Crip Temporality in Jane Austen’s Persuasion: Disability, Slow Time, and the Refusal of Ableist Expectations

Suhana Sathar A

doi:10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i01.66688

Crip Temporality in Jane Austen’s Persuasion: Disability, Slow Time, and the Refusal of Ableist Expectations

Author(s)	Ms. Suhana Sathar A
Country	India
Abstract	This paper sets out to look at Jane Austen’s Persuasion through “crip temporality,” a disability studies idea that questions society’s belief that people must always be young, fast, productive, and moving forward. In a society that equates a woman’s value with youth and social visibility, Anne Elliot, the heroine, stands out as someone who is deemed older and past her expected moment of desirability, as though she no longer belongs in the marriage market. Austen, however, challenges this belief by presenting Anne’s gradual renewal, her resilient inner life, and her steady, reflective way of engaging with the world and those around her. The novel also illustrates what disability theorists call “crip afters,” the lingering emotional and bodily effects of past experiences—such as Anne’s eight years of regret—that continue to shape how characters move through time and imagine their futures. The novel’s other characters – Mrs Smith, Captain Benwick and Captain Wentworth- also challenge the usual ideas of how people are expected to move through time. Together, their lives show how anyone who does not heal or move forward at the expected pace of a healthy, able-bodied person is often pushed aside or overlooked.This way of reading the novel reveals that Persuasion is not just an adult love story, but a work that thoughtfully engages with ideas about disability, time, ethics, and emotion — making it meaningful to today’s discussions in disability studies.
Keywords	Crip temporality, Disability Studies, Anti-ableism, Slow time, Embodiment and affect, Temporal politics
Field	Sociology > Linguistic / Literature
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 1, January-February 2026
Published On	2026-01-15
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i01.66688

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Crip Temporality in Jane Austen’s Persuasion: Disability, Slow Time, and the Refusal of Ableist Expectations

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