As I read I’m gathering examples that disprove Austen’s general image as a sentimental or “pink” author – this is a conversation I’ve had countless times, usually after people know if my partiality for her. Anyone who doubts how savagely witty she can be, has only to read these S&S chapters.
There are enough psychological undercurrents to rival a Japanese thriller, and unforgiving satire to put her in the British Black Humor Hall of Fame (if it doesn’t exist, it should!).
These chapters open with another brilliant and passive-agressive conversation between Elinor and Lucy. It feels like you’re reading two dialogues at the same time: what’s said and what’s meant.
“Indeed you wrong me,” replied Lucy, with great solemnity; “I know nobody of whose judgment I think so highly as I do of yours; and I do really believe, that if you was to say to me, ‘I advise you by all means to put an end to your engagement with Edward Ferrars, it will be more for the happiness of both of you,’ I should resolve upon doing it immediately.”
Elinor blushed for the insincerity of Edward’s future wife, and replied, “This compliment would effectually frighten me from giving any opinion on the subject had I formed one. It raises my influence much too high; the power of dividing two people so tenderly attached is too much for an indifferent person.”
Lucy is nasty. Interesting how Austen always seems to underline her lack of education, how she’s “ignorant and illiterate”, how Elinor pitied her for “the neglect of abilities which education might have rendered so respectable”. Lucy Steel is what happens when women aren’t encouraged to learn. Austen clearly took much pride it her own education and literary knowledge (she is Elinor is this book, right?) and saw it as an advantage. In P&P Mr. Darcy will also make this point with his famous “improvement of her mind by extensive reading” line.
Many of these sixteen chapters centered on Marianne and her seemingly endless plight, but my attention was all on the secondary characters.
Did you also fall in love with Mrs. Jennings? I know she a bit of a gossip, and would be an impossible house-mate, but she means well and I find her good humor and joie de vivre irresistible. She melted my heart with her reaction to the news about Vile Willoughby and her misguided-yet-sincere offers of help (finest old Constantia wine the perfect solution to gout and a broken heart, who knew?).
On the other hand, their brother John – for shame! At the beginning of the novel I thought he was just a weak and easily manipulated man, but after his conversation with Elinor about Captain Brandon, I see there’s a littleness about him that’s hard to pity.
Will you join us for the last Twitter Movie Night this Sunday? We’re watching Sense and Sensibility (1995), starting 7PM GMT.
Advent with Austen‘s readalong of Sense and Sensibility is being hosted by Yvann over at Reading Fuelled by Tea. Summary of the novel here.
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December 16, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Patty
I thoroughly agree with you on the two points you raise, the importance of education, as put forward by Austen, and the complexity of the secondary characters and their contribution to the whole story. The messages included in this, as well as in her other books, while to us would even go innoticed, I believe caused quite a stir in her days…
December 16, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Sense & Sensibility Readalong III: Ch. 23-36 | Liburuak
[…] that her knight in shining armour is much less shiny than anticipated. Vile Willoughby (thank you, Alex, for this lovely description, it fits perfectly!) has forgotten her just as quickly as he had […]
December 17, 2011 at 8:32 pm
Melanie
Like you, it’s the secondary characters that make this section of the book for me. I do love Mrs. Jennings. I also enjoy Sir John immensely:
Sir John could not have thought it possible. “A man of whom he had always had such reason to think well! Such a good-natured fellow! He did not believe there was a bolder rider in England! It was an unaccountable business. He wished him at the devil with all his heart. He would not speak another word to him, meet him where he might for all the world! No, not if it were to be by the side of Barton covert, and they were kept waiting for two hours together. Such a scoundrel of a fellow! such a deceitful dog! It was only the last time they met that he had offered him one of Folly’s puppies! and this was the end of it!”
All those exclamation marks! I don’t recall Jane Austen giving any other character so many. Love him! *smile*
January 4, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Alex
@Patty: hurrah for re-reading, because the education bit completely escaped me the first time around!
@Melanie: Sir John is almost a female Mrs Jennings. Didn’t you also think that they would be much better matched as husband and wife?
January 5, 2012 at 12:00 am
Melanie
Indeed. I think Emma Thompson’s screenplay for Sense and Sensibility demonstrated this well. It’s funny how mismatched marriages can be, in Austen, and in real life. I suppose that we all benefit from having tempering influences in our lives through those who are different from ourselves in tastes and personality to help round us out: chipping away at our prejudices and helping to smooth and refine the extreme parts of ourselves, helping us to be more expansive in our thinking and our compassion (like Elinor and Marianne and, as the girls were to discover to their astonishment, themselves and Mrs. Jennings). That said, there is a lot to be said, as you suggest, for being with someone who enjoys the same company and interests as us.