“Look to Her for Directions”: Persuasion, Napoleon, and a New National Heroism
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Jane Austen’s novels are revered for their comforting portrayal of domestic spaces and romantic love, yet are also often criticized for failing to participate in discourses of national importance. This paper suggests that in her last completed novel, Persuasion, Austen was indeed grappling with large ideological shifts that were playing out around her in both the public and private realms. Drawing on competing concepts of masculinity and heroism in the figures of Napoleon, Lord Byron, and “ordinary” British naval officers in contrast to the traditionally feminine domestic role, Persuasion negotiates the development of a new national character rooted in the rising middle and professional classes informed by a dialectical relationship to a troubling past. Through Anne Elliot’s ability to moderate the excessive ferocity, pride, and sentimentalism in the men around her by virtue of her rational mind and domestically-cultivated managerial skills, Captain Wentworth is refined into an emergent “ordinary” English hero. Together, Anne and Wentworth model an evolving form of civic virtue in the way they relate to each other and to the past. In her hero and heroine’s readiness to go to work for the nation rather than retire to an inherited country estate, Austen allegorizes a commitment to filial and patriotic duty that is no longer based on traditional aristocratic ideals, but on increasingly domestic and democratic ones.
Abstract
Jane Austen’s novels are revered for their comforting portrayal of domestic spaces and romantic love, yet are also often criticized for failing to participate in discourses of national importance. This paper suggests that in her last completed novel, Persuasion, Austen was indeed grappling with large ideological shifts that were playing out around her in both the public and private realms. Drawing on competing concepts of masculinity and heroism in the figures of Napoleon, Lord Byron, and “ordinary” British naval officers in contrast to the traditionally feminine domestic role, Persuasion negotiates the development of a new national character rooted in the rising middle and professional classes informed by a dialectical relationship to a troubling past. Through Anne Elliot’s ability to moderate the excessive ferocity, pride, and sentimentalism in the men around her by virtue of her rational mind and domestically-cultivated managerial skills, Captain Wentworth is refined into an emergent “ordinary” English hero. Together, Anne and Wentworth model an evolving form of civic virtue in the way they relate to each other and to the past. In her hero and heroine’s readiness to go to work for the nation rather than retire to an inherited country estate, Austen allegorizes a commitment to filial and patriotic duty that is no longer based on traditional aristocratic ideals, but on increasingly domestic and democratic ones.
참고문헌 (20)
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