Progress on Sense & Sensibility, Part 2

[bunnyboo]

It’s been a long road… getting from there to here… It’s been a long time… but my time is finally near... Uh, pay no attention to the Enterprise reference. I am one of the few people who loves that opening (and that series), and it always pops into my head when I think ‘It’s been a long time.’ However, it has very little to do with Sense and Sensibility, so let’s move on!

 

I absolutely adore Marianne. She’s a delight. I like how sassy yet naïve she is. Her frivolity doesn’t make her unlikeable, but it adds this nice tension between her and Elinor that’s present in a lot of Austen’s work—two women, often related, who are fundamentally different and serve as two sides to a coin. Elizabeth and Lydia’s dynamic in Pride and Prejudice springs to mind immediately; I think it’s developed in a more interesting and focused way here. Emma sort of has this with Emma and Harriet, though there it’s less of a contrast between cynicism and romanticism and more along the lines of Catherine and Isabella’s relationship in Northanger Abbey where it’s about manipulation and being in a position of (sometimes imagined) power over the other person. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Marianne and Elinor’s relationship doesn’t have the power imbalance that’s present in some of Austen’s other work; they’re essentially equals, barring their age gap.

In a similar vein, I’m still deciding which side Austen favors and which her contemporary readers would. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Elinor’s thought processes and behavior. She tries to reason logically, to poke holes in her sister’s outlandish statements—not in a malicious way but to try to bring her to her “senses.” I think this conversation between Elinor and Colonel Brandon is particularly interesting.

 

“’Your sister, I understand, does not approve of second attachments.’

‘No,’ replied Elinor, ‘her opinions are all romantic.’

‘Or rather, as I believe, she considers them impossible to exist.’

‘I believe she does. But how she contrives it without reflecting on the character of her own father, who had himself two wives, I know not. A few years however will settle her opinions on the reasonable basis of common sense and observation; and then they may be more easy to define and to justify than they now are, by any body but herself.’

‘This will probably be the case,’ he replied; ‘and yet there is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.’

‘I cannot agree with you there,’ said Elinor. ‘There are inconveniences attending such feelings as Marianne’s, which all the charms of enthusiasm and ignorance of the world cannot atone for. Her systems have all the unfortunate tendency of setting propriety at nought; and a better acquaintance with the world is what I look forward to as her greatest possible advantage.’

After a short pause he resumed the conversation by saying,—

‘Does your sister make no distinction in her objections against a second attachment? or is it equally criminal in every body? Are those who have been disappointed in their first choice, whether from the inconstancy of its object, or the perverseness of circumstances, to be equally indifferent during the rest of their lives?’

‘Upon my word, I am not acquainted with the minutiae of her principles. I only know that I never yet heard her admit any instance of a second attachment’s being pardonable.’

‘This,’ said he, ‘cannot hold; but a change, a total change of sentiments—No, no, do not desire it; for when the romantic refinements of a young mind are obliged to give way, how frequently are they succeeded by such opinions as are but too common, and too dangerous! I speak from experience. I once knew a lady who in temper and mind greatly resembled your sister, who thought and judged like her, but who from an enforced change—from a series of unfortunate circumstances—’ Here he stopt suddenly; appeared to think that he had said too much, and by his countenance gave rise to conjectures, which might not otherwise have entered Elinor’s head. The lady would probably have passed without suspicion, had he not convinced Miss Dashwood that what concerned her ought not to escape his lips. As it was, it required but a slight effort of fancy to connect his emotion with the tender recollection of past regard. Elinor attempted no more. But Marianne, in her place, would not have done so little. The whole story would have been speedily formed under her active imagination; and every thing established in the most melancholy order of disastrous love.”

 

I’d love to read some contemporary reviews of this novel. Just briefly glancing at Wikipedia (and, uh, inadvertently reading a spoiler—oops) tells me that most critics at the time considered Sense and Sensibility to be a novelized “conduct guide”—instructing young women to act like Elinor and not like Marianne. I’m not sure I necessarily agree with that as a modern reader. Elinor is missing out on her youth, on the excitement and joy of love. She seems old beyond her years, especially because she’s only nineteen, and I think that Colonel Brandon—being an older gentleman himself—has the experience and wisdom to say that there’s a balance between being a cold, proper lady and a wild, starry-eyed girl.

That being said, I think that there’s an unintended creep factor with Colonel Brandon’s infatuation with Marianne. I mean, a sixteen-year-old and a thirty-five-year-old? He’s old enough to be her father. He really prizes Marianne’s romantic attitude, an attitude that we’re supposed to think of as childlike and innocent to the ways of the world. It just rubs me the wrong way. Different times, man.