Senssibility In Austen's Sense And Sensibility By Jane Austen

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Sense and Sensibility Sense and Sensibility was Jane Austen’s first published novel. It is set in the late 1700’s in England. The novel starts out with the death of Henry Dashwood. His entire inheritance is left to his first wife’s son, John. Before Henry dies, he asks John to take care of his current wife and his daughters. John’s wife, Fanny suggests otherwise saying that they don’t need money. Fanny believes that they are not good enough for money. Mrs. Dashwood (Henry’s wife) and John’s half-sisters ( Elinor, Margaret, and Marianne) are forced to leave their home and move in a cottage on their distant relatives (Miss Jennings and John Middleton) estate. Before they leave, Elinor falls in love with Fanny’s high class brother, Edward. Edward promises to visit them at the cottage but fails to do so for a long time. Meanwhile the younger sister, Marianne makes the acquaintance of a retired coronel named Colonel Brandon. He has advanced through the ranks of the army, making his social class respectable. He falls in love with Marianne very quickly but Marianne doesn’t feel the same because she meets John Willoughby. John saves Marianne when she hurts her ankle and cannot walk. They become an item and Marianne falls madly in love with Mr. Willoughby. He is rich and surrounds himself with high class people. Their relationship is unusual because of their different social classes, but people expected them to marry soon. Suddenly, John has to leave for London without any explanation. This leaves Marianne to be upset and heartbroken. Around the same time, relatives come to visit and Elinor meets Lucy Steele. Lucy informs her that she and Edward have been secretly (Edward’s mom wouldn’t a... ... middle of paper ... ...and significance of social class in both of these novels are very important. The books go very well with the standards at that time and Austen pushed the standards by allowing marriage between classes. Ultimately, these books could have put the idea into one’s head that it was okay to marry between class structures. Either way, we can see that the social classes in Britain have come a long way. Now, it is acceptable for a prince to marry a commoner. Jane Austen was right in predicting that social class cannot define love. We do know one thing for sure; Jane Austen has this view of social class in both novels because there is a common theme: the unimportance of wealth despite the customs of the time. This theme still applies today, not just in the United Kingdom, but all around the world. The amount of money one possesses does not have any effect on whom they marry.

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