My final post in this four-part series shows how my student Mary used Persuasion in her Jane Austen senior project to validate her growing self-confidence. She focused in that novel on the reading scenes involving the sensitive Captain Benwick, who is shattered by the death of his fiancé Fanny Harville.
To console himself, Benwick plunges into the Romantic poetry of Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott. Here’s the passage:
He was evidently a young man of considerable taste in reading, though principally in poetry; and besides the persuasion of having given him at least an evening`s indulgence in the discussion of subjects, which his usual companions had probably no concern in, she had the hope of being of real use to him in some suggestions as to the duty and benefit of struggling against affliction, which had naturally grown out of their conversation. For, though shy, he did not seem reserved; it had rather the appearance of feelings glad to burst their usual restraints; and having talked of poetry, the richness of the present age, and gone through a brief comparison of opinion as to the first-rate poets, trying to ascertain whether Marmion or The Lady of the Lake were to be preferred, and how ranked the Giaour and The Bride of Abydos; and moreover, how the Giaour was to be pronounced, he showed himself so intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs of the one poet, and all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless agony of the other . . .
I interrupt the passage for a moment to introduce the woman who is listening to him. Anne Elliott may be Jane Austen’s most romantic heroine. Although she once, on the advice of friends, rejected a proposal from Captain Wentworth, she continues to love him and, when she gets a second chance, she seizes it. But Benwick’s romantic love feels to her more like a feelings dump. I pick up the passage again:
… he repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so entirely as if he meant to be understood, that she ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry, and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
Remember, my student was discovering, in the course of her project, that books don’t only shield one from a cruel world. They can become a trap as well. Here the Austen heroine shows that she is one who can see books in their proper perspective (the drama of Northanger Abbey) and who can also mentor others (the drama of Mansfield Park). Mary focused on the way Anne stands strong, in the face of books and in the face of heartbreak. Benwick takes notice:
His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion to his situation, she was emboldened to go on; and feeling in herself the right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances.
Captain Benwick listened attentively, and seemed grateful for the interest implied; and though with a shake of the head, and sighs which declared his little faith in the efficacy of any books on grief like his, noted down the names of those she recommended, and promised to procure and read them.
Mary felt that she was once where Captain Benwick was, someone who hid out in books. However, her senior project demonstrated that she was figuring out how to use them to negotiate her way in the world. Anne provided her a great model because, both as one who has achieved this knowledge and who remains humble about it:
Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.
Anne’s rival for Wentworth is Louise Musgrove, whom he turns to because she seems to have a strength of character that Anne lacks. But Louise’s apparent decisiveness is superficial and, following a traumatic fall, she, like Benwick, retreats to books. (During her recovery they read poetry together and eventually marry.) Anne, who has had her own life blighted, nevertheless remains strong, steps out into the world, and wins back Wentworth. In Mary’s senior project I saw her, despite years of mockery and isolation, choosing to be an Anne and not a Louise.
Addendum: There are a couple of follow-ups to this story. First, Mary has gone on to become a research librarian, a very effective way of combining life and books. Not surprisingly, she flourished in graduate school and now works in a law library.
Second, on the day before her public presentation, she received confirmation that mentors will not always be around when expected. She and I had become very close—she included a wonderful thank you in her essay—and I was all set to attend her talk. I was fully convinced that, despite her speech problems and her anxiety about the limelight, she would step into her powers and claim the occasion.
But the day before the presentation, my oldest son drowned in the St. Mary’s River and she gave her talk without me. That was almost 10 years ago. Up until writing this current post, I have always thought (naturally enough) of my own suffering. But as I think about Mary and the difficulty of her life, it must have seemed once again a sign that she couldn’t finally rely on her mentors. They can help you, as Tilney does with Catherine (in Northanger Abbey) and Edmund does with Fanny (in Mansfield Park). In the end, however, you must make your life yourself.
I should add that I did make it to her graduation. It was a glimmer of light in a dark time.