Sense & Sensibility: Plot and Theme

SENSE & SENSIBILITY

Plot and Themes

The Dashwood family (including Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters Elinor, Marianne and Margaret) are introduced as the main characters of the story. They live in the community of Norland Park in Sussex, England where, after the death of Mrs. Dashwood’s husband Henry, they are preparing to move out of their estate and turn it over to Mrs. Dashwood’s stepson John Dashwood and his wife Fanny.

Mrs. Dashwood’s cousin Sir John Middleton, knowing that the Dashwood ladies are looking for a new home, writes a letter to Mrs. Dashwood informing her of a cottage available in Barton Park, Devonshire. Mrs. Dashwood is pleased by the description of the cottage and, not long after receiving the letter, moves to Barton with her daughters.

The ladies settle in at Barton Park and become well acquainted with Sir John Middleton and his many friends. One day, as Elinor and Marianne are taking a walk around the hilly grounds of the cottage, it begins to rain and, hurrying to get back to the cottage, they start running. Marianne slips and falls while running down a hill and a handsome gentleman named Willoughby helps her to safety. Afterwards, they become well-acquainted and fall in love. When Willoughby must leave Barton to go to London, Marianne is incredibly upset.

Sir John Middleton’s mother (Mrs. Jennings) invites Elinor and Marianne to come live with her in London for a few months and Marianne is excited to go because of the possibility of running into Willoughby. When Marianne gets there, Willoughby is unresponsive to her letters and her attempts to see him. Finally, at a party of the Middleton’s in London, Marianne unexpectedly runs into Willoughby, who is with another girl. Marianne learns that they are engaged.

Marianne miraculously recovers from her illness (which she took to be the physical reaction to all her torments with Willoughby), and they all return home to Barton Park. Marianne admits that she’s over Willoughby and maintains that even as she learns of what Willoughby shared with Elinor (she starts to view herself as a “sense-based” person and thus reacts to the news not very emotionally at all). She goes on to marry Colonel Brandon, a family friend, and is content with her life.

Elinor becomes engaged to the newly-single Edward—a dream-come-true that she never expected to happen.

The theme of this novel is that true love throws your previously conceived standards and values out the window—transformin-g you into a new person.

-Examples-

1. *At the start of the book, Elinor wanted very reasonable things out of a husband. Money (at the very beginning of the book, we see Elinor and her mother discussing marriages that would bring in a good deal of funds for the family), stability, and a need for family approval were her main qualifications for marriage—often favoring these things over the head-over-heels charm of young love. However, when she fell for Edward, her true love for him made her want to be with him even after he was shunned from his family, guaranteed no marriage money, and was basically jobless after the events of his first secret engagement. Despite all these things, Elinor still wanted to be with him, and when she did become engaged to him, she didn’t care what a state of disrepair his life was in.

2.*When the story began, Marianne wanted a future that appealed more to the title of “sensibility.” She didn’t care about the amount of money a man had (on page 248, Marianne puts on an attitude of nonchalance when Elinor explains that if she were to marry Willoughby, she would “have always been poor”) or his social status—all she wanted was a man that loved her truly and deeply (“Puppy-love” of youth).At the end of story as she marries the well-off, stable, and modest Colonel Brandon, she realizes that she was wrong in believing earlier that happiness can only exist where love, in youth, is thriving and passionate (after learning, through how Willoughby treated her, what a man like that is really like). When she marries Colonel Brandon to please her family and those who knew he liked her, she becomes a wiser person and realizes that love is not always expressed in passion, and that sometimes it is represented in one person’s dedication to another. After she realizes this, she begins to learn to love Colonel Brandon and his methods and improves her dedication herself—transforming herself into a reliable wife.

*This is a great example of the irony that the theme/turn-out of the story presents. Both sisters ended up with an idea of something they had detested before, and something the other sister had desperately wanted at the start of the story.

The author ended the story the was she did to make these themes evident. If she has ended in any other way (which did not result in Elinor's engagement and Marianne's marrige), the reader wouldn't have come to realize how these characters developed as people and how love can truly transform a person.

Keep listening for more information on Austen's use of literary devices!

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Marianne is, again, incredibly upset and is unable to function normally for weeks. After a long stay in London, Elinor and Marianne begin to head back to Barton with Mrs. Jennings. When they stop at a friend’s house on the way home, Marianne becomes extremely sick and almost dies. Willoughby stops by the house and, though Marianne is sleeping at the time, he lets Elinor know that his heart will always be with Marianne, no matter who he is married to.

Plot Summary

Elinor also receives a visit from Edward Ferrars, who she had silently been in love with at Norland, until she discovered, while in London, that he was engaged. He tells her that his fiancé called off the engagement.

“Sense and Sensibility” follows the story of two sisters who have very different personalities, which effects the way they cope with/react to relationships. It has a “stranger” plot because the action begins when Willoughby comes to Barton, and its “romantic” AND “ironic” because Elinor ends up with her dream while Marianne fails to meet hers.

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