ELI ZAB ETH DALTON
51
" prudent and self-denying prin cipally fo r hi s adva ntage," su staining her
love fo r W entwo rth no t by marrying him, but by suffering fo r him. H er
sa tisfacti o n in denying herself, her qui et and unrebelli ous acceptance of
mistrea tment, have a masochi sti c quali ty; thi s willingness to suffer may be
not onl y the effec t but also th e cause o f her loss of W entworth.
Paradoxically, alth o ugh Anne's melancholy makes her appea r drab
and subdu ed , h er emo ti o ns are mo re intense than those o f any o ther
Austen h ero ine . Th e parti cul ar emo ti o nal quality o f
Persuas ion
is sug–
gested in th e re ferences to nature, so unusual in J ane Austen 's work -
" the influ ence so swee t and so sad o f th e autumnal mo nths" - an atmo–
sphere full o f the knowl edge o f loss and dea th . This bitterswee t mi xture
also characteri zes Ann e's fee lin gs, w hi ch are o ften "so compo unded of
pleasure and pain that she knew no t whi ch prevailed. "
This painful pleasure, o r pleasurable pain , suggests the masoc hi sti c
depth and intensity of her experi ence. Juli a Kristeva writes in
Soleil Nair,
her study of depressio n , of th e pos itive aspects of th e depressive 's inner
life - th e inte nsity of emoti o n , the po ignant sense of beauty heightened
by the awareness of loss, and th e intellectual ac hievements o f sublimati on.
Anne, w ith her reading o f wo rks o f mo ral instructi o n , her devo ti o n to
music and poetry, exemplifi es all o f thi s.
Anne's sadness seems
to
be the result of th e loss of her love r, ye t we
are told that at the age of fourte en she was already "a girl o f strong sen–
sibility and no t hi gh spirits." Mo reover, the novel is pervaded by a larger
sens e o f pain , loss , and dea th , even beyond the sto ry of Anne and
Wentwo rth. Th ere are several illnesses and injuries and a strikingly large
number o f widows and widow ers - Sir W alter , Lady Russe ll , Lady
Dalrymple , Mr. Elli o t , Mr. Sh eph erd, Mrs. Clay, Mrs. Smith. Two
young perso ns who have di ed - Di ck Musgrove and Fann y Harville -
fi gure in th e pl o t, and th e novel's first page records the dea th no t only
of Ann e's mo th er but also o f an in fa nt , the Elliots' stillborn son .
It seems that the loss o f W entwo rth produces so deep a melancholy
in Anne, and reverberates so w idely througho ut the novel, because it re–
capitulates some earli er and even mo re profound loss. Ann e has been re–
j ected by her fa ther , but she has also suffered a still mo re signifi cant aban–
donment, and that is th e dea th of her mother wh en Anne w as fourteen .
Such a death , especially durin g th e diffi cult and rivalrous pe riod of ado–
lescence, may lead to guilt as well as gri e f, as if somehow the child 's
feelings had brou ght abo ut thi s dreadful result. Perhaps Anne's habitual
self-denial, including her ori ginal renun ciation of W entwo rth , is a sort of
atonement: w ith her mo ther dead , has th e daughter any ri ght to free–
dom or pleasure?
More than any o ther of Austen 's novels,
Persuasioll
is concerned with
