Lady Russell Quotes

For much of the novel, Lady Russell is seemingly antagonized for her opinion of Wentworth being so lowly. The reader is quickly shown of Anne’s unwavering affection for the Captain, a passion quickly drowned by her father and Lady Russell’s analysis of his lack of virtue. Lady Russell’s opinion has so much gravity because Anne, lacking a mother figure in her life, has deemed this woman equivalent to that of a guardian. Throughout the progression of the book, she grows more confident in telling people what she wants and in exclaiming her true feelings about the marriage she believes she deserves. Lady Russell is exempt from this honesty because Anne regards her as part of her family and she shall not disrespect those in direct power over her.

Though Anne discerns that she has caused herself and Wentworth much pain by prolonging the commencement of their relationship, in this block quote she explicitly ascertains the validity of Lady Russell’s concerns, which is that a marriage would have only induced her own suffering. Had she married Wentworth when she was nineteen against the consent of her mother figure, she would lack a clean conscience. The act of defiance would have marred her reputation. It is only at her current age and state of mind that she finally feels ready to embrace a relationship with Wentworth, because now she feels as if they have grown enough as individuals in order for their union to be beneficial to both of their spirits, rather than their clumsy, younger selves needing to change in order to accommodate the other in

His ideas of the proper man argue that a man must be stable and providing, compassionate and genuine, maintaining his status as figurehead of the household, but not so that the wife feels inferior. His assertation of what a marriage should be composed of is strikingly similar to how the dynamic between Anne and Wentworth is carried out. For example, Gisborne argues that the dutiful man “will not disregard the advice and suggestions of Experience, though they proceed from a person of rank inferior to his own” (267). Wentworth struggled in Persuasion to see eye-to-eye with Anne because he harbors animosity toward Anne for heeding Lady Russell’s advice rather than being with him. At the conclusion of the novel when Anne finally is able to relate the truth to him about the necessity of breaking up their relationship, he admits that “there [had] been one person more [his] enemy even than [Lady Russell]: [his] own self” (194). Wentworth becomes this dutiful man and exemplifies Gisborne’s ideal man as he conforms to the understanding nature of a good friend and partner. Unlike Mr. Elliot, who Anne distrusted because “[s]he could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a