Another Jane Austen novel, in fact it is her last. Her brother is thought to have decided on the title of this novel, which was named after her death, and that she referred to it as “The Elliott’s”.
We get to follow the character Anne Elliott here; her father and sister are rather self-involved people and had together with Anne’s friend Lady Russell eight years earlier persuaded Anne to break off an engagement to a young naval officer on the ground that he was beneath her. At age 27 Anne is still unmarried and the family fortune has dwindled. The family estate is leased out, as it turns out to the sister and brother-in-law of Anne’s former fiancée. The poor naval officer have now turned into a fairly rich Captain, he proclaims that he wants to marry, just not Anne, as he is till angry with her for breaking off the engagement.
The book deals with the social pressures of the time, and different types of persuasions by family members on young women to act as they saw fit. I do believe that seeing Jane Austen’s novels as “just love stories,” mean that you have missed the whole point. Rather they give a glimpse into how it was to be a young woman of those times and the different social pressures that you had to conform to.
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