A SHORT ANALYSIS OF PERSUASION, BY JANE AUSTEN
FACULDADE DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS E CIÊNCIAS HUMANAS
UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO
Departamento de Letras Modernas - Área de Estudos Linguísticos e Literários em Inglês
Curso de Leituras do Cânon 1 – Evening Class
Profª Drª Sandra G. T. Vasconcelos
A SHORT ANALYSIS OF PERSUASION, BY JANE AUSTEN
São Paulo
2010
“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 but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connexions 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 right, it would be prevented.”
(AUSTEN, 1818, p.24-25)
The excerpt above was extracted from the fourth chapter of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and although it is early in the development of the plot and the story as a whole, much can be known and learned through its close observation. Signs and hints on all the elements involved in the story, such as society organization, relationships, moral and values, characters’ profiles and other issues are given already on the very first paragraphs. Persuasion is extremely well organized in terms of plot. It follows what Ian Watt (1957) calls “principle of causality”, meaning that one event that takes place in the plot under determined conditions will cause, or give possibility to something else to happen. It is also a novel which has the narrative organized by the same principles, but in several different levels, that will be discussed
UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO
Departamento de Letras Modernas - Área de Estudos Linguísticos e Literários em Inglês
Curso de Leituras do Cânon 1 – Evening Class
Profª Drª Sandra G. T. Vasconcelos
A SHORT ANALYSIS OF PERSUASION, BY JANE AUSTEN
São Paulo
2010
“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 but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connexions 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 right, it would be prevented.”
(AUSTEN, 1818, p.24-25)
The excerpt above was extracted from the fourth chapter of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and although it is early in the development of the plot and the story as a whole, much can be known and learned through its close observation. Signs and hints on all the elements involved in the story, such as society organization, relationships, moral and values, characters’ profiles and other issues are given already on the very first paragraphs. Persuasion is extremely well organized in terms of plot. It follows what Ian Watt (1957) calls “principle of causality”, meaning that one event that takes place in the plot under determined conditions will cause, or give possibility to something else to happen. It is also a novel which has the narrative organized by the same principles, but in several different levels, that will be discussed
References: AUSTEN, Jane. Persuasion. London, England: Penguin Books, 1994. [1818]. AUSTEN, Jane. Jane Austen’s Letter to Cassandra Austen. Chawton, 1813. BUTLER, Marilyn. Jane Austen and the War of Ideas. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1975. TANNER, Tony. Jane Austen. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1986. WATT, Ian. The Rise of the Novel. London, England: Chatto and Windus, 1957. WILLIAMS, Raymond. The Country and the City. London, England: Oxford University Press, 1973.