I thought a lot about Anna’s inability to feel the sentiments of love and passion. I view this an important element of the story. Why is she this way? Why did she feel as she did about her suitor? Why was she drawn to both him and then Willie? Isn’t it understandable that she should first feel motherly love and that only later could this be transformed into passion toward a mate? Was she even able to recognize love growing up alongside her father? So yes, character portrayal is an essential part of the story.

An ageing and charitable woman's "bodily frame long ago proved inadequate to the ceaseless demands of a spirit of indefatigably altruistic, and her continuance in activity was notable illustration of the dominion of mind over matter." stato il primo lavoro di Bennett che io abbia mai letto, perché qui in Italia è caduto un po’ nel dimenticatoio e certamente meriterebbe di essere riscoperto al più presto, poiché è uno scrittore abile e avvincente. Victorian households who were destined never to find happiness, often sacrificed so the older siblings could marry and forced to live out After Beatrice recovers, Anna and Henry return home. Before they leave the island, Henry proposes to Anna, and she accepts. Later her father gives his consent, because Henry knows the value of money. Young Agnes is enchanted by the romantic aspects of the courtship, and Anna is happy in her quiet love for Henry. The joy of her engagement, however, is immediately clouded by the news that old Mr. Price hanged himself. Anna feels that she and her father are to blame, because they hounded him for his rent. Henry assures her that Mr. Price was in debt to many people and that she need not feel guilty. Nevertheless, Anna worries a great deal about the suicide and about Willie, for whom she has quite maternal feelings.

Anna believes "A woman's life is always a renunciation" (not necessarily of what the reader expects). I don't think Arnold Bennett believes it should be, though. He was a man ahead of his time. She perceived that the monotony, the austerity, the melancholy of her existence had been sweet and beautiful of its kind, and she recalled, with a sort of rapture, hours of companionship with the beloved Agnes, when her father was equable and pacific. Nothing was ugly nor mean. Beauty was everywhere, in everything. The setting of the tale is the late 1800s, middle England, Staffordshire. The towns spoken of in the title go by aliases in the novel. They are in reality Turnstall , Hanley, Burslem, Stoke, Fenton and Longton. You will exclaim—but that is six! Bennett eliminated Fenton because he felt the title sounded better with the word five rather than six. In this way Fenton has come to be known as “the forgotten town”. Anna, of the title, is of Bursley, the alias of Burslem. It is a pottery town. Anna is more timid and introspective than your average heroine; I felt great sympathy for her not in spite of but because of those character traits. I recently took the Myers-Briggs test for the first time, and wondered if Anna could be an ISTJ like me – she dreads having to visit her pupils’ homes and make small talk with the parents, comes across as curt when nervous, and can’t seem to turn her brain off and just feel instead.

Tha' art twenty-wun t'day, lass," said Ephraim Tellwright, the only person so morally defective as to talk with a t'Staffordshire accent. "So tha' inherits the fifta' thoosand poond tha' late mutha' left tha'. But tha' can'st leaf me ta looook afta' ut."

Retailers:

The plot centres on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father, living in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England. Her activities are strictly controlled by the Methodist church. The novel tells of Anna's struggle for freedom and independence against her father's restraints.