Abstract

Abstract:

This article reconsiders the status of sensibility in Jane Austen’s Persuasion (1818), focusing on the blushing hero of the novel, Frederick Wentworth. Although literary scholars have often discussed the blushing of Austen’s female characters, they have paid scant attention to her blushing heroes. Despite his incontrovertible masculinity, Wentworth is positioned as a new “man of feeling,” who demonstrates sympathy without the sentimental histrionics of his literary predecessors. Looking especially at Wentworth’s changing complexion, this article argues that blushing as depicted in Austen’s novel not only demonstrates the compatibility of sensibility and masculinity, but also participates in Austen’s larger project of realigning social value on the basis of sympathy rather than gender.

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