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Idealism and realism differences
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Introduction:
In both Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen uses the concept of idealism in contrast with realism to elicit the theme of growing up and the effect it has on the characters’ points of view. This theme is most evident in the female protagonists-- Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, and Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. Although both characters hold an ideal world in their minds, their personalities differ enormously. While Marianne imagines the world to be perfect and romantic, Catherine lives as a heroine and is constantly on the search for frightening scenes. However, despite this major difference, both protagonists go through memorable life experiences and eventually develop their perception from idealism to realism. In other words, although they possess different personalities, both Marianne and Catherine go through similar experiences of maturing from girls with fantasies to women who are forced to face reality. This then further leads into the question, what is the effect of growth on a person’s mentality?
Marianne Dashwood’s idealism:
The Dashwood family has three daughters-- Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret. Among the three, Elinor, the eldest, represents sense as she has “an excellent heart; her disposition affectionate, and her feelings [are] strong: but she [knows] how to govern them” (Austen 6). In contrast, the second youngest sister Marianne is the representation of sensibility as she is “sensible and clever, but eager in everything,” she is also “generous, amiable, interesting… everything but prudent” (Austen 6). After the death of their father, all of Mrs. Dashwood’s estate is taken away by the oldest male in the family, Henry Dashwood. While Elinor and her mother...
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...earn from our mistakes-- that is how we grow. In Jane Austen’s novels, Marianne and Catherine are the definition of maturing. As the stories in both progress, Marianne and Catherine learn to take on new challenges and overcome new obstacles. Although there might be heartbreaking moments in their process of growing up, both characters eventually reach their moment of realization and decide to take off their goggles of idealism so to view the world better with the sight of realism. Is not this what life is all about? Living while trying to find a better definition for “living” and to find a better interpretation of the world we live in?
Works Cited
Austen, J. (2005). Northanger Abbey. New York City: Barnes & Noble Classics. (Original work published 1818)
Austen, J. (1995). Sense and Sensibility. New York City: Dover Publications. (Original work published 1811)
Fowler, Karen J.Introduction. Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen: The Complete Novels. By Jane Austen. New York: Penguin, 2006. 211-421. Print.
Menand, Louis. "What Jane Austen Doesn’t Tell Us." New York Review of Books 43.2 1 Feb. 1996: 13-15.
Southam, B.C., (ed.), Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage. Landon, NY: Routledge & Kegan Paul - Barres & Nobel Inc., 1968.
Jane Austen completes her story with a “Cinderella ending” of Catherine and Henry marrying. However, her novel is more than a fairytale ending. Although often wrong and misguided in their judgments, she shows the supremacy of males that permeated throughout her society. Jane Austen takes us from a portrayal of men as rude, self-centered, and opinionate to uncaring, demanding, and lying to downright ruthless, hurtful, and evil. John Thorpe’s and General Tilney’s total disregard for others feelings and their villainous ways prove Austen’s point. Whether reading Northanger Abbey for the happy ending or the moral lesson, this novel has much to offer.
Halperin, John. The Life of Jane Austen. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1984. Print.
In the movie Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen illuminated the repeated theme of emotions versus control through the actions of her two characters, Marianne, who was very sensuous and Elinor, who was very sensible. Their actions showed how Marianne was in touch with her senses and fully experienced her emotions and how Elinor seemed to possess good practical judgment and thought more about her actions and consequences thoroughly. These differences in their characters were exemplified throughout the story as they experienced love, disappointment, and resolution.
Austen, Jane. A. Emma. Norton Critical 3rd edition, ed. Donald Gray. New York and London: Norton, 2001.
The first of Jane Austen’s published novels, Sense and Sensibility, portrays the life and loves of two very different sisters: Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. The contrast between the sister’s characters results in their attraction to vastly different men, sparking family and societal dramas that are played out around their contrasting romances. The younger sister, Marianne Dashwood, emerges as one of the novel’s major characters through her treatment and characterization of people, embodying of emotion, relationship with her mother and sisters, openness, and enthusiasm.
In Northanger Abbey, Austen intended to reflect a contrast between a normal, healthy-natured girl and the romantic heroines of fiction thorough the use of characterization. By portraying the main character, Catherine Moorland, as a girl slightly affected with romantic notions, Jane Austen exhibits the co...
The literature output in Jane Austen’s creation is full of realism and irony. Janet Todd once asserted that "Austen creates an illusion of realism in her texts, partly through readably identification with the characters and partly through rounded characters, which have a history and a memory.” (Todd, The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen, 28.) Her works are deeply influenced between by late eighteenth-century Britain rationalism phenomenon and early nineteenth-century of romanticism.
Southam, B.C., (ed.), Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage. Landon, NY: Routledge & Kegan Paul - Barres & Nobel Inc., 1968.
...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.
Work Cited Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Donald Gray. Norton Critical Editions. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2002.
The roles of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet in Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice are contrasted between a father who cares about what’s inside of people and a mother who only worries about vanity and appearance. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s parental guidance is unique to their personalities. Because of their two opposing personas, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s ideas of marriage are contradictory for their daughters; Mr. Bennet believes in a loving respectful marriage whereas Mrs. Bennet values a marriage which concerns wealth and social status. Their aspirations for Lydia, Jane, Mary, Kitty and Elizabeth mirror their conflicting ideologies. Mr. Bennet seems to have a quiet deep love for his daughters while, on the contrary, Mrs. Bennet’s love is over-acted and conditional. Both parents help to shape their daughters’ characteristics and beliefs: Lydia reflecting Mrs. Bennet’s flighty and excessive behavior while Elizabeth inherits Mr. Bennet’s pensive and reflective temperament. Looking past their dissimilar personality traits and contradicting convictions, both parents hold the family together and play an integral role in the household structure.
Love comes in many shapes and forms, whether it’s an inanimate object or a person you want to spend the rest of your life with. Jane Austen’s novel, “Sense and Sensibility”, revolves around two sisters who try to find true love, while requiring a balance of reason and emotion. Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are viewed as two completely different people. Elinor is known to represent “sense” while Marianne represents “sensibility.” In the novel, Jane Austen emphasizes two common women’s characteristics, and shows us how Elinor and Marianne both find love and happiness only by overcoming their struggles and learning from one another’s actions and mistakes.