Persuasion
Lady Dalrymple
The noble cousin
A titled cousin whom Sir Walter and Elizabeth are eager to know in Bath.
Lady Dalrymple is a viscountess and a cousin of the Elliots. She is grand, dull and conventional, aloof and calmly aware of her rank.
Her chief role is to be an object of Sir Walter’s worship of titles. She says little, and what she says is conventional. She is a woman for whom rank does most of the talking. Sir Walter and Elizabeth see in her everything they admire, and the story sees a rather empty presence.
In the story
Contains spoilers.
In Bath Sir Walter and Elizabeth do everything they can to be seen with Lady Dalrymple. They scold Anne for choosing to visit Mrs. Smith when they are invited to Lady Dalrymple’s.
She stands as a measure of how much value the Elliots put on rank over character. Her place in the story is brief, but she is the measure of what the Elliots admire and what the reader is meant to question.
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