This paper analyzes Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility through its central thematic contrast between "sense" and "sensibility," as embodied by the sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. The essay examines how Austen uses these characters to explore the tension between neo-classical restraint and Romantic emotionalism, and how historical context — including inheritance laws, class divisions, and early nineteenth-century social values — shapes the novel's plot and moral framework. The paper also considers Austen's conservative worldview and her critique of sentimental fiction, arguing that she uses material realities, rather than romance alone, to drive her narrative.
Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen's first published novel, is the story of the lives, loves, and dreams of two sisters. The plot centers on the possibility that both sisters may have to endure the banality of country life — full of gossip and superficiality — rather than being loved by the men of their dreams.
The distinction between "sense" and "sensibility" is one of the main themes of this novel, and is best seen in the psychological contrast between the two main characters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Elinor, the older sister, epitomizes the word sense: she is reserved, socially responsible, and concerned with the well-being of others. Her younger sister, Marianne, epitomizes the word sensibility: she is ruled by emotion, spontaneity, impulsiveness, and devotion. As Austen observes, men "came to look at Marianne and talk to Elinor" (p. 142).
The differences between the sisters can be seen in many aspects of their lives, including love. While Elinor is reserved about her feelings for Edward, the object of her desire, Marianne is openly passionate about her feelings for Willoughby, her love interest.
Marianne wears her heart on her sleeve, which was considered improper by the traditional standards of her time. However, Austen uses Marianne to show how women were changing. She cannot lie, flatter, or behave in ways contrary to what she feels. When she grieves, she lets everyone see and feel her grief. She is convinced her opinions are permanent and that people can never love twice. She also believes that lovers should only be young and passionate — a conviction that makes Willoughby perfect, Edward less so, and Colonel Brandon completely unacceptable. By the end of the novel, however, Marianne yields to the traditional point of view, begins to see the Colonel in a more favorable light, and eventually marries him.
Elinor is the more rational member of the family, often having to remind her mother how to behave or manage money. She notices the small inconsistencies in polite society and the hypocritical nature of many of the people around them. She falls in love with Edward, but he breaks her heart. Yet, wanting to spare her family the pain she is suffering, she keeps her grief to herself — unlike Marianne, who shares her misery and heartbreak with the world.
Austen makes clear that she agrees most with Elinor's conduct, as she ultimately rewards her: Elinor marries Edward, her first love, whereas Marianne marries the Colonel, whom she had not originally wished to marry at all.
Austen was also conservative in her social outlook. She supported the aristocracy and believed in the conservative values of the English upper-middle class. In Sense and Sensibility, Elinor and Marianne belong to this class, and the novel's characters are either titled landowners or clergymen. Both sisters are cultured and educated, spending their time reading, singing, dancing, and socializing, as women of their station often did. While they do spend time with the men of their choice, both are adamant about preserving their chastity. The men in the novel, by contrast, are permitted to engage in vices such as flirting and making unwanted advances on women.
The relationship between "sense" and "sensibility" carries significant cultural and historical implications. The novel was written at the turn of the nineteenth century, a period situated between two major cultural movements: Classicism and Romanticism.
Elinor represents the characteristics associated with eighteenth-century neo-classicism — practicality, judgment, moderation, and balance. She is focused on propriety, economic practicalities, and perspective, and constantly advises her whimsical sister to be more reserved. For example, Elinor scolds Marianne for going off alone with Willoughby, which was considered highly improper conduct at the time. Marianne argues that the trip was completely innocent; had there been anything wrong with it, she insists, she would have felt it and would not have been able to enjoy herself.
Austen's novel developed as a literary genre during the Classical period and its cultural Enlightenment. She uses Elinor as a gesture toward her literary predecessors and as an acknowledgment of their legacy's influence on her generation. Marianne, on the other hand, represents the qualities associated with the newly formed "cult of sensibility," characterized by romance, imagination, idealism, excess, and a passion for nature.
Austen also uses scenes and symbols to reinforce these historical elements. While she mocks readers' romantic interest in "the flushed cheek, hollow eye, and quick pulse of a fever" (p. 34), she often uses medical crises to drive her plot. A twisted ankle, for instance, dramatizes the dangers of Marianne's naive, romantic sensibility — the result of her foolish decision to set off on a long walk under a "showery sky" and her impulsive dash down "the steep side of [a] hill" when caught in a "driving rain" (p. 37).
Austen uses many scenes and symbols to add historical texture to her story, giving readers a sense of the time period and how it shaped her characters. The first chapter of Sense and Sensibility discusses the laws of inheritance and succession that govern the future of the Dashwood family property. According to the laws of the period, estates were left to the closest male descendant of the original owner.
"How property law shapes the Dashwood family's fate"
"Wealth, status, and gender roles in the novel"
Austen wrote this novel at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when major social changes were transforming life as she knew it. Perhaps she found comfort and pleasure in her charming, familiar society and was making a statement about the changes she was witnessing. In Chapter 17, Austen writes: "At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear anything to change them" (p. 81). This statement encapsulates what may be the central message she was conveying about the period in which she wrote — a world balanced uneasily between the old certainties and a new, less predictable age.
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