Here is the video from this month’s Austen book club. If you want to watch the whole thing, you need to become a paid subscriber. My explanation covers several aspects of the novel, before we get into a group chat about various themes. Below is a short account of Sense and Sensibility as a quest narrative, discussed more fully in the video.
Sense and Sensibility is supposed to be a courtship novel, or a novel of moral antithesis per the fashion of the time, but it starts with neither of those themes. There is, instead, something of the fairy tale about the opening.
The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it.
This is a novel about a family that was settled, but is no longer. As in many fairy tales, the unsettling comes from the death of the old man and the arrival of a new ruler, an unfriendly one, and in this case accompanied by the wicked Mrs. John Dashwood.
Under the old regime, the Dashwoods (note the fairytale three sisters) were insulated from the world—they lived “in the centre” of their large estate, away from worldly vice and wickedness. They were respectable and won the general good opinion of all around. This is the classic state of happiness that a fairy tale seeks to disrupt.
Mr. and Mrs. John Dashwood bring worldly wickedness into Norland, the “great alteration”. In her excellent reading of the novel, Emily Auerbach points to phrases like the following: “The old gentleman died: his will was read, and like almost every other will, gave as much disappointment as pleasure.” Austen does this again and again throughout the novel. The world, she seems to be saying, is what it is. People are disappointing.
With the arrival of greed, vanity, and selfishness, the three sisters and their mother now have to go and seek their fortune. They set off on their quest into Devonshire, half the country away. Like The Pilgrims Progress they must go through the Slough of Despond. Arriving in their cottage, they are now affronted with worldly vice. Lord Middleton is too saucy. Mrs. Jennings too presuming. Mr. Palmer too rude. Lucy Steele a liar. And so on. Willoughby is Vice himself. The Great Seducer.
Now they will be tested. Will Marianne become as insufferable as Mr. Palmer, or will she learn restraint? Will Elinor allow her self-control to become as deceitful as Lucy, or will she learn to follow her heart? Marianne becomes insolent like Willoughby; Elinor is a little too mocking of Mrs. Jennings, who turns out to be very morally worthy indeed.
They are almost taken in! Just as Pilgrim has to expose Morality and Civility as frauds, so they must see through the machinations of Willoughby, the classic Vice figure, and Lucy Steele. They must learn, too, that the quiet people like Edward and Brandon are more virtuous and constant than they have sometimes believed.
The quest continues to London, with the painful separation from their mother. We might even say that Marianne and Elinor able to get over the Hill of Difficulty by passing into the Valley of Humiliation. London, of course, is Vanity Fair.
It seems that all is lost! Marianne passes through the Valley of the Shadow of Death!
But find their fortune they do, and, as this is a fairy tale by Jane Austen, they find their virtue as well. At the ending, they have settled themselves again, and are once more cocooned away from the world in a state of family happiness.
Mrs. Dashwood was prudent enough to remain at the cottage, without attempting a removal to Delaford; and fortunately for Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, when Marianne was taken from them, Margaret had reached an age highly suitable for dancing, and not very ineligible for being supposed to have a lover.
Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communication which strong family affection would naturally dictate; and among the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.
They survived their pilgrimage, and are rewarded with “strong family affection,” which is what they had gone searching for on the death of the old man. The quest is over.
