Read Online The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After by Elizabeth Kantor - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth Kantor
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impossible for them to see any value in a person so different from themselves.
Wentworth was full of energy and warmth, with an open and generous temper, the determination to make his way in the world, and the sterling qualities to make all his ambitions realities. But her father was appalled that a penurious young naval officer should aspire to the hand of a baronet’s daughter. And Anne’s only real friend, Lady Russell, was against the match, too. She was sure that a long engagement to a man with no solid prospects wasn’t a good idea for her young friend. Since Lady Russell was the one person Anne had to trust and look up to, she allowed herself to be persuaded that breaking her engagement to Captain Wentworth was the right thing to do. And that decision blighted Anne’s life. She broke the engagement only out of a sense of duty, against the dearest wish of her heart—and only because she was persuaded that it would be a drag on Wentworth’s prospects, that ending it would be “for his advantage.” But Wentworth couldn’t see it that way, and he parted from Anne in bitterness.
T IP JUST FOR JANEITES
The balance of power between
the sexes shifts with
the passage of time.
Anne’s “what I did for love”-style choice was painful at the time. But it was only over the next seven years that she truly came to understand what she had done. She never met another man she could love. Anne seemed to be forever trapped in the old prison cell that she’d retreated back into, after that brief interval of warmth and sunshine with Wentworth.
And then he comes back into her life. All his ambitions have been realized. His courage, resourcefulness, and hard work have gained him advancement and wealth. But he’s no longer interested in Anne. They’re thrown
together by accident, and he meets her almost as a stranger—as less than a stranger, in fact, “for they could never become acquainted.”
While Wentworth meets her with cold indifference, Anne loves him more intensely than ever. “No: the years which had destroyed her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly, open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages. She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth.” Like any woman deeply in love, Anne suffers a hyper-awareness of the man’s physical presence. The narration of the first scene in which Wentworth comes close enough to touch her after eight years apart is a masterpiece of psychological realism. 16
Gradually Anne gets used to the new footing she’s on with Wentworth. The painful embarrassment of the first few meetings subsides, along with the last precious hopes that he might care for her still, or ever again. He is cold and distant to Anne, but open, enthusiastic, and engaging with everyone else. Wentworth’s behavior soon creates speculation about his possible interest in two young women in Anne’s circle. For the Musgrove girls, the world is full of new enjoyments and possibilities opening up. And Anne’s world seems to be contracting. She’s more clearly than ever the quietly fading not-so-young woman whom love has passed by.
Anne’s situation, like Fanny’s, is all too realistic. It’s “the fate,” as they said in Jane Austen’s day, of countless thousands of real live women—some significant multiple of however many of us have ever wrought ourselves up to Brontë-scale Romantic agony—to wake up too late to the realization that the balance of power between the sexes has shifted over time. A man can easily seem even more attractive as he ages into his thirties and forties and beyond. His “personal advantages” can be increased by the passage of the same years that sap a woman’s “youth and bloom.” Pace Harold and Maude (and the real-life Demi Moore), not very many women find themselves courted by men decades younger than they are.
But Anne’s heartbreak isn’t just about how her chance for happy love has faded with her youth. Everything she sees in Wentworth
Wentworth was full of energy and warmth, with an open and generous temper, the determination to make his way in the world, and the sterling qualities to make all his ambitions realities. But her father was appalled that a penurious young naval officer should aspire to the hand of a baronet’s daughter. And Anne’s only real friend, Lady Russell, was against the match, too. She was sure that a long engagement to a man with no solid prospects wasn’t a good idea for her young friend. Since Lady Russell was the one person Anne had to trust and look up to, she allowed herself to be persuaded that breaking her engagement to Captain Wentworth was the right thing to do. And that decision blighted Anne’s life. She broke the engagement only out of a sense of duty, against the dearest wish of her heart—and only because she was persuaded that it would be a drag on Wentworth’s prospects, that ending it would be “for his advantage.” But Wentworth couldn’t see it that way, and he parted from Anne in bitterness.
T IP JUST FOR JANEITES
The balance of power between
the sexes shifts with
the passage of time.
Anne’s “what I did for love”-style choice was painful at the time. But it was only over the next seven years that she truly came to understand what she had done. She never met another man she could love. Anne seemed to be forever trapped in the old prison cell that she’d retreated back into, after that brief interval of warmth and sunshine with Wentworth.
And then he comes back into her life. All his ambitions have been realized. His courage, resourcefulness, and hard work have gained him advancement and wealth. But he’s no longer interested in Anne. They’re thrown
together by accident, and he meets her almost as a stranger—as less than a stranger, in fact, “for they could never become acquainted.”
While Wentworth meets her with cold indifference, Anne loves him more intensely than ever. “No: the years which had destroyed her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly, open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages. She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth.” Like any woman deeply in love, Anne suffers a hyper-awareness of the man’s physical presence. The narration of the first scene in which Wentworth comes close enough to touch her after eight years apart is a masterpiece of psychological realism. 16
Gradually Anne gets used to the new footing she’s on with Wentworth. The painful embarrassment of the first few meetings subsides, along with the last precious hopes that he might care for her still, or ever again. He is cold and distant to Anne, but open, enthusiastic, and engaging with everyone else. Wentworth’s behavior soon creates speculation about his possible interest in two young women in Anne’s circle. For the Musgrove girls, the world is full of new enjoyments and possibilities opening up. And Anne’s world seems to be contracting. She’s more clearly than ever the quietly fading not-so-young woman whom love has passed by.
Anne’s situation, like Fanny’s, is all too realistic. It’s “the fate,” as they said in Jane Austen’s day, of countless thousands of real live women—some significant multiple of however many of us have ever wrought ourselves up to Brontë-scale Romantic agony—to wake up too late to the realization that the balance of power between the sexes has shifted over time. A man can easily seem even more attractive as he ages into his thirties and forties and beyond. His “personal advantages” can be increased by the passage of the same years that sap a woman’s “youth and bloom.” Pace Harold and Maude (and the real-life Demi Moore), not very many women find themselves courted by men decades younger than they are.
But Anne’s heartbreak isn’t just about how her chance for happy love has faded with her youth. Everything she sees in Wentworth
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