Sunday, December 26, 2010

Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility

I've decided to try something new here. In this blogpost I am going to discuss a book that have I read a while back and I quite liked it. Those among you who enjoy reading will hopefully also enjoy reading this. :) The book is Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

First of all, here is a thorough summary of the novel. This summary pretty much gives it all away, so spoiler alert! Since it's quite long, I'm not going to post it all here, at the bottom you will find a link that will take you to the complete summary, and a discussion of the theme.


Mr. and Mrs. Dashwood live at Norland with their three daughters Elinor, Marianne and Margaret. Mr. Dashwood also has a son – John Dashwood – from his first marriage. When Mr. Dashwood passes away, the estate is inherited by John Dashwood. On his deathbed, Mr. Dashwood asks his son to take care of his wife and daughters, but John Dashwood’s wife, Fanny Dashwood, convinces him that he isn’t obligated to give them anything. They soon move into Norland.

Elinor, the eldest daughter, seems to be getting along quite well with Edward Ferrars, Fanny’s brother, but Fanny doesn’t want the two to get married. Mrs. Dashwood is offered a new affordable home by her cousin Sir John Middleton on his estate and decides to take it.

There, they are warmly welcomed by Sir John Middleton and often dine with him in his house at Barton Park. They also meet the 35-year-old Colonel Brandon, who soon appears to be attracted to Marianne. She, however, doesn’t feel the same way.

When Marianne slips when she was out for a walk, the handsome John Willoughby comes to her rescue, who is visiting his rich aunt. Marianne and Willoughby get along really well, which makes Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor expect they are secretly engaged. After a while, Willoughby declares that he has to go to London for business and might stay away for a long time. Marianne is devastated by this announcement.

Shortly after Willoughby’s departure, Edward Ferrars arrives at their house, but seems unhappy which makes Elinor believe he doesn’t love her anymore.

Cousins of Lady Middleton, Anne and Lucy Steele also visit Barton Park. When Sir John informs Lucy about Elinor’s attachment to Edward, she claims she has secretly been engaged with Edward for 4 years. At first, Elinor was angry with Edward, but then she realized he was still very young at the time. Elinor hoped he had made a mistake and doesn’t love Lucy anymore.

Elinor and Marianne are then invited by Mrs. Jennings, Sir John Middleton’s mother-in-law, to accompany her to London and spend the winter there. Marianne hopes to see Willoughby and is therefore delighted by this offer. Willoughby, however, doesn’t answer any of her letters. She soon finds out he was disinherited by his aunt because he is the father of Miss Williams’ illegitimate child. She’s the daughter of Colonel Williams. That’s why he is now engaged to the wealthy Miss Grey.


If you want to know more, continue reading here. Feel free to leave a comment to tell me what you think. ;)

7 comments:

  1. Oh, I LOVE this book! Well, I love all of Jane Austen's books! They're all great - but Sense and Sensibility was my first.
    If you like it, you might wanna check BBC's mini-series. It's from 2007, if I'm not mistaken, and it's only 3-episodes long. But they're 3 amazing episodes! I liked the movie with Emma Thompson very much, but I felt the series did better justice to the book.
    Also: Marianna annoys me to no end. [sighs...]

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  2. Oh I would live to see that series. I think it was on here once, but I missed the first episode and didn't want to jump in halfway... Perhaps one day they'll air it again. I haven't seen the movie either. :O It seems like I've got a lot of catching up to do... Thank you for your comment. :)

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  3. Hate to say it but...I've only ever seen the movie.

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  4. I actually haven't seen the movie, so I should definitely check that out... Thanks for your comment by the way. ;)

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  7. Nice post, things explained in details. Thank You.

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