Readingreport
Sense and sensibility
The book I have read named Sense and Sensibility, which was written by Jean Austen.Jean, a women writer, was rare at seventeenth century.People knew her from a book, which was written by her nephew fifty years later, about her life.Then her works was gradually highly praised by many people and had a great influence on the following centuries.
The novel is about the daughters of Mi Dashwoods.After theur father dies, the family estate paes to their elder brother John and the girls and their mother lead a difficult life.The story happened in the end of nineteenth century.It was a story about Mi Dash woods seeking for love and finally living a happy marriage.The novel follows the sisters to their new home, where the romantic stories happen in two of the girls.And make a evident contrast in their characters.Elinor, who was the sister, was a girl of sense.While her sister—Marianne was a girl of sensibility.Einor understood the world by sense.And her sister understood the world by sensibility or sentimentality.Through the event in the novel, Elinor and Marianne find a balance between sense and sensibility.
First I want to talk about the writing skills of this novel---irony.Here is an example in which Austen describes the first impreion created by the arrival of the Mi Steels at Barton Park:
The young ladies arrived: their appearance was by no means ungentle or unfashionable.Their dre was very smart, their manners very civil, they were delighted with the house, and in raptures with the furniture, and they happened to be so doatingly fond of children that Lady Middleton’s good opinion was engaged in their favor before they had been an hour at the Park.She declared them to be very agreeable girls indeed, which for her ladyship was enthusiastic admiration.
How can we make of Mi Steels? Are we simply thought highly of them as Mi Middleton? They were first thought to be pleasant, clever, well-mannered girl.Yet Austen is in fact using a sharp ironic wit to highlight their shortcomings.
It is that first phrase “their appearance was by no means ungentle or unfashionable” that begin to reveal.Why has Austen choose to use double negative here? Why not just say “their appearance was ungentle or unfashionable”.The same
as following the descript able words “delighted” ,“in raptures”, “doatingly fond”.If we were doubt that this was an intended ironically the observations of Elinor aured us that it was so: “Elinor well knew that the sweetest girls in the world were to be meet with in every part of England, under every poible variation of term, face, temper and understanding.
Another example He was not an ill-disposed young man, unle to be rather cold-hearted and rather selfish is to be ill-disposed: but he was, in general, well respected; for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of his ordinary duties.
Second, I want to talk about the differences and similarities between Elinor and Marianne.The central differences between the two sisters are the ability of control.The differences between these two sisters are seen throughout the novel.They have the same experience.Both of them believe themselves to be engaged to men and both find themselves abandoned by these men in favor of another.This similarity of experience serves only to emphasize the differences their two characters.Actually Austen intended to make differences between in many chapters.For example, chapter 1 strees the Elinor’s sense of control: her feeling was strong: but she knew how to govern them.Marianne was shown to be in many ways similar to her sister.But they have one important difference “her sorrow, her joy, could have no moderation.This difference between the two women is most clearly drawn in the way each is shown to deal with the discovery of their lovers’ cheat.
When Elinor hears from Lucy that she is engaged to Edward she only turns towards her, “in silent amazement”.The only description of her face is the phrase “her complexion varied”.Her control is remarkable.
We are told, “She stood firm in incredulity and felt no danger of an hysterical fit, or a swoon.” Austen emphasizes that it is self-control which distinguishes Elinor’s reaction.Her heroine speaks “cautiously” and “with a calmne of manner, which tolerably well concealed her surprise and solicitude”.Austen tells us that Elinor was shocked, confounded” yet it is not until she is alone that she is “at liberty to think and be wretched”.As readers we can’t see this wretchedne.When we see Elinor again,
she is not in wretchedne but rather up on “serious reflection”.Whatever self-control we may image after the author wrote nothing.
Marianne’s reaction is totally different from Elinor.For Marianne there is no control.Her face, we are told, “crimsoned over” and she speaks “in a voice of the great emotion”.She cries out“ in the wildest anxiety”.We can see the distre of Elinor after everyone disappearance.But Marianne’s distre is seen by her sister and by the reader.The extremity of Marianne’s reaction is emphasizing in many ways.First, there is rejection of Willoughby’s letter and Elinor’s condemnation of the writer.Second, Marianne’s “covering her face with her handkerchief, she almost screamed with agony.” Third, the three letters that Marianne write to Willoughby.Her hope becomes weak in the proceeding of the three letters.
Having been abandoned, Elinor and Marianne both seek excuse for their lovers’ conduct.Marianne’s “I could rather believe every creature of my acquaintance leagued together to ruin me in his opinion, than believe his nature capable of such cruelty”; Elinor’s “Edward had done nothing to forfeit her esteem”.Marianne’ expreion is more emotive than Elinor’s, but their sentiments remain the same.They all become distreed when they knew the thing that their lovers engaged with another girl but not herself.Marianne thought Edward was another Willoughby when she heard Edward engaged with a girl who was almost an illiterate person.
But the result is different.
Like all Austen novels, Sense and Sensibility ends in the marriage of the heroine.In this novel, marriage does not like a necearily part.Elinor married the man she loved.And finally Edward got forgivene from his mother.His fiancé married to her brother, which made his mother angry and cut the relation with his brother and accepted Edward.This made Edward and Elinor’s marriage permiion.As for Elinor and Edward, I think it’s especially comforting for Elinor.I can imagine how happy and joyful she must have felt.After all those days of wondering and doubting if Edward really loved her or not, she must felt a sense of relieve now.“They are realistic; they do not imagine that one can live on integrity and no income.But, given a stipend sufficient for moderate comfort, another fact of life is that something
is more important to true sense and sensibility that the selfish and ignorant poeion of a great deal of money.”Of Elinor’s wedding we are told only that “the ceremony took place in Barton Church early in the autumn”.Even Edward’s proposal is exclusive from the narrative:
How soon he had walked himself into the proper resolution, however, how soon an opportunity of exercising it occurred, in what manner he expreed himself, and how he was received, need not be particularly told.
We know from Willoughby’s words that they loved each other and they were not engaged.He was forced to marry other women he didn’t love, but for life he must marry her.Certainly Marianne married Colonel Brandon, a man who was 20 years older than her.They hardly talked to each other throughout the novel.The novel leaves the reader with a sense that the marriage is a brief ending but not necearily a convincing one.We are merely told “she found herself at nineteen, submitting to a new attachment, entering on new duties, placed in a new home, a wife, a mistre of the family, and the patrone of a village
We are asked to believe that the marriages of Elinor and Marianne are happy ones.But the novel:
The concluding paragraph brilliantly undoes the requisite romantic resolution, by startlingly giving Elinor’a and Marianne’s attachment to one another pride of place, so to make their second attachments, to their husband, seem merely secondary.
Sense and Sensibility, is the story of two sisters searching for love and all the happine that accompanies it.The difference between the two sisters is that one of them follows society’s rules, while the other follows her heart.Elinor knows her place in society and is in search of a calm tasteful life, while Marianne is outspoken and looking for a life filled with adventure.When it comes to love though, they have something in common, nothing goes as planned.The realm of love is full of surprises and disappointments galore, and when the rules of the Regency are imposed upon this realm very little good comes of it.
