Austen also depicts Elinor as trustworthy. When Lucy Steele tells Elinor of her secret engagement with Edward Ferrars, a man whom Elinor deeply loves, we are exposed to a number of things about Elinor’s character. Firstly she is immediately trusted by a virtual stranger-
“I have no doubt in the world of your faithfully keeping this secret…”
Elinor also shows that she can govern even the strongest emotion – she can not and will not allow anyone to see her devastation-
“… but Elinor did not feel very compassionate.” And she “…concealed an emotion and distress beyond anything she had felt before. She was mortified, shocked, confounded.”
This demonstrates how incredibly she is able to conceal emotion.
Elinor is the only sensible member of her family, regarding Marianne’s meeting with Willoughby. The others become carried away and they begin talking of marriage. Elinor is forced to warn her sisters on many occasions not to act appropriately, or they would ruin her reputation
“Elinor ventured to doubt the propriety of receiving a gift from a man so little… known to her” And “Elinor’s happiness was not so great…”
None of this however, proves that Elinor does not experience emotion, but show she is able to conceal or disguise her feelings, keeping them inside. This is most evident when Lucy boasts about her relationship with Edward. Almost undoubtedly, Elinor is hurt and jealous but hides this-
“… She said with a calmness of manner which tolerably well concealed her surprise and solicitude…”
Until she is alone- “Elinor was then at liberty to think and be wretched”
Passionate emotional and romantic is how Austen depicts Elinor’s sister, Miss Marianne. However, there is considerably more to her character than this. She frequently shows these characteristics, but sometimes she shows a more sensible side.
Her idea of love is completely different. It is very visionary and pure, which shows how immature and inexperienced in the world she is-
“I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with mine.”
This is very visionary and unrealistic. She is quite surprised when Elinor falls in love with a man like Edward; she believes she could never love such a person-
“…There is something wanting, his figure is not striking – it has none of that grace which I should expect in a man who could seriously attach my sister.”
Marianne unlike Elinor is unable to conceal and govern her emotions very well. There are many examples of this one of those is when Sir John begins to tease Elinor whilst eating lunch. Marianne quite rudely interrupts Sir John and walks out. This shows us that she struggles to conceal her emotion of sorrow for her sister and does something which is against the rules of society-
“She would not wound the feelings of her sister on any account, and yet to say what she did not believe was impossible.
Marianne is also immature-
“Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning…”
Here, her reactions are not only based on how she tells but how she thinks she should behave, which is like the heroines of most romantic novels.
Eventually, Marianne realises that she has been partly to blame for her unhappiness. She comes to a conclusion that her own lack of good sense and inability to make wise decisions have led to her troubles-
“I saw that my own feelings prepared for my suffering… My illness I well know had been entirely brought on by myself, by such negligence of my own health, as I had felt even at the time to be wrong. Had I died, it would have been self destruction.”
At the end of the novel, there is a complete turnaround in Marianne’s character. She is forced to - “… discover the falsehood of her own opinions and counter act by her conduct, her most favourite maxims.”
Although she does this, there are still glimpses of her old self-
“Marianne could never love by halves, and her whole heart became, in time, much devoted to her husband as it had once been to Willoughby.”
In conclusion, from what I have examined, the statement of the title is mostly true. Throughout the novel Elinor and Marianne stick to their titles “Sense” and “Sensibility”. Elinor always follows what her mind says whereas Marianne chooses to follow her heart. This is of course, apart from the ending of the novel, in which Elinor has an emotional breakdown and acts much like Marianne. However, Marianne chooses to follow her mind and acts very sensible. This is very ironic.
