• Is persuasion a positive force?

• Is pesuasion a negative force?

PERSUASION

Persuasion is the act of persuading someone to do something, to think differently or to believe that something is true

Who are the persuaders

Lady Russell

Lady Russell is the best friend of Anne’s deceased mother. She is good woman, but she values propriety, rank, and consequence .She serves as an advisor to the Elliot family. Anne is her favorite of the Elliot daughters and, though she means well, she sometimes gives Anne bad advice.

In the summer of 1806 , Captain Wentworth visited his brother in the area where he met to Anne. They fell in love and had hoped to marry but Anne's family and her trusted friend Lady Russell thought it was improper. In 1806 Captain Wentworth was without fortune or high birth. Lady Russell thought it was her duty, in the absence of Anne's mother, to persuade her not to marry beneath her social class. She opposed their love. Anne, very young and gentle at this time, did not want to contradict wishes of Lady Russell and she was persuaded that their engagement was improper and impractical, and she ended it.

“I wish said Henrietta, very well pleased with her companion,I wish Lady Russell lived at Uppercross, and were intimate with Dr. Shirley. I have always heard of Lady Russell as a woman of greatest influence with everybody!. I always look upon her as able to persuade a person to anything! I am afraid of her, as I have told you before, quite afraid of her, because she is so very clever; but I respect her amazingly, and wish we had such a neighbor at Uppercross” ( Austen 79).

“I do not exactly know, for Henrietta and I were at school at that time; but I believe about a year before he married Mary. I wish she had accepted him. We should all have liked her a great deal better; and papa and mamma always think it was her a great friend Lady Russell’s doing, that she did not. They think Charles might not be learned and bookish enough to please Lady Russell, and that, therefore, she persuaded Anne to refuse him” (Austen 68).

Sir Walter Elliot  The father of Anne Elliot, baronet, and owner of Kellynch Hall.Sir Walter is an impractical man; his habits of lavish spending and his strong desire to maintain appearances threaten the future of the Elliot family. Sir Walter is the very image of conceit. Vanity was the beginning and end of his character.

Anne is persuaded by the disapproval of her father to end her engagement with Captain Wentworth.Captain Wenthworth is not considered worthy enough to marry Anne. Anne thinks she has an obligation to follow the advice of her father. Sir Walter Elliot thought it is a degrading alliance. With the help of Lady Russell, he persuaded Anne to break off her engagement to Frederick Wenthworth.

“A short period of exquisite felicity followed, and but a short one. Troubles soon arose. Sir Walter, on being applied to, without actually withholding his consent, or saying it should never be, 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; and Lady Russell, though with more tempered and pardonable pride, received it as a most unfortunate one” (Austen 20).

Anne ElliotAnne Elliot is, like most Austen heroines, witty, clever, and considerate. Anne Elliot is the middle daughter of Sir Walter Elliot.She is not the prettiest of the young ladies in the novel. Anne becomes most decidedly more attractive when her better qualities are noted. Sir Walter often overlooks Anne, slights her, and dismisses her opinions.

Sir Walter, who lavishly overspend , has brought the family into great debt. When Lady Russell, a trusted family advisor, suggests that the Elliots reduce their spending, Sir Walter is horrified .He is exceedingly vain and cannot bear to imagine life without his usual comforts. Anne thinks their spending should be cut even more, since there is much they do not need. Lady Russell consults Anne . Anne makes a plan and Lady Russell was greatly influenced by her.She persuaded Lady Russell to persuade her family to use this plan. Because her ideas are no object for Sir Elliot.

“Lady Russell drew up plans of economy, she made exact calculations, and she did what nobody else thought of doing: she consulted Anne, who never seemed considered by others as having any interest in the question. She consulted, and was influenced by her, in marking out the scheme of retrenchment, which was at last submitted to Sir Walter. Every emendation of Anne’s had been on the side of honesty against importance. She wanted more vigorous measures, a more complete reformation, a quicker release from debt, a much higher tone of indifference for everything but justice and equity”(Austen 9).

“He was cut short by the eager attacks of the little boys, clinging to him like an old friend, and declaring he should not go;and being too much engrossed by proposals of carrying them away in his coat-pocket, etc., to have another moment for finishing or recollecting what he had begun, Anne was left to persuade herself, as well as she could,that the same brother must still be in question. She could not, however, reach such a degree of certainity as not to be anxious to hear whether anything had been said on the subject at the other house, where the Crofts had previously been calling”(Austen 37).

“Anne was now at hand to take up her own cause, and the sincerity of her manner being soon sufficient to convince him, where conviction was at least very agreeable, he had no farther scruples as to her being left to dine alone , though he still wanted her to join them in the evening, when the child might be at rest for the night, and kindly urged her to let him come and fetch her; but she was quite unpersuadable; and this being the case, she had ere long the pleasure of seeing them set off together in high spirits.They were gone, she hoped, to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might seem;as for herself, she was left with as many sensations of comfort, as were, perhaps, ever likely to be hers. She knew herself to be of the first utility to the child; and what was it to her if Frederick Wenthworth were only half a mile distant, making himself agreeable to others”(Austen 44)

Captain Frederick WenthworthCaptain Wentworth is a gallant Naval officer who, well-educated and well-mannered. He values constancy, practicality, and firmness of mind in women. He has made his own fortune through hard work and good sense,in direct contrast to Sir Walter who has only wasted the money that came to him through his title. Without land or high birth, Captain Wentworth is not the traditional match for a woman of Anne Eliot's position.

Through the end of the book,Wentworth is significantly richer than Sir Walter, is considered worthy enough to marry Anne.Though they seek the same goal, they are uncertain whether obstacles such as Anne's family or Mr. Elliot will keep them from reaching happiness. In the novel, Captain Wentworth develops, eventually overcoming his pride and shame at being once refused, in order to make a proposal to his chosen bride.

I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. 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. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. Have you not seen this?Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrate mine.

I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating in. I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your fathers house this evening,or never (Austen 186).

Mr. William Elliot  

He is cousin of Anne Elliot, and heir to Kellynch Hall. Mr. William Elliot is a smooth talker who everyone agrees is "perfectly what he ought to be. Mr. Elliot is searching for a new bride. He is good- looking and well-mannered.

Mr. Elliot fears that Sir Walter will marry Mrs. Clay, have a son, and thereby deprive him of his title. Thanks to Mrs. Smith, Anne learns about Mr. Elliot's hidden past; he plans to marry Anne to ensure that he becomes the sole heir of the Kellynch baronetcy.He plots to ensure that he will remain Sir Walter's heir. Mr. Elliot was shocked that his plan to marry Anne has been foiled, when Anne was engaged with Captain Wenthworth.

“Lady Russell saw either less or more than her young friend, for she saw nothing to excite distrust. She could not imagine a man more exactly what he ought to be than Mr. Elliot; nor did she ever enjoy a sweeter feeling than the hope of seeing him receive the hand of her beloved Anne in Kellynch church, in the course of the following autumn” (Austen 124).

“Lady Russell was now perfectly decided in her opinion of Mr. Elliot. She was as much convinced of his meaning to gain Anne in time as of his deserving her; and was begining to calculate the number of weeks which would free him from all the remaining restraints of widowhood, and leave him at liberty to exert his most open powers of pleasing. She would not speak to Anne with half certainty she felt on the subject, she would venture on little more than hints of what might be hereafter, of a possible attachment on his side, of desirableness of the alliance, supposing such attachment to be real, and returned.Anne heard her, and made no violent exclamations. She only similed,blushed, and gently shook her head” (Austen 122).

Mrs. SMITH

She is a friend of Anne Elliot who is currently living in Bath. After her husband went into debt and left her a widow, Mrs. Smith was left with nothing. Now crippled by an illness, Mrs. Smith provides Anne the information that helps her learn more about Mr. Elliot.

Mrs. Smith informs Anne of her cousin's cold-heartedness and social ambition. Anne finds out Mr. Elliot's true motivations behind all his attentions to her family.Mrs. Smith is capable of ruining the plans of Mr. Elliot. Anne acknowledges that she would never have this important information, if it were’nt for Mrs.Smith.

“Mr. Elliot is a man without heart or conscience; a designing, wary, cold-blooded being, who thinks only of himself; who, for his own interest or ease, would be quilty of any cruelty, or any treachery, that could be perpetrated without risk of his general character. He has no feeling for others. Those whom he has been the chief cause of leading into ruin, he can neglect and desert without the smallest compuction. He is totally beyond the reach of any sentiment of justice or compassion .Oh! he is black at hear, hollow and black!”(Austen 156).

SELF DECEPTIONN

Self-deception is the process or fact of misleading ourselves to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid. Self-deception, in short, is a way we justify false beliefs to ourselves.

Her start was perceptible only to herself; but she instantly felt that she was the greatest simpleton in the world, the most unaccountable and absurd! For a few minutes she saw nothing before her. It was all confusion (Austen 136).

After a short interval , however, he came towards her and spoke again. Mutual inquires on common subjects passed; neither of them, probably, much the wiser for what they heard, and Anne continuing fully sensible of his being less at ease than formerly. They had, by dint of being so very much together, got to speak to each other with a considerable portion of apparent indifference and calmness; but he could not do it now. Time had changed him, or Lousia had changed him. There was consciousness of some sort or other. He looked very well, not as if he had been suffering in health or spirits, and he talked of Uppercross, of the Musgroves, nay, even of Lousia, and had even a momentary look of his own arch significance as he named her; but yet it was Captain Wenthworth not comfortable, not easy, not able to feign that he was ( Austen 136-137).

Austen, Jane. Persuasion. Wordsworth. London. 2006.

Ermarth, Elizabeth Deed. Realism and Consensus in the English Novel. Edinburgh. 1988.

Works Cited