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Of Things Unseen: 

Finding the Estate in Jane Austen’s Persuasion 

 

Rebecca Rogers 

 

Abstract: In Persuasion, Jane Austen draws a connection between 

Anne Elliot‟s loss of the Kellynch Hall estate and the pervasive 

presence of war.  Expanding upon Favret‟s (2010) valuable 

discussion of Persuasion as a record of the Napoleonic Wars, I put 

forward that the war assumes symbolic significance as an expression 

of Anne‟s loss of the estate. Both are conditions defined by 

uncertainty, disorder, and a lack of security.  For this reason, the 

members of the navy with whom Anne establishes friendships, in 

particular Admiral Croft and Captains Harville and Wentworth, 

provide her with the most satisfactory model for living that she will 

encounter upon leaving the estate; their experiences under conditions 

of war are similar to her own dislocation from Kellynch.  Anne 

appreciates the idea of peace these men have established upon the 

creative capacity of the individual.  While Monaghan (1980) suggests 

that Anne‟s failure to find an adequate substitute for the estate 

represents a key weakness of Persuasion, I suggest instead that this 

is, in fact, the novel‟s greatest strength. Austen deliberately divorces 

her heroine from place in order to affirm the estate as an essentially 

spiritual, rather than physical, institution.  Anne is therefore 

challenged in a way no other of Austen‟s heroines has been; she is 

challenged both to believe in, and cultivate, an ideal which she is no 

longer able to see. 

 

Key Terms: Jane Austen, Persuasion, wartime, the estate, peace 

 

Introduction 

 

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it 

with us or we find it not. (Emerson) 

 

In Persuasion, Jane Austen must radically redefine her idea of peace.  While the 

traditional conception of peace which Austen upholds in her previous novels is 

intimately connected with the social and financial security offered by landed 



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inheritance, in Persuasion this stability and assurance is no longer available.  Anne 

Elliot, the youngest daughter of the profligate Sir Walter Elliot, loses the Kellynch 

Hall estate twice: first when her father‟s mismanagement forces the removal of the 

family and for a second time with her marriage to Captain Wentworth.  While in 

both Pride and Prejudice and Emma the estate offers relief from uncertainty, in 

Persuasion no such reprieve is available.  This experience of losing the estate as an 

external manifestation of order becomes comparable to a state of war, defined by 

uncertainty, disorder, and a lack of security.  A figurative state of war persists as 

society continues to change, and the traditional values Anne cherishes are no longer 

to be found in inherited institutions.  Austen‟s idea of peace, then, can no longer be 

contingent upon the reassuring presence of the estate.  Integral to Anne‟s recovery 

from this loss is her friendships with members of the Royal Navy: residence of 

Kellynch Hall has been taken up by Admiral Croft, the brother-in-law of Captain 

Wentworth.  Austen shows how these naval characters have developed a conception 

of peace that is not conditional upon outside circumstance; instead, it is one built 

upon the tremendous creative potential of the individual.  In celebrating the 

affirmative attitude of the navy, Austen adopts Spinoza‟s view that “peace does not 

exist in the absence of war, but is a virtue based on strength of character” (as cited 

in Steinberg, 2009, 3.2).    

 

Place and Peace 

Set during the False Peace of 1814, the period of Napoleon‟s exile in Elba, 

Persuasion is Austen‟s only novel that offers an actual reprieve from war; it is 

somewhat ironic, then, that the novel often noted to be the most deeply invested in 

wartime experience is, in fact, the only one explicitly set during a period of peace.  

This is, however, a “peace that is no peace” (Favret, 2010, p. 162).  Favret, 

following Spinoza, recognizes that in Persuasion peace does not exist merely in the 

absence of war.  While Favret (2010) refers to how war literally infiltrates the novel, 

calling Persuasion “an everyday record of the felt if not acknowledged experience 

of war” (p. 163), I argue instead that the presence of war becomes symbolic of 

social change. As Drum (2009) comments, “an older, agrarian life may be the 

reason that Mansfield Park and Emma represent […] all that is stable and ordered in 

country life”(p. 93); in losing this agrarian life, the world of Persuasion also suffers 

the loss of order and stability.  Monaghan (1980) sees this absence of order as a key 

failing of Persuasion, concluding that “the society into which Anne is entering 

remains too chaotic and disorganized to be considered an adequate substitute for 

such beautifully ordered worlds as Pemberley and Highbury” (p. 145).  The problem 

here is that Monaghan assumes that Austen is trying to find “an adequate substitute” 



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for the old world Anne is losing.  I suggest instead that Anne‟s irrevocable loss of a 

place, an outward expression of her deeply-seated inward values, is a deliberate 

gesture which Austen conflates with the threat of continued war.   

In offering Anne the opportunity of returning to the family estate, which she 

refuses, Austen directly confronts the ideas of happiness and peace she once 

celebrated.  In Chapter 21 of Persuasion, the idea of peace is explicitly connected 

with landed inheritance by Mrs. Smith.  In responding to what she believes to be 

Anne‟s intention to marry Mr. Elliot, who will inherit Anne‟s once-beloved 

Kellynch Hall, Mrs. Smith expresses her relief that “[Anne‟s] happiness will not be 

shipwrecked as [hers] has been.  [She] will be safe in all worldly matters” (p. 372). 

For Mrs. Smith, peace is inseparable from place; her comfort is defined and 

restricted by the circumstances under which she lives.  In associating the condition 

of peace with the stability offered by the estate, it is defined as inherently 

conditional upon outside circumstance; in accepting an offer of marriage which 

would tie her inalienably to the land, Anne would suffer no insecurity or uncertainty 

concerning her future.  Through Mrs. Smith, Austen describes this conception of 

social peace explicitly in terms of war: while remaining connected with the estate 

offers a consummate ideal of peace, Anne‟s removal from it (realized in her 

eventual marriage to Captain Wentworth) is expressed as a “shipwreck,” a disaster 

of warfare.  The loss of the estate results in a condition of inherent uncertainty, 

doubt, and, as Mrs. Smith suggests, of danger.  In marrying Wentworth, Anne is no 

longer “safe.” Austen recognizes that Mrs. Smith‟s attachment to place is inherently 

flawed: what Persuasion represents, then, is an effort to reclaim an unconditional 

“strength of character” which is the true force behind the estate. 

 

Place and Purpose 

In Persuasion, as Duckworth (1971) succinctly comments, “the estate is defeated” 

(p. 185).  As Anne‟s sister Mary reflects with great self-satisfaction at the end of the 

novel, in choosing to marry Captain Wentworth “Anne [has] no Uppercross Hall 

before her, no landed estate, no headship of a family” (Persuasion, p. 478).  It is the 

only of Austen‟s novels in which the heroine does not become an integral part of an 

estate, either as mistress of the Great House or of the rectory.  In Austen‟s previous 

fiction, most notably in Pride and Prejudice and Emma, the estate assumes a strong 

formative presence in the lives and growth of the heroine.  The heroine is 

conditioned by the estate as an “outward and visible sign of an inward moral 

condition” (Duckworth, 1971, p. 182). Through observing the estate as an integrated 

and meaningful whole, characters such as Elizabeth Bennett and Emma Woodhouse 

form deep awareness and appreciation of their own valuable roles within the 



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community.  The estate reflects an ideal of social and moral order which these 

characters are then able to recognize within themselves.  With the affirmative 

presence of Pemberley and Donwell Abbey, Elizabeth and Emma enjoy both the 

benefit and the comfort of having a “physical emblem” of this ideal to guide them as 

they fulfill their telos (Duckworth, 1971, p. 184).  In Persuasion, however, Anne is 

summarily denied this comfort: she is no longer able to find in the estate the 

“objective paradigm of order” which exists within herself (Duckworth, 1971, p. 

184).  There is no outward correlative for the inward ideal which Anne resolutely 

persists in upholding. 

 The two estates featured in Persuasion, Kellynch Hall and Uppercross, have 

both failed in their mandate to foster and strengthen community through active 

attention and stewardship.   Insulated and self-absorbed, the Elliots (and, to a lesser 

extent, the Musgroves) have violated the “office of trust” with which they have been 

endowed (Duckworth, 1971, p. 56); they have distorted their proper role within 

society into one of privilege and leisure, rather than of responsibility and duty to 

those they are meant to serve.  Sir Walter is “a foolish, spendthrift baronet,” 

consummately self-obsessed and profligate, wasting not only his money but his 

time; he spends every available moment indulging in the family history of the 

Baronetage, rather than in devoting his time to altruistic action (Persuasion, p. 474).  

Only Anne fulfills her duty selflessly, tending to the poor with concern and 

compassion. Sir Walter and Elizabeth, on the other hand, are perfectly content to 

“cut off some unnecessary charities” in their half-hearted effort to economize 

(Persuasion, p. 16).  With his vanity and inordinate concern for personal 

appearance, Sir Walter disregards substance entirely.  The estate is literally reduced 

to its face value, deprived of function and meaning.  Although less at fault than the 

Elliots, the Musgroves at Uppercross are also implicated in the general failure of the 

estate.  The Musgroves‟ highly insulated interests attest to an increasingly 

fragmented society: Anne notes that at Uppercross “the Mr. Musgroves had their 

own game to guard, and to destroy; their own horses, dogs, and newspapers to 

engage them” (Persuasion, p. 80; italics mine).  As Frey (2005) notes, “[the 

Musgroves‟] inability to share the concerns even of people so like themselves as 

Anne Elliot suggests the impossibility of imagining an aggregate whole” (p. 218).  

No longer predicated upon traditional social and moral values, these communities 

based in landed inheritance have abandoned their fundamental imperative to sustain 

and strengthen connection among individuals. 

 With the irrecoverable loss of the estate as a visible connecting force within 

society, Persuasion represents a radical break with Austen‟s previous fiction.  In 

both Pride and Prejudice and Emma, the exuberant individualism of the heroines 



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conforms to the social structure they observe in the form of the estate; both 

Elizabeth Bennett and Emma Woodhouse passively submit to an institution which 

exists a priori of their involvement in it.  In both cases, their telos is made explicit 

through the visible presence of Pemberley and Donwell Abbey.  What makes 

Persuasion so poignant is that because she loses the estate, Anne‟s telos is no longer 

clear.  This does not mean, however, that it no longer exists; as Butler (1975) has 

affirmed, Persuasion “remains in line with the conservative philosophy” of 

Austen‟s previous novels (Butler, 1975, p. 276).  Far from abolishing telos, Austen 

affirms on the contrary that it exists first within the self as something similar to 

Spinoza‟s “strength of character.”  This movement towards the individual is evident 

in Mansfield Park, where the integrity of the estate, as a moral and social institution, 

is sustained purely through the value and energy of the hands which care for it 

(Duckworth, 1971, p. 80).  Rather than existing a priori of human stewardship as a 

meaningful and effective institution, the estate must be deliberately invested with 

purpose; it is from the individual which “must come the affirmative response, and 

the courage to maintain faith in „principles‟ and „rules of right‟ even when these are 

everywhere ignored and debased” (Duckworth, 1971, p. 80).  What Mansfield Park 

anticipates – the necessary presence of Fanny to the health of the estate – 

Persuasion carries to its furthest possible extreme.  In Persuasion, the true estate 

which Austen extols is, in fact, contained immanently within the individual.  

Beginning as an essentially inward impulse, it is furnished through the creative 

energy and effort of the self.  

 

“Vigour of Form”: Creating a New Estate 

For Austen, those characters belonging to the navy, with its robust and enterprising 

“vigour of form,” exemplify the true estate (Persuasion, Ch. 92).  This estate, 

though not expressed through a grand and elaborate physical structure, emerges 

powerfully and passionately from the ingenuity of the individual.  Upon entering 

Captain Harville‟s modest home, “a residence unexpensive, and by the sea,” Anne is 

filled with profound admiration for what Harville has been able to achieve within 

the limited space (Persuasion, p. 186):  

[Anne] was soon lost in the pleasanter feelings which sprang from 

the sight of all the ingenious contrivances and nice arrangements of 

Captain Harville, to turn the space into the best possible account, to 

supply the deficiencies of lodging – house furniture, and defend the 

windows and doors against winter storms to be expected (p. 188; 

italics mine).   



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Captain Harville is not defined by the limitations of the space in which he lives; 

instead, the space responds to, and is created by, his own efforts and 

resourcefulness.  It becomes both a reflection and a celebration of an inward 

impulse.  Anne, who as Duckworth (1971) notes is on “a journey in search of 

spiritual stability” after having been removed from Kellynch, responds very keenly 

to this powerful creativity (p. 185).  It is not only the fact that Harville demonstrates 

such admirable resourcefulness and initiative, but also that this is so purely 

unconditional upon circumstance and location.  This is Anne‟s first experience of 

life outside of an actual estate, and it is remarkably reassuring for her.  While Mrs. 

Smith is often considered an exemplar of stoicism, the fact that she assumes a 

necessary connection between comfort and circumstance betrays this as a fallacy.  It 

is Captain Harville, and not Mrs. Smith, who realizes the true meaning of peace: to 

draw from inner resources, and do one‟s best with what one has been given. 

 During their time of residence at Kellynch Hall, through their own ruggedly 

utilitarian ethos the Crofts transform the once-misused building into a properly 

functioning estate.  The skills and strong sense of obligation to community which 

the navy had promoted “prove eminently transferable to their new home” (Frey, 

2005, p. 217).  Anne is highly impressed and gratified at the care and attention with 

which the Crofts have invested their role within the new community: 

[Anne] had in fact so high an opinion of the Crofts, and considered 

her father so very fortune in his tenants, felt the parish to be so sure 

of a good example, and the poor of the best attention and relief, that 

however sorry and ashamed for the necessity of the removal, she 

could not but in conscience feel that they were gone who deserved 

not to stay, and that Kellynch-hall had passed into better hands than 

its owners” (p. 234). 

In their compassion for the poor, and care in setting a good example for the parish, 

the Crofts are able to “better fulfill the obligations and duties which the aristocracy 

neglects” (Frey, 2005, p. 219).  Anne is keenly aware that her own family had not 

deserved their residence at Kellynch, having failed in “the duty of patrician care” 

that was their express responsibility (Frey, 2005, p. 219).  Anne recognizes that this 

is a position which is earned strictly through merit.  Having made several 

worthwhile adjustments to the house proper, Admiral Croft proudly declares of his 

improvements that “the few alterations [they] have made have been very much for 

the better” (Persuasion, p. 238).  Kellynch, like Captain Harville‟s house, reflects 

the efforts of the individual who inhabits it.  In every respect, “the navy offers a 

more congenial model for living than what Anne Elliot has yet experienced” 

(Favret, 2010, p. 166). 



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 Austen‟s praise of the navy, however, does invite one justifiable objection.  

As Favret (2010) puts it, “what happens to our understanding of warfare, of these 

men‟s profession, when we – or Anne – choose it as a happier version of the 

everyday?” (p. 166). How is it that Austen can justify a model of society which 

privileges war over peacetime? Even if this were not in itself inherently 

problematic, there is one other purely logistical problem with offering the navy as 

an alternative to the aristocracy: it is a fundamentally itinerant profession.  In 

attempting to describe how Admiral Croft both literally and symbolically assumes 

the role once held by the landowner, Frey (2005) writes that the Admiral “literally 

moves into the Elliot estate” (p. 217).  This is true, perhaps, for a time, but it 

remains nonetheless an impermanent residence.  The problem remains how Austen 

can justify, or even sustain, a model of society which is inherently contingent upon a 

state of war.  This difficulty is even more salient given the fact that when 

Persuasion was written, the war was already over; surely Austen must have known 

that even if the navy was still enjoying its moment of glory, this would not last 

forever.  Frey (2005) suggests a compelling answer to this problem, seeing the navy 

as one branch of a robust professionalism which will revitalize society. This 

argument falls short, however, because it implicitly excludes Anne.  I suggest, as an 

alternative, that in Persuasion the presence of war is symbolic of the uncertainty and 

danger faced by Anne in her loss of Kellynch.  The world does not have to be 

literally in a state of war to elicit this uncertainty; it is an essential condition of a 

changing society, one which will continue to persist long after Waterloo.  In a 

society that is rapidly moving away from a visible emblem of traditional values, the 

navy best understands where these values come from in the first place: within the 

individual. 

 

“Original strength”: The Self and Providence 

Captain Wentworth most fully embodies the temerity and fearlessness these literal 

and figurative states of war demand.  The active, enterprising initiative Wentworth 

exemplifies is necessary not only in wartime success, but also in cultivating the 

spiritual estate Anne values.  It is important to recognize how closely Austen relates 

war with a marriage that would result in the loss of an estate: both demand an 

extraordinary degree of confidence – and, we will see, faith – because the end is no 

longer visible.  Their situations are essentially the same, but there is an important 

difference between the two.  In Chapter 4, when Anne and Wentworth‟s history is 

recounted, Wentworth‟s untouchable chutzpah is in fine form: in 1806 Wentworth is 

not yet wealthy, “but he was confident he would soon be rich: full of life and ardor, 

he knew he would soon have a ship, and soon be on a station that would lead to 



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everything he wanted.  He had always been lucky; he knew he should be so still” 

(Persuasion, p. 50). This passage, of course, is Wentworth‟s voice through free 

indirect speech; the full force of his indomitable self-certainty emerges from the 

text.  The boldness with which Wentworth anticipates his future is, to be sure, 

something we are meant to admire.  The fact that Austen qualifies this speech with 

the use of free indirect speech, however, suggests a certain reticence on the part of 

the author to completely condone his attitude.  As Marilyn Butler (1975) points out, 

Wentworth is a “well-intentioned but ideologically mistaken hero” (p. 275).  His 

confidence in fortuity (“he had always been lucky”; italics mine) is particularly 

flawed, and something which contrasts sharply with Anne‟s own attitude. 

 Duckworth (1971) roundly comments that “not a providential ordering, but 

an existence in which luck and fortuitous circumstances play a predominant part, 

defines the world of Persuasion” (p. 182).  This is not, however, the case, although 

it may be how Wentworth sees things (at least initially).  Anne‟s approach to an 

uncertain future is very different.  Reflecting on her broken engagement, Anne 

inwardly expresses her regret: “How eloquent [. . .] were her wishes on the side of 

early warm attachment, and a cheerful confidence in futurity, against that over-

anxious caution which seems to insult exertion and distrust Providence!” 

(Persuasion, 54-6; italics mine) Wentworth clearly embraces the value of exertion, 

but to this Anne adds the necessity of trusting in Providence.  This necessity reflects 

Anne‟s intuitive understanding of the true estate as a fundamentally spiritual 

institution, which continues to exist even in the absence of an external 

representation.  Although through marriage she loses the “physical emblem” of the 

estate, she continues to carry its spiritual purpose with her.  In the final chapters, 

Wentworth comes very close to accepting Anne‟s own belief in providence.  He 

tells her with some self-reproach that “[he has] been used to the gratification of 

believing [himself] to earn every blessing he enjoyed” (Persuasion, p.472). Though 

self-assurance is doubtless a quality which Austen celebrates in her hero, 

Wentworth‟s belief in a closed relationship between effort and reward precludes the 

influence of divine providence.  Wentworth‟s inexorable faith in the self, as Butler 

(1975) suggests, is too close to hubris for comfort (p. 276).  When Wentworth 

delivers his famous speech extolling the qualities of the nut, he boldly praises its 

“original strength”; Wentworth brashly repeals the entire Christian doctrine of 

original sin in one word (Persuasion, p. 166).  Yet by the end of the novel he 

revokes this bold assertion, telling Anne in a chastened tone: “I must endeavour to 

subdue my mind to my fortune.  I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve” 

(Persuasion, p. 472).     

 



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Conclusion 

Persuasion, alone among Austen‟s novels, does not end on a note of unmitigated 

joy and promise.  We are left, instead, with “the dread of a future war” (Ch. 24). 

Anne‟s willful loss of security conflates with her husband‟s profession; the absence 

of the estate and the threat of war become a single experience.  Yet for all its 

undeniable challenges, the experience remains an essentially purifying one.  Anne‟s 

loss of the estate through her marriage with Wentworth, and the consequent 

uncertainty which this loss engenders, demands a robustly Pauline definition of 

faith: Anne‟s faith in the future must now be the evidence of things unseen.  What 

makes Persuasion so moving is that Anne, alone of Austen‟s heroines, is challenged 

to believe in the integrity of her God-given telos even without being able to see it.  

She can no longer find her ideals outside of herself; she must bring them into the 

world, like the navy she admires, through her own efforts.  Anne knows, however, 

that this exertion must necessarily go hand in hand with an implicit trust in 

Providence.  Although genuine peace is something of which we are ourselves at the 

helm, it also requires the faith that there is a port beyond the storms that blind us. 

 

References 

Austen, J. (2010). The annotated Persuasion.   Ed. David M. Shapard. New York, 

Anchor Books. 

Butler, M. (1975). Jane Austen and the war of ideas. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 

Drum, A. (2009). Pride and prestige: Jane Austen and the professions. College 

Literature, 36(3), 92-115.  

Duckworth, A. (1971). The improvement of the estate: A study of Jane Austen’s 

novels. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. 

Emerson, R. W. (n.d.) Art. In Essays (12).  Retrieved from 

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/rwemerson/bl-rwemer-essays-

12.htm. 

Favret, M. (2010). War at a distance: Romanticism and the making of modern 

wartime. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 

Frey, A. 2005. A Nation without nationalism: The reorganization of feeling in 

Austen's „Persuasion.‟ NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 38(2), 214-234. 

Knox-Shaw, P. (2004). Jane Austen and the enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge 

 University Press. 

Monaghan, D.  (1980). Jane Austen: Structure and social vision.  London: The 

MacMillan Press Ltd. 

Southam, B. (2000). Jane Austen and the navy. London: Hambledon and London. 



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Steinberg, J. (2009). Spinoza's political philosophy. The Stanford encyclopedia of  

philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Retrieved from 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/. 

 

 

Contact Information 

Rebecca Rogers, from the Department of English, can be reached at 

rebeccamary.rogers@gmail.com. 

 

Acknowledgements 

Many thanks to Dr. Robert Miles, whose guidance, support and encouragement have 

made this research such a rewarding and enjoyable experience.  I would also like to 

thank Professor Rebecca Gagan for her invaluable guidance and inspiration.  Lastly, 

I‟d like to thank those many individuals whose kindness and courage remind me 

that our world is always what we bring to it. 

 

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/
mailto:rebeccamary.rogers@gmail.com