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#frederick 'unconsciously nay unintentionally constant' wentworth everyone
oldshrewsburyian · 2 years
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And another thing: Captain Wentworth is kind. In the chapters where Austen introduces him, and reintroduces him to Anne, this is one of the things she is sure to make clear. He is solicitous of a sick and injured child, and far more sensitive to the genuine needs (as well as the respectability) of a household’s domestic routines than many a man might be, let alone an unmarried one. In a gathering where it is taken for granted that Anne will make herself useful by playing the piano, he wants to know if she might want to dance herself. And perhaps most signally, at a party where Anne reflects that he might easily be spoiled by the universal and eager admiration of marriageable young ladies, he extracts himself from general conversation in order to listen and talk to good-hearted, faintly ridiculous Mrs. Musgrove about the son whom he knew and whom she mourns.
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oldshrewsburyian · 2 years
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“no one... so capable as Anne”
HOW DOES WENTWORTH KNOW?
Only capslock can express my feelings at this point. Their period of exquisite felicity, over eight years ago, was brief. And at that point, Anne was only 19 years old, the neglected middle daughter of a prosperous family. Am I convinced that Anne did try to help educate and guide Mary after their mother died? Sure. Was she appealed to by the staff as the most sensible person in the house? Quite possibly, although she would have been only fairly recently returned from school, where she was miserable. Still: her opportunities for demonstrating capability would have been strictly limited. 
Which leads me to the conclusion that he knows because of observing her in the preceding days and weeks. He knows because of watching her manage Mary’s moods. He knows because of watching her take care of her nephews, and play dances for an informal assembly, and be kind to Mrs. Musgrove and Captain Benwick alike. And this lets us as the readers know that no matter what she may believe, and no matter what he may tell himself, Frederick Wentworth has not ever stopped being hyper-aware of what Anne Elliot is doing at all times.
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oldshrewsburyian · 2 years
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I’ve reached Chapters 7-8 in my Persuasion reread, covering both the first (renewed) meeting and first (renewed) social contact between Anne and Captain Wentworth, and I put the book back on the nightstand after these two chapters because I needed to stare at the ceiling and scream internally. They contain, of course, some of the most famous/fateful passages in the novel, but also: as Austen shows us the awkwardness of these encounters, Anne’s yearning and Frederick’s resentment, she is simultaneously showing us how in love they were, and how well-suited, arguably, they still are.
I love Anne so much, and while she may be valued primarily for her usefulness, she is in fact an extremely passionate woman. (She’s also sad.) She is genuinely glad to avoid Wentworth and to be useful to her nephew. But she’s also painfully aware that she is “left with as many sensations of comfort, as were, perhaps, ever likely to be hers.” I can’t help connecting this to Lady Russell’s earlier reflection that she thinks Anne is uniquely well-suited by temperament and habits to marriage, to the life she would have as a wife and mother. Anyway. Then we get the first meeting, and poor Anne is so overwhelmed that she can’t take everything in. But after the fact we learn that, while she is barely absorbing the words and actions of those around her, she has also noticed, in some detail, that Frederick Wentworth is at least as good-looking as he was eight years ago. Anne. And it’s her perspective that gives us the “no two hearts so open” passage, in which she also reflects that they once would have found it “most difficult to cease to speak to one another,” even in the sort of social gathering where he is currently making himself so agreeable, and she is unobserved (except by him.)
Anne cannot reason herself out of feeling as strongly as she did eight years ago. But neither, we are allowed to suspect, can Wentworth, though he has convinced himself that is exactly what he has done. Our gallant captain is extremely -- not to say somewhat disturbingly -- good at turning harrowing, or at least dangerous, undertakings into fun dinner-party stories. But there is, perhaps, some bitterness in his remark that there would have been no one to think of him, had he been unsuccessful in outrunning a storm in an old and badly damaged ship. There is definitely a catch in his voice, a break in his thought, when he reflects that when he and Harville were chasing privateers together, only one of them had a wife to provide for. When he is forced to defend his "superfine, extraordinary sort of gallantry” as an unmarried man (drag him, Sophia), he is shortly afterwards impelled to rise from the sofa where he and Anne are sitting, and go definitely elsewhere. When he assures Admiral Croft that he was indeed grateful to be sent across the Atlantic in a ship classified as being only seaworthy for short distances and for a limited period of time, he all but confesses that in the aftermath of Anne’s breaking their engagement, he didn’t care whether he lived or died. And even in cheerfully telling his sister he is ready to marry, whether wisely or no, he defines what he wants in reference to Anne, whose equal (in his own opinion) he has never seen. Frederick Wentworth, you thick-skulled genius, get it together.
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oldshrewsburyian · 2 years
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Poor Dick Musgrove: unfeeling, unprofitable, and dead before the age of twenty. In some ways, he’s a caricature of what Lady Russell feared for Anne, sexually-charged associations and all. But what we learn, from the Musgroves’ sad and somewhat muddled reminiscences, has me thinking of @counterwiddershins‘ description of Persuasion as a magic trick. How does Austen convince us that Anne (self-effacing, always anxious to do the right thing) and Captain Wentworth (flamboyantly successful in a flamboyant profession) are, in fact, well-suited to each other?
Well, in Chapter 6, while poor Anne is still anxiously bracing herself for his advent in the neighborhood and on the page, we learn about his conduct in his first command. And we learn that Frederick Wentworth, determined to succeed as the captain of a frigate, decided that his duties included 1) making sure that the midshipmen paid attention to their lessons in navigation etc. 2) making sure that the midshipmen sent nice letters to their parents. And this from a man who at this point in his life is both orphaned and disappointed in love. I... I’m fine. This is fine. I’m fine.
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oldshrewsburyian · 2 years
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I’m presuming that anyone not interested in a more or less minute account of my internal screaming will block ‘Persuasion reread,’ so here goes. Today’s internal screaming is provoked by the fact that we enter Volume 2 with Anne glad that she and Captain Wentworth have -- at least tacitly, at least partially -- reconciled; she’s grateful for what she takes as signs of disinterested friendship from him. She’s also fully convinced that he is going to marry Louisa, and that she will just have to cope with that. (Interestingly, Lady Russell’s ‘pleased contempt’ at this news offers further evidence of the fact that she apparently hates Wentworth’s guts, despite acknowledging that he did seem to partly appreciate Anne’s worth in ‘06. Seem to partly appreciate! I tend to concur with the critical opinion that Lady R. has a wilful blind spot around Wentworth’s sexuality. Anyway.)
There is more! in this chapter, we get some of Austen’s first hints to readers that Anne’s perception of Wentworth’s feelings is... less than accurate. We’ve already had, of course, his responses to Mr. Elliot. Now we get Anne, responding to Lady Russell’s compliments on her appearance, ‘amused’ to think that she may be afforded ‘a second spring of youth and beauty.’ A second spring, you say, Miss Austen?? Moreover, we learn from the Crofts that Frederick, in bringing them news from Lyme, has asked after Anne’s welfare. He hopes she isn’t worn out; he’s noticed her exerting herself on behalf of the Musgroves, and wants to be sure she’s all right.
For one thing, he’s the only person who does appear to have noticed this, or thought to ask after her. (The Musgroves, in their anxiety over Louisa, have a good excuse for not doing so, granted.) And I think that we have here some early suggestive evidence concerning what our favorite obtuse genius is thinking and planning.
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oldshrewsburyian · 2 years
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Persuasion Reread: *internal screaming intensifies*
I’m apparently going to keep rereading this novel in two-chapter chunks because I need intermissions to process my emotions about it all/stare at a wall about Jane Austen’s genius. I’m sure (?) that this must get less intense as the plot thickens and more characters are introduced, but right now, we’re just in Peak Suffering about the Anne/Wentworth relationship past and current.
Chapters 9 and 10 give us The Toddler-Wrangling Scene and The Scene With The Gig, as well as a great deal of discussion of romantic prospects both in the specific and the not-quite-abstract. Anne is so convinced (with the exception of one thread of traitorous hope) that Wentworth can feel, at best, only neutral courtesy for her, that this colors all her responses to and analysis of his conduct. Meanwhile, I’ve decided that his middle name is Theodore so I can mentally apostrophize him better (as in: Frederick Theodore Wentworth, apply your above-average intelligence to your own emotions for once.)
Anne is completely certain that Wentworth -- who used, as she reflects in the gig, to be Frederick to her -- is ‘studiously making noise’ with small Walter to avoid interacting with her in any way, even to receive her gratitude. Alternatively: this man who problem-solves on a variety of scales for a living could be busily entertaining a two-year-old to prevent him from returning to his former mischief or wailing about being deprived of it. She is also certain that he vaults a hedge to get her a seat in the Crofts’ gig while ‘perfectly careless of her.’ Anne. Anne. To be fair to her, he’s also being obtuse about his feelings.
Meanwhile, the thing that is really making me vibrate is Jane Austen’s discussion of nature and nature poetry. Anne, being Anne, is occupying her thoughts with seasonally appropriate verse... until she overhears Wentworth speaking with Louisa about marital devotion. At this point, she seeks for “the apt analogy of the declining year, with declining happiness, and the images of youth and hope, and spring, all gone together.” When she tries to rouse herself to make a comment, no one hears her. But then. Then, says Jane Austen, they pass by fields under the plough, and a “fresh-made path,” both of which testify to the farmers’ “meaning to have spring again.”
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oldshrewsburyian · 2 years
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I think it was @fictionadventurer who once argued on here for a nursing-focused read of Persuasion, and the importance of health, illness, disability, and injury really does come to the fore in Bath. Sir Walter -- in keeping with his denial of mortality generally -- cannot conceive of the reality of a Mrs. Smith, close to Elizabeth’s age but also chronically ill. Anne’s confrontation with her father over her commitment to Mrs. Smith of Westgate Buildings, in turn, only comes about because Lady Dalrymple has a cold (!) so is inviting people to come to her so she won’t be bored. Guiltily, I find this hilarious. Meanwhile, Anne and Mrs. Smith (can I call her Harriet?) have a fascinating chat about Nurse Rooke and her insights. And this shows us more about the different meanings of illness. Mrs. Wallis’ confinement, in earlier chapters, has meant her sad absence from assemblies, the impossibility of making the acquaintance of a colonel’s wife. But Nurse Rooke reports that she is “a mere pretty, silly, expensive, fashionable woman,” and Harriet sees her as a good candidate for purchasing her more elaborate and expensive crafts. I support this plan; I hope Colonel Wallis finds his wife’s bedroom just... festooned with knickknacks. Incidentally, I also hope that Mary buys a lot of Harriet’s things (Mary is currently complaining about a sore throat she doesn’t even have.) The Crofts continue to embody #couplegoals, as Sophy strides around to accompany her husband in his medicinal exercise regime until she gives herself a blister. In sickness and in health, I love these two.
I think we can also count the discussion of spirits as part of the discussion of health in these chapters, given early nineteenth-century understandings of health. In analyzing Louisa’s marriage to James Benwick, Anne certainly does this. Louisa’s “health, her nerves, her courage, her character” may all be affected by her injury... and this may be no bad thing. Arguably, Louisa is here implicitly contrasted with the late Mr. Smith, who did not think seriously till it was almost too late. Louisa, whose lack of seriousness was her one serious fault, has been cured of that. And Captain Benwick, who “must love somebody,” with his affectionate heart (aww) is also improving in spirits, and thus in emotional health. It is also noteworthy, I think, that Anne is eager to make the argument, to the Admiral, that “spirit and gentleness” need not be incompatible. And this is something that I think I have perhaps been too ready to overlook in Anne’s own character. (I have wronged her!) Meanwhile, in evaluating the soundness of the impeccable Mr. Elliot, Anne reflects that “her early impressions were incurable.” Incurable!
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oldshrewsburyian · 2 years
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@butaneandthebeast​ replied to this post:
i know nothing about anglican marriage services and any elaboration on your part esp. re: anne and freddie would be much, *much* appreciated <3
@crabapple10​, adding incentive:
Yes, please elaborate on the implications of the Anglican marriage service!
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Mine hour is come. A prolegomenon on the Book of Common Prayer: as a single text, it probably has the most decisive influence on the Anglophone literary imagination from the 16th century onward. Through the time of Austen’s writing, it’s part of most people’s daily lives (more than the King James Bible or Shakespeare, for instance.) I could digress on the theological and social debates that underlie its formation and revision, because I find them fascinating, but I will spare you. Point is: it’s influential, and it continues in use for centuries before substantial revision, so the language and some of the ideas would have been archaic by Jane Austen’s day, but... this is still the Marriage Service. The edition that would have been used for the Wentworths is that of 1662.
If you’ve seen the 1995 Pride and Prejudice -- a safe bet, probably? -- you’ve heard the opening of this liturgy, and I think its use is possibly the smartest choice of that very smart adaptation, simultaneously highlighting and undercutting the meaning of the text in a way that I hope Austen would have approved, showing the messy ways in which humans live our lives... and how we still aspire to human love that mirrors the divine, that makes us both better and happier.
Anyway! Despite the fact that the BCP contains Forms of Prayer to be Used at Sea, I rather think that Anne has a more easy familiarity with the liturgies of the church than her husband; that she is readier to view this as a homely as well as a solemn thing. But Frederick Wentworth is going to vow to love, comfort, honor, and keep this woman, in sickness and in health, keeping only unto her, and I think he’s going to do such a good job. He will vow to cherish her until parted from her by death. And the final vow of their joint sequence, before the priestly prayer confirming them as man and wife, is: “with this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.” I don’t know whether he would still be pale and grave, at this point, or just impossibly fond and pleased, but that... that is a vow. Made not only in the sight of God but also, I suspect, of the Harvilles holding hands, Sophy Croft borrowing her husband’s handkerchief, and Lady Russell looking fixedly at a stained glass window.
Anne, meanwhile, will be given from the hand of a man who has no affection for her into the hands of a man who adores her. And I think that quiet Anne Elliot makes her vows unhesitating. She will have this man and hold him, plighting her troth thereunto. “Neither time, nor health, nor life, to be called your own,” exclaims Anne, in conversation with Harville about the lot of naval men. She is acutely, painfully aware of this. But even if Frederick cannot call these things his own, she can, once they are married, call them hers. These things are owed to her, vowed to her, placed into her keeping after God’s. And if her Frederick were in serious danger, frankly, I think Anne would be prepared to argue the order of precedence with the Almighty.
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oldshrewsburyian · 2 years
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I've been thinking recently about Wentworth comparing the Asp to "any old pelisse, which you had seen lent about among half your acquaintance..." It's such an unexpected analogy for a navy captain--it sounds Henry Tilneyish. It's an interesting character note. I'm kind of delighted by the idea of him picking this up from Sophie, or Anne.
It is unexpected, and a fascinating character note. He wouldn't have picked this up from Anne Elliot of Kellynch Hall, though. I think he must have picked it up from watching Sophie... and, quite probably in my view, their late mother. There is that detail (to the company, amusing; to the reader, provocative) about it being lent to the recipient last, on a very wet day, when (as he does not say) it may do little to keep out the rain, given its age.
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