Ethel Ghisolis Language and Culture III

Sense and Sensibility

For all those who want to know, the following is a J​ane Austen’s novel. It is called Sense and
Sensibility which is about the life of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood and they
face love. In the novel, Elinor seems to be the embodiment of sense with her rationality and
thoughtfulness, while her sister, Marianne, seems to symbolize sensibility. Marianne is
emotional and romantic. Although, it is shown at the beginning of the novel that Elinor and
Marianne do represent sense and sensibility, together, not only one.
Many themes can be found in the novel such as the difference between social classes, faith,
love and hate and sisterhood but one of the most remarkable topic is the role that women
used to play in the society during the XVIII century.

Two clear examples can be found in the book which show how women used to think at that
time. For one hand, one of the main characters is Elinor, the eldest sister, who has to play
the mother's role several times. She represents the sense, she is a very intelligent woman
who shows a careful and a measurable way of thinking. Elinor is a reserved woman so it is
hard for her to show her feelings.

On the other hand, we can find Lucy who is very persistent and determinant in order to get
whatever she wants. In the story, she tries to persuade a man to be her husband for him to
move her up and thus to be in a higher social class level.
at the beginning she was engaged with Edward Ferrars but when he lost his heritage, lucy
engaged his brother.

To sum up, the difference between these two characters is very evident, even though, these
two women play an important role trying to survive in a society ruled by men and women
were had a lot of prejudices against themselves.