The Problem of Perception: Society’s Views vs. Reality in Persuasion Anonymous 12th Grade

Society is notably poor at judging people’s character. Good people can be disregarded for petty reasons and deplorable people can be supported for equally poor reasons. Such contrasts are common in Persuasion with characters like Sir Walter, Mr. Elliot, and Mrs. Smith. They all exhibit clear disparities between how they are viewed by their society and how they are depicted by Austen. In Jane Austen’s Persuasion, the contrast between society’s perception of people and their realities is used to reveal Austen’s thoughts on the negative and often inaccurate views of society.

Mr. Elliot is used to show how society can mistake scheming, selfish people for well-meaning people if they are rich and charismatic. After a few years earlier marrying a “rich woman of inferior birth” (Ch. 1) and causing Sir Walter to “[consider] him unworthy of it” (meaning family respect) (1), Mr. Elliot came back to the family and was “not only pardoned, [the family was] delighted with him” (15). He manages to explain away the faux pas of his previous marriage and win back the favor of Sir Walter and the others. He becomes an agreeable man, “rational, discreet, polished” (17), but on a subsurface level, according to Anne “there was never any burst of...