Persuasion 10-12: “Unfinished Business”

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Anchor | Breaker | Castbox | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Radio Public

Don’t see the latest episode on your platform of choice? Click play above!

Transcript

Reclaiming Jane Season 5 Episode 4 | Persuasion 10-12: “Unfinished Business”

Emily: [00:00:00] This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.

Lauren: I'm Lauren Wethers.

Emily: And I'm Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: And today, we're reading chapters 10 through 12 of Persuasion through the lens of completion.

Emily: Completion is such an interesting topic to have only partway through a book.

Lauren: Yeah, I think I kept coming up with more things that were incomplete than complete for this section.

Emily: Definitely. This is such an intriguing set of chapters.

Lauren: There's a lot that happened in these three chapters.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: This is gonna be difficult to recap in 30 seconds.

Emily: It was also very, very conveniently, laid out because we hit, we ended right at the end of volume one.

Lauren: Which, I love symmetry like that. Thank, thank you so much.

Emily: I know. It's so beautiful, nice and tidy.

Lauren: Because it-- had we ended one chapter into volume two, it really would've worked my soul.

Emily: Mm-hmm. But yeah, you're right. It is gonna be hard to recap, which is, why I'm not looking forward to having to go first.

Lauren: Well, when I opened my Timer app, it was set for 24 minutes and 30 seconds.

Emily: Yeah, so that I could do.

Lauren: So we could always -- yeah. I was like that. We could, we could make it work.

Emily: Yeah, that, that sounds like a more appropriate, length of time to explain what happens in this section.

But I'll do my best to get through my recap notes as fast as possible.

Lauren: I believe in you. Emily is up first today. So we shall see how everyone does. All right. 30 seconds on my clock app. Are you ready?

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: Okay. Three. Two. One. Go.

Emily: So everyone goes for a nice walk [00:02:00] over to Charles Hayter's home. And Anne, overhears Louisa talking to Wentworth.

She's flirting very hard. She tells Wentworth about Henrietta's attachment to Charles Hayter because she is working to get this man for herself. And also reveals that Anne originally turned down Charles Musgrove. Wentworth disappears for a couple days. It turns out he was in Lyme visiting his friend, which turns into everyone deciding that they want to go to Lyme which is like really quick turnaround.

Oh God. They meet the Harvilles, they meet another other guy and they meet the cousin.

Lauren: The end!

Emily: Shit. That was horrific. I missed, like, the most important thing!

Lauren: We did say this is gonna be really hard to recap.

Emily: Yeah. All right. you get to fill in the things that I missed. Oh God. Okay. Like, honestly, like skip the stuff that I did talk about, the things that I missed.

Lauren: Okay.

Emily: All right. You ready?

Lauren: Yes.

Emily: 3, 2, 1, go.

Lauren: Okay. Everything that Emily said, and then they meet the illustrious Mr. Elliot, who is their cousin, who also just happens to be in Lyme. He also sees Anne and is clearly attracted her in first glance, which Wentworth also sees and is like, wait a, wait a second. Wait a minute!

they all go for a walk the next day. Louisa's being her like funny, happy, quirky girl self and says she's gonna be like, jumping off of things and asking Wentworth to catch her except for one of the times he doesn't. And she hits her head and it's tragic and everybody's all up in arms about it.

Emily: All right. You had one second left. So it's a good thing you skipped the stuff that I missed.

Lauren: Yeah, we wouldn't have made it.

Emily: Yeah. Oh my gosh. This, this section had everything.

Lauren: It has heartbreak, it has new romance, it has regrets, it has injuries and near death experiences.

Emily: It has mysterious strangers who turn out to be connected to you.

Absolutely incredible. So let's start from the top, I guess. Yeah. which I don't know if it's actually the, the top, top, but the first event is, the Musgrove Sisters and Mary and Anne and Charles and Wentworth all going for a nice walk through the countryside [00:04:00] near up across, and they end up heading towards Winthrop, which is where Charles and his mother live. and Louisa is taking full advantage of this situation to inform Wentworth that Henrietta already has an attachment and like, oh, Henrietta's so weak-willed. Like she could be persuaded into anything, but like she should do what's right.

Lauren: Also, they're having this conversation without realizing that Anne can overhear them.

And so the party has now kind of like split off into their various little subgroups. Henrietta has gone down. She was really trying to avoid speaking to Charles Hayter, but she's now, she's walked down to Winthrop. She's like, okay, fine. I'll suck it up. Let me go talk to this guy who I guess I like still.

Wentworth and Louisa have gone for a walk and Anne is, you know, sitting off on her own. After the party has dispersed before they decide to eventually go back to Upper Cross and she knows that they don't know where she is, they don't realize that she can overhear them, and she's just kind of sitting there frozen, listening to Louisa talking about Henrietta being able to be easily persuaded, which of course carries extra weight for Anne.

But then also hearing Wentworth talk about what it means to be strong-willed or easily persuaded, which just twists that knife into Anne's side once again, that is just permanently stuck between her ribs.

Emily: One of the things that Wentworth says in this rather long speech,following Louisa's revelation that Henrietta is already attached, is, "your sister is an amiable creature, but yours is the character of decision and firmness, I see. If you value her conduct or happiness, infuse as much of your own spirit into her as you can. But this no doubt, you have always been doing. It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable. Everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm."

Lauren: I'm sure everybody marks this passage when they get [00:06:00] to it, but what stood out to me here is to Louisa-- and to Anne in this because of how she is perceiving the situation. It reads as like, warmth for Louisa and recommending her character when really what it is is yearning for Anne and he's giving really hurt advice.

Like, 'this is what happens when you do not have a strong character. People get hurt. I am still heartbroken and it's been eight years because somebody changed her mind even though she didn't want to. So don't do that. Continue being strong-willed because that's how you stay happy.' You know, in his estimation.

And so without knowing that backstory, it just sounds like he's really like praising Louisa's character and saying like, this is how a woman ought to be. That's the exact kind of woman I want, which may be true. But.

Emily: But more specifically, the exact kind of woman he wants is Anne.

Lauren: Exactly. And he's just really sad that he doesn't have Anne.

Emily: This continues throughout the section too, but he's so attentive to Anne and so thoughtful about Anne.

She reads a lot of his innocuous behavior as like trying to avoid her, which honestly he may very well be trying to avoid her, but we still get these hints about how much he cares for her. Like on the very next page when Louisa says, 'oh, actually Charles,' her brother, 'originally asked Anne to marry him and she refused him,' and there's like a significant pause and then Wentworth asks like, when was that?

Lauren: How, when, when, when did this happen? What do you mean she said no?

Emily: Yeah. Cuz normally you would get that kind of information and if you had no investment in the person being talked about, like you'd just be like, like, oh, interesting. I wonder why. But no, he just pauses and then asks about it. And then lets it go immediately.

Lauren: Yeah. Well, you can't be too obvious.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: You need to get the information that you want, but also not let the other person realize that you're actually really emotionally invested in the answer. Like, I want to know... how can I be as innocent as possible? And just like, so, when did, when did [00:08:00] you say that Anne received this offer of marriage and why? Why did she say no? Did she tell you? Did she tell you anything at all? I don't want to press for details, but if you want to give me details...

Emily: not to be nosy, but...

Lauren: but!

Emily: But then also in talking about his attentiveness to her when they're all, when the whole party is making their way back to Upper cross, they pass his sister and brother-in-law, Admiral and Mrs. Croft in their carriage, whatever kind of vehicle it is.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: And they offer rides to the ladies, of course being polite and everyone refuses cuz they're enjoying their walk. but then Wentworth goes and specifically talks to them and they insist on taking Anne back to Upper Cross with them and I, they're such a delightful couple.

Like they're just flirting the whole time and being like, oh, should we tell her how quickly we got married after we met? And they're like, no, no, no. She'd be too scandalized.

Lauren: I adore them.

Emily: They're so precious, I feel like in a lot of the other Austen books we've read, we don't really have these kinds of just like absolutely charming and really fun secondary couples, especially the Gardiners, I think are an exception. And love the Gardiners in Pride and Prejudice. but yeah, I'm very happy to have Admiral and Mrs. Croft as just like, you know, this, this kind of model of marital happiness, I guess.

Lauren: Agreed. Because I think, more often than not, the like middle-aged couples who we see in Jane Austen novels are just kind of tired of one another. Now, they don't necessarily dislike each other. They're just, okay, this is a person who's in my life. You're fine. I guess it's more of like a tolerating than actually enjoying each other's company.

So it's nice when we get like couples like the Gardiners or like the Crofts who are a little bit older than the main characters who we usually see in Jane Austen novels who are still just absolutely delighted with one another.

Emily: Yeah, I think it's that difference in showing like, this is what you can get out of living your life through complacency versus this is what you can get by living your life, making active choices, which seems [00:10:00] extremely relevant to Persuasion.

Lauren: Just a bit.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: Just a tad.

Emily: A little teeny, tiny bit.

Lauren: I think, the, The line that stood out to me before we get like the Crofts with their delightful flirting and conversation and, you know, attention to Anne is when Anne is contemplating like why Wentworth might have asked Mrs. Croft specifically to take Anne with them. And she says, "though condemning her for the past and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her--" side note. Girl. Continuing.

"And though becoming attached to another still, he could not see her suffer without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment. It was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship. It was a proof of his own warm and aimable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotion so compounded of pleasure and pain that she knew not which prevailed."

Emily: Girl. I think if he hated you, he would not be going out of his way to make you comfortable.

Lauren: Probably not, but it's that same thing of like she doesn't know how to read his behavior of... you know when she said, you know, it's a remainder of former sentiment. It was an impulse of pure though unacknowledged friendship. Like, is this because we're friends, we're still on good terms? Is this because you still have feelings for me?

Do you actually just hate me and you're trying to cover up that you hate me by like, being nice to me? She won't allow herself to believe any kind of positive message about Wentworth. And so it's just easier for her to say like, oh no, he just hates me and he's just being nice. Baby, no.

Emily: Because she's still trying to get herself to move on. Thought that she had and now that they're back in proximity, yeah, she's had that realization. That we got last time. Eight years is as nothing for lingering feelings.

Lauren: Ooh. Speaking of, you know, Anne thought she was over it and she's not. There was a really excellent metaphor at this point in the novel, it's, it's autumn, and so they're [00:12:00] enjoying like the brisk autumnal weather.

But Anne also has some musings about autumn, just in general, and, She says that "her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise in the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the Tawny leaves and the withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions, extent of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness.

That season, which had drawn from every poet, were they being read, some attempt at description or some lines of feeling." So Anne is thinking about like, how much she loves autumn and gives that beautiful poetic description because also Anne really loves poetry, but then, after listening to some of the other conversations and kind of retreating into her own feelings, she thinks to herself, "the sweet scenes of autumn were, for a while, put by, unless some tender sonnet, fraught with the apt analogy of the declining year with declining happiness and the images of youth and hope and spring all gone together blessed her memory."

And so Anne is kind of like that image of autumn that she has in her head, or at least she is...like, her mental picture of herself is that, you know, her bloom of spring or youth is gone and now you know, she's declining with declining happiness and the images of youth are gone away. And of course she's thinking this as she's listening to Louisa, who is now like this young, vibrant, like happy young woman, and she's listening to them have this lively conversation and comparing herself in a way to the declining season.

Emily: So following the walk to Winthrop and that fateful ride in the carriage with the Crofts, which also included a very interesting observation from Anne that when speaking about the Musgroves and Wentworth's prospects with them, she gets a sense that Mrs. Croft is like, fine with the girls as people, but doesn't think that either of them is good enough for her brother.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. Because--

Emily: which I love.

Lauren: Admiral Croft is like, Ugh, I [00:14:00] wish he would just make a decision. And he's like, they're both lovely. Just like, pick a woman and settle down and get married. And Mrs. Croft is kind of like, I mean fine, but not my first choice.

Emily: She says, "very good humored, unaffected girls, indeed, in a tone of calmer praise, such as made Anne suspect that her keener powers might not consider either of them as quite worthy of her brother."

I love her. I wanna be friends with Mrs. Croft.

Lauren: Same. yeah, I would probably use the same tone, I suppose, or like, not the same language, but same idea. If somebody were like, well, what do you think of someone? If my brother were dating somebody who I didn't actually like, be like, oh, she's nice.

Emily: That's exactly what it is. They're, they're fine.

Lauren: That's it.

Emily: There's nothing wrong with them.

Lauren: Yeah. The end. Do you like her? She's nice.

Emily: But after that, it transpires that Wentworth disappears for a couple of days when he's been coming to Upper Cross, like constantly. And when he comes back, it turns out that he has found out that his great friend, Captain Harville, who we heard about a couple chapters ago, has settled in Lyme, which is only 17 miles off.

So he immediately rode off to visit with them, stayed overnight, and caught up. But that ends up in especially the Musgrove sisters saying, oh, we wanna go to Lyme. And immediately forming this whole plan to just go off to Lyme, even though it's completely out of season, like nothing's gonna be happening.

No one is gonna be there. But Wentworth said that his friends were there and that he liked it. So that's good enough for them.

Lauren: So everyone, let's go. Road trip. Regency Road Trip Regency Road trip. 17 miles was a road trip.

Emily: Yeah. It takes 'em like seven hours to get there or something.

Lauren: Something like that. I can't remember if it was like a seven hour total trip and that's why they didn't do it in a day or if it was like seven hours one way to get there.

Emily: I, I think it was seven hours, [00:16:00] like, round trip?. Yeah, because I was looking at that and was trying to figure out one or the other, it was like, no, if it was seven hours, one way, they would not have ever attempted to make that in one day.

Lauren: And I, I would hope it didn't take them seven hours to go 17 miles on a horse and carriage.

Emily: Good Lord. The roads can't be that bad.

Lauren: Right. Exactly.

Emily: Sheesh. But they formed this whole party of Anne and Mary and Charles and two Musgrove sisters and Captain Wentworth, obviously, and they all head over to Lyme to meet the Harvilles and see what kind of entertainment they can rustle up in a vacation town out of season.

Which is not much, it turns out.

Lauren: Not at all. To Anne, this has once again, like a particular kind of melancholy to it because as she's meeting all of Captain Wentworth's friends, when they get to Lyme, the primary thought that's in her head is like, oh, I could have met all these people years ago. These would've been my friends.

Like had I made a different choice, we already would've been well acquainted. They would've been like family to me by now.

Emily: The Harvilles are definitely another couple that gives you the idea of people who have chosen specifically to be happy with each other. They're living in a little modest house and she ends up having to follow him from port to port because he's in the Navy, but they seem like very lovely, happy people.

Lauren: And then we have poor Captain Benwick.

Emily: Poor Captain Benwick. Oh my God. He is this friend of the Harvilles and apparently of Captain Wentworth, who is staying with them, having undergone a grievous loss in the previous year. He had been engaged to Captain Harville's sister for several years and they were just waiting, like for his promotion and for him to make enough money for them to marry, and then she had died unexpectedly the year before, and it took like two months for the news to get to him and now he's just staying with the Harvilles sort of in his grief and in their continued [00:18:00] familial feeling, even though he's not technically connected to them anymore.

Lauren: Yeah, he did get his promotion, but Fanny had already died. She had died the previous summer and he was at sea, and he didn't know. It was very sad.

It was really sad. It seemed like Captain Benwick and Fanny Harville were truly, truly in love, and then it was cut short so Captain Benwick is still mourning, you know, he's talking to the party a little bit, but really he just prefers to kind of be off on his own. which actually ends up making him a perfect conversation partner for Anne because they're able to connect really well.

Emily: Yeah, they connect very quickly over their mutual interest in poetry and literature and end up kind of being walking partners while everyone is roaming all over Lyme, but Captain Benwick also, his situation gives us some additional insight into Wentworth as a person, because when Benwick finally made port again in England, Wentworth found out about it really quickly.

And like his ship had just come into harbor and he knew that he wasn't, going to be at sea again anytime soon. So he like put in his request for leave, didn't wait for the answer, and immediately rode off to give Benwick the news in person and like stayed with him those first couple of days. So you definitely get an idea of the kind of friend and the kind of devotee Wentworth is for the people that he cares about.

Lauren: Just a good guy.

Emily: Such a good guy!

Lauren: He just cares.

Emily: He cares so much.

Lauren: Yeah, and also as they're form, as she's forming this connection with Captain Benwick over poetry, is able to kind of acknowledge his pain in a way that the others are dancing around. And she, you know, they never really speak of it directly because again, one, it's the Regency era, two, they're British. So like they're not, they're not going to have a direct conversation about it, but she still is [00:20:00] able to acknowledge it in a way that Captain Benwick is clearly very grateful for. because it allows him to kind of, in a roundabout way, kind of discuss what he's feeling through poetry, because Anne's saying, you know, sometimes those of us who appreciate poetry the most need to indulge in those emotions the least because we understand it.

Because we feel them so deeply. So if you are reading these wonderful, yet perhaps very tragic poets, may I suggest also introducing some prose into your reading rotation or something that uplifts your spirits rather than continues to depress them and I think Captain Benwick may or may not realize that she's speaking from experience, but is able to, you know, at least understand the feeling of her words.

And then Anne concludes with saying that "when the evening was over, 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 on which her own conduct would ill bear examination."

Emily: Do as I say, not as I do.

Lauren: Exactly. I can tell you to do things that will help you move on from this tragic loss, but I will not, I will linger in those feelings forever. but don't ask me about what my coping mechanisms are. I'll tell you what to do. You don't ask me.

Emily: I'm sure none of us as human beings could relate to that at all.

Lauren: Oh, no. Do I give relationship advice that I don't take? Never. I always take my own relationship advice.

Emily: Couldn't be me!

Lauren: Couldn't be me. I'm always an excellent advice taker as well as advice giver.

Emily: While in Lyme, they do also run into another striking gentleman who kind of catches Anne's eye on a walk.

 And is like kind of making eyes at her a little bit, which Wentworth is not about.

Lauren: No.

Emily: But Anne notices that he is, he's a well -- sort of like, he's not handsome. [00:22:00] But he's not too bad. And he also catches her eye a little bit. And then later at the end, she runs into him in the hall. And as the rest of the party is assembled, they see this carriage leaving and they ask the servant about it, and they find out from the servant that this is a Mr. Elliot. So Mary immediate immediately was like, oh, that must be our cousin. Like what are the odds? And honestly, what are the odds?

Lauren: Why are you in Lyme? The season is over.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: No one's here.

Emily: Very mysterious. I've got questions about this guy.

Lauren: What are you doing here, sir? Yeah, the realization that it's Mr. Elliot is really just a through the grapevine kind of thing, because like you said, Mary says, oh my God, this must be her cousin, and they're kind of not with her immediately. Like, okay, Elliot is really not like that rare of a last name. It could be any number of Elliots. But then she continues questioning the waiter about like, oh, well, did you hear if, he belonged to the Kellynch family specifically because Mary's like, no, no, I'm right. Like, listen to me. And they said, no, no, he didn't mention a particular family, but he said his master was a very rich gentleman and would be a Baron knight someday. And Mary's like, see, I told you it is our cousin.

They're just like, I mean, Okay. Interesting. I do believe you now, but why is he here?

Emily: But he's gone before they can get any answers.

Lauren: Yep.

Emily: Just a couple of fleeting glimpses and you know, a very polite, did they even exchange words?

Lauren: No, they did not. and Anne is trying to kinda secretly tell Mary, us being connected, maybe not a good thing.

Our father and Mr. Elliot haven't been on good terms for a very long time. for reasons that you were well aware of, maybe we should not rekindle this connection, but it, it kind of goes over her head.

Emily: As so many things do.

Lauren: Yeah. But Anne was kind of happy to have seen her cousin again. It's nice to be able to put a face to the hated name that her father has been cursing for so long.

And it was very interesting to me that both times, First, when they first see him, Wentworth [00:24:00] immediately picks up on-- like, the narration even says like, "Wentworth instantly looked at Anne," because he sees the way that that man is looking at her and his head whips around to Anne to see what her reaction is.

And then when they're talking about like, oh, we saw this stranger come in, blah, blah, blah. Wentworth again, like looks at Anne and goes, 'oh, that must have been the man we saw earlier.' There's no reason for him to be looking at Anne specifically.

Emily: Mm-hmm. Why are you so interested, sir?

Lauren: No. Why, why do you wanna know what she thinks of this mysterious stranger?

Emily: Why do you care about her opinions on another man?

Lauren: I thought you'd been hanging out with Louisa.

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: Interesting.

Emily: Speaking of Louisa.

Lauren: Oh, oh, poor Louisa.

Emily: Oh, it's after this that they go for their fateful final walk in Lyme down to the cob. And Louisa is, like you said earlier, just being her silly, quirky self.

Lauren: She wants to be her manic, pixie dream girl.

Emily: Yeah. I'm just gonna like hop around and Wentworth gonna catch me except that on one of them, she is hopping down and he's like half a second too slow, or she moves half a second too fast and falls and is apparently knocked unconscious, which they call a surgeon later, who is apparently just very cheerful and hopeful about all this like, If you hit your head and go unconscious...

Lauren: that's not good.

Emily: That is not good. That's extremely grievous. I think that he was being a little too blase about this if she genuinely was knocked unconscious by this.

Lauren: Yeah. Because they're like looking for signs of life. They think she's dead. You know, Mary, of course is like, oh my God, everything's terrible. She's dead.

And it's like, okay, everyone is worried. But Mary has of course, escalated this to like a thousand because it's, it's Mary.

Emily: It's Mary.

Lauren: But it, it does seem like she's knocked unconscious by hitting her head from this fall. Because the main reaction is, holy shit, she's lifeless. She actually might-- she might have died and then they realized, okay, no, like she's breathing.

She's not responding to any kind of stimuli, but she is. She is [00:26:00] alive. But, oh no, this is not good.

Emily: It didn't occur to me until later, but combined with the apparent lifeless and then the surgeon's very cheerful assessment. Like, did she fake it? Did she just like, oh, bump her head a little bit, but I don't, I don't think Louisa would do that.

Lauren: No.

Emily: Like, Yes, she would make a point to tell her suitor about her sister's other attachments so that he stops pursuing her. But I don't think she would go this far. So yeah, I'm really questioning the surgeon's judgment here.

Lauren: It's like, ah, everything's fine. I wouldn't worry about it. I would.

Emily: She was unconscious for like, multiple minutes.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: That's horrible. She must have just a terrible concussion. But this occurs, and Wentworth of course, is right there and like scoops her up. Anne is the only completely cool head as usual. You know, Henrietta faints away immediately. Mary is in hysterics. Even Charles is just completely frozen because that's his little sister.

 But between Anne and Wentworth, they manage to find the Harvilles. They get some help from the dock workers who are nearby. They send for the surgeon, they get Louisiana to the Harville's house. Is just like that one thing happens out of nowhere and it's a flurry of activity. Immediately.

Lauren: And the notable thing about all this is that Anne is the one who's driving the flurry of activity, because as you said, she's the only cool-headed one, which means that she's also the one who's making all the decisions and people are listening to her mostly just because they don't know what to do.

But Wentworth also looks at her like, oh my God, what do I do? What do I do? And she's like, 'Here's what's going to happen. You do this, you send for the surgeon, you do this,' you know, she's going through like, what they tell you in like CPR training of like, you in the blue shirt, you call 9 1 1. You over here -- you know, like assign people jobs.

Emily: Someone give this woman a pro position as like director of [00:28:00] emergency management. She would get shit done.

Lauren: Crisis management is Anne's calling.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: But like, you know, for the first time we get words to describe Anne that have like a level of strength to them. So it says that she's attending with strength and zeal and thought, and she is the one who is, you know, really rising to the occasion.

And getting shit done.

Emily: Which we have seen in much less strenuous situations before. If a decision has to be made and everyone else is waffling around about it, and it's just like, okay, let's do this. And sometimes she'll be completely opposed and overridden, but still, she has the fortitude to actually make a decision, even if she knows no one's going to listen to it.

But in this situation where everyone else is just out of their minds and she's the only, not even just the voice of reason, but the only voice saying anything, it's very easy to just do what she says.

Lauren: What a day.

Emily: What a day. In the end, they do get Louisa to the Harvilles' and because ,you know, she's had a severe concussion, they insist that she stay there for whatever initial period of recovery.

There is significant squabbling about who will stay and who will go back to Upper Cross, but in the end, it's Anne and Henrietta who are taken back to Upper Cross by Wentworth. Charles and Mary, stay with the invalid.

Lauren: And Wentworth had specifically said, I think Anne should stay with Louisa.

Emily: Which he's correct about.

Lauren: Which he's correct about.

He said, "if Anne will stay, no one's so proper, so capable, as Anne!" Anne is like, okay, stay calm. Okay, stay calm. He spoke about you really nicely. Everything is fine. And is like trying not to freak out about the fact that he was just, you know, really kind to her. But then Mary of course gets jealous and is like, well, why should Anne stay, Louisa's my sister-in-law, what can Anne do that I can't do, and blah, blah, blah.

Anne [00:30:00] eventually is just like, oh my God. Okay, fine. You can stay. But Wentworth's face when he sees Anne in the carriage and not Mary is like, What the hell? I thought we had-- did we not specifically say that you should be the one to stay?

Emily: Which of course, Anne interprets as he doesn't wanna be in the carriage with her for that long.

He's like, no, it's because he knows you are the only reasonable choice of person to leave with Louisa. Yeah, because you are levelheaded, you are capable of nursing, you are willing to make the sacrifice of like sleeping on the floor, staying with her all the time. You'll get that done. Mary's not gonna help at all.

Lauren: No.

Emily: Mary's gonna need more attention than Louisa is.

Lauren: And you have to wonder if he's like, you let yourself be persuaded into something. Because did you not just demonstrate like the strength of mind that like, I knew that you had and that here you are where everyone is looking to you and saying, Anne, what do we do?

And you're making all the decisions and directing people. And then once the dust has settled, like she allows herself to be convinced that like Mary should stay and she should go, which doesn't make any sense.

Emily: No sense at all.

Lauren: Yeah. Again, that's like when Anne was saying, "his evident surprise and vexation at the substitution of one sister for the other, the change of his countenance, the astonishment, the expressions begun and suppressed with which Charles was listened to, made by a mortifying reception of Anne, or must at least convince her that she was valued only as she could be useful to Louisa."

And I just wrote, honey, no. That's not it.

Emily: Sometimes yes, sometimes you just wanna slap her. Oh my God. Anne, honey, I love you, but, ah!

Lauren: One, once again, do I take my own advice? No, but I'm still going to tell her. I'm like, you should be able to see this a lot more clearly than you do, and I don't understand you.

The signs are right there, babe. It's, it's in a, it's a neon sign. It's all [00:32:00] in front of you. It's all in front of you. I can't read Suddenly. I don't know.

Woo buddy. So that was only three chapters.

Emily: That was only three chapters.

Lauren: That was three chapters of Persuasion. Can you imagine if we were doing five chapters still?

Emily: Good lord.

Lauren: What a section.

Emily: What a section.

Lauren: And with that, we come to the end of volume one.

Emily: And with that we've finished Volume One. Persuasion, you are giving us everything.

Lauren: You see??

Emily: I love it so much.

Lauren: You see it!

Emily: I understand now. So now that we've come to the end of our section, let's talk about completion.

Lauren: It's not there.

Emily: It's really not there except for like the one line that Anne narrates where she's talking about Wentworth's kindness being like the completion of everything that had gone between them before. but yeah, otherwise it's just a lot of threads left dangling, you know, subject opened but never closed.

complete lack of resolution on interactions.

Lauren: The only thing that's really complete is the Lyme social season. Yeah, that's over. And that was done before they even arrived. You know, my main theme thought is that things with Anne and Wentworth are incomplete and really, Like you said, everything is just kind of a dangling, loose thread.

Even the relationship that has come to a really tragic end or completion with Captain Benwick and Fanny Harville still gives off the feeling of being incomplete because he's still mourning, so there's, there's no resolution to that, even though the relationship had to come to an end. But there's, there's not really a true ending because his feelings still persist.

So even, even that where you could say like, here is a clear ending, doesn't feel complete.

Emily: Which is perfectly appropriate for being halfway through the novel. We wouldn't expect anything to be completed at this point.

Lauren: Even if we were at a point where plot threads could be complete. It's [00:34:00] interesting that there in such three, eventful chapters, there's really nothing that is completed except for maybe the flirtation between Henrietta and Wentworth. I think that's the only thing that's actually complete and done.

Emily: I think you're right. Yeah, I'm, I'm a little disappointed that my prediction of drama coming from Charles Hayter or will probably not come true, but like also that's okay.

Lauren: There was a little baby bit of drama.

Emily: There was a little, a little baby bit of drama.

Lauren: He did kind of go off in a hissy fit and stop coming to Upper Cross.

Emily: That's very true.

Lauren: Yeah. The two things I wrote down were that things with Anne and Wentworth were incomplete, and I think I also just wrote three times in my notebook, my heart hurts.

Emily: As with every single section.

This, this book is just, it's so much like, sweet pain.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: Because it's, it's very satisfying hurt, at least in my opinion. I know Other people probably feel other ways about that because everyone experiences fiction differently. But.

Lauren: No, this is, this is hurt. But it's also like that kind of affirming, where it's like, oh, I'm not the only person who's experienced these emotions.

Emily: Absolutely.

Lauren: So it hurts, but also it's like a reflection of if there's like any kind of similar thing that you've gone through, if you've ended a relationship or had unfinished business with someone or just had, you know, a relationship where the resolution never seems to arrive. You're just like, aha, here are, here Is language to describe this experience.

People were going through this 200 years ago too.

Emily: Yeah, cuz like I've definitely read or watched things where it's just like, It feels like an absurd hurt. Where there's no grounded motivation for it, and it doesn't seem like there can be any resolution, but this, like, it's all so human and that makes it hurt even better.

Lauren: Yeah. It's not for shock value or to just put a character through something for [00:36:00] the sake of doing so. It's just very, like you said, human.

Emily: Mm. Yeah, I saw something the other day that mentioned not necessarily wanting media to be relatable, but wanting it to be resonant. And I think this hits both very well.

Lauren: Oh, I love that so much. Cause I don't necessarily need everything to be relatable. And I think that's when you fall into, like, I have to have characters who are exactly like me to be able to enjoy a piece of media. And that does not ring true for me, in my experience, like it's nice to see yourself represented, but not every character I like has to be exactly like me.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: But resonant is really what you're looking for.

Emily: That's also how you get so deep in the weeds of sorting out, like representation. It's like not-- like, every single person is unique. None of us are going to see exactly ourselves on screen unless you're a middle class straight white man.

Lauren: And if that's the case then just go see a Vince Vaughn movie and like, there you are.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. I, I like, I like that description of resonance rather than relatability.

Lauren: Me too. I'm gonna use that.

Emily: Does that wrap up our discussion of the section and theme?

Lauren: I think so, cuz I, I really would be grasping at straws trying to create other things. Could I find something to talk about? Sure. Would it be rambling to fill up airspace in an already probably long episode.

Yep.

Emily: Well that's fine. Sometimes we have more to talk about thematically than others.

Lauren: This is very true. So I think now that may bring us to our discussion of your historical context.

Emily: Absolutely. And I was so glad earlier when you brought up the topics of conversation between Anne and Benwick, because I wanna talk about the poetry that they would be reading.

Lauren: Yes. Okay. I am ready.

Emily: Excellent. Honestly, you might know more about this than I do as a former English major.

Lauren: Maybe, but hard maybe.

Emily: All right.

Lauren: I did take a course that was focused on like this era of British literature, however, that was 10 [00:38:00] years ago. And so you've have done research far more recently than I have.

Emily: That's totally fair. So as a reminder, Persuasion is set explicitly in 1814, which thank you, Jane Austen. I love having a hard date to work from. This is right in the midst of the English Romantic period, which runs from about 1789 to 1832, and is very much in response and sometimes in reaction to, the very structural forms of neoclassical poetry and the supremely logical ideals of the enlightenment.

So a lot of the dominant themes in English romantic poetry, focus on nature, on spirituality, on human nature, freedom, and very much stylistic creativity, really playing around with forms of poetry. There's also a kind of, as we talked about with music last time, a general revival of older, popular styles like ballads and sonnets and romantic adventures and lyric poetry.

It very often takes common people as a subject in addition to subjects like nature, as with the poetry about Autumn that Anne was thinking on earlier in the section. There is a really heavy tendency to romanticize the past, especially the medieval past, and even the classical past, despite the otherwise sort of reactionary forms towards new classism. So this is the period where we get both like odes to Grecian urns and then also like La Belle Dame sans Merci, very different, topics, but still within the canon of English romantic poetry. One of the most famous and infamous writers of the English Romantics, of course is Lord Byron.

Lauren: Oh, of course.

Emily: Who according to one of his mini mistresses, the, [00:40:00] my favorite quote about him was that he's mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

Lauren: Oh my goodness.

Emily: Yes. God bless that woman for describing him that way cuz it's just eternal.

Lauren: The man got around.

Emily: He really got around and then died at like 36 of tuberculosis, I think.

Lauren: Shocker.

Emily: But Byron is particularly relevant in 1814 because in February of that year, he published the Corsair, which sold out its initial run of 10,000 copies on the first day.

Lauren: Impact!

Emily: Impact. so the Corsair specifically tells the story of this anti-hero pirate Conrad, who leaves his wife on his pirate island to attack a Turkish Pasha.

Despite her protests, he tries to free the Pashas harem during the attack, but he ends up being captured himself. The specific woman that he was trying to rescue kills the Pasha and then they escape together. But on returning to Conrad's Island, they find that his wife has killed herself in grief, believing that he is dead.

High tragedy, high drama. Yeah. All amazing. This is like 180 page poem and at the very end, Conrad disappears, and I'm going to read just a few lines that are the conclusion of the poem. It says, "tis idle all, moons roll on moons away, and Conrad comes not, came, not since that day. Nor trace nor tidings of his doom declare, where lives his grief or perished his despair. Long mourned his band whom none could mourn beside, and fair the monument they gave his bride. For him they raised not the recording stone, his death yet dubious, deeds too widely known. He left a corsair's name to other times, linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes."

Lauren: One virtue and a thousand crimes is such an excellent line.

Emily: I know, but I love the specificity of Austen discussing [00:42:00] Anne's interest in this kind of poetry. It's such an interesting addition to her characterization because she's shown explicitly to be a very steady and reasonable person. But then she also indulges in this wild romanticism of Byron's poetry enough to be able to have a really significant conversation about it with Benwick.

So I just love that juxtaposition of Anne, the steady hand and the cool head versus the Corsair and Lord Byron and all of the other indulgences of romanticism, which we do also get a peek at in her consideration of the autumn. And it's just really beautiful and it brings a depth to her character that I love.

especially because in the other heroines we don't necessarily see kind of specific discussion of what their interests are. You know, with Lizzie Bennet, we hear that she likes to read a lot, but we don't get like the titles of things that she's reading. Whereas Anne is like, having a whole debate about which poem is better with this man that she met the day before.

So that is, our historical topic. It's not anything super in depth, but I just, I latched onto that aspect of Anne and how much it sort of explains about her, I think.

Lauren: Yeah, I really love that and I like that you were bringing in specifically, you know, what she's talking about so that we can see if, you know, not everyone is going to be familiar with the random poem that she's going into excited depth about, but I think it is a cool way to see who Anne is with other people and then who Anne is like in the privacy of her own thoughts and what she allows herself to indulge in that she doesn't necessarily like outwardly express in company. Well, thank you. That was delightful.

Emily: I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

But what do you have for pop culture for us [00:44:00] today?

Lauren: So I was trying to think about what a good pop culture connection would be for a theme that didn't really fit the section. We had been talking about, how we saw the theme in it's opposite and things being incomplete or unfinished. And so then that led me to thinking about like the trope of unfinished business.

cuz that really is what I saw on the section more than anything being complete, but just things being unfinished. In multiple points you can see how Anne and Wentworth's relationship is incomplete. Wentworth and Louisa's relationship or whatever kind of interaction they have is still in its early stages so far from any kind of resolution in either direction.

Even like I said earlier, the one relationship that truly tragically came to an end still feels incomplete because Captain Benwick is for very good and obvious reasons, like still really mourning and working through the emotions of losing someone who he loved so much. And so there's nothing that's really completed there. And the, the trope of unfinished business usually refers to like the dead having unfinished business and coming back as a ghost. So that's something that you see a lot in like any kind of supernatural media, not just the TV show Supernatural, though, that does also apply. There's a lot of vengeful ghosts who come back in the show Supernatural.

But in any kind of media that has like interactions with the afterlife, often there's this idea of unfinished business where a ghost lingers because they can't accept their, their death for whatever reason. So sometimes that looks like, the ghosts in Crimson Peak will have like a reason for their existence, or someone is unable to accept the circumstances of their death because they don't know who killed them.

And so the main character is tasked with figuring out who killed this person so they can finally know peace and move on to the next life. But it's also not just literal ghosts with unfinished business. Sometimes it's the ghosts of things passed. or a character who could be seen as like a eventual ghosts.

So for example, The Bride in [00:46:00] Kill Bill almost dies, does not actually die, but she does break out of a coffin and then come back for a revenge. So in some ways, she is very much a vengeful ghost who's unable to accept the circumstances of what they tried to make her death.

And in this situation, it feels as though it's the ghosts of the past that won't be ignored.

Whether it's the ghost of Anne and Wentworth's past relationship, whether it's the ghost of Fanny Harville, whether it's the ghost of Mr. Elliot and his past bad blood with the Kellynch Elliots. And whether in the trope it's a literal ghost or it's metaphorical ghosts that have unfinished business. The two main emotions that really come into play are anger and regret.

And I think we see both of those emotions play out specifically with Anne and Captain Wentworth. So for example, when Wentworth is talking to Louisa about like the benefits of a steady mind and why people should be, you know, steadfast and firm in their convictions. Like he's hurt. But there's also, like, some anger there in what he's talking about that is directly related to the hurt that he still feels from what happened with Anne eight years ago.

And it's not necessarily anger in the way that Anne interprets it, like he is a little bit angry with her, but it's not, 'I'm angry with you and I hate you.' It's like anger at the situation, anger at, you know, what has put them in this awkward situation eight years later. They're worse than strangers because they can never become reacquainted.

And of course on both sides there's a lot of regret that it just like seeps into every page. So I was thinking about, you know, there is no completion, but there are, like, these ghosts of the past that keep informing the entire book to where no one can really move on or move forward because there are these things that are still lurking in the background and stirring up all these emotions of anger or hurt or confusion that is influencing every action on the page. So that was, that was my connection for this [00:48:00] week. Just unfinished business ghosts of the past.

Emily: This just in, Persuasion is actually a ghost story. Like that's a really intriguing framing. I would love to get into that more.

Lauren: You could write a paper on that.

Emily: Honestly. Yeah. Oh, I think that wraps up our discussion If, if the ghost of our discussion is no longer haunting us.

Lauren: It may be time for final takeaways.

Emily: I think it is. And you're up first since I recapped.

Lauren: I did remember that. Does it mean I have a final takeaway ready to go? No, it does not.

Emily: Does it ever mean that?

Lauren: No. I think. My final takeaway from this section is the importance of emotional honesty. Cause you can see like how Anne and Captain Benwick are able to form a connection when, even as they're not speaking directly about anything, they're having like a kind of honest conversation about their emotions and how literature and poetry makes them feel, and the benefits and drawbacks of that.

We also see the effects of what happens when people don't feel as though they're able to be fully emotionally honest with one another and the kind of barriers and misunderstandings that that creates. And I think that, yeah, my, my takeaway is that there are lots of beautiful things that can happen when you're emotionally honest with yourself and with other people, and lots of regret and anger and all those emotions that come from unfinished business when you're not.

Emily: That's a good takeaway.

Lauren: Thank you so much.

Emily: Very resonant.

Lauren: I love being full circle. What is your final takeaway?

Emily: I think mine is that there are a lot of different ways for something to be completed, especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Because taking Anne and Wentworth's relationship as an example, like externally that's completed, that has been over and done for eight years.

Neither of them seem to have moved on, but even if they didn't get like, [00:50:00] closure from each other, either of them could have moved on and completed the relationship in that way. You know, if Anne had moved on from Wentworth, then even if he were still attached to her, that could be considered completed.

Yeah. So it doesn't necessarily have to be. A nice little wrapping up with a bow. Things can be considered complete. They can be completed in in different ways. I don't know if that made any sense.

Lauren: No, it does.

Emily: Okay.

Lauren: Even if there's not like a discussion of something being complete, if one person has been able to have that emotional closure, then something can still be considered completed.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Emily: Yeah. That's my takeaway. Love it. No one has accomplished it in this section, but not at all. But it's possible.

Lauren: In theory, the readers can still draw the conclusion by watching the characters completely fail.

Emily: Exactly. All right. I believe it's time to pull our tarot.

Lauren: It is.

Emily: It's your turn to choose this time.

Lauren: Yes. Okay. Ooh, queen of spades.

Emily: Queen of spades is perception, and the illustration on the card is Anne Elliot of Persuasion, who is smart and insightful, and she values a good conversation more than anything.

Lauren: Perfect. I was really worried you were going to get a spoiler and I was like, oh no, but okay. Good, good, good.

Emily: So our theme for next episode is perception. I can't wait to see how this pans out.[00:52:00]

Lauren: Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time we'll be reading chapters 13 through 15 of Persuasion with a focus on perception.

Emily: To read our show notes and a transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaimingjanepod.com, where you can also find the fullback catalog and links to our social media.

Lauren: If you'd like to support us and get access to exclusive content, you can join our Patreon at Reclaiming Jane Pod.

Emily: Reclaiming Jane is produced and co-hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis Hale. Our music is by Latasha Bundy, and our show Art is by Emily Davis-Hale.

Lauren: We'll see you next time, nerds.

And so I literally was talking about this the other day because I was at an event and someone said, oh, Lauren and I both have something in common. We both really love Jane Austen. And I said, yeah, I was reading Persuasion before I came here just in agony.

Emily: Agony is right.

Lauren: And the other person listening to this conversation kind of looked at me like, 'you just said that you really love Jane Austen, but you're reading a book and you're in agony,' and I was like, no, no. Good, good agony. As in it's, it's excellent and it is shredding my heart into a million tiny pieces and I will read it again and I will love it.

Emily: Clearly someone who is, has not experienced extreme emotional destruction at the hands of a piece of fiction.

Lauren: This is not somebody who sorts by hurt/comfort or angst tags on AO3.