Lady Russell
Lady Russell, the widow of a knight, is Anne Elliot's godmother, former governess, and most intimate friend, occupying a place in Anne's affections second only to that of her deceased mother. She is a woman of sound rather than quick abilities, strict integrity, and a delicate sense of honour, but her judgement is clouded by a deep-seated prejudice in favour of rank and consequence, a bias that leads her to make the most consequential error of the novel: persuading the nineteen-year-old Anne to break her engagement to Captain Frederick Wentworth.
Character and Principles
Lady Russell is described as a benevolent, charitable, and good woman, capable of strong attachments and most correct in her conduct, with manners held as a standard of good-breeding. She has a cultivated mind and is, generally speaking, rational and consistent. Yet her value for rank and consequence blinds her a little to the faults of those who possess them. Herself the widow of only a knight, she gives the dignity of a baronet all its due, and this aristocratic prejudice, combined with a horror of imprudence, leads her to see Captain Wentworth's proposal to Anne as a disastrous throwing away of youth, beauty, and connection. She views the young naval officer as a stranger without alliance or fortune, whose sanguine temper and fearlessness of mind only add a dangerous character to himself. Her opposition, delivered with the steadiness of opinion and tenderness of manner of one who has almost a mother's love and rights, proves more than the young and gentle Anne can combat.
Role in the Plot
Eight years after this pivotal intervention, Lady Russell remains Anne's constant companion and confidante. She is instrumental in the family's decision to let Kellynch Hall and move to Bath, opposing Anne's wishes for a small house in the neighbourhood and favouring Bath instead, a decision that ultimately brings Anne back into Captain Wentworth's orbit. Throughout the novel, Lady Russell's judgement continues to be fallible. She initially approves of Mr William Walter Elliot, seeing in him a sensible, agreeable man of correct opinions and a warm heart, and she begins to calculate the weeks until he might be free to propose to Anne, imagining her as the future mistress of Kellynch Hall. She is completely deceived by Mr Elliot's polished manners, seeing nothing to excite distrust, while Anne, with a keener perception, remains unsatisfied.
Change and Reconciliation
The climax of the novel forces Lady Russell to confront her mistakes. When Anne and Captain Wentworth are finally reconciled, Lady Russell must undergo a painful process of self-correction. She must learn to feel that she has been mistaken with regard to both men: that she was too quick to suspect Captain Wentworth's manners as indicating a dangerous impetuosity, and too quick to receive Mr Elliot's propriety as the result of a well-regulated mind. Anne knows that Lady Russell must be suffering some pain in understanding and relinquishing Mr Elliot, and making struggles to become truly acquainted with Captain Wentworth. However, Lady Russell's first object is to see Anne happy, and she loves Anne better than she loves her own abilities. Once the awkwardness of the beginning is over, she finds little hardship in attaching herself as a mother to the man who is securing the happiness of her other child. Captain Wentworth, in turn, is ready to value her from his heart, though he is not obliged to say that he believes she was right in originally dividing them.
Thematic Significance
Lady Russell embodies the novel's central tension between prudence and feeling, between the claims of society and the claims of the heart. Her well-meaning but misguided advice represents the force of persuasion that gives the novel its title, and her eventual, difficult recognition of her own fallibility underscores the novel's theme that even the wisest and most loving of friends can err, and that true happiness requires a balance of principle and passion, of duty and the courage to follow one's own heart.
