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 she sees Wentworth is “again in sight”. The pairing of “Wentworth” and free “space” is instantaneous. The two are separated by a mere 3 words. Austen suggests that Anne instinctually connects Wentworth with her problems, but, we wonder, as her saviour from them, or their creator.
The focus on Wentworth continues when “She saw him,” is followed by “he saw her”, a continuation of the lexical field of sight in this paragraph. Bennet and Royle suggest that “people in love in Shakespeare are constantly concerned with the role and importance of the eye … with seeing and being seen” (Bennet and Royle 2016, 242). Therefore, this implicit characterization in the form of their non-verbal behaviour indicates their mutual desire. As readers we know that the lover we choose is the one our heart reaches out too ‘instinctively’ even if it is not what those around us, or in our family, might want - a trope as old as time, or at the very least as old as Romeo and Juliet, that Austen uses to foreshadow that we will get to ‘satisfaction’.

Yet the desire we read is twisted by Austen cleverly. She uses the impersonal pronoun’s “he” and “she” which, along with this lexical field of “sight”, of looking, of longing, suggest a distance between the two. Wentworth, the solution or problem (or both), is presented as ‘so close but yet so far away’.
Austen expands upon this distance by highlighting a new, metaphorical distance to which this physical distance only hints at. In this, one of her last novels, Austen uses her mastered free indirect speech to allow Anne to break over the covert narrator and tell us that she feels, “something must be the matter” (with Wentworth). Followed by psycho-narration underlining Anne’s ‘mind style’ of thinking and investigating “why was it?” As readers we are unable to inform her that moving away from the man she is desires is not a good idea, but desperately want to.

Focalisation on Anne, our ‘reflector’ allows us to “co-experience her world” (Jahn 2021) with such emotion. The story ‘pauses’ for her to give us a stream of consciousness. We do wonder why must she think so much? Why can she not act, and tell Wentworth her truth that she tells us so well, ultimately reaching her ‘satisfaction’ sooner?
Maybe it because of the public setting. In which she cannot step out of line due to the “boundaries of her society.” (Garcia 2018) The use of honorific address for “Captain Wentworth” might suggest so. Jahn tells us that much of a character’s persona may be “conditional on factors such as a private or public setting” (Jahn 2021). The use of a heterodiegetic narrator could be read to suggest that in Anne’s world someone is always watching. A pressure Austen herself might feel in 19th century society, with ever-present pressure upon the female. Whilst there was an “assumption for a long time… that a verbal narrative’s setting is simply not important” (Jahn 2021) in Austen’s work, placing Anne frequently in public (with Mary for her first ‘re-meeting’, when Wentworth is writing his letter, or here at the party) is a choice that strongly impacts the narrative.

Anne in public often “sacrifices to politeness”, for example in “obliging” Mr Elliot. Ultimately leading to Wentworth’s leaving. Garcia tells us “Silence in Austen's novels represents a mode of "communicative composure”, which favourably distinguishes her” (Garcia, 2018). But I would disagree. This silence is not ‘favourable’. I read this scene as a message (a Persuasion) to the silent women. The often lonely, educated woman of the 1800s - to not always surrender with a mere “suffering spirit”, her brother, in his biography of Austen, tells us that her own “manners were not inferior to her temper.” (Austen, 1817)
Language, not “silence”, in the form of Anne’s initial discussion, is presented as a problem solver. Garcia argues that Anne’s silence distinguishes her from the “loose tongues” of other women (Garcia, 2018). I would adjust her statement and suggest Austen tells us that it is Anne’s fine choice of words, when she speaks “so well” and “so pleasantly” that are shown to have the power to bring about a change in a person. Wentworth begins to “smile”, before he considers a “place beside her well worth occupying.” The summary mode of presentation of the discourse here suggests a calmness that implies improvement, a presentation that is not to last.

The positives of speech, of language, are underlined further by the sudden peripetia, the “turn around”, in the extract, the “disturbance of … stability” which narrative frequently contains (Brooks 1984, quoted Bennet and Royle 2016, 57) as Mr Elliot interrupts her, not with language, but with a “touch on her shoulder”.
Mr Elliot goes on to “beg her pardon”. Telling her in the passive voice that “she must be applied to”. Contrasting these against the later sharp “accosted” with its phonological closeness to ‘act’, suggests Wentworth is a man of action who jumps in in order to speak with Anne. In comparison Elliot’s interruptions appear weak, not the 19th century portrayal of the desirable man. Elliot takes on the role of the “foil character” who highlights the good points of another (Jahn 2021), in this case Wentworth.

Accepting Sedgwick’s argument that desire is “structured by a triangular relation of rivalry” (quoted Bennet and Royle 2016, 256) Elliot’s role as the foil in this dynamic deserves more attention. His ‘stealing’ of Anne from Wentworth, just as the physical and metaphorical distance between the two had begun to shrink ultimately causes Wentworth’s leaving. However, as Sedgwick and Bremond could have predicted, ultimately, this tearing apart, this desire of Anne from another, leads to her revelation. As Bremond’s model of narrative suggests the degradation will ultimately lead to improvement.
Wentworth, unlike Anne’s own understanding of his earlier “grave” and “disappointed” spirit, does not seem to understand that Anne “could not refuse,” Elliot, and cannot see her “suffering spirit.” This dramatic irony fires the readers emotions. We want to shout at the page and tell him “There is (in fact something) worth (your) staying for”.

For Garcia, Austen insists on silence as an indication of “desires incompatibility with speech” (Garcia 2018) but this extract, I would argue, disagrees. The initial building of connection is only told via ‘Indirect content paraphrase’. Now we get full-fledged dialogue, when the desire, from Sedgwick’s perspective, heightened again by the interest of another, is at its highest. The rare exclamation “No!” following the even rarer occurrence in this extract, a question being answered, underlines the importance of these lines. The real dialogue brings an added sense of presence to this scene. Its short simple phrases mirror many crucial moments in our own lives, short and simple when we live through them, even if we look back on them for years to come.
Narratives “invariably involve …the slowing down and speeding up of events,” (Genette 1986) for this dialogue Austen speeds up the ‘discourse time’. “When able to turn” Anne is accosted, wished goodnight and informed Wentworth is going by ‘tagged direct discourse’ (Jahn 2021) framed parenthetically. All happening inside of a singular “when”. Then she is “suddenly stuck by an idea” but Wentworth is almost as quickly “gone directly”, the verb-adjective structure and parenthetical framing suggesting that before Anne even has time to comprehend how it has happened, Wentworth has left the scene.

Following their dialogue, the jump back into Anne’s internal monologue is immediate, as if it is the place she really wants to be. We understand “thinking of love is itself a jouissance” (Lacan, 1982 quoted in Bennet and Royle 2016, 240) for Anne, something that also seems true for Austen, who writes prodigiously on the topic. She might agree with the view “love is a profoundly literary experience” (Bennet and Royle 2016, 248).
The discourse time slows and, like a detective who “has to read people to negotiate her way to a happy ending” (Garcia 2018), Anne figures out that “jealousy” was “the only intelligible motive” for Wentworth’s misunderstanding, intuitively understanding Sedgwick’s model. This feels like an end, “characteristically a place of revelation” (Bennet and Royle 2016, 57). But her “gratification” is short lived, now Anne’s questions ring a different tone. “How” not “what” or “why”.

Austen builds again with ‘deficiency’ but demonstrates Anne is a ‘Round Character’ who has built to fighting for what she wants with her voice when she finally asks her question aloud. Underlining again the power of language to ‘improve’ one’s situation, as the writing of books improved hers.
Browning’s Two in the campagna (1855) may “suggest the impossibility and inevitable failure of this desire” (Bennet and Royle 2016, 256) but this work seems to suggest that desire will eventually succeed. A strange conclusion given Austen only had one proposal of marriage which she eventually runs from (Harrison 2023).

 
Word count including references and title, excluding bibliography: 1639

Bibliography:
Austen, Henry, 1817. Biographical prelude to Northanger Abbey. London. URL www.mollands.net/etexts/northangerabbey/bio.html (accessed 8/11/2023)

Bennet, Andrew and Royle, Nicholas, 2016. An Introduction To Literary Criticism And Theory, 5th ed, Milton park, Oxen; New York: Routledge ISBN 978-1-138-11902-4  (Chapters: 7,26,27))
Garcia, Christian, 2018. Left Hanging: Silence, Suspension, And Desire in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. University of Pennsylvania Press. Pages: 85-103.

Genette, Gerard, 1986. Quoted in General Theory Notes. University of Sheffield URL: www.studocu.com/en-gb/document/university-of-sheffield/literature-and-critical-thought/general-theory-notes/23849652 (Accessed 9/11/2023)
Jahn, Manfred, 2021. Narratology 2.3: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative. English Department, University of Cologne. URL www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppn.pdf. (accessed 7/11/2023)

Linda Harrison, 2023 ‘Jane Austen’ A Short History Of… Available At: BBC Sounds (Accessed 6/11/2023)