Persuasion

Jane Austen

I watched “The Jane Austen Book Club” for the second time last night, for the first time since having read each novel, and noticed that when some of the characters would discuss Persuasion they talked as if Anne Elliot and Capt. Wentworth hadn’t been in love the whole time they were apart, and not just that they weren’t in love, but that each one might have even hated the other. I didn’t get that impression at all when I read Persuasion. I thought that Capt. Wentworth and Anne had both been harboring a deep love for one another ever since they parted.

Capt. Wentworth was angry when they separated and he went off to join the Navy, he had every right to be. He was broken hearted because Anne had been convinced by her family, particularly Lady Russell, that she was obligated to do better. He was upset with her and the situation and maybe he even thought he didn’t love her anymore, but to me it was obvious that somewhere deep down he had been pining for her because he would always love her.

Anne was angry too, I’m sure, but not with him (at least, not until later when they had been in each other’s presence again and he was acting the fool with Louisa Musgrove and maybe even subconsciously, or consciously, trying to make Anne jealous). She was angry with herself for being such a pushover, for letting him go, and she was angry at the situation, but it wasn’t in her personality to do anything about it; she didn’t see that there was anything to do about it except to bear it in silence. Again though, just because she was upset doesn’t mean she stopped loving him. Once she saw him again she was a wreck all the time, partly because she didn’t want him to hate her, not because she hated him.

What did you think?

Also, I’m wondering if the characters in “The Jane Austen Book Club” interpreted the relationship between Capt. Wentworth and Anne Elliot the way they did because of their own experiences in love and life, meaning that if it had been one of them in one of those positions they would have hated or stopped loving the other person. One of the characters that thought Anne and Wentworth didn’t love each other anymore was Sylvia, the recently divorced mother of three grown children. It’s just funny because her relationship with her ex/husband mirrored that of Anne and Wentworth, without the passing of several years, only several months. Both couples, so in love, then they separate, but then they find their way back to each other. Now, I know I’m no great genius for noticing this seeing as how it is actually pointed out in the movie, but it what’s interesting to me is that Sylvia really felt like she hated her ex/husband for a time, but really she loved him and she was just angry- it just seems like she could have looked more into Anne’s psyche and realized that Anne never stopped loving Capt. Wentworth, she was just angry.

Prudie had said that too, about Anne and Wentworth hating each other, but again, Prudie was an unhappy woman at a slump in her marriage. Even though they weren’t physically separated the way Sylvia and her husband were, she felt emotionally separated from her husband and even said that she hated him at one point. Of course they met a happy ending as well, it’s only right, all of Jane Austen’s heroines do, why shouldn’t these heroines?

I think Jocelyn mentioned the same idea too when she was describing the book to Grigg. Maybe her interpretation can be explained by the fact that she’s alone… or maybe because she’s watched her best friend Sylvia’s divorce from Daniel.

Any further thoughts?

You have a good memory for details, and the best way to support what you say about Anne and Captain Wentworth are his own words.

"I can no longer listen in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are withing my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agonny, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feeling are gone for ever. I offer myself to you agaih with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dre not say that man forgets sooner than woman,that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. . . "

It is clear here that he has always loved Anne. Later in the chapter Austen relates, "Of what he had then written nothing was to be retracted or qualified. He persisted in having loved none but her. She had never been supplanted. He never even believed himself to see her equal." He had tried to forget her and thought he had done so, but he said he was just angry and hurt.

So the question becomes, since Anne and the Captain had always loved each other, why did the "Jane Austen Book Club" movie state differently? I suppose there could be many reasons. Hollywoodization--it fit the characters of the movie. It is the same for all renditions of Austen's novels. There are inconsistencies, misleading dialogue, and downright untruths. For instance in the Kiera version of P & P, we are led to believe that Mr. and Mrs. Bennet got on fairly well, when he was hardly tolerant of her. There are probably few movies that are completely true to the books on which they are based.

Excellent point! And thank you for backing up mine.

Now I'm just thinking about the irony of "The Jane Austen Book Club," specifically Prudie's character. When they were standing in line to watch a viewing of "Mansfield Park" she was all upset and p.o.'d because they hadn't stayed true to the book. (Of course, putting her mood and behavior into context, she was truly upset about everything in her life, but that's beside the point...) She was also the one character who spoke as if she had the true authority on insight to Jane Austen's writings, but because we too have read "Persuasion" we can clearly see how wrong she was. I guess we can just chalk it up to supporting evidence of her own confused character.