Sense and Sensibility

Summary

Sense and Sensibility follows two sisters whose temperaments represent the opposed values of its title. When Henry Dashwood dies, Norland Park in Sussex passes to John, his son by a first marriage, who promises to provide for his stepmother and half-sisters but is talked out of any real generosity by his grasping wife Fanny. Mrs Dashwood and her daughters, Elinor, Marianne and young Margaret, move to Barton Cottage in Devonshire, offered by a cousin, Sir John Middleton. Elinor, nineteen, is sensible and self-controlled, and has formed a quiet attachment to Fanny's diffident brother Edward Ferrars. Marianne, seventeen, is passionate, romantic and contemptuous of convention. At Barton, the grave, older Colonel Brandon falls in love with Marianne, who dismisses him as too old, while she falls headlong for the dashing John Willoughby, who carries her home after she twists her ankle in the rain. Their open intimacy convinces everyone they are engaged, until Willoughby leaves suddenly for London. Elinor, meanwhile, learns from the sly Lucy Steele that Lucy has been secretly engaged to Edward for four years, and bears the secret in silence. In London, with the vulgar but kind Mrs Jennings, Marianne finds Willoughby cold and is publicly snubbed; he returns her letters and announces his engagement to a rich heiress, Miss Grey. Colonel Brandon reveals that Willoughby seduced and abandoned Brandon's young ward, Eliza Williams. Lucy's engagement becomes known, and Edward's mother disinherits him in favour of his brother Robert; Edward resolves to honour the engagement and take orders, and Brandon offers him a living. On the journey home, at the Palmers' house at Cleveland, Marianne, who has walked in wet grass and neglected herself in her grief, falls dangerously ill with a fever. Elinor nurses her through the crisis, and Brandon fetches their mother. Willoughby arrives, having heard she is dying, and gives Elinor a confused account of his regret and his mercenary marriage. Marianne recovers, chastened, and resolves to govern her feelings. Then news comes that Lucy has married Robert Ferrars instead, now that he holds the fortune. Edward, released, proposes to Elinor and is accepted. Marianne, in time, marries Colonel Brandon, coming to love him as wholeheartedly as she once loved Willoughby. The novel thus tests both sensibility and sense, finding Marianne's spontaneity dangerous and Elinor's self-command costly, and rewards a balance of feeling and judgement.

Plot or Argument

• Disinheritance and Barton (Vol. I, Ch. 1–9)

  After Henry Dashwood's death the women lose Norland through John and Fanny's meanness and move to Barton Cottage. Marianne meets Willoughby.

• Willoughby's departure and Lucy's secret (Vol. I, Ch. 10–22)

  Willoughby leaves abruptly; Edward visits and is unhappy; Lucy Steele confides to Elinor her secret engagement to Edward.

• London (Vol. II)

  Marianne is publicly snubbed by Willoughby, who marries for money. Brandon reveals Willoughby's seduction of Eliza. Elinor endures Lucy's confidences.

• Exposure and disinheritance (Vol. III, Ch. 1–5)

  Lucy's engagement becomes known; Edward is disinherited but stands by her; Brandon offers him a living.

• Cleveland: Marianne's illness (Vol. III, Ch. 6–10)

  Marianne's dangerous fever; Elinor's nursing; Willoughby's night-time confession to Elinor.

• Resolutions (Vol. III, Ch. 11–14)

  Lucy marries Robert; Edward proposes to Elinor; Marianne eventually marries Brandon.

Characters

• Elinor Dashwood, heroine (sense)

  Eldest daughter, composed and prudent, who hides her own suffering to protect her family.

• Marianne Dashwood, heroine (sensibility)

  Passionate, romantic younger sister whose unrestrained grief nearly kills her.

• Edward Ferrars, Elinor's love

  Shy, honourable man bound by a youthful secret engagement to Lucy Steele.

• John Willoughby, Marianne's suitor

  Charming, impulsive young man who abandons Marianne to marry money.

• Colonel Brandon, Marianne's eventual husband

  Reserved, honourable man in his mid-thirties with a tragic past.

• Lucy Steele, rival

  Calculating young woman secretly engaged to Edward.

• Mrs Dashwood, mother

  Warm, impulsive widow who shares Marianne's sensibility.

• John and Fanny Dashwood, half-brother and his wife

  Wealthy, selfish relations who deny the women support.

• Mrs Jennings, Lady Middleton's mother

  Gossipy, vulgar but generous widow who hosts the sisters in London.

• Sir John Middleton, cousin and landlord

  Hospitable, sport-loving squire of Barton Park.

Lessons

• Feeling needs judgement, and judgement needs feeling

  The novel does not simply side with sense; it shows Elinor's suffering in silence and Marianne's growth into self-command. Each sister learns something from the other.

  • Is Elinor's restraint always admirable?
  • What does Marianne gain and lose by the end?

• Money shapes every relationship

  Inheritance law, dowries and disinheritance drive the plot from the first chapter. Austen exposes how economic dependence constrains women's choices and corrupts men like Willoughby.

  • How does John Dashwood's conversation with Fanny in Chapter 2 set up the novel?
  • Is Willoughby a villain or a weak man?
  • Does Lucy Steele deserve her success?

• Grief can become self-destruction

  Marianne's indulgence of grief, refusing food, sleep and caution, leads directly to her near-fatal illness. Austen treats the cult of sensibility as a real danger to health.

  • How does Austen link Marianne's emotional state to her illness?
  • What does Marianne say about her own conduct after recovering?

Context

The novel engages the late-eighteenth-century cult of sensibility, which prized emotional responsiveness, tears and Romantic attachment to nature, and the strict settlement of estates that left widows and daughters dependent on male heirs.

Composition

An early epistolary version called 'Elinor and Marianne' was written around 1795. Austen reworked it from 1797 and again before publication. Thomas Egerton published it in October 1811 on commission, 'By a Lady'. A second edition appeared in 1813.

Reception

Reviews were favourable and the first edition sold out, encouraging the publication of Pride and Prejudice. Later adaptations, notably the 1995 film scripted by Emma Thompson, made it one of Austen's most popular novels.

Comparisons

• persuasion

  Austen's first and last published novels both test feeling against prudence, but Persuasion's heroine regrets having been too prudent.

• northanger-abbey

  Both satirize fashionable literary sensibility, the Gothic novel in one and the sentimental novel in the other.

• mansfield-park

  Elinor and Fanny Price are both self-controlled heroines whose quiet integrity is set against charming but unprincipled lovers.

• little-women

  Sisters with contrasting temperaments learn to temper their natures within a family of reduced means.

• washington-square

  A fortune-hunting suitor and a woman's misplaced devotion; James takes the Willoughby plot to a bleaker end.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The conversation in Vol. I, Ch. 2 in which Fanny Dashwood talks her husband John down, step by step, from a gift of three thousand pounds to his half-sisters to an occasional present of fish and game. Austen shows greed disguised as prudence.
• Willoughby carrying Marianne home after she falls on the hill in the rain, and how quickly she decides that their tastes in poetry and music prove a perfect union of hearts.
• Lucy Steele's confidence to Elinor of her four-year secret engagement to Edward, and Elinor's decision to keep it silently for months while Marianne openly displays her grief.
• Marianne's letters to Willoughby in London, his cold reply, and the evening party where he snubs her before everyone.
• Marianne's fever at Cleveland after walking in the wet grass, Elinor's nursing through the crisis, and Willoughby's night-time confession to Elinor.

Key terms and names

Sensibility

The late eighteenth-century ideal of quick, deep feeling expressed openly, especially in response to nature, art, and love. Marianne lives by it and treats any restraint of feeling as insincerity.

Sense

Sound judgment and self-command, embodied by Elinor. Austen shows that it does not mean feeling less, since Elinor suffers as much as Marianne but governs how she shows it.

Norland Park

The Sussex estate the Dashwood women must leave after Henry Dashwood's death, because it passes to his son John. Their loss of it sets the whole plot of money and marriage in motion.

Barton Cottage

The small Devonshire house offered by Sir John Middleton, where the Dashwoods begin their reduced life and where Marianne meets both Colonel Brandon and Willoughby.

Lucy Steele

The sly, flattering young woman secretly engaged to Edward Ferrars, who confides in Elinor partly to warn her off. She finally marries Edward's brother Robert once he holds the family fortune.

The living at Delaford

The church position in Colonel Brandon's gift that he offers Edward after Edward is disinherited. A living provided a clergyman's income, and this one makes Edward's marriage possible.

Eliza Williams

Colonel Brandon's young ward, whom Willoughby seduced and abandoned. Brandon's account of her in London reveals Willoughby's character and the danger Marianne escaped.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension How do John and Fanny Dashwood reduce John's promised help to his stepmother and half-sisters in Vol. I, Ch. 2?
2. Comprehension What secret does Lucy Steele tell Elinor, and why does Elinor keep it to herself?
3. Comprehension What causes Marianne's illness at Cleveland, and what does Willoughby tell Elinor when he arrives there during the crisis?
4. Interpretation Marianne declares that disposition alone, not time or opportunity, determines intimacy. How does the story of Willoughby test this claim, and is she entirely wrong?
5. Interpretation Elinor hides her grief over Edward while Marianne displays hers. Which sister suffers more, and what does each one's way of suffering cost the people around her?
6. Interpretation Mrs Jennings is vulgar and talkative but kind; Fanny Dashwood is elegant and cruel. What is Austen saying about manners and goodness through characters like these?
7. Big Question Should we trust our feelings as guides to truth, or should feelings always answer to judgment? Does the novel finally favour sense, sensibility, or a balance of both?
8. Big Question Is Marianne's marriage to Colonel Brandon a happy ending or a surrender of who she was?

Faith Connections

• Proverbs 25:28 (Scripture)

  He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down and without walls. Marianne's grief after Willoughby's betrayal, in which she refuses food, sleep, and comfort until she falls ill, is the portrait of an unwalled city, and her resolution at the end is to rebuild those walls.

• 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (Scripture)

  Paul describes love as patient, kind, not seeking its own, and enduring all things. Colonel Brandon's long, quiet devotion and his gift of the living to Edward fit this description, while Willoughby's ardent but selfish passion does not.

• Romans 12:15 (Scripture)

  Paul tells believers to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Elinor keeps her own sorrow hidden to attend to her sister's, and Marianne only later recognizes how absorbed she was in her own feelings while Elinor bore hers alone.

• Augustine, City of God, Book XIV (Church Fathers)

  Augustine rejects the Stoic ideal of feeling nothing and argues that the citizens of the holy city rightly feel fear, desire, grief, and joy when their love is rightly ordered. Austen likewise rejects both Marianne's unbridled feeling and any coldness, and praises feeling governed by right love and judgment.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Feelings that are given free rein and treated as their own justification lead a person to misjudge others, wound those who love her, and even endanger her life, as Marianne's do. Yet self-command that hides every feeling isolates a person and costs her dearly, as Elinor's does. A good life requires deep feeling governed by judgment and duty. Therefore the novel favours neither pure sense nor pure sensibility, but sense that feels and sensibility that learns to judge.

Rhetorical device: free indirect discourse. In Vol. I, Ch. 16 the narrator says that Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep after parting from Willoughby. The sentence takes on Marianne's own view of what a feeling heart owes its grief, while Austen's irony lets the reader see how she is staging her own sorrow.

Debate: Resolved: Elinor's self-command is a greater virtue than Marianne's sincerity.

Memory Work

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone

Marianne’s abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor’s. She was sensible and clever; but eager in everything: her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation

Writing Prompts

Essay: Elinor and Marianne both lose the man they love in the middle of the novel. Comparing Elinor's silence after Lucy's confession with Marianne's grief after Willoughby's letter, argue what Austen thinks a person owes to her own feelings and what she owes to others.

Comparison with Persuasion: Marianne trusts her feelings too readily, while Anne Elliot in Persuasion once gave up the man she loved on the advice of others and regrets it for years. Compare the two heroines, and argue whether Austen's last novel revises the judgment about feeling and prudence she made in her first.

Medical Lens

Marianne's collapse is a textbook Regency case of emotion acting on the body: grief, loss of appetite and sleep, and long solitary walks in wet grass precede a 'putrid' fever that the apothecary Mr Harris treats and that the household fears is infectious. Elinor's vigil at the bedside is one of Austen's most sustained nursing scenes. The novel's satire of sensibility treats the deliberate cultivation of grief and sleeplessness as a health risk, aligning with contemporary medical worries about novel-reading and nervous sensibility. Colonel Brandon's flannel waistcoat, mocked by Marianne as a sign of rheumatism and age, and his story of Eliza, dying in poverty of consumption, extend the medical texture. Modern readings of Marianne as clinically depressed should be presented as interpretation.

• Vol. I, Ch. 8

  Marianne mocks Colonel Brandon's complaint of rheumatism and his flannel waistcoat as signs of decrepitude.

  Aging Senescence
• Vol. II, Ch. 7–9

  Marianne's grief after Willoughby's letter: refusal of food, sleeplessness and hysterical weeping, while Elinor attends her.

  GriefMelancholia DepressionSleep Insomnia
• Vol. II, Ch. 9

  Brandon's account of the first Eliza, whom he found dying of consumption in a sponging-house.

  Tuberculosis ConsumptionDeath Dying
• Vol. III, Ch. 6–7

  Marianne's fever at Cleveland after walks in the wet; Mr Harris the apothecary attends, fears of infection send the Palmers' baby away, and Elinor nurses her through the crisis.

  Fever InfectionPhysicians DoctorsNursing CaregivingMind Body

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write Mr Harris's private notes on Marianne's case as an apothecary of 1797 might have kept them.

• Essay

  Is Elinor's emotional suppression healthier than Marianne's expression? Argue with evidence from the novel.

• Dialogue

  Write a conversation between Marianne and Colonel Brandon five years into their marriage.

Further Reading

• Jane Austen: A Life, Claire Tomalin

• The Man of Feeling, Henry Mackenzie

  Classic sentimental novel of the culture Austen satirizes.

• Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, Marilyn Butler

• Sense and Sensibility, Emma Thompson (screenplay)

  Screenplay for Ang Lee's 1995 film.