heroines are impeccable most of the time, but not quite up to Anne’s standard. In Sense and Sensibility, Elinor learns that she’s been too closed and guarded with her beloved sister, a rare but important lapse for this fictional person. Fanny is nearly perfect, but not as feisty or confident as Anne; a realistic sense of self-esteem is an important aspect of social intelligence. And so, Mansfield Park is largely about Fanny’s coming into her own. But at nineteen (Fanny’s age when her novel begins), Anne is already there. The one who must learn a lesson in Persuasion is Wentworth, who might well say, along with Elizabeth, “I never knew myself.” He must learn that what he’s mistaken for indifference is really anger, pain, and love; he must learn to know his own mind and heart. And he must learn “to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind.”
This distinction (made with FID voicing Anne’s thoughts), refers to Wentworth’s judgment of her for ending their engagement. For eight long years, Wentworth believed that this was the result of Anne’s infirm, persuadable character. But of course he was wrong. Anne gave up the engagement because she believed it was the right thing to do. Lady Russell pointed out its dangers: Wentworth was a nobody in the Navy, without important connections and without an assured future. But Anne backs down not for fears of her own future, but out of concern for Wentworth: “Had she not imagined herself consulting his good, even more than her own, she could hardly have given him up.” Even though loneliness and a terribly circumscribed life follow from this decision, Anne doesn’t regret it, not even after she is reunited with Wentworth.
No other character in Austen’s fiction is so closely identified with Austen as Anne. To begin with, they share the same ethics and values. Other fictional people might at times express opinions that are clearly Austen’s, but in Persuasion, Anne unfailingly speaks for Austen. Let’s add a third “character,” the narrator, who, it is generally agreed, expresses Austen’s views and whose opinions also match Anne’s. These convergences make Anne a figure for the author, as literary critics say. Indeed, on the topic of the novel’s central event, the broken engagement, Anne, the narrator, and Austen agree: Anne was right to break the engagement on Lady Russell’s advice, but such advice was wrong.
There’s another shift here from Austen’s other novels: In no other novel does a heroine believe that it would have been right to marry in such uncertain circumstances. In no other novel is love elevated so greatly above other concerns. We see one disaster that ensues from the marriage of a woman of good family with a naval officer in the Price household in Mansfield Park. Marianne of Sense and Sensibility thinks that love in a cottage will suffice, but her idea of a cottage is more like a mansion. How can we account for Austen’s change of mind and heart, expressed through her heroine?
Austen wrote Persuasion while she was ill, and it’s likely that in the course of her writing, she knew she would not get better. This might well account for Persuasion’s elegiac tone and shift in emphasis. The novel begins in autumn, Anne’s favorite season, and at that point Anne appears to be in the autumn of her own life, although the happy ending will grant her “a second spring.” Austen, at forty, likely felt that she too was in the autumn of her life, although she wasn’t granted a similar recovery. As she lay ill, perhaps her priorities shifted somewhat. She had insisted on a balance between prudence and passion in her earlier novels, and this is still the case in Persuasion, although the weight of the terms has shifted. Anne believes she did the right thing by ending the engagement, but even so, “she felt that were any young person, in similar circumstances, to apply to her for counsel, they would never receive any of such certain immediate wretchedness, such uncertain future good. She was persuaded that under every disadvantage of disapprobation at home, and every anxiety attending his profession, all their probable fears, delays and disappointments, she should yet have been a happier woman in maintaining the engagement, than she had been in the sacrifice of it.”
In this reflection of Anne’s, and throughout her story, Persuasion shows the value of love, as well as our intense need to love and be loved, and this applies even to the most secure among us. If you can enjoy a perfect (in the old sense of “whole”) love with a partner, one that unites intimacy, friendship, and passion, you’ve discovered one of the greatest treasures this earthly life has to offer. It won’t do to sacrifice your morals or your honor in the pursuit of personal happiness, but neither should you let pride or prejudice (and indeed, Wentworth forms a prejudice against Anne) or even excessive prudence interfere with your happiness.
Austen herself might have come close to finding Anne’s happy ending in her own life. Biographer Jon Spence in Becoming Jane Austen suggests that Austen was romantically involved with a handsome young man, Thomas Lefroy, and that they wished to marry but had to refrain because of economic circumstances. The movie of the same title embellishes this episode, actually showing that the lovers began to elope. Jane backed out when she thought of what this would mean for Lefroy’s family, who were all depending on him to provide an income. Burdened with a wife, it might well have been difficult for him to complete his law studies and start his career. That this flirtation with Lefroy (which Austen alludes to in her letters) indicated serious feelings on Austen’s part is somewhat speculative, as Spence admits. And the film is pure fiction; there’s no evidence that Austen ever thought of running off with someone. Perhaps Austen told all in her letters, much more than we know at any rate, but her sister, Cassandra, burned them after Austen’s death to protect her privacy. But it’s possible that Austen gave Anne the happy ending she didn’t have.
While the same values and (possibly) a shared story identify Austen and Anne, it is in their thinking process that their convergence is most significant. Social neuroscience has been aptly defined as the science of “people thinking about thinking people.” I’ve noted that this characterizes Anne, and of course it’s spot-on about Austen. Portraying the attributes of the human mind with such extraordinary accuracy means that Austen frequently thought about people: what they want, what they need to have a sense of well-being, ways in which they’re good and bad, ways in which they’re strong and weak, how they perceive and how they react—all in the context of their relationships with one another. And of course, as you know, understanding people requires empathy, the highest form of social intelligence, possessed in abundance by both Austen and Anne.
Empathy. It’s the moral behind every one of Austen’s novels, the heart of the matter. Everyone wants a happy ending with a brilliant marriage, and likely Austen wanted this for herself as well. She didn’t find the kind of intimate partnership she generously accorded her heroines, but she had many other kinds of love in her life: the love of a devoted sister, parents, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends. True love—authentic and mutual love—in all kinds of different relationships usually means understanding and resonating with someone else. It means seeing and feeling from another perspective. Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, as the saying goes.
I’ve suggested that we sense Austen’s empathy for her readers through stories and fictional people that reflect our own feelings and desires as well as those of people we know. And not just the good ones. Austen can palpably convey the evil in Mr. Elliot as easily as she enables us to feel Darcy’s awkwardness. Through her fictional people, these brainchildren of a brilliant mind, we sense empathy—resonance and understanding. Reading Austen’s novels, we have the feeling of “feeling felt.” Austen’s ability to create compelling narratives and her extraordinary, witty style have earned her a reputation as one of England’s greatest novelists. But I believe that empathy accounts for her tremendous popularity, for that sense of connection with her that’s so very personal for so many of Austen’s readers. I believe that in what she likely thought would be her last words, the story she tells in Persuasion, she wanted to leave us with a heroine who possessed her most precious ability, who shared the empathy that characterizes her writing.
In addition to a shift in emphasis and mood, we might notice another difference in Persuasion: Anne and her beloved Wentworth are the only Austen couple who don’t end up living on property in the countryside. Given the almost continuous warfare that England sustained in the eighteenth century, Austen likely believed that a brilliant young officer like Wentworth would be seeing action again before too long. And so it’s likely that Anne will end up leading an itinerant life much like that of Mrs. Croft, Captain Wentworth’s sister.†
By marrying an officer in the Navy, and moving about to be with him, Anne will touch many more lives than she would have done living on a country estate, even if she’d been the most charitable and conscientious patroness of those within her purview. We see how those who seek an authentic connection with her, such as Benwick, Harville, and, of course, Wentworth, benefit from having done so. Even those who can’t appreciate her wisdom are better for inviting her into their lives. Mary is always better for Anne’s company.
Just as many of us are better for Austen’s company. It has yet to be proved whether or not reading fiction makes you more empathetic, with arguments on both sides of the question. It has been demonstrated that reading activates brain areas that would activate for the same situations in real life, which suggests that if you read about feelings, you’re likely to feel them yourself to some degree. Most novels force us to take the perspective of other characters cognitively by relating to the world from their point of view. So it’s likely we resonate with the feelings of fictional people and take their perspective. This is just to assert what every novel reader knows, that people tend to empathize when they read—otherwise, why would we care so deeply about characters, and why would we get so immersed in their stories? But do we take this capacity out into in the real world? And if so, does it make us more compassionate, better people?
As you can guess, I’m inclined to say that it does. But in any case, there’s another connection between character and characters that might lead us to good works: learning by example. When we read, we don’t distinguish between real and fictional people, and some of us continue to blur the boundaries well after having put the book aside. And so, just as we model ourselves on real people, we’re subject to modeling ourselves on fictional people. We might not consciously say, “What would Anne do in this situation?” but for many readers, the question and the answer ripple through the cognitive unconscious, exerting subliminal influence. And some of us really do ask the question, and knowingly look to fictional people for ways to live in the real world.
In any case, the empathy we feel on identifying with characters can be comforting and validating. Perhaps reading about Marianne won’t cure your broken heart, but you’ll at least have the solace of company and the knowledge that there’s a way back. Maybe reading about Anne won’t make you a better person all the time, but you’ll have a model of tact, compassion, understanding, and empathy to draw upon. Fictional worlds and fictional people give us procedural schemas for becoming our best selves.
And so, just as Austen sent her last, best heroine beyond the confines of the landed estate to work her magic within a wider sphere, she sent her books out into the world. In this sense, Anne is also a figure for the author, enacting in her person what Austen did in her books: touching hearts, minds, and lives. Both women are fit for the task. As Wentworth says, “[N]o one so proper, so capable as Anne.” And as her readers have known, in many times and many places, no one so proper, so capable as Jane Austen.
* Apothecaries were medical practitioners as well as pharmacists in Austen’s day.
† In truth, the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815 (with a treaty signed on November 20), and England was officially at peace for a significant period of time thereafter; the next major war was World War I, which England entered in 1914. Austen began writing Persuasion on August 8, 1815. However, we can still assume that Wentworth would be posted to different naval bases, even if he didn’t fight in any large-scale wars. England might have enjoyed peace with other first-world powers, but the military fought local battles as England accrued an empire by conquering other lands.