Sense and Sensibility 193ously considers Darcy’s accusations against Wick-
ham and finds support for them within her own
memory that she comes to understand how her
own wounded pride has blinded her to Wickham’s
deceitfulness: “ ‘How despicably have I acted!’ she
cried. ‘I, who have prided myself on my discern-
ment!’ ” Realizing her error convinces Elizabeth that
her pride was misplaced, and she knows that if she
can now believe Wickham guilty of duplicity, then
she must also believe Darcy capable of sincerity.
Moreover, Elizabeth’s accusation that Darcy has
behaved in an “ungentlemanlike manner” helps him
eventually to realize that his social pride is misplaced
as well. When he finds Elizabeth at his home with
the Gardiners, he asks her for an introduction to her
aunt and uncle, members of the very family with
whom the possibility of a connection so offended
his pride before. After Lydia’s elopement with
Wickham, Elizabeth’s own recent experiences with
Darcy lead to her full realization of Darcy’s good-
ness and her own error. Similarly, Darcy learns to see
Elizabeth as his equal, regardless of her low social
connections and small fortune. With both of their
proud natures humbled, Elizabeth can join Darcy in
experiencing other, more pleasant feelings and can
properly discern Darcy’s as well: “Such a change in
a man of so much pride, excited not only astonish-
ment but gratitude—for to love, ardent love, it must
be attributed.”
Laura L. Guggenheim
AUSTEN, JANE Sense and Sensibility
(1811)
Sense and Sensibility focuses on the lives and loves
of the eldest Dashwood girls, Elinor and Marianne,
two of three daughters born to a country gentle-
man’s second marriage. With only a witless half
brother and selfish sister-in-law, John Dashwood
and his wife, Fanny, to aid them financially after
their father’s death, the Dashwood women drop
into near social obscurity when they are obliged to
move into a cottage owned by a relation of Mrs.
Dashwood’s, Sir John Middleton. There, Elinor
and Marianne must endure the somewhat vulgar
but goodhearted gossiping of Mrs. Jennings, Lady
Middleton’s mother. Such gossip is especially pain-
ful to Elinor since moving to Devonshire has taken
her away from the man with whom she has begun
to fall in love, Edward Ferrars, Fanny Dashwood’s
eldest brother. On the other hand, the family’s relo-
cation has brought Marianne nearer the first man
with whom she will fall in love, John Willoughby, as
well as the man she will eventually marry, Colonel
Brandon, a friend of the Middletons. As Elinor
grows more in love with Edward, and as Marianne
experiences the pain of separation from and aban-
donment by Willoughby, the novel follows them to
London and back again, as Elinor learns of Edward’s
secret engagement to another woman and Marianne
comes perilously close to death in her despair. In
the end, both daughters learn to combine sense and
sensibility, reason and romance, in order to achieve
happiness in marriage and in life.
Laura L. GuggenheimGender in Sense and Sensibility
In Jane Austen’s first published novel, the fortunes
of female characters correspond to the extent to
which they embody the early 19th-century feminine
gender role. Marriage, it was believed, consisted of
one representative of each gender, and masculine
and feminine roles complemented each other. Eli-
nor Dashwood, an exemplar of the feminine ideal,
eventually marries Edward Ferrars, who, despite his
shortcomings, is the happiest possible match for
her. She is a sensible woman of good understand-
ing, capable of great but governable emotion and
incapable of manipulation. Edward’s character is
marked by these same qualities, though he is rather
less ambitious than his family would like. The love
between Elinor and Edward has grown since their
acquaintance was formed at Norland, and it is prac-
tical, founded on mutual respect and built slowly,
over time. It did not begin as infatuation, and it was
not “love at first sight,” but this love bespeaks the
lovers’ ability to commit to each other for a lifetime
rather than a season.
Where Elinor’s disposition is marked by sense,
her sister Marianne’s personality is characterized by
extreme sensibility. Believing that there is nothing
more virtuous and desirable than strong feeling, and,
likewise, that such feeling can never be controlled,
Marianne allows her sensibility to run away with