April 3

Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen is a classic novel about Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters. What do you think would happen if your father died, leaving everything to your half-brother? Well, Elinor, Marianne, Margaret, and their mother are soon to find out. One of the life lessons that Sense and Sensibility teaches is to “not judge a book by its cover.”

When Mr. Henry Dashwood dies, he leaves all of his money and estate to his first wife’s son, John Dashwood. Mr. Dashwood’s second wife and her three daughters are left with no permanent home and very little money. While looking for a new place to live, Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters are invited to stay with their distant relations, the Middletons, at Barton Park. Elinor, the oldest of the Dashwood sisters, is sad to leave their home at Norland because she has become closely attached to Edward Ferrars, the brother-in-law of Elinor’s half-brother. However, once at Barton Park, Elinor and Marianne discover many new acquaintances, including Colonel Branden and John Willoughby. Willoughby is introduced to the Dashwoods when Marianne twists her ankle running down the hills of Barton Park in the rain. Willoughby openly courts Marianne and together the two of them flaunt their attachment. Willoughby then suddenly announces that he must depart for London on business, leaving Marianne lovesick and miserable. Meanwhile, Anne and Lucy Steele, two recently discovered relations of Lady Middleton’s mother, Mrs. Jennings, arrive at Barton Park as guests of the Middletons. Lucy becomes attached to Elinor and informs her that she has been secretly engaged to Mr. Ferrars for a whole year. Elinor at first assumes that Lucy is referring to Edward’s younger brother, Robert, but is shocked and pained to learn that Lucy is actually referring to her beloved Edward. Elinor is a little skeptical of Lucy’s story. Are Lucy Steele and Edward Ferrars really engaged? And if so, why didn’t Edward tell Elinor when he came to visit her? And where has Willoughby gone? Why did he leave so suddenly? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

As I said before, Sense and Sensibility contains the life lesson of “not judging a book by its cover.” We see this principle illustrated several times in the book. A good example of this is the way Marianne saw Willoughby. She saw him the way he wanted her to see him. Towards the end of the book, we see that Marianne misjudged quite a few people because of the way their “cover” looked. I thought that Sense and Sensibility was a great book. It was a bit of a tough read because of the way it’s written. But other than that, it’s a great book. It has a really good storyline and some good life lessons. I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes Jane Austen’s other books.


Posted April 3, 2018 by annaglca in category Uncategorized

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