Jane Austen uses her novels to express her contempt for 19th-century English marriage practices. She herself defied convention by remaining single and earning a living through her writing. Austen's novels, including Emma, ​​Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion, often feature an aristocratic heroine torn between marrying for love or security. Although Austen's works do not call for a classless society, they criticize the effects of strict class stratifications on marriages. Specifically, Austen laments that 19th-century English women generally married within their own social class out of convenience rather than love and that marriages between social classes were generally discouraged. In Persuasion, we meet Anne Elliot, a bright and attractive upper-class woman who has fallen in love with a sailor, Captain Frederick Wentworth. However, Anne was successfully persuaded to reject Wentworth by her aristocratic family and friends, who failed to recognize Wentworth's good character and only saw his shallow pockets. The central conflict of Persuasion is one of appearance versus reality. Anne can certainly see the superficiality that surrounds her when she is at Kellynch Hall with her family; however, she allows others, notably Lady Russell and her sisters, to interpret what she sees and force her to act on their wishes. Thus, Persuasion, like several of Austen's other novels, deals with a young woman's coming of age. Anne is fully mature when she acts on her own desires and recognizes that her new adulthood requires breaking away from her superficial and illusory family. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Anne grew up at Kellynch Hall, a magnificent estate surrounded by prestige, wealth and superficiality. His father, Sir Walter Elliot, is a vain and foolish man, who spends his days rereading the Baronetage, a genealogy of local aristocratic families. He values ​​appearance above all depth of character; he refuses to associate with anyone who is not physically pleasant. Admiral Croft, who rents Kellynch Hall, comically remarks on the extraordinary number of mirrors in Sir Walter's dressing room: "I should think he must be rather a man dressed for his times." Such a number of mirrors! Oh Lord! There was no escape from oneself” (114-115). In Bath, Sir Walter is obsessed with the dearth of attractive women: He had often observed, when walking, that a beautiful face would be followed by thirty, or thirty-five frights; and one day, while he was in a shop in Bond Street, he counted eighty-seven women passing one after the other, without there being a bearable face among them. (127) Such fascination with outward appearance seriously limits Sir Walter's chances of finding another wife or intelligent friends and keeps him in ignorance and delusion. Two of Sir Walter's daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, share his passion for appearance and rank. Mary, the wife of the moderately wealthy Charles Musgrove, believes it is her duty and right to prevent her sister-in-law, Henrietta Musgrove, from marrying Charles Hayter, who is "nothing but than a country vicar" and who would bring "bad ties" (68) with his family. Mary wants to end a relationship that will make Henrietta happy simply because she considers the union a disgrace to the Elliot family: “It would be shocking for Henrietta to marry Charles Hayter; a very bad thing for her, and even worse for me” (69).in fact finds herself "suffering" to preserve the Elliots' wealthy appearance: she desperately wants to invite the Musgroves to dinner at her house in Bath, but she cannot "bear the difference in style", the reduction in servants, that a dinner must betray, as evidenced by those who have always been so inferior to the Elliots in Kellynch" (193). Austen clearly uses the theme of appearance versus reality to characterize the three Elliot sisters. She obviously believes that the way a character sees others is a direct reflection of her personality Thus, we know that Anne Elliot has real depth of character and sincerity because her superficial family does not recognize her beautiful qualities: “Anne, with an elegance of spirit and gentleness. of character, who must have placed her high among all truly understanding people, had no one with her father or her sister: her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give in” (7). Anne is clearly the only Elliot who can "see reality": she understands her family's need for thrift, deplores the "elegant stupidity" (160) of the lavish parties her family attends in Bath, and recognizes Mary's frequent illnesses like a cry for help. attention. However, Anne initially suffers from great family loyalty and is therefore unable to distance herself from her superficial parents. She allows Mary to drag her to the cottage at Uppercross because Elizabeth reasons, “no one will want [Anne] in Bath” (30). When she arrives in Bath, Anne follows Sir Walter and Elizabeth to various upper-class social gatherings and shows great respect to her cousin Lady Dalrymple, whom Anne truly regards as a foolish noblewoman. Anne's maturity is thus evident when she rejects Lady Dalyrmple's dinner invitation in favor of a visit to her old widowed friend, Mrs. Smith, whom her father considers "bad company" and a "disgusting association." » (140). By being Anne's true friend, Mrs. Smith hastens Anne's departure from the superficial world of Kellynch Hall and acts as the character Lady Russell. Unlike her superficial father and sisters, Anne is able to see beyond Mrs. Smith's shabby apartment and recognize the sweet person within. Mrs. Smith gradually begins to replace Lady Russell as Anne's confidante because Lady Russell places so much importance on "rank and consequence" (12), that she is "blind to the faults of those who possessed them" (12). . Lady Russell is a completely overbearing advisor to the insecure and obedient Anne, whom we initially meet. Anne allows Lady Russell to persuade her to reject Frederick Wentworth on the basis of his poor appearance and lack of "connections" (24). Additionally, Anne is encouraged to continue seeing William Elliot because Lady Russell does not see his deception and instead believes that he has "knowledge of the world" and a "warm heart" (131). Mrs. Smith, however, proves to be a better confidant as she sees through William's affected kindness and exposes his true intentions to Anne, thus avoiding a potentially disastrous and unhappy marriage for Anne. After Mrs. Smith tells Anne of William's desire to marry into a noble title, Anne reflects on Mrs. Smith's ability to accurately assess character: “Here is a line to see human nature; and she has a fund of common sense and observation which, as a companion, make her infinitely superior to thousands of those who, having received only "the best education in the world", know nothing that deserves to be studied. be taken into account” (139). Anne's transformation into a mature, self-sufficient woman, blessed with a sincere friend, is clear when she recognizes that she herself is sometimes a better judge of.