The Values In Jane Austen's Persuastion: An Analysis From The Feminist Perspective

Jane Austen created excellent six novels in her life. As her last novel, Persuasion is different from Jane Austen's other novels. This novel is her new attempt, which shows a new tendency to romanticism. Many scholars have studied Jane Austen's novels from the feminist perspective. Her novels indeed contain feminist ideas and thoughts. As a female writer, Jane Austen experienced many inequalities and difficulties in the society at her times. She always presented her hopes and discontent in her novel. Persuasion is such a novel which reveals much of Jane Austen's thoughts and ideas. The heroine Anne Elliot is the very embodiment of Jane Austen's understanding of women in the male-dominated world. Jane Austen was discerning about that world and about women's situation in it. She stressed women's self-awareness, which was quite ahead of her time.The present thesis attempts to analyze the values in Persuasion from the feminist perspective. It consists of four major parts. In the first part, I will analyze four important female characters in the novel. They are Anne Elliot, Lady Russell, Mrs. Smith and Lady Croft. In the second part, I will go on to examine the process of the various persuasions conducted in the novel. Third part will focus on the underlying values reflected in those female characters and those persuasions. The final part will present the conclusions which I will draw from the previous analyses. The thesis will show that Persuasion is a novel with profound significance and bears great relevance even modern readers nowadays.