Sense and Sensibility

Marianne is 16 at the beginning of the narrative and 19 at the end, when she marries Colonel Brandon. The embodiment of sensibility, beautiful Marianne has a figure that is “not so correct as her sister’s” and unfashionably tan skin from walking outside, but attractive dark eyes where “there was a life, a spirit, an eagerness, which could hardly be seen without delight” (54). Marianne’s beauty is livelier than her sister’s and inspires strong emotion. Similarly, her chosen art form, music, is also more emotional than her sister’s drawing, as it directly invokes emotions.

At the start of the narrative, Marianne is “eager in everything: her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation” (6). This is evident in the extremes of feeling she experiences grieving for her father, being ecstatically in love with Willoughby, and falling into despair in his absence. Austen shows how Marianne has a romantic predilection for “seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it” (6)—for example, indulging her grief for her father, or going on pilgrimages to places that remind her painfully of Willoughby. In tune with the cult of sensibility, a romantic literary notion among Austen's contemporaries, Marianne is proud of being able to feel deeply, regardless of the impact on her own well-being and that of others. This is dramatized when she takes the extensive walks around Cleveland in search of Willoughby’s property, regardless of the danger to her health. Austen, who is critical of unchecked sensibility, shows that it is unconcern for everyday matters like physical health that nearly cause Marianne’s death. Thus, she aims to write a realist rather than romantic account of excessive sensibility.

Marianne’s character development occurs mostly in the last third of the novel, when following her sickness, she changes her mind about her previous attitudes. She learns to value discretion, consistency, and looking after the well-being of others more than the passions which nearly led to her downfall. While Marianne begins the novel stridently independent, by the end of the novel she is happy to be guided by the opinions of those she believes wiser than herself and marries Colonel Brandon out of strong friendship rather than passionate love.

Although Austen elaborates on Elinor’s interiority, Marianne’s spontaneity and instinctive responses to events and people make her a refreshing and authentic presence in a world of stifling social mores. For example, while Elinor obliges and tolerates Fanny and the Ferrars’ coldness and social snobbery, Marianne calls them out on their behavior or refuses to see them. Similarly, her unguarded preference for Willoughby makes her seem warm and unaffected and exposes the artificiality of other characters’ niceties in courtship.

The eldest son of Mrs. Ferrars, Edward is 24 at the beginning of the narrative. He recommends himself to the Dashwoods by being entirely unlike his sister Fanny. While he is “not handsome” with manners “that required intimacy to make them pleasing,” he is intelligent, with “an open, affectionate heart” (16). His shy temperament means that he does not align with his mother and sister’s ambitious plans for him as a public figure, preferring to establish himself in the church. Still, the “want of employment” caused by his mother’s refusal to let him into his profession of choice leads him to form a secret engagement with Lucy Steele (405). While Edward feels obligated to honor his promise to Lucy, by the time he meets Elinor he has long ceased to love her.

Despite the drama of his secret engagement, Edward’s tastes are simple and align more with Elinor’s sense than Marianne’s sensibility. For example, he prefers a robust, flourishing landscape to a tortured picturesque one and reads poetry without the feeling Marianne desires. Elinor’s attraction to him indicates her prioritization of good character over the flourishes that make a romantic lover.

During the course of the novel, Edward undergoes a character development that sees him transform from a passive character, beholden to his mother’s whims and his unwanted engagement, to an active one who marries the woman he loves and figures out how to make a living on his own terms. Still, he is not an old-fashioned patriarch, allowing himself to be influenced by Elinor’s judgement when he feels it to be superior to his own.

The 35-year-old Colonel Brandon seems a confirmed bachelor to Marianne at the beginning of the novel. She takes his flannel waistcoat and the rheumatism in his shoulder as a sign of dotage and dismisses him outright as a suitor. A more objective account reveals that “though his face was not handsome, his countenance was sensible, and his address was particularly gentlemanlike” (39). Austen sets him up as potentially suitable partner for Marianne as he shares her taste for music and precedes Willoughby in the narrative. He also has an aura of disrepute, as some believe his ward to be his illegitimate daughter. In reality, Colonel Brandon has the kind of tragic past that would come from one of Marianne’s romantic books. He fell in love with his brother's fiancée, Eliza, and nearly eloped with her. Failing to do so, he went abroad with the military while Eliza endured an abusive husband, a divorce, and subsequent fall into disrepute. The colonel’s devotion to Eliza motivates him to provide for her illegitimate child, his ward Eliza Williams. This second Eliza’s extramarital affair with Willoughby puts Colonel Brandon in direct conflict with both Willoughby and memories of the past, and he is old-fashioned enough to challenge Willoughby to a duel. Afterwards, Colonel Brandon focuses on providing for Eliza and her child. His caring nature is also expressed by his wish to do the best for Marianne, revealing the truth about Willoughby only when he knows that Marianne and Willoughby are not engaged.

As Marianne resembles the original Eliza in looks and character, his attraction to her has deep, if morbidly romantic roots. By the end of the novel, Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor believe that Colonel Brandon deserves Marianne as a consolation for all his sufferings and thus a chance to console himself for losing Eliza. Although the colonel is besotted with Marianne, his true confidante is Elinor. He unburdens his troubles to her, and Elinor also prefers the company of this sensitive man to the others at Mrs. Jennings’ house. Both John Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings try to make a match between Elinor and the colonel and even Edward feels threatened by him. However, the dynamic between them is honest friendship, which is remarkable in Austen’s gender-segregated society, when disinterested connections between men and women were rare. By the end of the novel, Marianne recognizes Colonel Brandon's steadfastness and romantic nature, which are better suited to her than she first assumed.

Willoughby, 25, enters the narrative in the romantic manner of Marianne’s rescuer. His carrying her home from a solitary walk throws them into immediate intimacy, forgoing all the niceties of an official introduction. Still, while Marianne feels that dashing Willoughby meets her requirements of masculine perfection, he is sketched vaguely initially, indicating that neither she nor the reader has seen the full picture. He parrots Marianne’s tastes, though in a manner so enthusiastic that she can delude herself into thinking they are his own. He is vague about his social circumstances and even Sir John can only describe him as “a very decent shot, and there is not a bolder rider in England” (50). Willoughby’s alliance with horsemanship indicates his restless, changeable nature, in addition to the physical vigor that makes him appealing.

A foil character to Colonel Brandon, Willoughby makes a striking first impression, being “uncommonly handsome” and having “a manner so frank and so graceful” (49). Austen shows that his charm is such, that not only Marianne, but her mother and sisters fall under his spell. His appeal later sways Elinor at Cleveland, even when she knows the truth about his character. Austen’s propensity to describe Willoughby’s effect on others rather than the details of his handsome face and figure gives a full impression of his power and its lasting nature. As Willoughby's charm contrasts Colonel Brandon's deficiencies, his secrecy, fickleness, and vanity highlight the colonel's more compassionate and loyal nature.

Willoughby’s continued attachment to Marianne after their marriages to other people evokes the doomed romance fashionable in the literary cult of sensibility. However, his callous abandonment of her without an explanation and pretense of indifference to her new engagement shows him to be of a selfish, unfeeling nature. This is even more heightened in his treatment of Eliza Williams, whom he impregnated then abandoned. Moreover, while Willoughby styles himself as a great romantic, the pettiness of his nature is revealed in his inability to control his appetite for luxury. While Elinor finds his ongoing attachment to Marianne touching, she finds that his lack of discipline makes him fall short when compared to the colonel.

Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor and Marianne’s widowed mother, is the second wife of their father and about 40 years old. In her temperament, Mrs. Dashwood resembles Marianne more than Elinor. As a result, she relates to her younger daughter more than her eldest and is deficient in moderating Marianne’s behavior. She is unusual for a mother of her time, prioritizing love matches over financially advantageous ones. However, by the end of the novel, Mrs. Dashwood’s preference of Colonel Brandon for her daughter indicates her wish to unite love with financial security.

Elinor, who is more pragmatic than Mrs. Dashwood often assumes the parental role and mitigates her mother’s excesses. Elinor’s pragmatism about money highlights her mother’s deficiency: Mrs. Dashwood “a woman who never saved in her life” imagines that she can make numerous improvements at Barton Cottage, including those that might exceed her income (33). Her propensity to hope without material grounds forms her good opinion of Willoughby and his intentions towards her daughter. However, she realizes this mistake by the end of the novel and acknowledges her role in Marianne’s difficulties.

Mrs. Dashwood has a magnetic warmth which shows even shy characters like Edward to an advantage and her maternal tenderness towards all her daughters is undisputed. Over the course of the novel, she learns to understand and be a better mother to Elinor, realizing that “Marianne’s affliction […] had too much engrossed her tenderness, and led her away to forget that in Elinor she might have a daughter suffering almost as much” (399). Mrs. Dashwood, as her husband’s second attachment and the mother of daughters worthier than John, the son of his first attachment, also serves as an example of the novel’s promotion of second attachments over first ones.

Mr. John Dashwood is Mr. Henry Dashwood’s son from his first marriage. Austen describes his flaws with characteristic understatement—“he was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted and rather selfish is to be ill-disposed: but he was, in general, well respected; for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of his ordinary duties” (4). Here, she reveals that beneath the veneer of social respectability, John has an unfeeling selfishness that stops him looking beyond the interests of his nuclear family. This influences his attitude to the Dashwood sisters and minimizes his sense of duty towards them.

John is obsessed with money and social status to a farcical level, unable to speak of any other subject. When he seeks to make Elinor Colonel Brandon’s bride, the irony of him wanting to marry Elinor off into the wealth he has denied her is evident every time he brings up the subject. Here, John’s guilt about slighting his sisters has been sublimated into a concern for finding a man who can alleviate his own debt. Although at the beginning of the novel the Dashwood sisters, guided by Elinor, have a rational tolerance for John, by the end of the novel they discuss him with open contempt. Austen suggests that the most unfeeling characters do not deserve a reader's compassion.

The primary antagonist of the novel's opening chapters, John’s wife Fanny Dashwood (née Ferrars) is “a strong caricature of himself;—more narrow-minded and selfish” (4). Fanny’s exaggerated selfishness is first communicated in her unfeeling manner of coming to Norland and declaring herself mistress of the place “no sooner” than Henry Dashwood’s funeral is over and “without sending any notice of her intention to her mother-in-law” (5). Fanny’s unsubtle takeover of Norland has the quality of an invasion and shows how she ruthlessly advances her own interests at the expense of other women’s. Fanny is also a master manipulator, playing on her husband’s insecurities that his father preferred his second family to his first and surmising that left to his own devices, Mr. Henry Dashwood “would have left almost everything in the world to THEM” (13).

A social climber, she joins her mother Mrs. Ferrars in the endeavor to ensure that the family make socially advantageous alliances through marriage. This makes her the enemy of Edward’s connection with Elinor. Ironically, her fixation on preventing this match causes her to favor Lucy, the true social threat disguised as a flatterer. Her oversight paves the way for a woman of inferior connections to make her way into the Ferrars family. The hysteria that Fanny expresses on learning that Lucy and Edward are engaged is the only real emotion that this controlling character betrays, indicating her innate superficiality and materialism.

Robert, Fanny, and Edward’s mother, Mrs. Ferrars, is reported on rather than directly encountered in the first two thirds of the novel: Fanny conveys Mrs. Ferrars’s “resolution that both her sons should marry well, and of the danger attending any young woman who attempted to DRAW HIM IN” (24). Her fearsomeness and influence are further highlighted by John, who speaks of her in reverential tones and narrates her plans to marry Edward off to a wealthy Miss Morton.

However, when Elinor greets Mrs. Ferrars she finds that she is “a little, thin woman, upright, even to formality, in her figure, and serious, even to sourness, in her aspect” (262). Her meager, unprepossessing physicality makes Elinor think that she is a trifling, superficial figure, who has no advantage beyond money and social status. Still, Mrs. Ferrars’ “spirited determination” to dislike Elinor indicates that both she and her daughter resent the power Elinor has over Edward. Their fixation on Elinor’s claims over Edward makes them overlook the more real threat of Lucy’s power.

Mrs. Ferrars’ dramatic gesture of cutting her sons off in sequence when they become engaged to Lucy reveals her ruthless obsession with social status. However, she appears to need her sons’ attention for her own sense of self-esteem, as she hints to Edward that he might fall back into her favor when Robert disgraces himself, and then finally accepts both Robert and Lucy after they are married. Austen mocks Mrs. Ferrars for bringing on “herself a most appropriate punishment”, especially when the independence she bestows on her youngest son gives him the power “to do the very deed which she disinherited [Edward] for intending to do” (410). Her power lessens at the end of the novel, when she finds herself outplayed by her youngest son and flattered into submission by her social-climbing daughter-in-law.

Edward’s younger brother and his mother’s favorite, Robert is kept from the status and fortune that befits his worldly ambitions by being born the second son. Robert initially seems a silly, dandified figure, especially as Elinor first encounters him fussing over the style and dimensions of a toothpick case. This characterizes him as a person who is obsessed with trivia and therefore superficial. Elinor’s first impression of him is “a person and face, of strong, natural, sterling insignificance, though adorned in the first style of fashion” (248). Her meeting with Robert confirms her impression of him as more style than substance, when he waxes lyrical on cottages and intersperses his speech with French words.

Beneath Robert’s polished exterior lurks cold-hearted ambition and a deep sense of competition with his brother. Austen sets Robert and Edward up as foils, but also as paradoxically interchangeable. Bearing the same title, Mr. Ferrars, their position as the dominant son is negotiable. Robert dismisses Lucy as “just the kind of girl I suppose likely to captivate poor Edward,” just as he is falling into the trap of becoming attracted to her himself (337). This lack of self-awareness becomes ironic, even as he coolly tricks Edward and his mother, by courting Lucy and “marrying privately without his mother’s consent” (422). Robert’s ability to flatter and placate his mother eventually re-ingratiates him with her, as the Ferrars who hold the same superficial values form the deepest bonds.