Fredrick understood
it. She probably wished to avoid seeing him. She presumably inquired after him,
the way he did after her. She must be indifferent to his being such a short way
away from her, considering the last time they met.
On the
marrow he met with Charles to go shooting, which was agreeable. Fredrick walked
with Charles’ sisters, just five minutes after Charles himself, to visit Mary
and the child, with intentions to wait on her for a few moments. Anne and Mary
seemed to just be starting breakfast, and Anne looked down and away with such
shyness and reserve. He wondered, for a brief moment, what was she thinking and
if anything was it about him like his thoughts were on her.
Hundreds of
emotions flooded over him as he made quick eye contact with Miss. Elliot
herself. He spoke to Mary, letting her know that all was alright, while he
thought of Anne and what she might be thinking, again. Why was he here, when
she appeared to not want him in the same room, so he continued to talk to Mary
about Miss Musgrove, a girl that he was not absolutely interested in, just to
be admittedly distracted. After a few minutes it ended, and Charles was at the
window, showing his eagerness to go, - so Fredrick took his bow and left,
unknowing if Anne felt uncomfortable as much as he did. He’d hoped to see her
again, and that the next time their encounter would be less strained. It had
been so long since they last crossed paths, and he thought of nothing while he
was gone except for her and his love for her, which never faded or left his
heart.
It's incredible how after eight years, Wentworth still loved Anne as much as he did before. I'm glad you chose this scene since it is the start of Anne and Captain Wentworth rekindling their relationship. I think this is a very important scene in the novel and you did a good job re-writing it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Wentworth would be this open to admitting his feelings, even to himself. Initially upon seeing Anne we can agree he definitely still had feelings for her, but he was distracted by the anger and sadness of her abandoning him 8 years ago. For this reason Wentworth may have denied his love for Anne, thinking that she was still as easily persuaded by society rather than her heart as she was when they were first engaged.
ReplyDeleteWhen Wentworth mentions Henrietta he does see her as a distraction, but it isn't brought up arbitrarily to keep him from thinking about Anne. He may have mentioned her to make Anne jealous or to show that he's moved on with his life. It is possible that Wentworth could have been emotive in his first encounter with Anne after all that time passed, but I think it's more likely that he would have denied his feelings at first.
With Anne's POV she seems more reflective the Captain Wentworth would have been because he wasn't to deal with his emotions. Because of this, it was better for the story to be told from Anne's perspective so that no thoughts, feelings, or actions that were described would be avoided and concealed from the reader. Wentworth does show growth in the end by getting over his pride and admitting his love for Anne, but it doesn't seem like he would let himself discuss his history with her in the beginning.
Although Wentworth was very upset with the decision Anne made he still had many built up emotions for her I believe, and their was never any closure. After eight years how are you suppose feel? If I was in Wentworth' s shoes I would feel just as he did angry, upset, sad, and etc.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see this scene from Wentworth's perspective, as it is such a pivotal one in the novel. Lynda, this seems in accordance with what we find out from Wentworth at the end of the book. But your comment, Jenee, about whether Wentworth would have been so forthright, points to another way that Lynda's scene is useful in understanding what Austen is doing in the original. This is because Austen leaves many male points of view very fuzzy throughout here novels (Persuasion is a good example, but anyone familiar with Pride and Prejudice will recognize a similar move in making Darcy such a misunderstood enigma throughout the novel, until he admits his feelings at the end). To be sure, we get to see some of "bad" male characters like Sir Walter, but it is really noteworthy that Austen withholds even a basic sense of what's going on with key male characters. I wonder if, given that Wentowrth did indeed feel the same as Anne all along, the novel basically allows us to approve of him in part because his thinking and judgment was aligned with Anne's the whole time (that is, he's a silent counterpart to her kind of thinking, of which the novel approves). Another theory could be that such introspection and soul-searching were being given gendered treatment by Austen (that is, women think like this, but even though men might too, there's no strategy for representing that).
ReplyDeletePut another way, we all know that Austen uses free indirect discourse to channel our judgment and identification throughout the novel. But what Lynda's re-write points out is how important it is to think about the key perspectives that are seemingly left *out*.
In my rewrite I am just trying to show a particular moment for Wentworth. Yes, he can still be angry, and yes he might not even want to admit his feelings aloud, but the feelings he has are still there because we do get to see them at the end of the novel, giving us a small insight to him.
ReplyDelete