Persuasion Lesson Plan

During the concert, Mr. Elliot makes his intentions towards Anne fairly obvious. Why does she deny it at Mrs. Smith’s?

At Mrs. Smith’s, Anne claims that she doesn’t think it likely at all that Mr. Elliot will propose to her, which seems to be directly at odds with the conversation we know she had with him at the concert (particularly that he wished her name would ‘never change’ from Elliot). Though we don’t exactly know her intentions, it follows with what we’ve observed of politeness and etiquette not to speculate about anything, particularly about the feelings of other people. It seems to be particularly impolite for women to do so, even when it comes to their own...