Narrative Analysis of a Passage from Chapter 20 of Jane Austen’s Persuasion
Narrative Analysis of a Passage from Chapter 20 of Jane Austen’s Persuasion The delay in Persuasion agrees with Garcia’s perspective that “it is the palpable quality of waiting… that interests Austen most.”(Garcia, 2018) Austen knows “we enjoy the suspense in delaying a denouement.”(Brooks quoted Bennet and Royle 2016, 57) She utilises, what we now recognise as Bremond’s model of structure (‘deficiency, improvement, satisfaction, degradation and back again,’) to engage the reader (Bremond 1970 quoted Jahn 2021) through their “waiting”. ‘Improvement’ I will argue, often comes with language. Whilst initially the ‘deficiency’ takes the form of physical distance between her love interests. Immediately we are told there is a “vacant space at hand.” The delicate adjective “vacant” with its negative connotations of emptiness or unuse suggest such a “space” is an issue, a “situation” that needs to be resolved. In the same first sentence that Anne notices this “space” it is revealed that ...