Born in the eighteenth century,Jane Austen was one of the most well-known English writers who first gave the novel its distinctly modern character through her treatment of ordinary people in everyday life. Of the six novels she wrote in her lifetime,Sense and Sensibility was the earliest one which was published anonymously in three volumes in 1811. Through portraying the life and loves of the Dashwood sisters,Elinor and Marianne,Jane Austen expressed her views on sense and sensibility and showed a realistic writing style.
When Mr. Dashwood dies,his house,Norland Park,passes directly to his only son John by his first wife while his second wife Mrs. Dashwood and their daughters,Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, are left only a small income. Selfish John and his wife Fanny immediately take up their place as the new owners of Norland and during a visit to Norland,Fanny’s brother,Edward Ferrars forms an attachment with Elinor.
Mrs. Dashwood soon moves her family to Barton Cottage where they meet Colonel Brandon and John Willoughby. Marianne is not pleased with Brandon as she considers him too old to be incapable of falling in love. She soon becomes infatuated with Willoughby,who seems to be a romantic lover but is in reality an unscrupulous fortune hunter. After his engagement to a young lady of large fortune,Willoughby deserts Marianne and makes her heartbreak. Under Colonel Brandon’s care,Marianne gradually falls deeply in love with him and learns to be sensible. In the meantime,after some distressing vicissitudes,Elinor,who is constant toward her lover,Edward,gets conjugal felicity. The whole story ends with the two happy marriages of the Dashwood sisters.
This book’s title immediately lets us know that it’s a story about emotion and reason. In the novel,indeed,Jane Austen expresses her ideas about sense and sensibility that she thinks everybody needs a balance of both. Marianne is the heroine of “sensibility” and Elinor is the character of “sense”. Marianne’s insistence on giving her emotions free rein leads her into an unhappy romance. It’s only after she is forced by her failed experience in love to reassess her views that she comes to understand Colonel Brandon’s true worth. In contrast to Marianne,out of modesty and a sense of propriety,Elinor is restrained in the expressions of her love for Edward. Yet adherence to principles of rational thought and good sense does not prevent her from suffering greatly when she knows Edward’s engagement to Lucy and believes that her hopes of marrying him are impossible. From the plot we can see that although her own sympathies are perhaps most closely aligned with those of Elinor,Austen writes with affection for both sisters and her message is one of compromise. She hopes Marianne to be more sensible to avoid misfortune in love and that Elinor can express her own feelings to pursuit love and happiness. She is careful to show such a thesis that a balance of both heart and intellect is necessary for a full life——a blending of sense and sensibility. This opinion is what impresses me most in this novel for it reveals a truth of life. It tells us to be not only sensible but also brave enough to speak out what we want.
Another feature of the novel that attracts me is Austen’s realistic writing style. In the Austen centuries, women in England didn't have any right to inherit their parents' property. Therefore,they had no choice but to marry a proper man who had a great deal of property to maintain a comfortable life. Jane uses her works to show the social fact and Sense and Sensibility is no exception. Impoverished Dashwood sisters have to look for a good life by marriage but their brother John naturally gets that by inheriting nearly all the estate of Mr. Dashwood. What a sharp contrast there is between them!
It's undeniable that this novel focuses too much on daily life in English countryside. Although this makes it more convenient for her to characterize carefully in her novels,it also limits her horizon of writing to some extent.That's why many famous authors and critics criticize Jane's writing.As far as they are concerned,Jane's novels are "vulgar" because she only writes about stories happening in the countryside.
However,one flaw cannot obscure the splendor of the jade.Austen's great talent of literature is acknowledged by her readers around the world including me. As Johnson puts it, “JaneAusten's Sense and Sensibility is asophisticated,erudite,teacherly, andenviably well written monograph that all students and scholars of Austen should read.” I recommend it to more people besides them for its stories revealing life truth and the realistic style.
