Anne Elliot in Persuasion and the Courage to Trust Her Own Judgment

When Louisa Musgrove falls on the Cobb at Lyme, Captain Wentworth is the one holding her, but Anne Elliot is the one who remembers that Captain Benwick knows where to find a surgeon. The moment is easy to pass over on the way to Wentworth’s famous letter. It tells us something just as important about Anne. In a room full of talk, she often yields the floor. When someone needs to act, she knows what to do.

Jane Austen builds Persuasion around the distance between how much Anne’s judgment is worth and how little authority she gives it in her own life. Her second chance with Wentworth depends on closing that distance.

This essay discusses the ending of Persuasion.

Why Anne Elliot breaks off her engagement

Anne is nineteen when she agrees to marry Frederick Wentworth, a naval officer with little money and no certainty of advancement. Lady Russell, a trusted friend who has taken a motherly interest in Anne, persuades her that the match is too risky. Anne also comes to believe that ending the engagement is kinder to Wentworth, whose prospects she might burden.

When he returns years later with a fortune and a successful naval career, it would be easy to take his success as proof that Anne should have known better. Austen keeps us close enough to Anne to see how different the decision looked at nineteen. Anne comes to doubt the advice she received while still believing she had good reason to take Lady Russell seriously. That distinction gives her regret its texture. She can question a decision without rewriting the younger woman who made it.

What Louisa’s fall at Lyme reveals about Anne

Earlier, Wentworth praises Louisa for being firm in her decisions. He has reason to admire that quality after Anne gave him up, and Anne hears the praise with their history in mind. At Lyme, Louisa insists on jumping again from the steps on the Cobb even after Wentworth warns her against it. She jumps too soon and falls.

In the confusion, Anne asks for a surgeon and recognizes that Benwick can fetch one. Wentworth turns to her again as the group works out who should stay and who should go. Put those scenes beside his earlier praise of Louisa and the contrast comes into focus. A person can be certain and still misread a situation. Anne takes in what is happening around her and makes a decision other people can rely on.

How Anne finally makes herself heard in Bath

The conversation that brings Anne and Wentworth back together begins with Captain Harville talking about Captain Benwick. Harville and Anne disagree about whether men or women love longest after losing someone. Anne points out that men have had more opportunities to write the books Harville might cite as evidence. Then she makes her own claim about how long a woman can go on loving when hope is gone.

Wentworth overhears her while sitting at a writing table. Anne speaks sincerely to Harville, and Wentworth hears something he needs to know. He answers in a letter that admits how much he still feels and how little he has been able to tell from her reserve. Austen gives them a second chance through a conversation in which each has to risk letting the other hear a feeling they have kept to themselves.

A reread question for your book club

Read the fall at Lyme in Chapter 12 alongside the conversation in Bath in Chapter 23. At Lyme, Wentworth can recognize Anne’s judgment as soon as the group needs it. In Bath, he has to listen for what her words might tell him about a choice she made years ago. What can he hear in that conversation that he would have missed when he first returned? Read the full text at Project Gutenberg.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

For a reread with an introduction and explanatory notes, see the Penguin Classics paperback of Persuasion, edited by Gillian Beer, on Amazon.

For another Austen heroine whose judgments change as she learns more, read our review of Pride and Prejudice.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook