Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands.”
- Source
- Persuasion
- Date
- 1818
- Local voice
- Fictional character · Anne Elliot
Meaning of “Men have had every advantage of us in…”
Anne challenges the neutrality of inherited literary evidence by pointing to unequal access to education and authorship, asking who had the power to preserve one sex’s version of experience in books.
Where does it come from?
Persuasion, Chapter XXIII, Project Gutenberg #105. Anne Elliot says this to Captain Harville while refusing to let books settle their argument about whether men or women love longer.
Why the local voice matters
Anne says this to Captain Harville in Chapter XXIII while rejecting books as neutral proof in their debate about men’s and women’s constancy.
