Yesterday afternoon, I finished reading Persuasion, and last night I watched over two hours of American Ninja Warrior: US vs the World. Austen's work was more intellectually more titillating.
The Ninja show is basically an obstacle course with water underneath that sets off bursts of fire when the competitors reach each new stage. There's lots of hanging, swinging, jumping and dangling. Winners tend to be former gymnasts or rock climbers, not black belt karate competitors. A European rock climbing champion beat out a stock trader from Tennessee, who had reached the final with the help of his teammate, who had been identified merely as a "stay-at-home dad."
There's good work if you can get it. Captain Wentworth, similarly, has the sole job in Austen's novel of winning the affection of Anne Elliot. His final obstacles to traverse include jealousy of the final fool, her cousin Mr. Elliot, Anne's learning from an old friend that said cousin is a terrible, hypocritical, social-climbing jerk, and, finally, Anne engaging in a battle royal of feminist debates with Wentworth's fellow naval officer, Captain Harville.
The Harville vs A. Elliot throw down occurs over the topic: who forgets their loved ones faster when they die--man or woman?
With Wentworth in the corner of the room engaged in correspondence, Anne and the Captain H. engage in a spirited exchange with Anne saying women hang on longer than men. With Captain Benwick as her example who is remarrying after the passing of his wife, Anne states "it must be nature, man's nature." (ch XXIII) Men can move on because they "have difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with" whereas women "Live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us." While Harville attempts to dissipate the energy of this discussion by claiming, "we shall never agree upon this question" his Navy buddy has dropped his pen, "striving to catch sounds, which yet she did not think he could have caught."
This plot trope of the overheard conversation gets significantly more play in British literature than American as leading families in large estate houses are overheard by servants who relay messages to other servants and then back to the principal characters. Here, the servants are the once abandoned hearts of Anne and Wentworth. Rightly fearing the direct contact with the source of his desire, Captain W. surreptitiously pens a note to Anne with the delightful paradox of their love laid bare: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." He has clearly been listening to the argument and writes, "dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death." Then in a most Austen-like post script he closes with the line "I shall return hither. . . A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening, or never."
Those who go directly at their desire--in Austen's world, they are fools and scoundrels.
Those who judge by appearances-like Anne's spendthrift father-are soon to lose whatever they consider of value.
And those, like Anne and Wentworth, who suffer for their love, humbly serve greater causes than their own, and strive resolutely in the direction of their beloved--these noble few are rewarded with happy marriages.
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