Sense And Sensibility : Jane Austen

In today 's society, marriage is a significant bond that must be on the basis of love and understanding. Marriage is a relationship described as more for love and emotion rather than convenience or money. Through the experience of Lydia and Wickham, Charlotte and Collins, and Elizabeth and Darcy, Austen criticizes marriages based on infatuation, convenience and money, and emphasizes that marriage can only be successful if they are founded on mutual love.

Jane Austen's 1811 novel "Sense and Sensibility" puts across an account involving two English sisters who come across a series of hardships in their endeavor to find their personal identities in a relatively hostile environment. Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are forced to leave their home, the estate at Norland Park, consequent to their father's death. The two experience economic problems and come to see the world with different eyes as they move in a small house and as they interact with people who are primarily motivated by finances. Even though the two sisters have diverging personalities, they go through similar experiences and they come to have similar perceptions of society.

Jane Austen's groundbreaking novel Sense and Sensibility is a relationship-driven account of female protagonists. Sense and Sensibility shares much in common with other novels by and about women. Themes like autonomy versus independence and the role of women in a patriarchal society are explored in Sense and Sensibility. Using two sisters to symbolize the different directions the female spirit can be pulled, Austen shows the variable ways women respond to political, social, and economic oppression. The women of Sense and Sensibility are both trapped by, and breaking free from, the conventions of marriage and motherhood. Marriage and motherhood are portrayed ironically as the natural course of women's lives, but also as the chain that prevents their self-fulfillment. The social norm of patrilineal inheritance leaves Elinore and Marianne Dashwood, and their mother, penniless and dependent on distant male family members. Marriage and motherhood are restrictive roles for women, and yet Austen never provides a satisfactory alternative for Marianne. Marianne seems willing to break free from patriarchal social norms, but she ends up being a slave to heterosexual romance. The message in Sense and Sensibility ends up being rather bleak: women remain socially, economically, and politically oppressed because they cannot envision or enact suitable independent alternatives.

The author Inger Sigrun Brodey, a reputable JASNA’s North American Scholar who is a frequent speaker at Jane Austen Society meetings, writes in the article "Making sense of sensibility." from Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal that Marianne Dashwood symbolizes sensibility and her sister Elinor represents common sense. Marianne shares many similarities with Lydia Bennet, the youngest daughter in Pride and Prejudice. Both believe their world is naturally good without corruption such as greed and lust to mar it. Both have foibles that strangers generally are naturally good. However, in actuality there are very good actors that manipulate the vulnerable. Humans have a way of being imminently selfish and Austen is depicting it with the characters such as the dastardly Mr. Wickham of Pride and Prejudice and thoughtless Mr. Willoughby of Sense and Sensibility. Both men affect their counterparts in a negative way and take advantage of the situation. This creates a bias of distrustful feelings, that sympathy may be able to heal, but society might think is self-absorption. Nonetheless, pity is created for the poor creatures. In fact, it is sensibility or empathy that is necessary to have a deeper connection like love or hate, and it is fear of rejection that may be the culprit of a hesitancy to love. This relates to the larger picture of the transition between the Enlightenment and Romanticism, sense contrasts sensibility because sense has logic and sensibility is fueled by emotional reactions

In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, she has specific criteria that her characters follow when choosing their mates. In today’s society, most couples still follow these criteria and more when choosing their ideal mate. What are these important criteria that Austen’s characters consider when choosing a mate? For Austen, the important criteria that she has for choosing a mate are that couples are personally compatible, they are in love with each other, and they must have a good moral character.

Sense and Sensibility was first published in 1811, by Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility represents the neoclassical, dualistic moral world where values and exclusion values will ultimately be successful in a painful, romantic feeling. Not only that, he was making serious cynicisms of society's eighteenth centuries in which the aristocrats were praised and indirectly influencing young people's minds, not the love of love but to betray it just for Wealth. In the novel, Lucy and Willoughby symbolize this kind of people of society

Sense and Sensibility written by Jane Austen is a novel that does not only deal with two sister’s love matters, but how two dissimilar personalities respond to society and love. The theme of “society vs. sense” is existed throughout the novel because it is concerned with the ruling of one’s feelings, or the incapability to do so. Declaring love for someone, nurturing one’s self and not caring what people think is important in expressing this kind of “social duty.”(Pam Morris, 43) This kind of theme is always present, with some dramatization, within Emma Thompson’s 1995 film adaption. Literary critic Deborah Kaplan argues that Thompson’s film adaption demonstrates “harlequinization”, where the narrative structure of the “mass-market structure”, where a lot of people really like them, it focuses on a hero and a heroin’s courtship at the expense of the other characters and experiences. Kaplan is stating that the film is negative because some characters are underrepresented. She’s right, but at the same time it is to be expected because it is a film adaption. I argue that Kaplan is right, the film adaption does demonstrate this “harlequinization” to the point where it ignores all the important scenes within the novel such as how the Dashwood sisters are represented, Marianne’s rescuers Willoughby and Colonel Brandon in contrast to the novel.

Austen also wrote novels that showed that women can and should use their minds particularly Elizabeth Bennet. Sense and Sensibility also is a romantic novel that keeps to the same theme of women using their minds. It is about three sisters and their mother. The main two characters however are Marianne and Elinor Dashwood. Like Austen, they struggled with money and were forced to move after their father’s untimely death. After they move they both meet men that they think they love and both get hurt because of this love. Also like Austen, Marianne meets a man named Willoughy. They fall in love and he ends up leaving her because of her financial situation. Elinor has almost the same situation although it is very different in the end. After the Dashwood sisters meet the Steele sisters, Elinor decides that they do not use their minds like they could. Elinor’s different situation is with a man named Ferrar. He almost has to marry Lucy Steele over Elinor because of her financial situation but she ends up being able to marry for love and Lucy married Ferrar’s brother. Marianne ends up also getting married but not to Willoughby and not completely for love. This book was a great example of how Austen showed how uses day to day activities to show the woman’s

Sense and Sensibility is a book that deals with many of life's circumstances during the eightteen hundreds. Although it was written in the first person it can provide the reader with a detailed perspective on the lifestyle of the upper crust of society. However, in order to get a full sense of appreciation of this lifestyle the elements of the opposite group, the lower class, must be attained. By comparing the differences amongst lifestyles characteristics which differ between individuals of their respective groups can be explained, and more importantly be justified.

It is generally agreed that Jane had begun composing stories, poems, plays, and “novellas” by the age of twelve. However, she had found great interest in portraying her life in a different point of view, with different characters and scenarios, but with entire influence from her real life. Jane had composed portions of the then to be Juvenilia by her childhood and continued to create new pieces of literature. Elinor and Marianne, which would to be eventually called Sense and Sensibility, was her first full length novel that she periodically wrote sections of with the aid of her sister Cassandra. Her second novel, initially titled First Impressions, would become the most read novel by Jane Austen and probably to most important and influential piece of literature from this time era. Pride and Prejudice is agreeably one of the most widely known pieces of English literature, and Jane Austen’s most popular or successful novel. However, after she had initially written the original manuscripts, her father had tried to have it published immediately. But, according to the publisher it lacked what was required for their attention,, and was immediately rejected. Jane’s potentially society changing novel was rejected for publishing for sixteen years. However, as seen with all of her novels, the characters and ideas portrayed and expressed can be easily found in

In some novels, women either have a trivial role or contribute to the overall meaning of the work. In some fashion, women have an obvious or underlying hand in the grand scheme of the storyline. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is centered around the character of Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth’s character in itself is the embodiment of independence and non-conformity. In every aspect and trait of Elizabeth’s being, she constantly goes against the grain of what society perceives to be proper and correct. Through the use of Elizabeth’s appearance, adherence to social status, and concept of marriage, Jane Austen paints a character that has enough strong-will to challenge the strict social rules.

Throughout sense and sensibility, Elinor is shown to be fair and just in her personal judgements. Elinor is also distinguished for her ability to self govern her feelings. The neo classics disprove of one indulging in feelings and believe one should instead conceal them, suffering silently. An example of this can be seen when Edward breaks Elinor's heart, thus Austin places Elinor and Marianne in parallel situations. Marianne, the romantic, focuses solely on her own feelings and disregards the feelings of others. However, Elinor follows Neo Classic ethics by remaining a pillar of support for those who depend on her. She does not withdraw away and contemplate her life but instead carries on with the duties she undertook since the beginning of the novel. She continually self sacrifices her desire to the needs and benefit of those around her, showing a magnanimous concern to others while silencing her own feelings; dealing with issues with an unbiased outlook:

Jane Austen’s first book to be published was Sense and Sensibility. Austen’s story depicts the life of a family who loses everything because of the death of their father. The father’s wealth goes to his son, John Dashwood. Mr. Dashwood doesn’t help his sisters because his wife, Fannie, doesn’t think it’s a good idea. When all hope is lost, Edward Ferrars enters the story and takes an interest in the eldest daughter, Elinor. Throughout this story, Austen introduces many characters, some of which have minor roles. Margaret Dashwood, Lucy Steele, and Mrs. Jennings are a few of the characters that partake in minor roles, but have a huge importance to the plot.

Benjamin Disraeliance once said, "Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed". This quote exemplifies that viewpoints can always have a sudden shift at any point of time, but a persons moral qualities must be established over time. In Jane Austen 's novel, Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth Bennet is the main character who is a lady in the Regency Era. Elizabeth lives in Longbourn with her parents, Mr and Mrs Bennet and her four sisters. In the beginning of the novel, Elizabeth 's prejudice mindset and strong opinion blinds her from realizations happening around her. Soon, Elizabeth 's prejudice disappears allowing her to open up and fall in love. Throughout Jane Austen 's novel, Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth

Love comes in many shapes and forms, whether it’s an inanimate object or a person you want to spend the rest of your life with. Jane Austen’s novel, “Sense and Sensibility”, revolves around two sisters who try to find true love, while requiring a balance of reason and emotion. Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are viewed as two completely different people. Elinor is known to represent “sense” while Marianne represents “sensibility.” In the novel, Jane Austen emphasizes two common women’s characteristics, and shows us how Elinor and Marianne both find love and happiness only by overcoming their struggles and learning from one another’s actions and mistakes.