Sense and Sensibility - Week 5 > Likes and Comments

My apologies for being tardy. I’ve been out of town all week. Up at 3:30 am today to fly home. I will post my synopsis and questions tomorrow. In the meantime feel free to post your thoughts.

You’re allowed a life, Deborah! And (unusually for me) I couldn’t think of much to say about this week’s batch of chapters.

Marianne is certainly learning the perils of obsession.

Lucy tells Elinor that she is engaged to Edward. Elinor hides her feelings about this. The Dashwood girls go to London with Mrs. Jennings. Marianne writes Willoughby several times and is anxious to see him again. The colonel visits and because of engagement rumors about Marianne is dissuaded from possible being a suitor. The girls attend a party and are snubbed by Willoughby.

1. Which sister’s method of handling disappointment is more effective?

2. What do you think about Marianne’s behavior?

By the standards of their class and era, Marianne’s behavior is very fast, threatening permanent damage to her reputation. It’s interesting to me how non-judgmental Austen is about it. She critiques Marianne for selfishness more than for compromising herself by writing to Willoughby and accosting him in public.

Because our standards are so different today, it’s easy to overlook just how daring Austen is being with her approach. She doesn’t allow those close to Marianne to blame or reject her, encouraging us to see the innocent idealism behind her behavior, however deluded. And Austen keeps her focus on how Willoughby is acting dishonorably. It was much more common to excuse the man and blame the woman for any violations of propriety, and Austen’s narrative calls that distribution of responsibility into question. For her day, this was a distinctly feminist perspective.

Other female authors at the time tried to do something similar, but for the most part their heroines were portrayed as ideal females being victimized by predatory men. Austen allows Marianne to be a deeply flawed person but still innocent and ill-used.

I’ve always pretty much hated Marianne for her self-centeredness, but in recent readings I’m trying to bear in mind that she’s barely 17 and that Austen is making a larger point about sexual power dynamics.

Abigail wrote: "By the standards of their class and era, Marianne’s behavior is very fast, threatening permanent damage to her reputation. It’s interesting to me how non-judgmental Austen is about it. She critique..."

Good points. Also Austen is showing us the difference between sense and sensibility. She’s indicating all of either one is not a good place to be.

Harking back to Pride and Prejudice , although we didn’t get the full details of Lydia’s cavorting with the officers, and no details at all of her ‘making love’ to George Wickham, Marianne’s behaviour with Willoughby cannot have been that much different.

The two girls may have had different personalities (and sensibilities,) but their yearnings would have amounted to much the same thing. Marianne expected marriage, Lydia went along with (spoiler for those who have not read P&P) (view spoiler)[elopement (might Marianne have been enticed to elope?) (hide spoiler)]but both very young girls had their heads full of a man who would whisk them away to a wonderful life. Both were lacking in guidance and support and had a wilfulness to believe that they knew best. Without fully succumbing to an over generalisation they sound like typical teenagers to me.



Having said all that, I believe that Marianne was treated despicably by Willoughby in London. His chameleon change revealed what a disreputable lizard he really was. Having bathed in Willoughby’s warm intimacy and bubbling passion back at the cottage, his freezing shower of rebuffs in London shocked her to the core. Every frost-bound word in his reply to her last letter to him stabbed her like an icicle through the heart. Not only was it a cowardly way to drop Marianne, it was cruel beyond belief. A ‘jilting’ that could affect her sensibilities for the rest of her life.

Going back to Elinor for a moment. She may be the sister with sense, but I was surprised at the viciousness of her jealous emotion towards Lucy Steele in Chapter 23. Her venomous thoughts towards Edward’s betrothed might make it difficult for her to retain her sensible demeanour.

’Could he ever be tolerably happy with Lucy Steele? could he, were his affection for herself out of the question, with his integrity, his delicacy, and well-informed mind, be satisfied with a wife like her -- illiterate, artful, and selfish?’

Trev wrote: "I was surprised at the viciousness of her jealous emotion towards Lucy Steele"

Austen shows us that "sense" has nothing to do with "saintliness", and I'm glad of it. Would I have wished her to piously pray for the happiness of Edward and Lucy? Decidedly not.

Very perceptive about Elinor!

Austen is quite good at giving us characters who behave appropriately but are not saints. (view spoiler)[Fanny Price of MP, often characterized as “always right” and “priggish,” is a stew of rage and jealousy. (hide spoiler)] I think she believed that these negative thoughts are natural, it is in how you deal with them that you forge character.

We’re back to her understanding of caritas—awkwardly translated as Christian charity—which more or less amounted to the Golden Rule, treating others as you would want them to treat you. But in reality it goes a step further than that, giving them grace even when they cause you harm.

Trev wrote: "Going back to Elinor for a moment. She may be the sister with sense, but I was surprised at the viciousness of her jealous emotion towards Lucy Steele in Chapter 23. Her venomous thoughts towards Edward’s betrothed might make it difficult for her to retain her sensible demeanour., ..."

I did not think it vicious of Elinor to think this way. She has a certain imagination of what Edward likes and holds in high esteem and cannot see that Lucy could fulfill that. Even if there are examples of success, haven't we all met couples whom we could not really think to be a match? Lucy is maybe not as ridiculous as Mrs. Palmer, but I can understand Elinor's feelings, and it makes her very human. Everyone has some flaws and personal feelings.

Marianne is very passionate and not very wise and mature due to her age. She thinks that her love for Willuoghby is the only thing that really exists, and now she has to learn the hard lesson of life that not all is as it seems. The way Willoughby did this shunning in public was very harsh. If he wanted to break with her somehow he could have done this before, even if it just had been a letter. But he is a coward.
Reasonable Elinor takes Marianne home before a bigger dramatic scene could occur in public, which as you mentioned would have put Marianne in the "negative" spotlight.
I am annoyed by the gossiping of their "close friends" who obviously discussed her possible engagement in public without having the slightest evidence and made this whole scene even more dangerous for Marianne.

Willoughby is a cad, just as Elinor suspected after he left for mysterious reasons. The scene at the ball was so painful, both for Willoughby's pointed coldness and for Marianne's hysteria which must have been observed by others. Regarding Elinor, I sympathize with her confusion and distress at learning of Edward's engagement to Lucy Steele, but I'm also puzzled because earlier in the novel her feelings toward Edward did not seem to run so deep that marriage seemed to be foregone conclusion. Now she seems to be more jealous than the relationship would have warranted.

How does Willoughby’s actions compare to modern ghosting

Deborah wrote: "How does Willoughby’s actions compare to modern ghosting"

Well, in my view modern ghosting is associated with the Internet so it’s so easy to just give up communicating with a person who may have expectations of a relationship.

I think with Willoughby, his behaviour was purely cowardice, and it made it worse for him and the hapless girl by dragging it out. For a lot of characters featured in the novel, he is now persona non grata, including me, and I suspect most of my fellow readers.