Louisa

Louisa Musgrove is a character in Jane Austen’s last novel, Persuasion, published posthumously in 1817. Louisa, initially, is a happy-go-lucky young girl who attracts the attention of Captain Wentworth, the protagonist’s (Anne Elliot) erstwhile love. Louisa, unlike Anne, puts herself into the spotlight, and earns the Captain’s praise as being a determined person. As the “persuasive” theme of the novel unfolds, Louisa mistakenly basks in this idea of herself, leading to an unfortunate accident in which she is injured. Enter the truly resolute Anne, exit our Louisa. She turns out to have been rather a foil, after all, but we are told that she happily marries Captain Benwick. One Navy man being as good as another to these marriage minded damsels.

Louisa Gradgrind is a main character in Charles Dickens’ tenth novel, Hard Times, published in 1854. Poor Louisa has been brought up by her overbearing father (and less so by her invalid mother) to live life according to a set of rules and facts, ignoring the emotions and anything else that might be deemed “fancy”. The results are inevitable. Louisa reaches adulthood shorn of the natural expression of her humanity, and malleable to any end her father wishes for her. Her fate couldn’t be worse – her father persuades her to marry his boss, Mr. Bounderby, a repugnant man thirty years her senior. Naturally, this doesn’t work out, and Louisa is tempted to commit adultery with yet another cad, Mr. Harthouse. Louisa cannot even manage the human act of sinning – ultimately her sad fate is to have her marriage annulled (well, that part’s good) and to live out her days as a lonely spinster. Louisa’s legacy to us is to teach us to embrace fun and fancy!