All the readings assigned for homework really helped me gain a deeper understanding of Jane Austen, the concept or theme of widows in the book, and the characters not only in Persuasion, but in other novels by Jane Austen.

I never knew the qualities and characteristics of Jane Austen that well because I never read an Austen book in my life, or was ever really interested in Jane Austen. However, my older sister loves Jane Austen, so much so she has memorized pages from Pride and Prejudice. Anyways, getting to know the characteristics and qualities have made me realize that Jane Austen and Anne are quite similar. According to her Henry Austen, Jane “was tranquil without reserve or stiffness; and communicative without intrusion or self-sufficiency.” (205) To me Jane Austen is a lot like Anne. Both Anne and Jane are calm, friendly, and are known to carry on good conversation. By getting to know the author of the story I was to able understand the protagonist of the story better.

Widows in this story are an overlooked theme I believe. William Hayley, to my understanding, suggests that widows are not to be trusted and all men should stay as far away from them as possible. William Hayley suggest that widows or Old Maids are like anglers and will fall in love quickly just to have a “worthy purpose”. (194) Hayley also suggests that widows and widowers have a sort of competition to see which one will die first. He writes, “but the story, however it might be terminate, sufficiently proves the passion for novelty, which I have ascribed to the Widow.” (195) It seems like widows just want to have multiple husbands like each husband is some sort of trophy. Its an interesting concept and one that I really did not think about that much while reading Persuasion.

Richard Whateley, I believe, that “A New Style of Novel” has a lot to do with character development. That is why so many of Jane Austen’s characters are so well recognized, like Mr. Darcy and Elisabeth, from Jane Austen most famous book, Pride and Prejudice or Anne from Persuasion. Older stories would provide the characters name and possibly a characteristic of the character, but Jane Austen, dives into her characters lists certain qualities of her characters or shows how this character is nice or how this character is deceitful. Now, it is just normal to have deep characters development, but I think it is because of Jane Austen the idea of character development exists.