Sense and Sensibility, Part 2

I thought of Marianne when I saw this tree. She loved imperfect trees!

As I observed when reading about Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s novels are relatable because the situations she writes about are timeless. The same is true with Sense and Sensibility. There’s the age-old “he likes her, but she likes someone else” scenario that we see with Colonel Brandon/Marianne/Willoughby. Haven’t we all liked someone who liked someone else? Also, Marianne’s heartbreak is universal—haven’t we all been crushed by someone we believed we were meant to be with? This evokes a feeling of empathy within the reader. When Marianne has her heart broken by Willoughby, you want to come visit her, armed with some cheesy DVDs and a bottle of wine to comfort her. And then proceed to egg Willoughby’s house, Combe Magna. Elinor’s situation is also relatable. After she discovers that Edward is secretly engaged, she must try to appear objective in front of both the calculating Lucy and Edward. She has to try to keep her feelings private when others try to tease them out of her, like Mrs. Jennings, who is a universal representation of the middle-aged lady who is always in everyone’s business.

Now, a word about the men that the Dashwood sisters end up with. I think I prefer Edward Ferrars. At first, he seems like he’s kind of dull. But he has that nerdy allure that I would no doubt be drawn to. And he has good taste in women—Elinor’s pretty cool. However, I’ve never completely warmed to Colonel Brandon. He seems…ever so slightly creepy in his attentions to Marianne. I think it’s the age difference between him and Marianne (when they meet, he’s thirty-five, and she’s barely seventeen). He’s always underfoot. But he’s stable and quietly devoted, and Marianne needs someone like that.

While rereading Sense and Sensibility, I had forgotten that Willoughby visits Elinor, when he thinks Marianne is dying. His conversation with Elinor humanizes him a little. But I still think he’s awful. My opinion of Lucy Steele remains the same as well. I’m tickled by the fact that Mrs. Jennings calls her a “worthless hussy” when everyone learns that Lucy has eloped with Robert Ferrars. Lucy’s elopement is pretty much a deus ex machina, but at least Edward, dear simple Edward, wasn’t tied down to such a horrid woman.

Great passage (Elinor is talking to Marianne about Willoughby, and in typical Elinor fashion, tells the absolute truth about his character): “The whole of his behaviour,” replied Elinor, “from the beginning to the end of the affair has been grounded on selfishness. It was selfishness which first made him sport with your affections; which afterwards, when his own were engaged, made him delay the confession of it, and which finally carried him from Barton. His own enjoyment, or his own case, was in every particular his ruling principle.”

 Up next: Madame de Treymes (by my beloved Edith Wharton)