Chapter Society and the Individual of Sense and Sensibility - Study Guide by Jane Austen

We are told in the opening chapter that Elinor, "had an excellent heart; her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings strong; but she knew how to govern them" (p. 42). Neither is Elinor without opinions; she does not hold back from expressing them when she feels that the situation is serious enough. She disagrees frequently with Marianne and her mother, but the only moment at which she disagrees with anyone outside the family is during her conversation with John Dashwood about Miss Morton:

"'We think now' - said Mr. Dashwood, after a short pause, 'of Robert's marrying Miss Morton.'

Elinor, smiling at the grave and decisive importance of her brother's tone, calmly replied,

'The lady, I suppose, has no choice in the affair.'

'Choice? How do you mean?'

'I only mean, that I suppose form your manner of speaking, it must be the same to Miss Morton whether she marries Edward or Robert.'" (p. 294)

There is a hint of Elizabeth Bennet's sharp wit here, couched in such a way as to make a point while remaining well within the bounds of acceptable behaviour. Neither sense nor sensibility, then, is the exclusive property of Elinor or Marianne, just as Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy each has their fair share of both pride and prejudice. Marianne is not a caricature of an over-emotional fool, but an intelligent and highly articulate girl, while Elinor is defined as much by her strength of emotion as by her self-control. Even at this early stage of her career Austen was too subtle and clever a writer to be content with an uncomplicated polarisation between her two central characters. Walton Litz felt that Sense and Sensibility was overly schematic and hence unsatisfactory but one could argue equally convincingly that Elinor and Marianne are not two halves of an ideal whole and that they are each complex and fully realised characters in their own right.

Austen's assertion of self-control as a better way of interacting in society than self- indulgence is by no means uncomplicated. Sense and Sensibility poses some difficult questions that form a deliberate sub- text even though Austen chooses not to explore them in an open and explicit way. We feel a strong sympathy for Marianne at the end of the novel, who is tamed and forced into conformity, then married off to Colonel Brandon. Austen tells us that Elinor, Edward and Mrs. Dashwood were all keen on the match:

"They each felt his sorrows, and their own obligations, and Marianne, by general consent, was to be the reward of all." (p. 366)

There is "a confederacy against her" and she finds herself "submitting" to the marriage. This sounds uncomfortably close to the coercion that Elinor and Marianne suffered from earlier in the novel at the hands of the John Dashwoods, the Middletons and Mrs. Jennings. Austen tells us that Marianne eventually came to love her husband as much as she had ever loved Willoughby, but nevertheless we feel that there is some element of compromise in her romantic destiny. Ironically, Colonel Brandon first loved Marianne for her strong feelings. Elinor says that "a few years will settle [Marianne's] opinions on the reasonable basis of common sense and observation", to which Brandon replies that, "there is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions" (p. 86). This is supported later by his admiration of Marianne's outburst against Mrs. Ferrars' rudeness:

"Elinor was much more hurt by Marianne's warmth, than she had been by what had produced it; but Colonel Brandon's eyes, as they were fixed on Marianne, declared that he noticed only what was amiable in it, the affectionate heart which could not bear to see a sister slighted even in the smallest point." (p. 242)

Marianne's warmth and spontaneity are attractive, but these are the qualities that she must learn to curb before she can be worthy of marrying the man who loves her for them.