Sense & Sensibility: A false dichotomy
Disclaimers: 1) spoilers; 2) I feel a compulsion to acknowledge that nothing I write here will be ground-breaking analysis of Jane Austen, I just enjoy this; and 3) it pains me but I decided to cut a point about use of doublet structures in the book - while any close inspection would reveal that Jane Austen is not taking this from Early Greek Hexameter poetry, it is always hard when I can’t relate something to the Iliad - nevertheless the use of structure as a technique to generate meaning is one of my favourite topics.
Sense and Sensibility is ostensibly about one sister governed by reason (Elinor) and another governed by emotion (Marianne) as they navigate the travails of finding an appropriate romantic suitor. The book, supposedly called ‘Elinor and Marianne’ in early drafts, sets these two next to each other, and invites the reader to compare and contrast them. But we are not being invited, really, to make a value judgement on who is better, or even which trait is better. Instead, Austen holds a magnifying glass over these two traits, and how they manifest themselves in different ways in the two sisters. Though probably obvious to more established fans of Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility proves her mastery over character construction and deconstruction right from her very first novel.
The book opens with a fairly basic compare and contrast device: we are told in chapter one that Elinor ‘had an excellent heart; her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong: but she knew how to govern them’; meanwhile, Marianne was ‘generous, amiable, interesting: she was everything but prudent’. And we see this dichotomy play out throughout the book. My personal favourite example is Marianne’s surrender to her affections for Willoughby while in London, while Elinor is the only character in the book to understand the difference between a “certain” opinion and a stated fact: we see her recognise that no one knows Willoughby and Marianne are engaged, even if they want to believe so.
On the surface, Austen gives us a basic pair of journeys: Marianne towards being guided by sense, and Elinor leaning into her sensibility. In Marianne’s self-reflection towards the end of the novel, she states her newfound sense clearly:
[Elinor]: Do you compare your conduct with his [Willoughby’s]?
[Marianne]: No. I compare it with what it ought to have been; I compare it with yours
Ch. 46
On the other hand, while Elinor never loses her sense, she succumbs to her emotions upon hearing of Lucy’s marriage to Mr. Robert Ferrars. Her leaning into emotion is further highlighted because she is wrong: she is overcome by a misunderstanding of the truth. The two sisters take on qualities similar to each other by the end of the novel.
But Austen has sown the seeds of these two journeys from the very beginning, and each character’s journey is unique to them. Marianne’s transformation is couched in the very terms of excessive emotion she is known for. She declares her absolute devotion to music and reading, devoting ‘every moment between music and reading’ while she is awake. Elinor even notes that the ‘same eager fancy which had been leading her to the extreme of languid indolence and selfish repining’ was ‘now at work’ for her studies. Certainly, it is employed in service of reason, but her characteristic excess, the trademark of her sensibility, is still front and centre.
Elinor’s sense is also not always cut and dried. At the close of the first volume, Elinor uses her sense to interrogate Lucy to unveil the truth of their engagement. Except, Lucy says in no uncertain terms that she is engaged to Mr. Edward Ferrars. Due to her strong sensibility, she simply does not want to believe that Lucy is telling the truth, so she repeatedly questions it, and through sense, she finds ways to doubt her. And finally, she is overcome: ‘she was mortified, shocked, confounded’. And it leads to the finale of the chapter: ‘Elinor was then at liberty to think and be wretched’. The opening description of Elinor tells us that she knows how to govern her strong feelings. But here, her strong feelings dictate her sense, and the moment she has privacy, she gives into them fully.
Sense and Sensibility is a fun novel, full of wit and humour, and the writing disguises the story’s inevitable conclusion through careful pacing. And it avoids the trap of offering a basic moral explanation that reason is better than emotion. Instead, Jane Austen offers an examination of a set of character traits and highlights them in different ways. At its core, the book, like all the best stories, chooses a very basic concept, and makes it manifest. In this case, Jane Austen reminds us that we contain multitudes. Or in other words, inside you, there are two wolves.