Finish Austen’s Persuasion

1. What does the novel suggest about the nature and role of feeling, the dangers of feeling, or the relationship between gender and feeling? What does it suggest about appropriate ways of expressing and/or representing feeling?

2. What does the novel suggest about making appropriate distinctions between the private and the public? Where do we see public space (or behavior) contrasted with private space (or behavior)? Where do they overlap or interfere with each other?

3. How does the novel explore tensions between economic motives and moral behavior?

4. In the novel, what are the effects of class prejudice, or of pre-conceived principles in general?

5. Thinking of various characters, at what point does “pride” become “vanity”? When is it wise and proper to assert yourself, or to efface yourself? What is the proper role of self-esteem? Does the novel contrast true vs. false sources of self-esteem? What are the social and psychological effects of over- or under-valuing the self?

6. According to the novel, who deserves to have moral or social authority? How should authority be exercised? How much respect should an individual have for authority?

–Does “tradition” have value in and of itself? What are the competing claims of the old vs. the new? Can they be resolved?

7. The novel contains at least one important repetition (Wentworth repeats his proposal to Anne). What does the novel suggest about the personal, historical, or literary possibilities of repetition? What does it suggest about the relationship between repetition and difference, or sameness and change?

–Can time alone bring about change, or does change require action? What kinds of actions create change? How much change are people capable of making? What is the relation between change and revelation (discovering what was there all along)? What is the relation between personal and social change?

8. Could this novel be written today? What seems specific to the time period, and what might carry over to our own day