Now what made the two main characters in Pride and Prejudice not get together at first was of course pride and prejudice. In this book, what made the two main characters not get together and get married at first was Persuasion. The main character Anne, agreed to be married to Captain Wentworth, but she was "persuaded" that marrying him was a very bad idea. Thus, she called the wedding off.
Her love to be, was so distraught by the rejection, that he moved out of town and was gone for 8 years. Then, he comes back to visit because his sister moves back in the neighborhood. They act prideful and ignore and shame each other as much as possible in the reunion, but the whole book you know for sure that they're going to end up together. And of course, you have to wait until the very, very, end of the book for it to happen, but they do end up together.
Anne was the youngest in the book. She had two older sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. The book describes her family, the Elliots as being rich and upper class. Sir Walter, their father, is really vain and superficial to the point he doesn't even like Anne, his own daughter, because she is not good looking in his eyes. His favorite is Elizabeth. She is very pretty. Mary, Elizabeth, and Sir Walter are portrayed as very proud, vain and materialistic. They are very concerned with social class, wealth, and beauty. They don't listen to or respect Anne.
Anne, however, is well respected by people outside her family. She is seen as the only Elliot not filled with the disgusting Elliot pride. She is seen as the only nice one in the family.
I was bothered throughout the whole book by how some people were respected if you had money, connections, class and looks, and thought of little value or as no good if you didn't have these. Marriages, and all else rode on these things. If seemed heartless, and unethical to me. I was greatly disturbed by their values.
Now these values are muted today, but people are still very much like this aren't they?
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