Discuss the significance of this passage in your reading of the novel

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Discuss the significance of this passage in your reading of the novel

  • Look closely at the effects of the writing in the passage

  • Comment on ways in which the passage relates to the novel’s methods and concerns

This passage plays a vital role in displaying Anne’s feelings, something that hasn’t been accounted for too often in the novel so far. Austen uses several effects in creating just the right atmosphere she wants to emphasise the anticipation and tension in the passage between Anne and Captain Wentworth.

From the very beginning of the passage, the reader can feel the build of tension to the final moment that Anne and Captain Wentworth will meet again at last. This tension was helped by all the times they very nearly met and yet never did. And so when the reader comes to this section of the novel, the sense of anxiety and pressure really hits its climax and the reader is forced to empathise with Anne and Wentworth on meeting again for the first time, which then implies the high significance of this passage.

Austen uses repetition in this passage to emphasise the nervous relief in Anne’s speech. For example, after meeting Wentworth, she says, “It is over! It is over!” This encourages the reader to acknowledge her liberation even though we know it may not have been the best outcome she could have hoped for. The repetition of “It is over” suggests that even if she isn’t happy with how it turned out, she is at least happy that she has seen him and the moment has been and gone. There is also the repetition of “Eight years”. This reinforces the knowledge that the readers have already been informed of, but it also shows us how ambivalent she seems to be. At first, throughout the penultimate paragraph, she claims eight years is such a long time and exclaims how pathetic she feels having such strong feelings after such a long time. This allows the reader to see her abilities to try and reason with herself as perhaps only one as level headed and realistic as Anne could. However, this deems to be unsuccessful and in the end she yields to her own attempt at persuasion and claims that eight years is in fact “little more than nothing”.

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Another effect that contributes to the anxiety from Anne is the use of short sentences, for example “She had seen him. They had met. They had been once more in the same room.” This is vastly a contradiction to the previous passages in the novel where Austen has used extremely lengthy sentences. This helps to emphasise the short sentences even more, because the reader would not be used to them. As well as this, it also emphasises the shock that Anne was experiencing as a result of meeting Captain Wentworth again. It also creates a very dramatic effect of ...

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