Wentworth vs Conventionality in Jane Austen's 'Persuasion'

Wentworth vs Conventionality in Jane Austen's 'Persuasion'

Captain Wentworth is one of the most crucial characters in ‘Persuasion’; as Anne Elliot’s love interest, he plays a significant role in both the progression of the plot and Anne’s own character development. By being persuaded to reject Wentworth’s offer of marriage eight years before the book begins, Anne sets the scene for the main storyline of the novel, and indeed even its title. However, it can be argued that Wentworth’s real rival is not in fact Sir Walter Elliot, Anne’s disapproving father, but instead merely conventionality.

Wentworth is first introduced to the reader in Volume One, Chapter 4, but does not make a personal appearance in the novel until later. The profound effect he has had on Anne’s life is hinted at in earlier passages, but it is only at this stage that it is fully explained. The interest and curiosity evoked in the reader by this implicitness is satisfied, and it allows them to appreciate and sympathise with Anne’s response to Wentworth for the remainder of the novel. He is described as being ‘at that time, a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit and brilliancy’, though his fine personal qualities are not enough, in society’s eyes at least, to surmount the class divide which separates his position from that of Anne. During the Regency period of history, when the book is set, young women were expected to marry someone above or equal to their own social status, and Wentworth, ‘with nothing but himself to recommend him’, was deemed by Lady Russell and Walter Elliot an unsuitable match for Anne. Indeed, through the free indirect style Austen subtly tells us their feelings on the matter – to marry Wentworth is referred to as ‘throwing herself [Anne] away’, a turn of phrase that conjures up decidedly negative connotations of waste and dissipation.

However, although from this passage it may appear that the only obstacle to Anne and Captain Wentworth’s happy marriage was the...