Sense and sensibility

Question 1

Serious novel: social satire against patriarchal society, marriage and family, excessive sensibility (6)

Answer 1

• System of property that favours the first son: concentration of land-ownership
• Dismal portrait of married life and family connections
• Satirical view of class – idle gentlemen, who hunt or play billiards, women who sit and humour children
• Habitus – defined by vulgarity and lack of taste
• Shortcomings of women’s education
• Excess of sensibility

Question 2

mixed nature:

Answer 2

parody + serious novel

Question 3

Parody of the sentimental novel: literary satire

Answer 3

• ‘Elinor and Marianne’ – such as ‘Love and Freindship’

Question 4

Focalization:

Answer 4

Elinor is not sure if Edward loves her – we don’t know either

Question 5

Change from epistolary novel to

Answer 5

third person narrator

Question 6

Secrets and concealments create a distance between

Answer 6

the private and the public self

Question 7

Secrets can be a burden

Answer 7

• Elinor suffers from being bound to conceal information she has about Lucy or Brandon

Question 8

Marianne lets everyone assume

Answer 8

she is engaged to Willoughby in secret

Question 9

Colonel Brandon, Lucy Steele, Edward Ferrars, and Willoughby have secrets –

Answer 9

only Elinor knows them gradually

Question 10

Elinor is asked to keep secrets by

Answer 10

Brandon and Lucy Steele

Question 11

Secret engagements, concealments, silences

Answer 11

– place in the plot

Question 12

Central themes:

Answer 12

secrets and sickness

Question 13

Sense and Sensibility – a novel about the importance of

Answer 13

‘knowing’ or ‘not knowing’

Question 14

Fever as result from

Answer 14

depression, melancholia, sensibility which takes over sense, over reason

Question 15

Illness as the result of

Answer 15

extreme reaction to events

Question 16

Elinor and Marianne’s contrasting views

Answer 16

Elinor makes fun of Marianne’s excessive sensibility

Question 17

CULT OF SENSIBILITY: VOL. 1

Parody of the cult of sensibility - Marianne (4)

Answer 17

• Her taste for books, music – her abhorrence of clichés in language and behaviour
• Reading poetry or playing the piano can only be performed with feeling and sensibility
• She despises Edmund for reading poetry ‘with impenetrable calmness’ and ‘dreadful indifference’ (SS, I, 3)
• She thinks feelings and emotions should not be concealed or disguised – one should always tell the truth

Question 18

CULT OF SENSIBILITY: VOL. 2

Answer 18

• For Elinor, sensibility has to be controlled by sense and self-command because it is dangerous
• Feelings and emotions ought to be concealed in company if they inflict pain to others
• Sensibility as moral notion, as feeling for others – Elinor reminds Marianne how her actions or words hurt others
• Marianne’s visit to Allenham Court uninvited – lack of concern for Mrs Smith
• Sensibility invoked to disregard decorum

Question 19

CULT OF SENSIBILITY: VOL. 3

Answer 19

• Marianne’s illness – sensibility taken seriously
• Elinor’s sense gives way to feelings and emotion when Edward proposes
• Neither sense nor sensibility are finally vindicated

Question 20

Marianne doesn’t believe

Answer 20

second attachments to be possible, to be sincere and true, to lead to happiness

(CONVERSATION BETWEEN BRANDON AND ELINOR)

Question 21

Sense and Sensibility suggests that second attachments are

Answer 21

possible

Question 22

Elinor seems to have no problem with

Answer 22

second attachments

Question 23

Irony - Marianne who didn’t believe in second attachments -

Answer 23

ends up in a marriage in which both partners have had a prior attachment

Question 24

Marianne herself is the issue of a

Answer 24

‘second attachment’

her mother is the second wife of her father

Question 25

The theme of second attachments -

Answer 25

‘unromantic’ resolution

Question 26

Marianne’s thoughts and perception of the world:

Answer 26

• shaped by the language of the sentimental novel and the cult of sensibility
• now transformed by experience (SELF-KNOWLEDGE)

Question 27

The differences between several couples:

Answer 27

• Mr. and Mrs John Dashwood – the brother of Elinor and Marianne and Edward’s sister get on well because both are selfish, egotistical, and tightfisted. Mrs John Dashwood persuades her husband not to part with any money for the sake of his three half-sisters
• Lucy Steele + Robert Ferrars and Fanny + John Dashwood (Robert’s sister and her husband)
• Contrast with Elinor + Edward and Marianne + Colonel Brandon: no ‘coolness’ between their husbands
• Lucy doesn’t enjoy sisterly affection: between Fanny and her there is ‘jealousies and ill-will’
• her conjugal peace is under the threat of ‘frequent domestic disagreements

Question 28

Women in the gentry /pseudogentry -

Answer 28

educated at home with governess or at a school (seminary) for young ladies

Question 29

WOMEN’S ACTIVITIES/EDUCATION

Answer 29

Marianne (plays the piano)
Elinor (sketches and paints)
Lucy Steele (makes filigree to entertain Lady Middleton’s child)

Question 30

Elopement =

Answer 30

a crucial theme and plot element in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice

Question 31

The Two Elizas:

Answer 31

• Colonel Brandon’s narration about his first attachment – Eliza, forced to married Brandon’s brother
• Colonel Brandon’s sudden leave and cancellation of outing – Eliza’s daughter found in dire circumstances

• Function of these narratives - to show what could have been Marianne’s fate in the hands of Willoughby

Question 32

Money and family:

Answer 32

the Ferrars, who are closely related to the Dashwood – the least generous

Question 33

Money and friends:

Answer 33

Sir John Middleton, Mrs Jennings and Colonel Brandon – most generous

Question 34

A theme which runs through all of Austen’s novels:

Answer 34

The management of the estate

Question 35

The most hideous ‘improvers’ are

Answer 35

Mr and Mrs John Dashwood

Question 36

Edward teases Marianne over

Answer 36

books and her passion for the picturesque – if she had a fortune, she would spend it on music and books of poetry.