Sense and
Sensibility is the story of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood who with
their mother and younger sister, Margaret, are forced into poverty through the
untimely death of their father. Mr. Dashwood was previously married and all of
the Dashwood fortune and the estate of Norland, is then bequeathed to John, his
son by his first marriage, leaving the Dashwood women practically penniless.
Elinor and Marianne are polar opposites where love is concerned. Marianne is
the incurable romantic and Elinor is the practical, down-to-earth person.
Sense
and Sensibility,
for those readers who don’t know, is the story of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood,
sisters who encounter many obstacles on the path to true love. As with Pride
and Prejudice, the title Sense and Sensibility is
significant. Elinor, the older of the sisters, is ruled by sense – she is not
given to great shows of emotion or passion, whereas Marianne, who to be fair is
only about 17 during the time the story takes place, thrives on drama and grand
expressions of emotion. Elinor is by far the more sympathetic of the sisters
for most of the book, though some readers may, I suppose, find her coolness and
perfection a bit off-putting. I found her very sympathetic, since as the reader
we’re privy to her inner thoughts and realize how hard it is for her to
maintain her calm facade at times.
The story
opens with the death of Mr. Henry Dashwood, Elinor and Marianne’s father. Soon,
their half-brother and his rapacious wife descend on Norland Park, the family’s
estate, and take over the place. Mr. Dashwood had hoped to provide well for his
second wife and their three daughters (Elinor and Marianne have a younger
sister, Margaret), being that his son John was already wealthy from an
inheritance from his late mother, as well as from having made a good marriage.
But the estate had been passed down to Mr. Dashwood in such a way that he was
unable to leave it to anyone but his son John, and so as an alternative he
asked John on his deathbed to look after the interests of his stepmother and
sisters.
Soon they
have decided that this “generous spirit” only requires them to help the ladies
find a suitable place to move to, and nothing more. In Mrs. John Dashwood’s opinion,
the move cannot come too soon, for she is concerned about the connection
forming between Elinor and her brother, Edward Ferrars, who is a frequent
visitor at Norland. Mr. Ferrars is the eldest son of a wealthy family and his
sister and mother have big plans for him that don’t include a quiet, modest
non-entity such as Elinor.
Marianne
also disapproves of the growing affection between Elinor and Edward, for
entirely different reasons: she sees Edward Ferrars as too boring and
passionless and cannot understand the attraction that Elinor feels for him.
Marianne is not just set on being emotional and dramatic herself; she dislikes
and distrusts anyone who does not wear his heart on his sleeve.
Soon the
widow Dashwood and her daughters receive an offer from a distant relative for a
situation in Devonshire: a comfortable and affordable cottage near the
relative’s estate. They leave Norland with some regret (it has been their home
for quite a while, after all) and embark on their new life.
Once settled
in Devonshire, the Dashwood sisters meet a veritable host of new people, many
of them very amusing (your gift for satire really shines in these characterizations, I think): Sir John Middleton, their jolly but rather silly
benefactor; his wife, who thinks of nothing but her children, and Mrs.
Jennings, the wife’s mother, vulgar and gossipy but with an unexpected heart of
gold. They also meet several eligible gentlemen: Colonel Brandon, a friend of
Middleton’s who takes an interest in Marianne (an interest not returned because
she finds him to be even more of a dry stick than Edward Ferrars) and John
Willoughby, a dashing young man who does attract Marianne’s notice.
There’s a
lot going on in the plot of Sense and Sensibility; I haven’t even
mentioned several major and minor characters (my favorite of which are probably
Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, Lady Middleton’s sister and brother-in-law – he is gruff
to the point of rudeness, a quality that his silly wife seems to delight in,
insisting that he is “droll”). Nor have I really managed to dig very deeply
into the plot. Suffice to say that there are a number of twists and turns to
Elinor’s and Marianne’s romances; the story eventually moves to London and both
sisters suffer a fair amount of heartache before each finds her Mr. Right.
I liked
pretty much everything about Sense and Sensibility: the plot, which
is intricate without being too convoluted (there are some unlikely coincidences
of the sort that make the reader think that there must have only been a few
dozen people in Regency England, but I can handle coincidences pretty well in a
well written book – what might be unbelievable in a bad book feels symmetrical
to me in a good one), the characters, several of whom have unexpected depth –
even some of the villains are not entirely without nuance, and the writing,
which is the very definition of droll (unlike Mr. Palmer). I loved this bit
about Edward Ferrars’ controlling mother, who briefly disowns him:
Her
family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she
had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward, a few weeks ago,
had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a
fortnight without any; and now, by the resuscitation of Edward, she had one
again.
In
spite of his being allowed once more to live, however, he did not feel the
continuance of his existence secure, till he had revealed his present
engagement; for the publication of that circumstance, he feared might give a
sudden turn to his constitution, and carry him off as rapidly as before.
If I have
any quibbles or criticisms of the book, it would be a slight sense of
apprehension over the resolution of one of the romances (I don’t want to say
more for fear of spoiling anyone – one of the pleasures of the book for me is
that I didn’t know who would end up with who) and an occasional difficulty with
the old-fashioned writing, which did feature the same long, indirect sentences
that I tended to get lost in and have to reread to understand. Still, I feel
such a sense of triumph and pleasure at being able to say that I am an official
“Jane Austen fan”. I wonder which of your novels I should pick up next? I feel
like I should try Pride and Prejudice again, but I know the
story so well from film adaptions that I don’t feel as much of a sense of
urgency. I’ve been warned away from Northanger Abbey, which doesn’t
seem to be a favorite of even die-hard Austen fans. I’m thinking of either Mansfield
Park or Persuasion. In any case, I am eagerly looking
forward to reading your works again – no more trepidation for me.
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