Recovery Theme In Persuasion

Jane Austen’s novel, Persuasion, examines the grace of second chances. The novel gives second chances through the theme of recovery. Fallen ideas like bodies, money, social class and relationships fill the novel of ills. Persuasion is set during the time after the Napoleonic wars. Post wartime is a time of decay and death in which it can begin to rise to recovery. The novel follows along the timeline of post wartime and the nature of seasonal cycles. Autumn and wintertime represent decay and death in the novel where spring and summertime brings forth recovery. Second chances in Persuasion in the form of recovery is exemplified through the Elliot family’s economic crisis, the time and relationship between protagonist Anne Elliot and her former love Captain Wentworth, and how the effects of injuries in the novel create the recovery for others. The theme of recovery is most prominent in Persuasion. The premier of the theme recovery occurs within the first few pages of the novel. The novel’s

Yet, the wintertime is a time in which Anne must endure while she watches Captain Wentworth chase after another love, Louisa Musgrove. The force of nature, like in many others of Austen’s novels, plays a part in the protagonist’s life. “Just as the season of autumn is cherished in the novel because it shows external nature as it is passing in the eternal repetition of its immense cycle of bloom and decay, so life is to be cherished as it is passing in the individual, and it is to be respected as it endures the race” (Duffy 280). The passing of the blooming and decay repetition of the seasons passes through the individuals, in this case, Anne Elliot. Like the quote from Duffy states, Anne will endure the race and cycle. While she begins the novel as a decaying character, the introduction of other people’s ills and emergence of the rejuvenating year will bring her good