So Anne Elliot is this 27-year-old spinster, doomed to play piano and drink tea and listen to everybody else’s problems for the rest of her life. She had her chance to get married and she blew it. What a loser.
My question is: what about her snotty sister Elizabeth? She is also unmarried. Why isn’t she thought of as a loser spinster, too? Isn’t she the oldest of the three daughters?
I don’t have it in front of me, and I haven’t re-read it this year, but I think it’s something of a popularity issue. Elizabeth is seen as popular and pretty, and it’s assumed that she either has or could have plenty of suitors. Because Anne is quieter and less showy, looks-wise, it’s assumed that no one is or will be interested in her; she doesn’t have a chance anymore, especially when compared to her sister.
Also, IIRC, Anne’s spinsterhood is only guaranteed in the opinion of her silly father and sister (and their equally silly friends). The more reasonable people in the novel think that Anne still has plenty of charms and chances, if she wants them.
Elizabeth is getting close to loser status too. Isn’t there a reference to her being conscious that she only has a a few more years to catch a husband? But the difference between her and Anne is that she’s a bit more outgoing and vivacious. And she hasn’t turned down any offers. Quite the reverse. The nasty cousin (heir to the baronetcy) broke off the “understanding” that existed when someone richer came along.
The book makes it clear that both sisters are considered past prime marrying age. The contrast is in their attractiveness, as well as their social standing. All quotes from the first few pages of chapter 1.
Anne, has lost her looks and has never been much valued by her family.
“A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl, but her bloom had vanished early; and as even in its height, her father had found little to admire in her…”
Elizabeth, is still considered beautiful and is the mistress of the home.
It sometimes happens, that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any charm is lost. It was so with Elizabeth
Elizabeth did not quite equal her father in personal contentment. Thirteen years had seen her mistress of Kellynch Hall, presiding and directing with a self-possession and decision which could never have given the idea of her being younger than she was. For thirteen years had she been doing the honours, and laying down the domestic law at home, and leading the way to the chaise-and-four…she had the consciousness of being nine-and-twenty, to give her some regrets and some apprehensions: she was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet-blood within the next twelvemonth or two.