Sense & Sensibility - analysis, part 1 of 3

Jane Austen has given herself a question to answer in Sense & Sensibility. Which of these two characteristics is it more important to possess?

Elinor, the eldest Dashwood sister,

‘…possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgement…’ and ‘…her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them.’

while Marianne is,

‘…eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation. She was generous, amiable, interesting; she was everything but prudent.’

Elinor, keeps her emotions under control while Marianne is all about the instant expression of her emotions; sense and sensibility indeed. Looming over each of them is the importance of money. With the death of their father, the Dashwood sisters, their mother and younger sister, immediately lose their comfortable existence at Norland, and with it their position in society. They go from living on £4000 a year, their father’s income from the Norland estate, to £500 a year.

The first chapter explains the long and winding trail of male inheritance that has cut them out. Emotionally, the biggest event in this chapter is the deathbed promise that the legatee John Dashwood, their half-brother, must keep. But honour does not prevail. The baddie in this book, Mrs John Dashwood, sees to that.

‘No sooner was his father’s funeral over, than Mrs Dashwood, without sending any notice of her intention to her mother-in-law, arrived with her child and their attendants.’

Mrs John Dashwood moves into Norland with immediate effect. Jane Austen wastes no time giving us the very worst of her. She makes sure that her husband’s deathbed promise results in a meagre settlement for the Dashwood sisters.

‘… “Well, then, LET something be done for them; but THAT something need not be three thousand pounds.”

The excruciatingly cruel conversation continues as his best intentions are whittled down to the minimum:

‘Altogether, they will have five hundred a year amongst them, and what on earth can four women want for more than that? – They will live so cheap!... I am sure I cannot imagine how they will spend half of it; and as to your giving them more, it is quite absurd to think of it. They will be much more able to give YOU something.’

So, blood is not thicker than water. Mrs John Dashwood continues to chew away at her husband who is helpless in her onslaught of merciless excuses. The final stinger that tips her husband towards stinginess is a clever but despicable bit of emotional abuse.

‘…Your father thought only of THEM. And I must say this: that you owe no particular gratitude to him, nor attention to his wishes; for we very well know that if he could, he would have left almost everything in the world to THEM.’

Out of this wreckage the two elder Dashwood sisters, both still teenagers, must find a way to survive by making a good marriage.

Heroism in this book will not be great feats of physical courage or rebellious behaviour, nor dying for love – though Marianne will almost do just that - it will be something else entirely: forbearance and good sense. However, because this is Jane Austen, the novel does not simply praise stoicism. The limitations and suffering caused by concealment will be key elements in the novel as Elinor is forced to keep secrets that cause her pain and block her own happiness. Secrets, withholding information, in some cases outright lying, will fuel the most emotional scenes and drive the plot.

The arrival of Elinor’s love interest, Edward Ferrars, highlights the differences between Marianne and Elinor’s idea of a romantic partner. Edward is self-effacing and diffident and Elinor understands him. Marianne does not. Nor does she understand Elinor’s reserve when it comes to expressing her feelings about him:

‘…Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise.’

Elinor does manage to admit, ‘…of my own feelings. Believe them to be stronger than I have declared;’ but she’s pragmatic and exact about the obstacles any marriage to Edward must face.

‘He is very far from being independent. What his mother really is we cannot know; but, from Fanny’s occasional mention of her conduct and opinions, we have never been disposed to think her amiable; and I am very much mistaken if Edward is not himself aware that there would be many difficulties in his way, if he were to wish to marry a woman who had not either a great fortune or high rank.’

Fanny is Mrs John Dashwood, Edward’s sister, and she represents the parental tyranny in this novel, the trap-door spider guarding the family fortune that her mother controls. The Dashwood sisters are now poor, and she intends to keep it that way. She makes it clear to Mrs Dashwood that Elinor is too poor to marry Edward, it will never be allowed. And so, stung by this snub and clear indication that their social position is now lowly, Mrs Dashwood takes her daughters to Devon.

Sir John Middleton, a cousin, provides them with a cottage on cheap terms. The cottage, compared to Norland, is tiny. Their benefactors, the Middletons, are perhaps a study in a marriage of convenience based on Sir John’s money, and the youth and good looks of Lady Middleton. He is forty years old. But Lady Middleton:

‘…was not more than six or seven and twenty; her face was handsome, her figure tall and striking, and her address graceful. Her manners had all the elegance which her husband’s wanted… though perfectly well-bred, she was reserved, cold, and had nothing to say for herself beyond the most common-place inquiry or remark.’

I’m intrigued by Lady Middleton. Her function in the novel is a curious one. She is not a baddie, that spot has been taken by the greedy, snooty Mrs John Dashwood. But she serves as a counterpoint to both Marianne and Elinor. In terms of Elinor, she’s an example of what reserve, and sense, might do to a person long-term. It’s made her cold and disengaged but I wonder if this isn’t because she’s unhappy. Although, Sir John Middleton is not an unkind person, he is older, garrulous, and much less refined with his bluff country pursuits and love of parties. He’s a little ‘common’, and though Jane Austen never makes his country squire status into something objectionable, he’s not quite top drawer.

Lady Middleton has married not for love but for money. In terms of Marianne, the Middleton marriage foreshadows her own marriage to Colonel Brandon – there’s a similar age gap - because money matters quite a bit to Marianne, nearly as much as romanticism and emotions.

Incidentally, if your knowledge of Sense & Sensibility comes from the excellent film version, directed by Ang Lee and written by Emma Thompson, Lady Middleton does not feature, I imagine for reasons of compression. Lady Middleton’s mother, Mrs Jennings, a much bigger personality and key to the plot, does exist in the movie.

In the novel, she is:

‘…good-humoured, merry, fat, elderly woman, who talked a great deal, seemed very happy, and rather vulgar. She was full of jokes and laughter, and before dinner was over had said many witty things on the subject of lovers and husbands;’

Mrs Jennings provides comic relief from the darker aspects of the novel. She pries and pokes at both Elinor and Marianne, and considers it her mission to see at least one of them married to Colonel Brandon. She’s fully aware that Brandon is attracted to Marianne. In Chapter 8, Marianne is appalled at the suggestion that she might marry someone as old as Brandon. He is thirty-five to her seventeen. There ensues a brutal conversation between the two sisters about age.

‘“Perhaps,” said Elinor, “thirty-five and seventeen had better not have anything to do with matrimony together. But if there should by any chance happen to a woman who is single at seven and twenty, I should not think Colonel Brandon’s being thirty-five any objection to his marrying HER.”

“A woman of seven and twenty,” said Marianne, after pausing a moment, “can never hope to feel or inspire affection again, and if her home be uncomfortable, or her fortune small, I can suppose that she might bring herself to submit to the offices of a nurse for the sake of the provision and security of a wife… To me it would seem only a commercial exchange…”’

This is bleak! And Marianne sounds high-handed and flippant, displaying all the prejudices of a young person who knows very little of life and of people. She’s saying that twenty-seven is too old to inspire sexual attraction or be driven by it. However, she does know full well that young women have an expiration date. The window of opportunity is brief in the marriage market. So, Mrs Jennings might be presumptuous and pushy, but her heart is in the right place. These girls must marry as well as they can, as soon as possible, before they become also-rans.

Next, Willoughby arrives in the story in a meet-cute that is everything romantic Marianne envisages for herself. A twisted ankle on a rain-swept hillside, a young man strong enough, and willing, to carry her back to the house. Willoughby has,

‘…manly beauty and more than common gracefulness’

and then there’s this interesting sentence:

‘Marianne herself had seen less of his person than the rest, for the confusion which crimsoned over her face, on his lifting her up, had robbed her of the power of regarding him after their entering the house.’

We don’t know what Willoughby feels yet but it’s clear that Marianne registers a strong sexual attraction, reacting to the physical contact of being carried expressed by that crimsoned face. Her sensibilities are transparent and she conceals nothing.

Thereafter, caution is thrown to the winds. Marianne and Willoughby are inseparable and everyone assumes a marriage announcement cannot be far away. Only Elinor is concerned and a number of incidents build to create this unease.

In Chapter 10, Willoughby is mean about Colonel Brandon.

‘… “I do not dislike him. I consider him, on the contrary, as a very respectable man, who has everybody’s good word and nobody’s notice; who has more money than he can spend…”’

Mean words and jealous ones too, even if Willoughby is being light-hearted. Elinor has a kinder more fair-minded assessment:

‘… “I can only pronounce him to be a sensible man, well-bred, well-informed, of gentle address, and, I believe, possessing an amiable heart.”’

Oddly, this seems to pique Willoughby and although he attempts to disguise his spite with humour, he now contradicts himself.

‘…I have three unanswerable reasons for disliking Colonel Brandon: he threatened me with rain when I wanted it to be fine: he has found fault with the hanging of my curricle, and I cannot persuade him to buy my brown mare.”’

So now, Willoughby says he dislikes Brandon and this suggests that he’s changeable and inconstant. This is a clever piece of foreshadowing, a very subtle signalling that things are not quite right with this man. There is trouble ahead.

In Chapter 12, Willoughby gives Marianne a horse which never arrives because the Dashwoods can’t afford to keep it and have to decline the offer. But Willoughby wants Marianne to be in no doubt what he means by this present.

‘…he added, in the same low voice, - “But, Marianne, the horse is still yours, though you cannot use it now. I shall keep it only till you can claim it. When you leave Barton to form your own establishment in a more lasting home…”’

This suggests that he intends something long term is, and that is: marriage.

Next, Willoughby takes Marianne to Allenham, the house and estate he is to inherit. But he takes Marianne to see it while its present owner, Mrs. Smith, is in residence but frail and unaware of her visitors. This tour implies that he’s showing her their future home. Even today, I’m not sure many of us would feel comfortable poking around someone else’s house while they lay upstairs, ill and dying.

Elinor, keenly alert to impropriety, points this out to Marianne who refuses to accept she has done anything wrong. Willoughby is in the wrong for taking her there. It’s yet another black mark against him and every single incident hints that Willoughby is not what he appears. Out of the corner of your reader’s eye you perceive him as deceitful and somewhat underhand. However, the delicate brilliance of Jane Austen’s writing means the reader is only slightly aware of this creeping disquiet. As you read, you’re never prevented from enjoying the experience of Marianne falling in love with the man of her dreams. This is vital from a reader’s point of view if the later smash up is to be fully devastating.

In Chapter 15, Willoughby abruptly disappears. Marianne is left distraught and her mother and Elinor dare not question her too deeply about what has happened. Only Elinor doubts that Marianne is engaged to Willoughby.

‘… “I want no proof of their affection,” said Elinor; “but of their engagement I do.”

“I am perfectly satisfied of both.”

“Yet not a syllable has been said to you on the subject, by either of them.”

The ever-pragmatic Elinor refuses to ignore that something is wrong, even if her mother, Mrs Dashwood, is convinced it’s fine.

Then it’s Elinor’s turn to be shaken up by an unexpected visit from Edward Ferrars. Ironically, she finds his behaviour towards her formal and unemotional.

“His coldness and reserve mortified her severely; she was vexed and half angry; but resolving to regulate her behaviour to him by the past rather than the present, she avoided every appearance of resentment or displeasure, and treated him as she thought he ought to be treated from the family connection.”

Marianne has not disguised her distress at Willoughby’s sudden exit, but Elinor, of course, hides her feelings. Ironically, she’s made ‘vexed’ and ‘angry’ not by his excess of feeling and warmth but by its absence. Austen has confronted Elinor with the limitations of her need for composure and emotional control. It also alerts her, and us, to the fact that something is up with Edward.

In Chapter 17, another difference between the two sisters is made clear. They have differing attitudes towards money. Marianne, unashamedly wants plenty of it. Elinor wants enough money to make life comfortable.

‘… “Perhaps,” said Elinor, smiling, “we may come to the same point. YOUR competence and MY wealth are very much alike, I dare say; and without them, as the world goes now, we shall both agree that every kind of external comfort must be wanting. Your ideas are only more noble than mine. Come what is your competence?”

“About eighteen hundred or two thousand a year; not more than THAT.”

Elinor laughed. “TWO thousand a year! ONE is my wealth! I guessed how it would end.”’

Marianne’s Willoughby also needs lots of money to enjoy life, though his profligate ways will force him away from his heart’s desire. Elinor and Edward have similar modest ideas about money though his family have other plans.

‘They wanted him to make a fine figure in the world in some manner or other. His mother wished to interest him in political concerns, to get him into parliament, or to see him connected with the great men of the day.’

Poor Edward, as an eldest son, is obliged to submit to family expectations if he’s to gain his inheritance. Of all the characters in this novel, Edward faces the most pressure from parental tyranny.

Elinor and Edward, Marianne and Willoughby, represent two opposing societal values; put simplistically: the stiff upper lip of don’t complain, don’t explain, just enjoy a modest, simple life versus the expressive, the emotional where feelings are easy to perceive and life should be extravagantly grasped with both hands. Yet both sets of couples conceal everything from each other and those around them.

Austen in Chapter 18 develops this conflict between sense and sensibility, but there is a turning point in her argument, hinting at the values she prefers.

During a conversation with Edward, Marianne talks enthusiastically about the Devon landscape, asking questions about what he enjoyed about it. In a rare moment of explanation – we never hear very much from Edward about anything - that is direct and clear, he says,

‘You must not enquire too far, Marianne – remember I have no knowledge in the picturesque, and I shall offend you by my ignorance…’

The conversation continues humorously as both sisters provoke him until he finally says,

‘I like a fine prospect, but not on picturesque principles. I do not like crooked, twisted, blasted trees. I admire them much more if they are tall, straight, and flourishing. I do not like ruined cottages. I am not fond of nettles or thistles, or heath blossoms. I have more pleasure in a snug farm-house than a watch-tower…’

Shades of Jane Austen’s gothic take-down in Northanger Abbey. This conversation points towards the deeper question Jane Austen intends to answer, and hints at real dangers from the darkness that lurks beneath.

If you’re a fan of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights then ‘snug farm-houses’ are dull things. But Austen seems to be saying you can’t live this way, with melodrama and heightened emotions, high anxiety, disquiet, chaos and catastrophe around every corner. To live peacefully in a house with a roof that doesn’t leak, with nothing to sting you, with healthy plants and wildlife about, is surely the ideal. Turning ankles on windswept moors and finding yourself in thrall to a handsome but unreliable tyrant - Willoughby or Heathcliff take your pick - who might be sexy but is also a little too toxic to ensure a pleasant life.

In Chapter 18, Edward has shown himself to be just the right sort of husband for Elinor. However, in a few sentences Austen throws all the pieces in the air. Mrs Dashwood notices a ring on Edward’s finger with a lock of hair mounted at its centre. Whose lock of hair can this be?

When questioned, Edward lies to them all, and we know this because:

‘He coloured very deeply’ and his ‘embarrassment lasted some time, and it ended in an absence of mind still more settled. He was particularly grave the whole morning.’

He has claimed the lock of hair belongs to his sister, but Elinor guesses otherwise. All is suddenly not as it appears. Edward has a secret and might prove to be just as unreliable and absent as Willoughby.

To be continued…

© Annette Gordon