Persuasion
Miss Carteret
Lady Dalrymple’s daughter
The plain, quiet daughter of Lady Dalrymple, courted by the Elliots only for her rank.
The Honourable Miss Carteret is awkward, quiet and dull, and she is overshadowed by her mother’s rank. She does not say much.
Her place in the story is to show the irony of Sir Walter, who prizes good looks, putting up with her because of her title. She is a person with little to say and little to offer, but she carries a title that the Elliots admire. Her blandness is part of the joke of the scene.
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Sir Walter and Elizabeth seek her company in Bath along with Lady Dalrymple. They treat her as valuable for her title, although she is thoroughly unappealing by their own standards.
She does not figure in the story’s romance or its ending. Her presence, along with her mother’s, shows how far Sir Walter’s values sit from the warmth of the Crofts and the Harvilles, and she remains a quiet background figure.
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