Persuasion - A Personal Interpretation

About two months ago I was reading, and rereading, Austen's Persuasion — sometimes for half an hour, a millisecond, or the entire day — and, consequently enough, I began neglecting and withdrawing from my academics temporarily. Reading at this time was of the utmost importance for my stress-inducing schedules and paperwork. Persuasion, though, was more than just a mere pastime favorite.

The week before February, I had been dragged through hell, the soles of my feet bleeding, while being mentally skinned alive by the adverse circumstances I have been forced to live in. I was picking my pen up, staring back at the blank paper before me that was going to be inked with my thoughts on the book, but because of the destructive criticisms I have received about my overused rhetorics and awkward syntaxes, I acquiesced to the voice in my head that always orders to "put the pen down," adding another deprecating comment that I am "not good enough to be a writer." Then, there were moments when I'm utterly compelled and inspired to write more, after having written a personal research paper, only to be interrupted by that same voice when I stopped writing mid-paragraph. It asks, "What are you writing?" And, given that I am now just accustomed to the illocutionary force of these utterances and their ridiculing implications, I placed my pen down.

This was why I stopped writing, why I stopped personal projects halfway, for this vindictive half of me perpetuated negative beliefs in myself and then in my writing. Persuasion comforted me thus, and I have been dwelling in the shadows of its themes: social rigidity, naivete, second chances, and, what is considered to be the most universal and adaptable truth, love.

In the most provocative manner ever to be established within the school campus, a freshman girl, three years younger than my senior, always seemed to have yelled at her friends and used vulgarities in greeting — but it seemed contrived oftentimes that there was no point for me to even address my concerns anymore. Most people ignored it and continued on to their daily commutes and activities. Some, primarily referring to the upperclassmen, leered at her — awaiting to express their repugnance to their friend groups or, as most millennials put it, "spill the tea" — and for a few good reasons I will mention. One, when one upperclassman thought of freshmen in this particular school year, they were (almost always) certainly going to describe the freshmen's notable intemperate behaviors and their perpetually brutal fistfights; second, reason one implied that certain freshmen were totally unmotivated and therefore considered to be too ignorant and uninflected to be respected as a whole class; and third, they always were acting arrogant and entitled, as though they had instituted the new definition for "cool." Having those said, the girl who had been yelling and, to no one's surprise, skipping class, was — to me — not in the right place. And I do not just mean physically.

The young girl was small, limping from a leg injury. Her stunningly blonde hair was curly, free, and a little wild, tucked under her black hood. I noticed that if she had removed the hood, that hair would have cascaded down beautifully behind her. She could have let it go and let it scintillate in its own spectacular way, but, for some reason, she would not. Most days, I will always see her under her hood that it was clear from the start that she was attempting to be a part of the fashion statement of her "friends," whose vocabulary consisted filler words and unintelligible, slang jargon— "you know, like," or "I, uh, like, umm, know," or "why the **** would you do that, *****!"

It was true, I did not know them but their insatiable appetite for popularity made them so transparent. Mr. Elliot’s vanity can portray this perfectly, as he predominantly focuses on his social standing to demonstrate his respectable nobility, that he was in fact better than his poorer counterparts. In this interpretation, he was undoubtedly a narcissist who misconstrued what physical characteristics and financial background really attributed to. Meanwhile, I knew the young girl resembled the opposite. She was a little girl, and I do not mean to say that in an avuncular manner but as a way of saying that she was still searching for her place. She was a little girl who thought that if she followed a particular culture, she would certainly find many friends, sheer attention, but both of those combined would only be counted as her gilded happiness. High school was shallow in its purest form — yes, as pupils advanced they would soon realize that these notions of gaining “followers” in real life and on-screen amounted to nothing in the real world. The same could be said of Mr. Eliott, who, like the girl, was simply misguided. No one was really there to give her what she needed, no mother, role model, or a true friend. Just acquaintances who she never grew emotionally accustomed to.

It had been the detrimental effect of loss that had cost them, the girl and Mr. Eliott, their empathy, and what they could have been. However, despite their naturally mean make-up, they were wholly innocent in distinct ways. One was mentally absent and narrow-minded while the other was absentmindedly exploring into oblivion, on the verge of an epiphany. Then, the young girl reappeared again, but Mr. Eliott’s ghost did not. In his stead was the preceding encounter of Anne Eliott and Frederick Wentworth. This time I was in the same classroom during Advisory, wherein I caught a glimpse of her injured leg (from a soccer game, she claimed) and everyone in her group had the massive need to yell of it, like a clearly capitalized headline repeated on the News. But she was silent.

Her quiet did not go unnoticed, however. Not to me, not to the teacher (who had been almost everyone’s second mother in school), not to her classmates, except her social group. Everyone was minding their own businesses, though, respecting her in a renewed fashion. No one was pressing onward on why she was so dead and to my surprise, she had shifted herself in her desk as though attempting to sit more elegantly. I blinked at her and averted my gaze back on my paperwork and then gave her a sidelong glance. Some of her “friends” began to whisper to each other, recording “what the hell she was doing.” This time I knew it was only I who noticed her because there were only two minutes left before lunch. She was across from me, and she closed her eyes.

Someone had disrupted her silence — it had been another whisper of passing “something” after class in the cafeteria, and, considering how the teacher was distracted by an endless flow of students rushing out, I was the one who actually heard it. Admittedly I did not report this. If only you had looked at her face, you would have sympathized with her and her circumstances. It was only a fraction of a second that I had gotten to see her face, and her mine, which expressed a pained flinch (not from her leg, you would tell), glass-stained eyes — a nonverbal call for help. It was hard to talk when both parties can’t bring themselves to do so.

As children, we would have verbalized with great vulnerability and vented whatever rant or thought came to mind. The world has thrown so many tribulations for us to continue living with innocence and trust, which, to me, what Anne’s and Frederick’s cold interactions signified. Granted, their reasons were based on lost love due to Persuasion, but in a larger portrait, Persuasion has given me what the human psyche could be persuaded to do, how impressionable all of us can be no matter how careful. Along with the loss of naivete, comes forth regret and unhealthy coping mechanisms which, let’s face it, is already prominent in today’s generation.

What the young girl had been facing was more than just one person — it was a group of them. Her true, soulful personality and feigned spites contrasted with and clashed against each other perpetually. What she has given me and what I have given her was an understanding nod that she may be guilty as sin but still realizes that she has an ounce of kindness left to give. With that in mind still, I realize that Anne and Frederick take an extended period of time to find themselves and sort out their sentiments and perspectives. For her, it would have been just the same, except that her declining mental health will do her an injustice by — just like the voices in my head — insult her, abuse her, kill any sign of hope for a gentler corner in the world, force her to cede the smiles on her face, or even persuade her to deprive herself of the self-love she needs.

Love in Persuasion worked in tandem with second chances. With the application of that theme, there could exist more resilience and good influences, healthier circumstances, and positive advances to the common good. But the girl has yet to witness these changes — she still (as she has then realized) has to recuperate from the damages given to and done on her in order to grow taller, further, to strengthen her stamina, to allow herself to wither every once in a while. In the end, like Anne Eliott, she is content with her prior mistakes, that she was persuaded to act upon foolish impulses that have dug her in very deep troubles because she can then look up and continue to climb without looking back, which then reminds me the moment Anne Eliott ends more happily married to Frederick Wentworth than she would have been when she did so at eighteen.