Persuasion has one of those titles that echoes throughout the work it describes. And its range of meanings varies widely, from conveying a sense of coercion and duress to delicate, scarcely perceptible intimations of right conduct such as Anne Elliot offers to Captain Benwick. This becomes a major source of enjoyment in the novel, in that many readers of Austen find that the relationship established between narrator, characters and readers - that blend of action, consciousness and brisk meditation on both - is central to the particular pleasure derived from her own skills in all kinds of persuasion.
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