Persuasion by Jane Austen: notes

Persuasion begins to query the origins and nature of four marriages within the first few pages of the novel. Within that short span, Austen considers two marriages that occur and two that do not, and the findings are dire. Austen believes in the potential for marriage to be one of the chief means of human happiness and personal growth. Yet, while key to happiness and fulfillment, good marriages seem rare in Persuasion.

As noted, we're given a whirlwind look at four in the first few pages. First is that of Sir Walter and his deceased wife. This is not a marriage that lends much credit to the forces at play in the setting-up of marriages in Austen's day. Sir Walter is a shallow and vain man unfortunately married to a substantial woman, Anne Elliot's mother, Elizabeth. Austen writes, "His good looks and his rank had one fair claim on his attachment, since to them he must have owed a wife of superior character to any thing deserved his own" (p10, Oxford Edition,1990).

The marriage is far from a meeting of minds conducive to the happiness of both and the benefit of the marriage accrues in shockingly uneven fashion. When Austen lists the blessing of life for Mrs. Elliot, it is hardly surprising thatthere is no mention made of Mr. Elliot. With classic Austen understatement and restraint, Mrs. Elliot is described as "not the very happiest being in the world herself, [she] had found enough in her duties, her friends, and her children, to attach her to life"(11).

In contrast, the marriage confers quite a bit of benefit to Mr. Elliot; while married, Mrs. Elliot "had humored, or softened, or concealed his failing, and promoted his real respectability for seventeen years." Mrs. Elliot raises his daughters with a moderate amount of success. She works to preserve his economic well-being, supplying her "method, moderation, and economy...with her had died all such right-mindedness"(15)

Next up in the marriages considered is one that doesn't occur: Mr. Elliot and Lady Russell fail to marry after the death of his first wife. Austen notes and remains tellingly silent on why Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Russell, "of steady age and character,"(11) never marry after the passing away of the girls' mother. Austen remarks that the public seems to only demand explanation when a woman marries again, not when she doesn't. On the other hand, Mr. Elliot's remaining single apparently requires explanation: he is sacrificing his ambitions for his eldest daughter, 29year old Elizabeth.

Elizabeth's failure to marry is then brought into focus. Austen raises the question of the latter's failure to find a marriageable companion briefly, noting her beauty and alluding to her wondering if she is going to be "solicited by baronet-blood within the next twelve month or two"(13). Originally, she sought the hand of her cousin, the future heir to Sir Walter's title and lands, Mr. William Elliot. For mysterious reasons, he does not pursue her but "purchased independence by uniting himself to a rich woman of inferior birth"(14). The latter is the last marriage observed and speaks to the primary spring governing the making of marriage.