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Published: Sept. 25, 2020, 2:59 a.m.

In this episode of Check It/Round Table Onna discusses Persuasion the mini series by Andrew Davies and her appreciation for Jane Austen and all her finished works and most her unfinished works since the age of 15.  Onna delves into why Anne Elliot is one of the few characters in literature who does the right thing, for the right reason, at the right time and is so level headed--which is super, super, cool.  Onna continues this review with the fact that Jane Austen re-wrote the ending for this novel while dying, and her published and alternate ending show us a lot about Jane, and about truths in relationships in general that this quiet observer of life captured and passed on to her readers for over 200+ years.  Go Jane!  Jane changed the ending to include the incorporation of a scene regarding how people deal with distance that is created in a relationship.  In the story, Anne turned down a dashing navy officer because she was 18 and her family and friends told her it was a bad decision because he would not advance.  However, 10 years later, Anne is 27, unmarried, and the dashing navy officer pillaged the 7 seas--which is what the British Navy did, and he is very well off and her family is bankrupt.   The dashing young officer,  Captain Wentworth, is now slightly older decides that because he is upset at Anne for turning him down and is an ungracious jerk--strong words for Onna.  

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Onna considers how the scene between Captain Wentworth's friend and Anne about how men don't remember the women in their lives like the women remember the men in their lives because she believed that women love longest after all hope and possibility are gone.  Onna considers how this is the part that Jane added in as she was dying was this interesting segue into how people handle loss and how Jane Austen's work is timeless as some things don't change with the years, including inequality among the genders.

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Onna concludes with Persusasion is that this work really shows how people tick and also how oftentimes what individuals think has occurred hasn't at all and trying to second guess people and trying to figure it alone isn't the best, but being honest as you see it is.  In this final scene change Jane Austen wrote, after Anne declares that if we are going to judge individuals, then we should judge on something the individuals in question have equal footing in and it is at this point that Captain Wentworth confesses that he does like Anne, he's just been hacked and misunderstood her.  Onna digresses into how this version ends with Anne getting her family house which encapsulates the fact that most people long for home, not adventure as the Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root adaptation of this work that was done in the 90's.  The house and it's gifting to Anne by Captain Wentworth shows that he really does, in the end, understand her well and know what her goals in life are, which is why Onna had to concede that though a bozo, had his problems but at the end of day he did know Anne well and try and succeed in making her life a lot better once they figured out was what really going on between them and they resolved their misunderstandings and made her like him a bit better.   It's all here.  It's all real.    

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