Status Updates From Persuasion

oh this second chance angst

"Was Anne right to give in to the 'persuasion' of Lady Russell? There is rich ambiguity or hesitation here, & phrases such as 'the fair interference of friendship' in their poised ambivalence indicate that Jane Austen knew all about the multiple motivations which are at work in the impulse to exert some apparently beneficent control over a person in a weaker position."

—extract from "Jane Austen," Tony Tanner (1986)