In case you havent read everything about Persuasion by Jane Austen

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I am sure somebody has already written this exact post. Oh well. I’ll be anonymous.
Persuasion by Jane Austen deals with a shift in importance from the vestiges of the old landed gentry to the individuality and judgment of the professional class who works for their own living. Anne’s mistake is not only that she IS persuaded but that she is persuaded by the “class” from which her father and Lady Russell come. She finds genuine love with Wentworth and this is very unique in an Austen novel because as we know Wentworth is professional military class. At the end of the book the narrator confesses that it’s ok to follow your individual judgment, you don’t have to follow established morality. As was said this book deals with all these shifts from the old to the new period that we have dealt with throughout the quarter. So let’s step back and explore some of these shifts in relation to persuasion.

Britain as aristocratic. It’s about who you are, not how much money or success you attain by your own endeavors,--> Britain becomes essentially a middle class country.
(Persuasion= the crises threaten this class, increasingly critical of money and wealth given to those who do not work i.e husbands and elder born sons. The eldest son was allowed to be lazy)

Monarchic TO democratic

Massive religious conflicts, as in church and state--> Smaller religious conflicts, Catholics are hated on , protestants, etc etc.

Nature changes from huge unfathomable thing -->smaller microcosm, able to be reflected upon and examined by man and in relation to man
Human self image and imagination changes from a collective group identity focus on “me” the individual self becomes the focus.

Love/Sex/Marriage from a theatrical performance, marriage was for appearances and propriety-->Individual love and depth of feeling and connection
Persuasion= The fate of women in the familial social system changes. The “ pretty, silly fashionable woman” with external brilliance and pomp is exchanged for the inner emotion and depth of Ann.
( Although I really can’t say that “silly pretty women” aren’t still alive and well and preferred by many)

The Nation changes from focus places on family and religion (Hanoverians/Jacobites) Nationality didn’t matter so much --> an increasing interest on how you relate to people instead of who is on top. ( See Burns: Auld Lang Syne/Such a Parcel of Rogues” . This can lead us into thinking about the relationship between Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Britain as well as the abolishment of the slave trade in 1807 and orientalism

Orientalism changes from a utilitarian method of erotizing and exoticizing in order to sell goods and ideas -->a whole new way of looking at the world. Everything in comparison (contrast) to Europe.