Color Me Cultured - Persuasion by Jane Austen

Persuasion by Jane Austen (image)

Meredith is back today with another book for us! We love this recommendation, it really is right up our alley and we can't wait to dig in!

Up now is an old classic which I can guarantee most of you have not read.  It ties in perfectly with the Color Me Styled clean classiness; royal elegance and higher standard of presenting one’s self.

Pride and Prejudice, Senseand Sensibility, and Emma are much more commonly known titles by the late Jane Austen. Many critics agree, however, it is within Persuasion that Miss Austen makes her boldest statements on love, life, and the expectations of an English woman in the early 1800s.  A history lesson to begin this book review, Jane Austen never married however she was believed to have had numerous elicit love affairs in her time.  Her success was all her own, never propped up by the title of the man who stood in front of her.  It is this quality which provides women throughout time, even teenagers and young women in today’s society, with a connection to the heroine in each of Austen’s stories.  Unlike her more popular works, Persuasion’s leading heroine Anne Elliott, is not happy or content with the life she lives, unconvinced that love will eventually come. Anne Elliott had already loved and lost as a result of class distinction, hers being high, her love’s much beneath her. 

Faced with the return of her lover, now several social classes higher, equal if not above her own, due to his successes in the British Navy, Anne must decide if the persuasions which led to her turning her back on the one true love of her life still ring true.  The man she fell in love with is still the same, his affection for her unknown after eight long years of separation and a heartache which never healed. 

The story humiliates those who live their life for social standing, and makes patience seem like a walk in the park compared to turning away from the one person you truly want in life.  Most importantly Persuasion reminds the reader that nothing is ever really lost in life, second and third chances are possible, and fate always steps in.

Persuasion was Jane Austen’s last novel, and in it she broke the mold of a quiet disciplined young woman searching for a deserving man to lead her through life.  Anne Elliott is faced with the decision to defy the expectations of her family, friends, and closest advisors to pursue the other half of her whole.  As I parting gift I leave you with Austen’s own words, straight from the pages of Persuasion,

“It was perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the events decide.”

Until next time…