Appearance Versus Reality in Anne Elliots Persuasion Essay

Appearance Versus Reality in Anne Elliots Persuasion In Persuasion, we meet Anne Elliot, a bright, attractive, upper-class woman who fell in love with a sailor, Captain Frederick Wentworth. However, Anne was successfully persuaded to reject Wentworth by her aristocratic family and friends, who failed to recognize Wentworths fine character and saw only his shallowness. Both Annes sisters are extremely different to Anne. Mary is an over reactive hypochondriac. Elizabeth very much follows in her fathers footsteps. She enjoys going off gallivanting at upper-class social gatherings and usually accompanies her father on these. The central conflict in Persuasion is that of appearance versus†¦show more content†¦While in Bath, Sir Walter obsessed about the dearth of attractive women: He had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five and thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop in Bond-street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them. Tolerable Face is an example of figurative language. Such a fascination with outward appearance severely limits Sir Walters prospects of finding another wife or intelligent friends and keeps him ignorant and self-centred. Austen clearly uses the theme of appearance versus reality to characterize Anne and Sir Walter. She evidently believes that how a character sees others is a direct reflection of that characters personality. Thus, we know that Anne Elliot possesses true depth of character and sincerity because her superficial family fails to recognize her fine qualities: Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister: her word had no weight; her convenience was always to give way. Anne is clearly the only Elliot who can see reality: she understands her familys need to economize and recognizes Marys frequent sickness as a call for attention. This is moral significance; she