Whom do you want to slap?

Another fun thing to do while reading Jane Austen is to find the person you would most likely slap across the face.

In the case of Persuasion, the slapee would definitely be Anne's sister Mary.  She's a perpetual whiner, who can't manage her own children, demands Anne's constant attention, and then inadvertently sets up the beginning of her sister's reconciliation with Captain Wentworth.  Mary snivels away at the Harville's home to insist on her caring for Louisa when every one knows that Anne would most effectively care for their friend with a head injury.   Austen describes Mary as "so wretched, and so vehement, complained so much of injustice in being expected to go away instead of Anne . . why was not she to be as useful as Anne?" (ch xii)

Within the vectors of the social physics in this novel, the buffoons, bastards, and witchy women set contrasts for the noble, honorable, kind, beautiful, and humble Anne.  

Louisa seemed nice enough, and Captain Wentworth seemed to have settled on her as the acceptable Musgrove sister to marry, so Austen has her knocked out of contention while playing around on the stairs at the beach.

The all-too-virtuous Anne would never have let herself be alone in the carriage with her ex-boyfriend, now-returned hero, Captain Wentworth except her silly sister Mary selfishly wanted to avoid facing the Musgrove parents with the bad news about their daughter.  So Anne gets steered by fate (or by Austen's scheming pen) into the rather subtle, but highly commendable consultation with the Captain.  In the stressful moments before arriving at the Musgrove's home, he talks to his old girl friend.  As Austen puts it, "the remembrance of the appeal remained a pleasure to her--as a proof of her friendship, and of deferrence for her judgment, a great pleasure; and when it became a sort of parting proof , its value did not lessen." (ch x ii)

Remember that Anne is the persona through which the author guides you the reader's experience through the social mileu of the British upper class, most of whom are pompous fools, but not you, dear reader, and certainly not Anne.  Defer to her judgement in assessing the characters, and see this odd little world through her virtuous eyes.  Even as you want to slap Mary, feel confident that the direction Anne gets pushed due to her sister's foolish ways will make Anne a little bit closer to her silently held goal.