Warnings Offered by Jane Austen about the Moral Dangers of...

What Warnings Does Jane Austen offer About the Moral Dangers of Persuasion? My essay will be exploring the different forms of persuasion, where it occurs in the story and the effects that it has upon the characters in the novel. In its most basic form persuasion means Gaining power over others. Which means to influence others into acting in a way in which you want them to via exploitation. The essay will therefore, be looking at the different moral dangers faced by the characters and how they act upon them. Throughout the novel, persuasion is expressed in many different forms with many different outcomes. One of the most obvious and most powerful ways it is expressed is through family persuasion. Family persuasion means†¦show more content†¦For instance when Captain Wentworth (who was a mere soldier at the time) proposed to Anne when she was eighteen, she would have very willingly accepted his offer because she felt very strongly for him. If it hadnt of been for Lady Russell that is who dissuaded Anne to marry him because he was too headstrong and wouldnt make it through life. Young and gentle as she was, it might yet have been possible to withstand her fathers ill-will, though unsoftened by one kind word or look on the part of her sister; but Lady Russell, whom she had always loved and relied on, could not, with such steadiness of opinion, and such tenderness of manner, be continually advising her in vain. She was persuaded to believe the engagement a wrong thing--indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success and not deserving it. Lady Russell clearly believed therefore, that if Anne had married him then she would be just throwing her life away because of a soldier who had nothing but himself to offer her. Anne reluctantly agrees with Lady Russell and declines his offer. In reality Anne never forgets him and never loses the feelings she had for him when she was eighteen. For then ten years later when Anne had reached twenty-eight she would meet him again not as a soldier but as Captain Wentworth - a very wealthy man indeed! Now when Anne and Captain Wentworth have been thrust into each others