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“I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly.” (Austen 68) As Elinor declares in Jane Austin’s novel Sense and Sensibility, it is true; actions do speak louder than words. What someone does means a lot more than what someone says. Someone can tell you that they love you, but if they never show you than how will you know if they truly mean it. Love is meant for people like Elinor and Edward who showed each other their love and respected social conventions. However, people like Marianne and Willoughby are not very deserving, due to their lust-based relationship and choices to ignore the common rules of society. Love is achieved through obstacles and not pure lust, and is only meant for people who truly deserve each other.
“Passionate, romantic Marianne and Willoughby, after an intense attraction that causes them to ignore the barriers between them, suffer and end up bitterly regretting their behavior.” (MP) Marianne and Willoughby put all of their trust into only each other and no one else, leaving them alone with no friends once their attraction disbanded. After the breakup, Marianne makes sure that the entire town knows that she is depressed and lonely without her love Willoughby. As you see her “alternately singing and crying; her voice often totally suspended by her tears,” (Austen 72) she is unable to cope with the fact that she is no longer apart of Willoughby’s life. “Meanwhile, the reasonable Elinor as been equally unlucky in love, though she bears her disappointment quite differently.” (CSLF) While Marianne is sobbing and weeping, putting her life on hold, Elinor tries to mitigate Marianne’s inimical attitude towards everyone. Elinor is continuing with her life, as the memories of Edward are evanescent. Elinor’s “feelings are not often shared,” (Austen 76) her business is her business and not the whole towns. Elinor does not feel that she must let everyone know her business, she only wants people to see her good side, not her gloomy side. She always puts her best foot forth to make herself look good in front of other people, which shows that she cares about the fact that other people may look down upon someone who is emotionally unstable, like her younger sister Marianne, and view that as a major weakness.
Edward Ferrars comes from a...
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...nne suffered more emotionally due to her over trusting personality and her naïve nature. Happiness always wins out, however true love is only won by long hard struggles.
If two people are meant to be together, then love will eventually find a way through all of the obstacles, but if two people do not deserve each other’s love then they will be broken apart. Ignoring people and common rules of society will get you nowhere except lonely and unhappy. The ignorant naïve people like Marianne and Willoughby are the ones, who end p suffering, ignorance is a lonely way to go through life. Greed and jealousy of ones family is a difficult obstacle to overcome, however with that obstacle accomplished, it only proves a more pure true love, and shows a great deal of loyalty and strength in the two people who were able to win the battle. Obstacles to a marriage are what prove the love between two people, and without these obstacles two people can never know how strong their love is for one another. In order to know how much someone means to somebody else, their love must be tested by enduring painful obstacles, otherwise how do you know if you can trust your love?
...to Marianne, nor can I suppose it a relief to your own conscience." Elinor does not condone his behavior and tells him that he cannot make himself feel better by making someone else look or feel worse than himself. Elinor has seen through him.
The opinions demonstrated in the two tales are extremely unlike, of course with such different stances a point of view will be preferred by different people. In these stories both couples end up in a successful relationship, but one has a stronger base. It will differ from person to person; however, most would agree a marriage based off of equal respect would be the best choice.
Elinor and Marianne responded differently to love with the first being more reserved while the latter was blatantly obvious about her devotion. Their response to heartbreak also differed as Elinor kept her feelings to herself, but others could easily deduce that Marianne was upset since she did not hide her emotions. The audience if left to believe that Elinor will not marry Edgar and Marianne will die from heartbreak; however, the play ends with a deus ex machina. Elinor and Edgar get married after he breaks his engagement. Marianne also get a happy ending as she marries the Colonel (Jeffrey Cornell) who cared for her since he first met
Human beings are not isolated individuals. We do not wander through a landscape of trees and dunes alone, reveling in our own thoughts. Rather, we need relationships with other human beings to give us a sense of support and guidance. We are social beings, who need talk and company almost as much as we need food and sleep. We need others so much, that we have developed a custom that will insure company: marriage. Marriage assures each of us of company and association, even if it is not always positive and helpful. Unfortunately, the great majority of marriages are not paragons of support. Instead, they hold danger and barbs for both members. Only the best marriages improve both partners. So when we look at all three of Janie’s marriages, only her marriage to Teacake shows the support, guidance, and love.
By discussing the maternal figures in this work, I hope to illustrate the varying possibilities of what mothering and motherhood can entail in Austen, and what this curious spectrum of strengths and weaknesses means for the heroine involved. When discussing the mothers in Sense and Sensibility, it is only logical to begin with Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor and Marianne's mother. We meet her just a few pages into the novel, and are immediately told of her genuine and unassuming interest in Elinor's relationship with Edward Ferrars. Unlike most of Austen's mothers, Mrs. Dashwood is neither calculating nor preoccupied with a particular agenda for her daughters: "Some mothers might have encouraged intimacy from motives of interest...and some might have repressed it from motives of prudence... but Mrs. Dashwood was alike uninfluenced by either consideration.
Love can be described as “a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.” Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley had had a “passionate affection” for each other ever since their first encounter at the Meryton Ball. It is known that the love between two people should be the first deciding factor in a real, successful marriage. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, was written in England during the 19th century, where social rank and money were what really mattered in a “successful” marriage. Jane and Bingley’s complex relationship is very similar to the song Love Story by Taylor Swift, which was written about Taylor Swift and her own lover.
Brockmeier’s short story represents a damaged marriage between a husband and a wife simply due to a different set of values and interests. Brockmeier reveals that there is a limit to love; husbands and wives will only go so far to continually show love for each other. Furthermore, he reveals that love can change as everything in this ever changing world does. More importantly, Brockmeier exposes the harshness and truth behind marriage and the detrimental effects on the people in the family that are involved. In the end, loving people forever seems too good to be true as affairs and divorces continually occur in the lives of numerous couples in society. However, Brockmeier encourages couples to face problems head on and to keep moving forward in a relationship. In the end, marriage is not a necessity needed to live life fully.
In a man, Marianne seeks a lover and a connoisseur, whose tastes coincide with her tastes. He must be open with feelings, read the same books, and be charmed by the same music (15). Marianne seeks a man with all of Edward’s virtues, and his person and manner must ornament his goodness with every possible charm (16). Marianne’s mother relates Marianne’s maturity beyond her years by reminding Marianne “Remember, my love, that you are not seventeen. It is yet too early in life to despair of such an happiness (16).”
When we find a love interest and have an opportunity to commit to him or her, we usually do, not noting the consequences we may face by doing so. The first few times around, however, the outcome is usually not the one we had expected and hoped for. Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God portray two young women on their trek to find the perfect love. Even though Carrie Meeber and Janie Crawford have almost nothing in common, they both shared the impact of the same consequences. Carrie and Janie show how people of countless numbers of backgrounds can share the same experiences and consequences through their journey of love.
...f society and the desire to marry into a higher class, she is able to expose her own feelings toward her society through her characters. Through Marianne and Elinor she displays a sense of knowing the rules of society, what is respectable and what is not, yet not always accepting them or abiding by them. Yet, she hints at the triviality and fakeness of the society in which she lived subtly and clearly through Willoughby, John Dashwood and Edward Ferrars. Austen expertly reveals many layers to the 19th century English society and the importance of having both sense and sensibility in such a shallow system.
a good mother and a good wife. The goal of women was to grow up to
In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen shows examples of how most marriages were not always for love but more as a formal agreement arranged by the two families. Marriage was seen a holy matrimony for two people but living happil...
Throughout the novel, the reader follows Elizabeth through her struggle to maintain her personal identity, despite what her mother, sisters, and other women in society think of her. Elizabeth enjoys physical activities, such as walking , which is uncommon for women in the society in which she lives. “She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild.” (Austen, 24). The women often look upon Elizabeth negatively due to her behaviour and personality, especially for her outspokenness, which was especially uncommon and unacceptable upon women. “‘Lizzy’, cried...
Elinor is said to be the character that has the most sense. She sharply contrasts her mother and her other sisters who are much more open with their feelings. Elinor is said to follow all the rules of society. Her beliefs and attitude are what makes it so surprising that she decides to marry a man such as Edward. Edward’s fortune depends entirely on his mother and he must stay in her good grace to inherit any money. At first Elinor’s belief that money has much to do with happiness makes sense. She has feelings for Edward who is the eldest son and therefore should inherit all the money. Ho...
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