ABSTRACT
In the popular imagination, Jane Austen reigns as the quintessential British novelist of manners, social convention, nation, and family. Austen’s protagonists seem to have internalized an elaborate web of rules and prohibitions, which gives them a sense of their own lack and the lack in others, and this, in turn, can tend to generate desire, which, in turn, generates plot. This chapter examines a chain of four scenes, each of which reiterates its precursor: first, as Charles and Mary Musgrove try to leave their son’s sick-room to meet Frederick Wentworth; second, when Frederick Wentworth first sees Mr. William Elliot looking at Anne; third, as everyone assembles in the Octagon Room before the concert; and fourth, as Frederick and Anne exchange glances during the concert. Austen critics have, in recent years, begun to think about Persuasion in terms of theory of mind.
