Well I didn't post anything on my group read focus last week because I couldn't think of anything to say. But I'm back again this week, unfortunately I am typing this after a brainstorming session at work where they saw fit to ply us with wine, so please forgive any rambling.

The example of persuasion that jumped out at me this time was Lady Russell and Mr Elliot trying to persuade Anne to marry him. Unlike in the earlier chapters, here we see persuasion working on a sensible character.

Mr Elliot works by flattery, in a similiar but subtler vein to what Mr Shepherd did to Sir Walter in the first four chapters. From Chapter 16: My dear cousin (sitting down by her), you have a better right to be fastidious than almost any other woman I know;....
And in Chapter 20: "I have not had the pleasure of visiting in Camden Place so long," replied he, "without knowing something of Miss Anne Elliot; and I do regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general to be aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for modesty to be natural in any other woman."

In a more sophisticated way he also seeks to engage her interest in himself by implication:
"Perhaps," said Mr. Elliot, speaking low, "I have had a longer acquaintance with your character than you are aware of."

"Indeed! How so? You can have been acquainted with it only since I came to Bath, excepting as you might hear me previously spoken of in my own family."

"I knew you by report long before you came to Bath. I had heard you described by those who knew you intimately. I have been acquainted with you by character many years. Your person, your disposition, accomplishments, manner: they were all described, they were all present to me."

Mr. Elliot was not disappointed in the interest he hoped to raise. No one can withstand the charm of such a mystery. To have been described long ago to a recent acquaintance, by nameless people, is irresistible; and Anne was all curiosity. She wondered, and questioned him eagerly; but in vain. He delighted in being asked, but he would not tell.

"No, no, some time or other perhaps, but not now. He would mention no names now; but such, he could assure her, had been the fact. ...
Raising her curiousity and then not fulfilling it is like teaser advertising campaigns, or mystery novels. And it is quite sucessful, until Sir Walter and Lady Dalrymple unknowingly ruin it by speaking of Captain Wentworth.

Lady Russell has a more indirect approach. Like Mr Elliot, she uses flattery. From Chapter 17:
Anne had the whole history of all that such an evening could supply from Lady Russell. To her, its greatest interest must be, in having been very much talked of between her friend and Mr. Elliot; in having been wished for, regretted, and at the same time honoured for staying away in such a cause. Her kind, compassionate visits to this old schoolfellow, sick and reduced, seemed to have quite delighted Mr. Elliot. He thought her a most extraordinary young woman; in her temper, manners, mind, a model of female excellence. He could meet even Lady Russell in a discussion of her merits; and Anne could not be given to understand so much by her friend, could not know herself to be so highly rated by a sensible man, without many of those agreeable sensations which her friend meant to create.

Lady Russell also works on Anne's affection for her: "I own that to be able to regard you as the future mistress of Kellynch, the future Lady Elliot ...My dearest Anne, it would give me more delight than is often felt at my time of life!"

These inducements come close to working on Anne. I have to revise my original hypothesis. Anne, a sensible character, is affected by flattery and by painting a positive portrayl of the future, in the same manner though not to the same degree as Sir Walter is.