Abstract
In Persuasion, her last treatment of the ‘drama of woman’, Jane Austen affirms her life-long support of women’s freedom. With unusual intensity of feeling and concentration of purpose and with a remarkable unity of form and idea, she guides Anne Elliot to happiness and self-fulfilment in marriage, despite the obstacles of patriarchalism. Recognition of this purpose clarifies the novel’s thematic bond with her earlier works and resolves many of the problems of structure and content.
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Notes and References
See A. Gomme, ‘On Not Being Persuaded’, Essays in Criticism, 16 (1966) 182.
D. Rackin, ‘Jane Austen’s Anatomy of Persuasion’, in G. Goodin (ed.), The English Novel in the Nineteenth Century (Urbana, Ill.:University of Illinois Press, 1974) pp. 53, 64; and WhittenJane Austen’s Comedy of Feeling p. 9.
See Duffy, ‘Structure and Idea in Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” ’, NCF, 8 (1954) 273
P. Zietlow, ‘Luck and Fortuitous Circumstance in Persuasion: Two Interpretations’, ELH, 32 (1965) 194–5.
Marilyn Farwell, ‘Virginia Woolf and Androgyny’, Comparative Literature, 16 (1975) 435.
Ann Ferguson, ‘Androgyny As an Ideal for Human Development’, in M. Vetterling-Braggin, et al. (eds), Feminism and Philosophy (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977) p. 63.
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© 1983 LeRoy W. Smith
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Smith, L.W. (1983). Persuasion: A Mature Dependence. In: Jane Austen and the Drama of Woman. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17184-2_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17184-2_8
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