What Persuasion Taught Me About Being Overlooked
Continuing my series of fun books, I recently finished Persuasion by Jane Austen, and I found it to be a very easy and enjoyable read. It was not as detailed as Pride and Prejudice, and the love story was more subtle in that it mostly focused on the main character, Anne, yearning for her love interest, Captain Frederick Wentworth. Anne is not as confident or witty as Elizabeth, nor is she as open to challenging people. I actually found myself relating to Anne in many ways because I found her to be more of a people pleaser at first. She has a strong attachment and loyalty to her family, and she feels it is her duty to do right by them, even when it costs her own happiness at times. She is driven by compassion and depth and seems to be the only person in her family to have any sense, but we are introduced to her as someone who does not begin with much confidence in her own judgment. She is easily persuaded by the opinions of those close to her. That is not necessarily a bad trait, but there is still a lack of conviction in following her own judgment and inner knowing.
The story is about judgment, in my opinion. It is about how easily we are persuaded by the opinions of others before properly assessing our own experiences, and the preconceived judgments we adopt from our environments when it comes to connecting with other people. The story shows you all the different ways people can become when surrounded by privilege and how pride and vanity, ultimately, no matter how shiny you are on the outside, will never truly outshine the character of someone who possesses humility and kindness toward others. Anne comes from a very privileged family and has a vain father who is mostly concerned with his physical appearance and truly believes he is all that and a bag of chips simply because of his rank and status in society. The man has never had to truly work a day in his life, and he finds all of his identity and value in his status. He is shallow and looks down on others because of their social standing and appearance. Meanwhile, he is actually terrible with money, and since his wife died, he has lived above his means and quickly pushed the family toward losing everything they have, all while still thinking he is better than everyone. He does not like professions like the navy, which give people the ability to move beyond their original financial circumstances through hard work and merit, because he sees them as beneath him. It allows people from a lower class to sit at tables where he does not deem them worthy of being. Anne has two sisters who are not much different from their father and live deeply empty and shallow lives. Elizabeth is considered the beauty of the family, but she is the spitting image of her father, only valuing those she deems important according to their social standing.
When I was reading about this family, I kind of felt like most of society these days reflects them. I find myself not really wanting to interact with people because I feel like this describes the majority of people out in the world today. At least in my world, I do not necessarily think the division between classes is as obvious, but I feel like everyone is always sizing you up and attaching some kind of mental rank that places you into a category. Can I get something out of them or not? I find this behavior absolutely exhausting. While many people try to hide the fact that they are doing it, Anne’s family does not feel the need to hide it because of their inherited title. Anne, on the other hand, is like the black sheep of the family. She has miraculously been able to maintain a grounded identity despite all of the outward glamour around her, and she possesses qualities Austen consistently presents as far more valuable. She listens, she comforts others, and she notices when someone is hurting. She rarely seeks praise, and she forms genuine relationships across social classes. Her family deems her unimportant, so she is often ignored, undervalued, and unseen. While some people might grow to resent the experience of feeling unseen and uncared for within their own family, it ends up becoming Anne’s greatest gift. Unlike her family, who are constantly seeking validation and praise, Anne has basically never had either, so she does not go around expecting it. Once you stop expecting recognition from people who will never give it, you begin to live by a different standard. Anne becomes someone who quietly does what is right simply because it is right.
I do not think the point is that we should undervalue people so they can grow into well rounded individuals. I think it means that the circumstances we begin with do not have to define who we become. I related to Anne in terms of feeling like the black sheep in a big family. As the youngest of a large group of siblings, I have always felt undervalued and underappreciated for who I actually am. I have felt this my entire life, and it has been like a ghost that follows me everywhere I go. I feel like I went a little in the opposite direction from Anne. At many points in my life, I felt bitter and hurt by being overlooked, and it made me act in ways I am not always proud of. I have sought validation and acceptance in places that were not always right for me. I actually feel really inspired by Anne because she does not become bitter over the fact that she is ignored or overlooked. Anne could have become resentful like Elizabeth or obsessed with status like her father. Instead, being overlooked stripped away many of the distractions that consumed her family. It cultivated humility, compassion, steadiness, and discernment.
I think Anne is one of my favorite characters in the Jane Austen world because she made me realize that instead of resenting the fact that I have been overlooked by people, family, friends, or even people I have liked romantically. I should not receive it with bitterness, but as a gift that helped make me the person I am today. The feeling of being overlooked has haunted me for a very long time, and sometimes I find myself people pleasing my way into trying to be liked and then resenting people when they do not treat me the way I wish to be treated. I also find that, at times, I have struggled with constantly feeling offended because when you are hyperfocused on how people perceive and react to you, you take everything personally. Everything starts to feel like confirmation that they hate you or that they do not value you in the way you wish to be valued. I once told myself, when I was trying to heal these personal mental habits, that I no longer wanted to be offended by everyone and by the way they are or the way they treat me. I also no longer wanted to expect people to be like me or to have the same level of consideration, because most people simply do not. Does that make it okay? No. But for me, I have learned to fill myself through my spiritual life and to stop doing things simply because I want people to like me. I had to come to the deep realization that I need to be myself. If I am going to do good, it needs to be because that is simply who I am, while also having limits on who gets to receive the totality of my being. Slowly but surely, I have learned that it does not matter what people think of me or my life as long as I feel right with God and I am doing my best to live with integrity. Whether people see it or not, it does not really matter. I love how Anne completely embodies this, and I was truly inspired by her character. Even when everyone seems to overlook her, and even when the man she loves becomes enamored with someone who is the opposite of her, it hurts her heart, but she accepts it and does not become bitter with the world. If anything, I feel like she grows deeper into herself through the heartache and becomes even more rooted in what she truly values.
The story is heavily focused on the connection between Captain Wentworth and Anne, who, at one point in their young lives, were engaged. Captain Wentworth proposes to Anne when she is still a young woman of nineteen or twenty. At the time, he is still a young navy sailor with no title or money to his name. He falls for Anne and quickly wants to marry her, but their relationship is cut short because Anne, who values the opinion of a motherly figure, Mrs. Russell, is persuaded to reject his proposal on the grounds that he does not really have anything to offer her and would most likely live a life of struggle, as he has not yet made a name for himself. Heartbroken, Anne follows the advice of her family and lives for eight years yearning for him, feeling as if she has made a grave mistake. Captain Wentworth eventually achieves the success he had promised her when he first proposed. For eight years they live lives apart, both carrying different hurts and different opinions about their separation. Captain Wentworth's resentment comes from a combination of heartbreak, wounded pride, and the belief that Anne did not love him enough to stand by him. He is resentful because he believes she allowed herself to be persuaded by others. When life seemingly brings them back together, he is still quite resentful of Anne because he feels he was judged incorrectly and ranked by a family that does not value the qualities he possesses. In his own childish attempt to forget her, he focuses on finding a woman who has all the opposite traits of what he believes Anne lacks. He begins courting Louisa right in front of Anne, praising her spontaneity and firmness of character while constantly repeating how he believes people with no conviction have little value because they are easily persuaded against their own judgment. Louisa is confident, energetic, spontaneous, and unafraid to insist on her own way. She also makes it very obvious that she wants to win him over. Anne, on the other hand, is much more subtle. She shows very little outward affection, even though she is deeply in love with him, and it hurts her to watch him become so enthralled with Louisa. Eventually, Wentworth learns the hard way that the very things he dislikes about Anne are actually her greatest virtues. Anne is thoughtful, calm, patient, wise, and able to judge when to stand firm and when to listen. She is not indecisive. She is reflective and cautious.
Captain Wentworth has a major moment of character development when Louisa insists on jumping from the high steps despite him warning her not to jump. She refuses to listen, and she falls and suffers a serious head injury. Wentworth realizes something profound. Firmness is not always a virtue. Stubbornness without humility becomes recklessness, and there is great value in someone who is willing to listen to reason. When he feels guilty over Louisa's fall, he realizes that by praising the qualities she possessed so loudly and criticizing the qualities Anne had, he had unintentionally encouraged Louisa to become even more reckless in an attempt to impress him. While Louisa recovers from her injury, Anne calmly steps in, takes control of the situation, and directs everyone so Louisa can receive the care she needs. He notices Anne's quiet strength and realizes she was never actually indecisive. At nineteen, when he first proposed to her, she was not lacking conviction. She was being prudent. She understood that there are times to stand firm and times to listen. She did not act purely out of attachment or impulse. She assessed the situation and recognized that, at that point in her life, she was simply not ready for marriage. Once he has this realization and recognizes that he judged Anne too harshly because of his own wounded pride, he begins to understand that these are exactly the qualities he wants in a wife. Someone who balances his own personality. Someone who views life through reflection rather than impulse and stubbornness.
Eventually, he writes Anne one of the most beautiful letters I have ever read, confessing that during the eight years they were apart he never stopped thinking about her and wishing things had turned out differently. He realizes he is still deeply in love with her and that he does not want to lose her a second time. At the same time, he also comes to understand that perhaps it simply was not the right time all those years ago. He was still immature in many ways and had not yet made a name for himself. And obviously my girl Anne is basically like, Yeah, I've loved you this whole time, but I respected the decisions you made and whoever you chose to be with. Even though it hurt to see you with someone else, if that was what was best for you, I would have accepted it. She is also able to explain that although she regrets allowing other people's opinions to persuade her away from him, she has grown through reflection and now understands that people often judge others through the lens of what they themselves value most. Mrs. Russell genuinely loves Anne and wants what she believes is best for her, but she did not approve of Wentworth because he was poor in her eyes. She values money and status, so through her own lens he could never have been the right choice for her goddaughter.
As Anne grows older, she begins to recognize Mrs. Russell's poor judgment and how much it is clouded by her own prejudice. Mrs. Russell tries real hard to match Anne with Mr. Elliot because of his status and inheritance, despite the fact that his character lacks integrity. Anne can clearly see what kind of man Mr. Elliot is, but Mrs. Russell cannot because she assumes that wealth and status automatically make someone a good person. Anne, on the other hand, values Wentworth's character, his integrity, kindness, and generosity. Those are the qualities she truly loves about him. What I especially love is that Anne seems to recognize that, although she regrets allowing herself to be persuaded the first time, she also understands that she simply was not ready then. She was not mature enough and had not yet developed a strong sense of her own identity. Now they are both older. They have both grown into themselves, and Anne has reached a place where she can stand firmly in her own judgment and convictions. When she was younger, she had very little life experience. She had always done what everyone else expected of her, and if everything had worked out the first time, she might never have become the woman she became in through eight years. Eight years earlier, Wentworth was ambitious and confident, but he was also proud and impulsive. After years in the navy and after experiencing heartbreak himself, he becomes more humble and emotionally vulnerable. He learns that steadfast love is far more valuable than simple firmness. When they reunite, they are not simply picking up where they left off. They are meeting again as two people who have both been refined by life. Anne never pretends those eight years were easy because they were not. They were filled with acceptance, but also with lingering grief. At the same time, she refuses to believe those years were meaningless. They gave her maturity, independence, and a much stronger sense of who she is.
What I like about Anne and Wentworth versus Elizabeth and Darcy is that I think there is a real sense of character development between both Wentworth and Anne. They do not have this quick realization and then suddenly live happily ever after like Elizabeth and Darcy. In the end, we will never really know if Darcy actually changed as a person or if it was simply a short term change while he was trying to win Elizabeth. I think it is much more realistic that sometimes you meet someone, have a genuine connection, but it simply is not the right time for either of you.
I related to Anne because I, too, was once asked to marry at a young age. I mean, I was not nineteen, I was twenty six, but in many ways I am so proud of that girl because she knew in her heart that if she got married at that age, she would not have made the other person happy. I remember feeling like I did not know anything about anything. I had gone from depending on my family, to college, to depending on a boyfriend, and I did not know who I was. I had relatively little life experience and was deeply insecure. Now, when I look back and ask myself, was it all worth it? Should I have walked away? Or even when I think about my short lived romances, I am actually so glad none of those experiences worked out because I do not think I would have developed into the person I am today. I think young women are constantly told to get into relationships and to move quickly to keep the guy before they even know who they are. I recently read in the Bible that if you want to marry, then marry, but understand that marriage can make it harder to devote yourself fully to God because we naturally begin to focus so much on that relationship. We can turn our relationships into idols. We create all of these expectations about how they should make us happy. It also says that the advantage of being single is that your focus can be fully on God, and that there is great value in that. You should not feel less valuable because you are not in a relationship or assume that happiness is guaranteed simply because you have a partner. Make God your highest priority while you are single and while you are in a relationship, so that no one ever becomes your god. As a woman, I do believe in marriage and I do believe in healthy relationships, but I do not believe in rushing into them simply because of social expectations or because you are afraid you might never find someone else. I have had many people tell me, "Well, you're never going to find anyone like him." I have also had moments where I have told myself, "Maybe I am not meant to be with anyone," or "Maybe that was my only chance." People ask me why I do not date more or why I do not seek out those experiences, and honestly, it is because I do not feel like I need to. I kind of feel like if something like that is meant to be part of my life, it will happen because it aligns with God's will for me. I do want it, but I am not willing to force it or endlessly meet people just to have a romantic experience. I think a lot of women place their value in how many people they date or how much attention they receive, but I do not think my value comes from that kind of attention. Other times I wonder, why don't I do this? Why does it always feel so heavy for me to experience those things? Is there something wrong with me? But I really think a woman should know who she is before she finds her partner. Being older does not make me feel like the train has left the station. If anything, I finally feel like I am at a place where I would not lose myself or make my relationship an idol.
The second time around, Anne and Wentworth are able to proudly choose each other, not out of youthful impulse, but as two adults with experience and discernment. I find that much more romantic than love at first sight. Anyway, this was a much shorter read than Pride and Prejudice, but you can tell they both genuinely grow for the better. Their changes are not superficial. They are the result of deep inner growth that took time to cultivate.
As always, I hope you leave a little more inspired.
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Source: What Persuasion Taught Me About Being Overlooked
