Novel: Sense and Sensibility

Overview
Jane Austen’s 1811 novel "Sense and Sensibility" contrasts two sisters as they navigate love, money, and social expectation in late 18th-century England. Elinor Dashwood embodies prudence and self-command, while her younger sister Marianne privileges feeling and spontaneity. Their fortunes shift abruptly after their father’s death, when the family estate passes to their half-brother under an entail, forcing the Dashwood women into reduced circumstances and exposing how closely marriage, money, and rank are intertwined.

Plot
At Norland Park, Elinor develops a quiet attachment to Edward Ferrars, the shy and principled brother of her sister-in-law, Fanny Dashwood. Fanny’s hostility and the family’s financial insecurity stall any progress. The Dashwoods accept an invitation from a kindly cousin, Sir John Middleton, and settle at modest Barton Cottage in Devonshire. There they meet Colonel Brandon, a reserved and honorable gentleman who feels a deep, unspoken regard for Marianne. Marianne instead is swept up by John Willoughby, a charming newcomer who rescues her after she sprains her ankle. Their flirtation appears to promise engagement, but Willoughby abruptly departs for London without explanation.

In London, under the boisterous patronage of Mrs. Jennings, Marianne pursues Willoughby only to be publicly slighted when he coldly disowns her and announces his engagement to a wealthy heiress, Miss Grey. The romantic ideal shatters; later revelations show his mercenary turn was prompted by debts and that he previously seduced and abandoned a young woman connected to Colonel Brandon. Marianne’s heartbreak plunges her into reckless despair that culminates in a dangerous illness while visiting the Palmers at Cleveland. She survives and emerges chastened, aware of how her indulgence in feeling ignored duty to herself and her family.

Elinor’s ordeal is quieter but no less severe. A visitor at Barton, Lucy Steele, confides a long-secret engagement to Edward, made imprudently when both were very young. Bound by honor, Edward refuses to break it, even when his domineering mother disinherits him. Though Elinor suffers in silence, she preserves courtesy and composure. Colonel Brandon, admiring Edward’s integrity, offers him a living at his estate, Delaford. The knot loosens when Lucy jiltes Edward to marry his newly wealthy brother, Robert. Freed at last, Edward declares his enduring love for Elinor, and they become engaged.

Themes and Motifs
The novel probes the balance between judgment and feeling: Elinor’s sense moderates emotion, while Marianne’s sensibility must learn constraint. Money structures desire and choice; the Dashwood women’s precarious position shows how female security depends on marriage markets and inheritances. Secrecy and social performance drive the plot, private engagements, suppressed affections, and the theater of politeness shape reputations more than truth. Austen’s irony exposes vanity and self-interest in figures like Fanny Dashwood and the Steele sisters, while granting moral weight to constancy, generosity, and self-knowledge.

Resolution and Significance
Marianne, now tempered, gradually returns Colonel Brandon’s steadfast affection, choosing a love that honors both feeling and duty. Elinor marries Edward, whose integrity is rewarded with independence. Austen crafts a double ending that does not simply reward virtue with wealth; rather, it suggests a mature harmony between heart and head. Through nimble social observation, free indirect style, and comic precision, the novel inaugurates Austen’s lifelong preoccupation with how character is tested in the marketplace of manners, making "Sense and Sensibility" both a romantic narrative and a sharp study of the economics of emotion.