Jane Austen tends to use free indirect discourse throughout her novel Persuasion. An example of this is the passage when she describes Sir Walters’ daughters. When she says “For one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up any thing,” this is an example of free indirect discourse because Sir Walter is the one describing Elizabeth, his eldest daughter. We can tell because while describing her he mentions things the fact that she is “very handsome and very much like himself.” Only he would say this about her because he believes all these things about himself as well. We can also tell that the narrator is being sarcastic and cynical towards them in the description. This is because the narrator is more judgmental of the two. Another example of free indirect discourse in this passage is when he describes his other two daughters as “very inferior value.” We can tell Sir Walter is thinking this because he does not feel the same way with his other two daughters like he feels towards Elizabeth. When describing Anne though we can tell that Lady Russell is the one thinking that Anne is “nobody with either father or sister: her word had no weigh.” We can tell that Lady Russell is the one describing Anne because in the next paragraph it mentions that Lady Russell thought of her as “a most dear and highly valued daughter, favorite and friend.” Lady Russell notices how she is treated by the others but disagrees with them and believes that Anne is the one in which she could “fancy the mother to revive again.” The examples of free indirect show how the characters feel about each other. We see that Sir Walter loves Elizabeth dearly and thinks very highly of her while on the other hand he feels like his younger daughters have lesser value. We can also see that Lady Russell is the one describing Anne in the second part of the paragraph because she, unlike Sir Walter, thinks very highly of her. She also notices how she is treated by her father as opposed to her other sisters who are a bit more loved by their father. By having Sir Walter describe his daughters in the first half of the paragraph we can also see that the narrator is being sarcastic and ironic because she thinks that he is very vain and too into himself. This is why he describes Elizabeth like he did.