VCE Stuff > VCE Literature
Literature Essay Compilation Thread
Wu:
Jane Eyre - passage analysis (passages randomly selected by teacher. Refers to her outburst as a child, Rochester's rape attempt and passage where she reiterates that she does not want to accompany St John Rivers as his wife in India) completed in June
Jane’s averring tone in passage three, “I adhere to my resolution,” makes conspicuous the assertion of individual identity which the protagonist attempts to forge through rejecting St John’s marriage proposal. Charlotte Bronte’s Victorian novel, Jane Eyre, advocates a balance between passion and reason as evident with Jane’s maturation from her “savage” outburst as a child removed from her humanitarian rights in passage one, to the Jane who is capable of governing her own emotions and sense of self in passage two and three against males, and symbolically the patriarchal system of Victorian Britain.
Within all three excerpts, the relationships Jane has between the two men that propose to her, Edward Rochester and St John Rivers, and also her Aunt. are exposed as unbalanced with the each character attempting to dominate her for their own selfish desires. Mrs Reed explicates the commonly held value during Bronte’s time that “children must be corrected for their faults”. She neglects Jane and lectures her for being too “passionate”. Passage one captures the first time that Jane’s insists on her individual rights – through rebelling against her oppressive aunt. Despite their difference in age, social hierarchy and wealth, the child’s tone is that of compelling assertiveness when declaring to her subjugator, “How dare I, Mrs Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth.” The moral maturation of Jane is apparent when she adheres to rationality instead of her undying love for Rochester and she rejects him and his attempt at bigamy; the Romantic ideology of individualism is alluded to with Jane’s indomitable reply “I care for myself […] the more friendless […] the more I will respect myself,” conveying that Jane is unwilling to forfeit her self-reliance in exchange for the comfort received from a union with Rochester though familial support and belonging is her greatest . The imagery garnered from his vocabulary, to “bend”, “uptore”, “tear” and “rend the slight prison” alludes to Rochester’s threats to rape Jane. St John Rivers attempts to mentally manipulate Jane into becoming subservient and accompany him abroad as his wife through a loveless marriage. Recognising Jane’s emotional weakness, he tactically uses phrases such as “dishonour” and “breaking your promise” that have connotations with sin and violations to incite guilt in her, allowing for him to attain his own religious elevation once he makes use of her as his wife. By the end of passage three, St John breaks his usual stoic demeanour and has a “temporary spasm”, is “lividly pale”. Jane maintains her composure, controlling her zeal, while evoking and “whetting” St John’s “steely ire”; through expressing the two characters with traits opposing their natural dispositions – for Jane to be passionate and St John as detached -, the protagonists’ rationality is endorsed and her ability to control her own passions while upholding her morality is praised.
The construction of Jane Eyre incites sympathy from readers as they follow the principal character Jane throughout her life’s journey from her perspective as the first person narrator. Though institutional abuse occurred during the Victorian period, Bronte positions the readers to affirm Jane’s rebellion as a minor against conforming to her Aunt’s deliberate neglect and maltreatment. The novel is narrated by Jane ten years after her marriage with Rochester; as an adult, the detailed commentary of the abuse she experienced when imprisoned in the red room as a child reflects the psychological damage that she still sustains now as an adult. The elaborate language allows for the reader to also experience Jane’s “agony” and “distress” which therefore positions them to recognise justification in Jane’s intolerant act of revolt in passage one when she refers back to her physical and mental torture in the red room. Jane’s spiritual unrest has since developed into a more rational exertion of her emotions, as evident with the narrative’s chronological structure. After interacting with the enduring Helen Burns and refusing to mimic her friends’ absolute tolerance for injustice, Jane learns to express her morals if they were logically sound regardless of her interlocutor’s social class. Jane “interrupt(s)” St John and tells him to “keep to common sense”, daring to defy his role as a religious figure and as a man in a male-dominated society.
Glowing fire is a motif representative of zealousness with its antithesis being ice, the suppression of spirit; ultimately, the inner flame which Janes masters control over is victorious against the forces imposed by others. Mrs Reed and her “eye of ice” is used to instil fear into Jane, forcing the child to submit to compliancy. The might which Jane produces in her verbal retaliation is enough to subdue the oppressive stance of her Aunt; the imagery of Mrs Reed dropping her domestic chores from her knee, “rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting her face as if she would cry” illustrates her physical shock. Jane’s paroxysm of unrestrained emotions is therefore condemned as too excessive to suit her purpose of self expression. Resembling a looming “avalanche” with its connotations as a harsh, intense and cold element, it is associated with the austere St John who attempts to impose his religious dogma onto Jane. This motif symbolises repression, both self-imposed and subjected on others-- his stoicism is “killing” Jane. Rochester is likened to the young Jane in that he is referred to as a fiery, passionate man who makes decisions upon his emotions. While the protagonist controls her inner desires, her master Rochester does not moderate his mental state which in turn inflicts harm to himself and Jane, his “flaming glance” and “fierce face” enslaving Jane mentally, rendering her “powerless”. His forcefulness is repelling; indeed, reflecting Bronte’s contention that while spiritual expression is a necessity in ones’ life, it must be moderated at both extremes – passion and dispassion.
“There I plant my foot” provides finality in Jane’s musing – the assertive tone highlights the protagonists’ resolve in containing her fire, her passion, and to follow rationality’s calling to leave Rochester. Dissatisfied with her society’s expectations that women should be compelled to living a life of domesticity, Bronte’s protagonist does not conform to the passive role which she is given and instead vies for relationships with others who she considers as her equals.
1028 words
Wu:
Jane Eyre - passage analysis (refers to first page where Jane is reading her book among the curtains, the lightning striking the chestnut tree and when she sleeps outside after running away from Thornfield) completed in August
The imagery evoked from the “clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear
November day” is one of melancholy and peace in knowing that nature is not completely controlling of one’s own destiny; that our actions in respect to our situations is what matters. The duality of nature is depicted compellingly; while nature is portrayed in passage one as vigorous and destructive, it is also nurturing of individualism and belonging.
The bird motif is used throughout the Victorian novel as a representation of Jane’s attempt at balancing her individualistic needs and acceptance in her relationships. Subjugated by her aunt and cousins, Jane is introduced reading Bewick’s book, ‘History of British Birds’. Traditionally associated with freedom and liberty in literature, Jane yearns for individual pursuit and knowledge despite the restrictive constraints of the patriarchal system which discourages children from speaking up and for women to be outspoken. Through the use of simile in passage three, Bronte aligns Jane with a “bird with both wings broken” to suggest her struggle “in vain attempts” to seek out a relationship with Rochester. Although Jane wishes to be able to address her needs and wants, she also wants companionship. In passage two, Jane is overjoyed with her engagement with Rochester but her happiness is being held back by her need to assimilate with her community. Through the structuring the narrative perspective from Jane’s point of view, the “pang” which she felt if Mrs Fairfax were to even “temporarily misconstrue” the fact that Jane and Rochester were kissing explicates her insecurities with her relationship with Edward. The two assume a master and servant relationship of different social class and Jane is aware of that their unequal union is not accepted by society’s standards. While she cannot find approval in society, nature is illustrated as compelling and able to provide Jane the comfort of companionship which she desires. It is personified as a protective and endearing mother who “would lodge [her] without money and without price” which is indicative of the unconditional love which nature provides; a philosophy inspired from the Romantic Period. Jane clung to nature with “filial fondness” – these words with their connotations with family illicit a sense that nature can be a substitute mother and a figure of admiration to Jane, just as Bessie and Ms Temple were. The image conjured up from Jane remarking that she was nature’s “child” and “would be her guest” is reminiscent of the moon which turned into a woman when Jane revisited the red room in her dream just before she was about to marry Rochester. The moon goddess’ advise to “flee temptation” coupled with the “benign and good” weather which it bestows Jane during her night of poverty indicates the guidance which nature can provide. Despite the welcoming and encompassing qualities which nature displays, Jane ultimately chooses civilisation rather than isolation and heads into Morton to seek help.
“The weather changes” and with it is Bronte’s reminder of the fragility of humans exposed to fate. Nature indeed plays a part in dictating the lives of humans as it symbolises destiny; Jane’s initial encounter with her eventual husband Edward Rochester is poignant in that he, characterised as a Byronic Hero who appears high on his horse, is mocked when he slips on ice. Bronte positions the reader to laugh at Rochester’s brooding manner which he was introduced as by subverting reader’s expectations and having him fall over in a clumsy manner due to the weather conditions. The eventual fate of Jane and Rochester’s union is foreshadowed by the horse-chestnut tree; “half of it split away” after being struck by lightning. The personification in passage two of the tree which “writhed” and “groaned” while the “wind roared” evokes a startling imagery of struggle and strife through the verbs’ connotations with strain and discomfort which is antithetical to the joy which Jane feels after accepting Rochester’s proposal. Through constructing the novel so that the chapter ends with the tree severed, an ominous atmosphere is created which is suggestive that Jane should not marry Rochester yet as it means that she will compromise her own integrity and self respect. The tree ultimately grows with new sprouts developing from where the root was split which reflects the revival of the couple’s relationship and their marriage as equals. It is also fate or perhaps pure coincidence that Jane is bestowed a fortune inherited by her uncle after experiencing extreme poverty; regardless, it is Jane’s resilience and rejection of fatalism in a society which required passivity from women which is highly advocated.
Naturally, with fate comes the vulnerability of death. The terms relating to weather events such as “fields on ice”, “rigours of extreme cold” and “torpid sea” are reoccurring while Jane reads her book. Although Jane is a child, the poignancy of the images could not “pass unnoticed” which is suggestive of the recognisable destruction which nature can cause. Symbolising the indiscriminately wrathful qualities which nature can induce, the “broken boat stranded on a desolate coast” and the “wreck just sinking” are just some casualties demonstrating Bronte’s warning. The imagery of a “solitary churchyard” and its “inscribed headstone” is evidential of this preoccupation of death linking with nature. This passage resonates the harsh cold winters at Lowood which contributed to the deaths of many of the students – their lives prematurely ending due to the unpredictable nature of the weather.
The natural world has the potential to be as nurturing as it is ferocious. During the “unclouded night-sky”, Jane revels in her musings and is granted greater developments as to her own religious values. She had previously been exposed to and rejected other models of religion from figures such as Helen Burns and Brocklehurst, taking the aspects which she respected to create an own form which she believes in. Away from the restrictions of civilisation, Jane prays for Rochester while she rests amongst the countryside.
The contrariety between Jane’s desire to be acknowledged in society while also maintaining her independence is heightened in tension through nature’s potency to interfere with the fate of humans. While the weather at times reflected Jane’s mood, other times it would act as a real human would; it could be caring, a source of companionship, guiding and erratic. Nature is both the closest that mankind is to both death and life for it can be the cause of a “broken boat” as well as be interrelated to God.
1073 words.
Second last paragraph is not completed because it is not within my capacity to discuss religion as well I hoped to yet. Will attempt again at a later time.
DJA:
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby Passage Analysis
Fitzgerald shows the necessity of performing; of concealing an individual’s true identity, to be an intrinsic part of the “senior society” of people like the Buchannans. As Tom’s possessions, both Daisy and Myrtle conceal their true emotions and personal identity, instead donning a veneer of overstated satisfaction and happiness which only barely covers their fundamental insecurity which was an unavoidable part of the changing social landscape of the 1920’s. However the loss of humanity and unnaturalness of this transformation is spurned by Fitzgerald’s language and the minute slivers of anxiety which break through this unrealistic façade, demonstrate the eventual failure of these constructions. Ultimately, Fitzgerald suggests that his characters’ acceptance of the restrictions which go hand in hand with Tom’s exclusive club is driven by their human need to feel secure and protected, as well the inevitable attraction of material possessions.
“Membership” to Tom’s “secret society” is characterised by an exaggerated performance which all characters must subscribe to; mirroring Tom’s own hyperbolic physical supremacy. The imagery which Fitzgerald uses to define Tom Buchanan focusses on the physical superiority which forms an integral part of his identity. Tom’s “shining arrogant eyes” and the “great pack of muscle” which makes up his shoulder gives the reader an impression of his dominance and all-encompassing pride in his accomplishments and possessions. Nick’s initial impression of Tom places him “standing with his legs apart on the front porch,” and “leaning aggressively forward.” This hyper-masculine image of dominance is one which seems slightly out of place in the shifting social landscape of the time; where women were beginning to gain a separate identity from their previously homebound role. It is as if Tom’s insecurity drives this performance; spurning a need to appear overtly masculine in a desperate attempt to make up for his inability to cope with the idea of female autonomy. As a result, Tom’s view of life is one which is highly traditional in nature; ruthlessly compartmentalising to the extent of reducing human beings such as his wife Daisy to the status of possessions. Thus, as Tom’s possession, Daisy too must conform to the expectations of performance and so dons a façade of superficial beauty and skin-deep happiness, evidenced in her belief that the “best thing a girl can be” is a “beautiful little fool.” The “paternal contempt” oozing from Tom’s voice demonstrates that the relationship he has with Daisy is characterised by a power imbalance which treats Daisy as inferior similar to the patronising way a parent would look upon a child. In this stifling atmosphere, there is no doubt that Daisy projection of shallow foolishness is utterly necessary in her union with Tom; intelligence and independence under Tom’s unrelenting control is an impossibility. In a similar fashion, the rise in status afforded by the relationship Myrtle has with Tom causes her entire “personality…to under[go] a change”. The changing of her “costume” and the donning of an “elaborate afternoon dress” is symbolic of the adoption of an exaggerated outer pretence which is a prerequisite for admittance into the affluent frivolity which Tom represents.
Fitzgerald’s disapproval of the unnaturalness of the performances put on by Tom, Daisy and Myrtle is revealed primarily through his descriptions which place their facades at odds with nature itself; as well as the occasional glimpses into the true angst of the individual behind the mask. Nick notes that Tom talks with “his eyes flashing about restlessly”, a description which emphasises Tom’s anxiety even within the comfort zone which his vast material wealth promises to offer. Additionally his irrational fear that the “white race will be…utterly submerged” if they don’t “look out” reveals his subscription to the pseudo-scientific racist propaganda of “The Rise of the Coloured Empires” as a method of dealing with his personal fears of a loss of white supremacy and a loss of pre-war traditional values. In order to fit into Tom’s bafflingly irrational world, both Daisy and Tom to some extent adopt Tom’s characteristics. Myrtle’s “vitality” is transformed into “hauteur”, this word bearing connotations of arrogance and superiority. The loss of vitality is a fact which Fitzgerald highlights; the personality in the garage is lost, destroyed by the fantastical show which she puts on when with Tom. The increasingly figurative language which Fitzgerald uses to convey her inebriated actions as she “expanded” and began “revolving on a noisy creaking pivot” puts her performance at odds with reality and nature. Rather than the energy and liveliness which is the source of her natural attraction, Myrtle is reduced to a pathetic figure; an obscene puppet which dances in the “smoky air” of Tom’s fantasies. Daisy too is a victim to Tom’s allure. Nick recognises with shock the way her eyes flash “around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s” and her “smirk” as she smugly asserts her “membership [to] a rather distinguished secret society which she and Tom belonged.” However, the confidence she gains from this union is one which is short-lived; her performance falls away when she is alone with Nick. Nick’s observation of the “turbulent emotions” which possess her give the reader a glimpse into Daisy’s true fragility; the “lovely shape” of her face is like a beautiful china vase; aesthetically pleasing, but easily damaged, whether it be by the news of Gatsby’ original return, or simply the years of enduring with the knowledge of Tom’s infidelity and lack of genuine love. While Daisy tries to hide it; the fact that “Tom was God knows where” when she bears her little girl hurts her deeply; it is a thought which constantly plagues her mind and which surfaces at the first moment that Nick and her are alone. Daisy and Myrtle’s acceptance that things are “terrible now” haunts the reader, forcing them to question why they would voluntarily choose to remain in a pseudo-relationship which will never satisfy them emotionally.
Ultimately, Daisy and Myrtle subscribe to Tom’s “society” out of their need to feel secure and safe in his wealth, estate and material possessions; regardless of Tom’s inability to provide true love and emotional intimacy. Myrtle’s life with Wilson is one which is characterised by uncertainty; Wilson relies on the good graces on Tom to secure a deal on a car which represents a good portion of his livelihood. Thus, for Myrtle, Tom represents a way out of her mundane existence; a hope which is intrinsically tied with the sense of optimism and potential of improvement even when starting from nothing which permeates the belief system of the decade. Additionally, Myrtle seems completely devoted to materialism. The pathetic image of her “trying to spread a copy of Town Tattle over the tapestry” together with her “dress of cream-coloured chiffon” demonstrates her reluctance to surrender the trappings of wealth which come with her new-found status, even though Tom’s affections are little more than lust. The colour “cream” is one which is traditionally associated with sophistication; the warmth of brown and the coolness of white blending with a sense of calm and tranquillity. This representation is deliberately upturned by Fitzgerald’s portrayal of the wild party which Myrtle, Tom and Nick engage in; their “violently affected movement” being symbolic of the violent emotions within the characters as they individually seek to deal with their personal insecurities. It is Daisy’s willing acquiescence to the dysfunctional union between Tom and herself despite the joyless nature of their marriage which truly reveals the undeniable appeal of material wealth. Like Tom, Daisy is insecure about her place in the world; her identity is one which is split into multiple slivers as evidenced by her “cynical” self, the overtly emotional one she presents to Nick, and the unthinking, foolish charming Daisy which she dons in Tom’s presence. The toll of this fragmented personality is evidenced in Fitzgerald’s oxymoronic description of her “sad” yet “lovely” face. In a distressed effort to make sense of her unstable world; Daisy reverts back to what is a more traditional outlook on life. She endures under Tom’s cruel dominance; his infidelity and lack of love, because at heart, she yearns for a sense stability and at that point in her life, it is Tom who can provide this to her. It is ironic that the apparent stability which Tom offers is as shallow as the performance she puts on, and that when Gatsby, her lost lover rises from the ashes of her past, her world is once again thrown into utter chaos.
Tom’s allure is the sense of stability he provides which is intrinsically tied with his grandiose wealth, and swaggering outer performance. However when we strip away this outer façade, we reveal an unstable and restless individual harbouring the same human fears which plague all characters. Despite characters such as Daisy, Myrtle and Tom’s desperate attempts to achieve a sense of security, they all ultimately fail to do so. For Myrtle and Daisy, Tom’s wealth is unable to stave off their hunger for material possessions or comfort and alleviate the violent emotions which lie just beneath the surface. For Tom, his esteemed status in life, wealth and order cannot provide him with the fulfilment he desires. Through the futile actions of his characters, Fitzgerald thus makes a statement of the inability of materialism to provide genuine meaning and satisfaction as compounded by the lack of genuine human connection which governs the majority of the relationships in the novel.
brightsky:
Persuasion: Essay Three
Set A
From the outset of Passage One, Austen establishes Lady Russell as a woman of principle. The proliferation of the moral auxiliary “must” in Lady Russell’s speech unveils her detailed acquaintance with the moral standards of society. Unlike Sir Walter, who is, without doubt, completely oblivious to the demands of society upon the individual, Lady Russell apprehends that an aristocrat has certain obligations to fulfil, an insight which Austen has her deliver in the form of an aphorism (“the person who has contracted debts must pay them”). Anne exhibits a similar comprehension of the importance of operating strictly within the boundaries of comity in Passage Two, where she reflects upon the impropriety of Mary’s exhortation to inform Sir Walter and Elizabeth of the party’s chance encounter with Mr. Elliot. Unlike Mary, who exhibits a vexing propensity to repeat herself (“you will mention…do mention”), Anne and Lady Russell speak in a very orderly fashion, and the conclusions which they reach are often nuanced, as suggested by the sequence of conditionals at the beginning of Lady Russell’s speech in Passage One (“If we can persuade you father…If he will adopt these regulations”). The discrepancy between Mary’s style of discourse and that of Lady Russell reveals the connection which Austen attempts to establish throughout Persuasion between language and character: the manner in which characters manipulate language inevitably discloses certain aspects about their intrinsic being.
Austen juxtaposes the rationality of Lady Russell with Sir Walter’s child-like insistence upon the pleasures of the body at the end of Passage One in an effort to unveil the extent of the aristocracy’s degeneration. Austen alerts the reader to the unfortunate outcome of Lady Russell’s toils in a blunt but emphatic tricolon: “Lady Russell’s had no success at all – could not be put up with – were not to be borne.” The mortification of Sir Walter is made clear in the cornucopia of the exclamation marks, and the incomplete and fragmented nature of the sentences which those exclamation marks immediately succeed. Unlike Lady Russell and Anne, Sir Walter is unable to grasp the value of honesty; as elsewhere in the novel, he is more concerned with the “decencies” to which he thinks a man of his social standing is entitled, as suggested in the remarkable hyperbole “Every comfort of life knocked off!” Sir Walter considers his predicament “disgraceful” not because he is unable to pay his creditors, but because he can no longer live in the way of an aristocrat. Austen’s comedic dissection of Sir Walter is a testament to her awareness of the imminent downfall of the aristocracy, whose members have, to her consternation, shifted their focus from the intrinsic to extrinsic, from the substantial to the insubstantial.
On a deeper level, then, Austen seeks, in Passage One, as elsewhere, to illuminate the distinction between an aristocrat by nature and an aristocrat by convention. For centuries, the aristocracy, whose name literally means ‘rule of the best’ in Greek, based its claim to rule on martial virtue. The reader notes, however, a curious dearth of any Homeric qualities in the aristocrats who feature in the kaleidoscopic world of Persuasion; as indicated by Sir Walter’s refusal to relinquish the decencies of a noble in order to pay his debts, the aristocrats of Austen’s day have long abandoned their traditional role of military leadership and now think in terms of rights rather than obligations. In a sense, then, Austen offers an aristocratic critique of the aristocracy; she animadverts upon the aristocrats for failing to live up to their own aristocratic principles. As Austen makes clear in Passage One through her use of free indirect speech, Sir Walter adopts a way of life where ritualistic form is everything and the content nothing. His life amounts to nothing more than a dry artistic performance brutally cut off from the sources in nature that originally made the role meaningful. Captain Wentworth’s conduct in Passage Three indicates to the reader that what the aristocrats of old have left behind, the naval officers have picked up, and the reader is fully aware that, in fighting the Napoleonic wars on behalf of the aristocrats, the navy has well and truly replaced the aristocracy as the new, masculine bulwark of the body of the nation against intruders, and, as a result, have as much, if not more, of the claim on the title of aristocracy as the aristocrats themselves.
Austen contrasts the cold civility of Sir Walter and Elizabeth with the balmy cordiality of Anne’s companions in Passage Three in an effort to disclose the deleterious ramifications of the rigidity of upper class society. Austen constructs the scene in such a way as to make the presumptuous entrance of Sir Walter and Elizabeth appear as something of transition point. In a series of short declarative statements (“Their preparations…were cut short. Alarming sounds were heard; other visitors approached; the door was thrown open…”), Austen communicates the instantaneous effect of Sir Walter and Elizabeth on the livelihood and vivacity of the room; the pair have literally decreased the temperature of the room, and retarded, as a result, the average velocity of the spirits that were initially at play within it. Unlike the Musgroves and the naval officers, Sir Walter and Elizabeth have an unhealthy preoccupation with particular points of formality, as evidenced in the tricolon “cold composure, determined silence, or insipid talk”. While Austen recognises the importance of manners, she looks upon those in her novel who obsess over propriety without an understanding of the morality that lies behind with a critical eye; civility, Austen argues, results only in oppression and division when brought to an extreme. Rather, it is with the needle of compassion and gaiety that the fabric of society is stitched together.
In fact, throughout Persuasion as a whole, Austen is particularly sceptical as to the value of polite display. As Austen demonstrates at the opening of Passage Two, the mask of social artifice has a very real potential to deceive. The adverb “undoubtedly” in Anne’s description of William Elliot reveals the extent to which former has been misled by the latter’s general exhibition of “good sense”. The structural symmetry of the second paragraph, with “secret gratification” at the beginning in balance with “perfect secret” at the end, discloses to the reader the fact that Anne has internalised what very much belongs to the external world; Anne does not recognise the fact that Mr Elliot hides behind an shield, a façade of “polite excuses”, and simply, and naively, assumes that the self which people project onto the world gives a very strong indication of the self which the world projects onto them. As Austen reveals at a later point in the novel, however, in the case of Mr Elliot, a radical disjunction exists between the interior and exterior. Austen has the reader appreciate that by no stretch of the imagination does Mr Elliot deserve the adverb “cousinly” which Anne innocently bestows upon him. The bitter taste of conceit and deception, Austen suggests, cannot be glazed by the sugar of good manners.
Whilst Anne ultimately develops a natural aversion towards Mr Elliot on account of his lack of candour, Lady Russell remains, for most of the novel, in the dark, and requires Anne to lead her out through the veil of appearances into the sunlit realm of objective facts. But Austen does not allow the reader to forget all the damage that Lady Russell’s apparent discernment did unto Anne. The awkward exchange between Captain Wentworth and Anne in Passage Three, characterised as it is by short but short, stiff declarative statements, serves as a vehicle through Austen alerts the reader to the moral dangers associated with persuasion. The forked tongue of the persuader influences not only the mind but also the heart of the person towards whom all the rhetoric is directed, and, for this reason, persuasion is at once the art of seduction and the art of enlightenment. As Lady Russell is no doubt aware in Passage One, the person who assumes the role of moral advisor must invariably act under the pretence that the future is open for all to see; and therein lies the rub. As Wentworth’s exhausted exclamation “Eight years and a half is a period!” illuminates, the future is inherently unpredictable, wrought, to a significant extent, by forces greater than the individual. Lady Russell’s prior exertions to cleave the relationship between Anne and Wentworth resulted from nothing more than a flagrant distrust of Providence, and led ultimately to the illogicality at the opening of Passage Three, where “Captain Wentworth…walked to the fireplace…for the sake of walking away from it”. Austen thus indicates that while ‘to be persuaded’ might be a rational motion, ‘to persuade’ is morally ambiguous at best. And so rather than fall back on an external checklist or on an authoritarian moral advisor, individual must have the courage to make decisions on their own in the knowledge that some will end badly and some well. The burden of choice, with Anne as it is with Sir Walter in Passage One, is on the individual. To try to avoid “the uncertainty of all human events and calculations” is to try to avoid living itself.
brightsky:
Persuasion: Essay 4
Set B
Austen’s biting satire in Passage One serves only to elucidate the humorous excesses and deficiencies of Sir Walter, whose puerile insistence upon rank and appearance, the reader notes, contributes a great deal to his comic stature. Austen underscores the absurdity of Sir Walter’s drastic and sudden change of opinion with the concise clause of “without hesitation”. Unlike Anne, who in Passage Two demonstrates fully her capacity to see through the veil of appearance, Sir Walter leads a subterranean life amongst the shadows; the only feature of Admiral Croft which he deems worthy of mention is purely physical, and entirely external, as indicated by Sir Walter’ insistence upon “the arranging of [the Admiral’s] hair”. The hyperbolic nature of the description which ensues (“best-looking soldier he had ever met”) alerts the reader to Sir Walter’s constitutional incapacity to discern the truth. Blinded by vanity and devoid of a clear moral compass, Sir Walter can only grope aimlessly around the tunnel of life, and so poses very little threat to the naval officers, who discern with lucidity that “the baronet [can] never set the Thames on fire”. Austen’s comedic dissection of Sir Walter is a testament to her awareness of the imminent downfall of the aristocracy, whose members have, to her consternation, shifted their focus from the intrinsic to the extrinsic, from the substantial to the insubstantial.
The fatuous remarks of Sir Walter contrasts starkly with the informed observations of Lady Russell, whose rationality and sagacity Austen makes at once explicit. Unlike Sir Walter, Lady Russell possesses the admirable propensity to substantiate her opinions with logical justification, a fact which Austen indicates through her use of free indirect speech. Anne’s internal monologue in Passage Two, punctuated by a plethora of semicolons, similarly strikes the reader for its coherence and orderliness, and the reader is left in no doubt that the words proceed from a well-regulated and disciplined mind. Austen deliberately juxtaposes Anne’s vehement appeal to what is “most right, most wise” with Mary’s egocentric exhortations. The adverbial refrain in the ascending tricolon of “often a little unwell, and always thinking… and always in the habit of claiming” establishes at once Mary’s petulance. The noun “reasoning” is ironic, for, as the reader appreciates, the declarative statement “I cannot possibly do without Anne” hardly constitutes a proper argument and in fact does more to reveal Mary’s lack of capacity to reason. The discrepancy between Mary’s style of discourse and that of Anne thus reveals the connection which Austen seeks to establish throughout Persuasion between language and character: the manner in which characters manipulate linguistic constructs inevitably discloses certain aspects of their inner being.
On a deeper level, then, Austen seeks, in Passage One, as elsewhere, to illuminate the distinction between an aristocrat by nature and an aristocrat by convention. For centuries, the aristocracy, whose name literally means ‘rule of the best’ in Greek, based its claim to rule on martial virtue. The reader notes, however, the curious dearth of any remotely Homeric qualities in the aristocrats who feature in the kaleidoscopic world of Persuasion; as indicated by Sir Walter’s condescension as he mulls over, idly, the worth of his new tenant, who so happens to have just returned from war (“he…went so far as to say that…he should not be ashamed of being seen with him anywhere”), the aristocrats have long abandoned their traditional role of military leadership and now think solely in terms of rights rather than obligations. In a sense, then, Austen offers an aristocratic critique of the aristocracy; she animadverts upon the aristocrats for failing to live up to their own aristocratic principles. As Austen makes clear at the end of Passage Two, where Anne expresses her deep disappointment at her father’s sycophantic conduct towards the Dalrymples, Sir Walter has adopted a way of life where ritualistic form is everything and content nothing. His life amounts to nothing more than a dry artistic performance, brutally cut off from the sources in nature that originally made the role meaningful. The transfer of Kellynch-hall from Sir Walter to Admiral Croft, depicted at the opening of Passage One, symbolically indicates to the reader that what the aristocrats of old have left behind, the naval officers have picked up. The reader is aware that, in fighting the Napoleonic wars on the behalf of the aristocrats, the navy has well and truly replaced the aristocracy as the new, masculine bulwark of the body of the nation against intruders. As a result, Austen suggests, they have as much, if not more, of the claim on the title of aristocracy as the aristocrats themselves.
In fact, throughout Persuasion as a whole, Austen is particularly sceptical as to the value of polite display. As Austen demonstrates throughout Passage Two, the mask of social artifice has a very real potential to deceive. The absolutism in “without any question” and the superlative of “pleasantest” combine to reveal the extent to which Anne was initially misled by Mr Elliot’s general exhibition of good sense. But Austen does not allow her heroine to remain oblivious to Mr Elliot’s façade, as revealed in Passage Three. Although at first she naively assumes that the self, projected by a man onto the world, gives a good indication of the self, projected onto the man by the world, Anne eventually detects in Mr Elliot a slipperiness that causes her much internal distress. Anne’s soul, Austen suggests, is connected to realm of obligations situated above that of facts, and so as much as she tries to reconstruct reality in Mr Elliot’s favour by application of reason in Passage Two (“It was not…it must be…”), her instincts and emotions eventually lead her to the discovery that, in the case of Mr Elliot, a radical disjunction exists between the interior and the exterior. Austen has the reader appreciate that by no stretch of the imagination does Mr Elliot deserve Anne’s hyperbolic acclaim (“nobody equal to him”). The bitter taste of conceit and deception, Austen suggests, cannot be glazed by the sugar of good manners.
Instead, Austen advocates authenticity of character. Across the three passages, Austen establishes Anne as the epitome of femininity. The proliferation of the moral auxiliary “must” and the repetition of the noun “duty” in Anne’s speech in Passage Two unveils the heroine’s detailed acquaintance with the moral standards of society. Unlike Sir Walter in Passage One, Anne is remarkably sensitive to the demands of society upon the individual, and never tires of reminding herself of the dictates of propriety (“In that house Elizabeth must be first”). Even in Passage Three, after her reunion with Captain Wentworth, Anne is conscious of the need for Lady Russell to “love Captain Wentworth as she ought”. The tricolon of “respectability…harmony…good-will” encapsulates all about which Anne is most concerned; the fact that all three are intrinsic rather than extrinsic properties, Austen suggests, marks Anne as a transcendent woman, and indeed in the closing line of Passage Three, Anne is abstracted to a platonic ideal (“Anne was tenderness itself”), not by a process which she implements herself, as in the case with Sir Walter, but by a process implemented by a truly deferential author. For her unyielding adherence to timeless laws of morality, Anne is rewarded; Sir Walter and Elizabeth, by contrast, are granted only a life of “half-enjoyment”. Austen indicates that only by remaining true to their sacred cores can humans reach the zenith of existence.
But Austen is concerned not merely with the welfare of the individual but, more importantly, with the welfare of the state. Austen presents, in Passage Two, a multiplicity of perspectives; the structural parallels between the first and fourth paragraphs (“think differently…did not always think alike”) serve to indicate that, within the fluid, shifting world of capitalism, deep chasms may exist between the minds of even the most intimate of individuals. The nation in which Anne lives is far from an integrated whole, but is rather constituted by a collection of social commonwealths, founded on location, and hence, by necessity, insular. Anne cannot comprehend the sentiments of Lady Russell precisely because she belongs to a different community, with a different ‘language’ and a different set of values and concerns. The incommensurability of different social commonwealths means, for Austen, that individuals within a nation are seldom able to come together of their own accord. Austen, however, finds in the navy a positive regulatory agent, with the capacity to induct disparate individuals into the community at large. Unlike the aristocracy, the navy instils within every individual a sense of social responsibility by reaching into the individual’s domestic life, and the reader no doubt appreciates that it is precisely this sense of social responsibility and duty that impels Captain Wentworth to recover the property of Mrs Smith’s husband in Passage Three. In Austen’s view, only with the needle of duty can the national be stitched with the domestic, and only when the national and domestic are inextricably tied can individuals find their place within the intricate tapestry of society.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version