Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility

by

Jane Austen

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Character, Sense, and Sensibility Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
Character, Sense, and Sensibility Theme Icon
Women in Society Theme Icon
Society and Strategy Theme Icon
Wealth, Class, and Greed Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Sense and Sensibility, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Character, Sense, and Sensibility Theme Icon

Both Austen’s characters and her narrator spend a great deal of time thinking about people’s character, trying to ascertain and distinguish someone’s particular nature. Austen’s omniscient narrator is generally able to pinpoint exactly what kind of person someone is with exact, often sharply ironic description. It is important for the novel to spend time introducing and describing characters before relating their actions, because—in the world of the novel—people’s inner character is essential for understanding their motives, actions, and desires.

Austen’s title offers one important way of understanding someone’s character, based on where they fall on a kind of spectrum between sense and sensibility. Elinor is on the side of sense, while Marianne can be classified as someone more given to sensibility. This means that Elinor is a rational thinker, who values reason and restraint. She doesn’t allow herself to be carried away by emotions, even when she learns of Lucy and Edward’s engagement. Marianne, by contrast, is a character of extreme emotions. As the narrator says, “Marianne could never love by halves.” She gives herself entirely to her feelings of love, happiness, or despair. Much of the novel demonstrates the follies of excessive sensibility like that of Marianne. It brings her to dangerous extremes of emotion and hysteria. Elinor, meanwhile, is generally admired for her good sense. However, in the end, it takes a bit of both sense and sensibility for each sister to achieve happiness. Elinor ends up giving into her powerful feelings of love for Edward, while Marianne abandons her overly idealistic conception of love and allows herself to gradually learn to love Colonel Brandon. For both sisters, sense and sensibility become not so much opposites as complementary parts of their characters.

The narrator—and by extension, often the reader—is generally able to know exactly what a person’s character is, where precisely they fall on the spectrum of sense and sensibility. But, the novel’s characters themselves often have a difficult time discerning someone’s true character. Willoughby is the prime example of this. Marianne builds up one idea of his noble character, only to be forced to revise her understanding of him when he abandons her for Miss Grey. But then she must reverse her understanding of his character once again after he explains himself to Elinor. Through Willoughby’s shocking, surprising behavior, the novel implicitly asks how well we know Willoughby, and even how well anyone can know another person. Nonetheless, surprises like Willoughby’s sudden abandoning of Marianne arise not because people are ultimately mysterious or have no particular character, but simply because their character has been insufficiently known. We are gradually able to understand Willoughby’s actions better after learning more about his character from Colonel Brandon and from Willoughby himself. In Austen’s world, a radical change of character alters our understanding of a particular person, but does not call into question our ability to understand that person. Character is ultimately knowable, even if not entirely known, and for the narrator of Sense and Sensibility, one’s actions and behavior are always explainable by someone’s inner character, their own mix of sense and sensibility, among other traits.

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Character, Sense, and Sensibility Quotes in Sense and Sensibility

Below you will find the important quotes in Sense and Sensibility related to the theme of Character, Sense, and Sensibility.
Chapter 1 Quotes

Elinor, this eldest daughter whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified her, though only nineteen, to be the counselor of her mother, and enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led to imprudence. She had an excellent heart; - her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them: it was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn, and which one of her sisters had resolved never to be taught.

Related Characters: Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor Dashwood
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 8
Explanation and Analysis:

Marianne’s abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor’s. She was sensible and clever; but eager in every thing: her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation. she was generous, amiable, interesting: she was everything but prudent. The resemblance between her and her mother was strikingly great.

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood, Marianne Dashwood
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 8
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Some mothers might have encouraged the intimacy from motives of interest, for Edward Ferrars was the eldest son of a man who had died very rich; and some might have repressed it from motives of prudence, for, except a trifling sum, the whole of his fortune depended on the will of his mother. But Mrs. Dashwood was alike uninfluenced by either consideration. It was enough for her that he appeared to be amiable, that he loved her daughter, and that Elinor returned the partiality. It was contrary to every doctrine of hers that difference of fortune should keep any couple asunder who were attracted by resemblance of disposition.

Related Characters: Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor Dashwood, Edward Ferrars
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:

His eyes want all that spirit, that fire, which at once announce virtue and intelligence. And besides all this, I am afraid, mamma, he has no real taste. Music seems scarcely to attract him, and though he admires Elinor’s drawings very much, it is not the admiration of a person who can understand their worth.

Related Characters: Marianne Dashwood (speaker), Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor Dashwood, Edward Ferrars
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 19
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

You know enough of him to do justice to his solid worth. But of his minuter propensities as you call them you have from peculiar circumstances been kept more ignorant than myself. He and I have been at times thrown a good deal together, while you have been engrossed on the most affectionate principle by my mother. I have seen a great deal of him, have studied his sentiments and heard his opinion on subjects of literature and taste; and, upon the whole, I venture to pronounce that his mind is well-informed, his enjoyment of books exceedingly great, his imagination lively, his observation just and correct, and his taste delicate and pure. . . . At present, I know him so well, that I think him really handsome; or, at least, almost so.

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood (speaker), Mrs. Dashwood, Marianne Dashwood, Edward Ferrars
Page Number: 22
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Mrs. Jennings was a widow with an ample jointure. She had only two daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably married, and she had now therefore nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world. In the promotion of this object she was zealously active, as far as her ability reached; and missed no opportunity of projecting weddings among all the young people of her acquaintance.

Related Characters: Mrs. Jennings
Page Number: 38
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Their taste was strikingly alike. The same books, the same passages were idolized by each—or if any difference appeared, any objection arose, it lasted no longer than till the force of her arguments and the brightness of her eyes could be displayed. He acquiesced in all her decisions, caught all her enthusiasm; and long before his visit concluded, they conversed with the familiarity of a long-established acquaintance.

Related Characters: Marianne Dashwood, John Willoughby
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

Elinor could not be surprised at their attachment. She only wished that it were less openly shewn; and once or twice did venture to suggest the propriety of some self-command to Marianne. But Marianne abhorred all concealment where no real disgrace could attend unreserve; and to aim at the restraint of sentiments which were not in themselves illaudable, appeared to her not merely an unnecessary effort, but a disgraceful subjection of reason to common-place and mistaken notions. Willoughby thought the same; and their behaviour at all times, was an illustration of their opinions.

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood, Marianne Dashwood, John Willoughby
Page Number: 54
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in it. But the feelings which made such composure a disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with a headache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough!

Related Characters: Marianne Dashwood, John Willoughby
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

Elinor sat down to her drawing-table as soon as he was out of the house, busily employed herself the whole day, neither sought nor avoided the mention of his name, appeared to interest herself almost as much as ever in the general concerns of the family, and if, by this conduct, she did not lessen her own grief, it was at least prevented from unnecessary increase, and her mother and sisters were spared much solicitude on her account. Such behaviour as this, so exactly the reverse of her own, appeared no more meritorious to Marianne, than her own had seemed faulty to her. The business of self-command she settled very easily;—with strong affections it was impossible, with calm ones it could have no merit.

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood, Marianne Dashwood
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 102
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Elinor was again obliged to decline her invitation; and by changing the subject, put a stop to her entreaties. She thought it probable that as they lived in the same county, Mrs. Palmer might be able to give some more particular account of Willoughby's general character, than could be gathered from the Middletons' partial acquaintance with him; and she was eager to gain from any one, such a confirmation of his merits as might remove the possibility of fear from Marianne.

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood, Marianne Dashwood, John Willoughby, Charlotte Palmer
Page Number: 110-111
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

Her resentment of such behaviour, her indignation at having been its dupe, for a short time made her feel only for herself; but other ideas, other considerations, soon arose. Had Edward been intentionally deceiving her? Had he feigned a regard for her which he did not feel? Was his engagement to Lucy an engagement of the heart? No; whatever it might once have been, she could not believe it such at present. His affection was all her own. She could not be deceived in that. Her mother, sisters, Fanny, all had been conscious of his regard for her at Norland; it was not an illusion of her own vanity. He certainly loved her. What a softener of the heart was this persuasion! How much could it not tempt her to forgive!

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood, Edward Ferrars, Lucy Steele
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 28 Quotes

At that moment she first perceived him, and her whole countenance glowing with sudden delight, she would have moved towards him instantly, had not her sister caught hold of her.
"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "he is there—he is there—Oh! why does he not look at me? why cannot I speak to him?"
"Pray, pray be composed," cried Elinor, "and do not betray what you feel to every body present. Perhaps he has not observed you yet."
This however was more than she could believe herself; and to be composed at
such a moment was not only beyond the reach of Marianne, it was beyond her wish. She sat in an agony of impatience which affected every feature.

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood (speaker), Marianne Dashwood (speaker), John Willoughby
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:

Marianne, now looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into her chair, and Elinor, expecting every moment to see her faint, tried to screen her from the observation of others, while reviving her with lavender water.

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood, Marianne Dashwood
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 29 Quotes

Elinor could no longer witness this torrent of unresisted grief in silence.
"Exert yourself, dear Marianne," she cried, "if you would not kill yourself and all who love you. Think of your mother; think of her misery while YOU suffer: for her sake you must exert yourself."
"I cannot, I cannot," cried Marianne; "leave me, leave me, if I distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! but do not torture me so. Oh! how easy for those, who have no sorrow of their own to talk of exertion!”

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood (speaker), Marianne Dashwood (speaker)
Page Number: 176
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 31 Quotes

“He had left the girl whose youth and innocence he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address! He had left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor relieved her."
"This is beyond every thing!" exclaimed Elinor.
"His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse than both.

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood (speaker), Colonel Brandon (speaker), Colonel Brandon, Eliza (Younger)
Page Number: 198
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

I am very sure that conscience only kept Edward from Harley Street. And I really believe he has the most delicate conscience in the world; the most scrupulous in performing every engagement, however minute, and however it may make against his interest or pleasure. He is the most fearful of giving pain, of wounding expectation, and the most incapable of being selfish, of any body I ever saw.

Related Characters: Marianne Dashwood (speaker), Edward Ferrars
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 229
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

"If such is your way of thinking," said Marianne, "if the loss of what is most valued is so easily to be made up by something else, your resolution, your self-command, are, perhaps, a little less to be wondered at.—They are brought more within my comprehension."
"I understand you.—You do not suppose that I have ever felt much.—For four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were explained to you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least.”

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood (speaker), Marianne Dashwood (speaker)
Page Number: 247
Explanation and Analysis:

All that Mrs. Ferrars could say to make him put an end to the engagement, assisted too as you may well suppose by my arguments, and Fanny's entreaties, was of no avail. Duty, affection, every thing was disregarded. I never thought Edward so stubborn, so unfeeling before. His mother explained to him her liberal designs, in case of his marrying Miss Morton; told him she would settle on him the Norfolk estate, which, clear of land-tax, brings in a good thousand a-year; offered even, when matters grew desperate, to make it twelve hundred; and in opposition to this, if he still persisted in this low connection, represented to him the certain penury that must attend the match. His own two thousand pounds she protested should be his all; she would never see him again; and so far would she be from affording him the smallest assistance, that if he were to enter into any profession with a view of better support, she would do all in her power to prevent him advancing in it.

Related Characters: John Dashwood (speaker), Fanny Dashwood, Edward Ferrars, Mrs. Ferrars, Miss Morton
Page Number: 249-250
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 42 Quotes

Marianne entered the house with a heart swelling with emotion from the consciousness of being only eighty miles from Barton, and not thirty from Combe Magna; and before she had been five minutes within its walls, while the others were busily helping Charlotte to show her child to the housekeeper, she quitted it again, stealing away through the winding shrubberies, now just beginning to be in beauty, to gain a distant eminence; where, from its Grecian temple, her eye, wandering over a wide tract of country to the south-east, could fondly rest on the farthest ridge of hills in the horizon, and fancy that from their summits Combe Magna might be seen.
In such moments of precious, invaluable misery, she rejoiced in tears of agony to be at Cleveland; and as she returned by a different circuit to the house, feeling all the happy privilege of country liberty, of wandering from place to place in free and luxurious solitude, she resolved to spend almost every hour of every day while she remained with the Palmers, in the indulgence of such solitary rambles.

Related Characters: Marianne Dashwood, Charlotte Palmer
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 283-284
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 45 Quotes

Willoughby, he, whom only half an hour ago she had abhorred as the most worthless of men, Willoughby, in spite of all his faults, excited a degree of commiseration for the sufferings produced by them, which made her think of him as now separated for ever from her family, with a tenderness, a regret, rather in proportion, as she soon acknowledged within herself—to his wishes than to his merits. She felt that his influence over her mind was heightened by circumstances which ought not in reason to have weight; by that person of uncommon attraction, that open, affectionate, and lively manner which it was no merit to possess; and by that still ardent love for Marianne, which it was not even innocent to indulge.

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood, Marianne Dashwood, John Willoughby
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 311
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 46 Quotes

As they approached Barton, indeed, and entered on scenes of which every field and every tree brought some peculiar, some painful recollection, she grew silent and thoughtful, and turning away her face from their notice, sat earnestly gazing through the window. But here, Elinor could neither wonder nor blame; and when she saw, as she assisted Marianne from the carriage, that she had been crying, she saw only an emotion too natural in itself to raise any thing less tender than pity, and in its unobtrusiveness entitled to praise. In the whole of her subsequent manner, she traced the direction of a mind awakened to reasonable exertion; for no sooner had they entered their common sitting-room, than Marianne turned her eyes around it with a look of resolute firmness, as if determined at once to accustom herself to the sight of every object with which the remembrance of Willoughby could be connected.

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood, Marianne Dashwood, John Willoughby
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 319
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 48 Quotes

Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease. Edward, who had till then looked any where, rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw—or even heard, her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie, which no remarks, no inquiries, no affectionate address of Mrs. Dashwood could penetrate, and at last, without saying a word, quitted the room, and walked out towards the village—leaving the others in the greatest astonishment and perplexity on a change in his situation, so wonderful and so sudden;—a perplexity which they had no means of lessening but by their own conjectures.

Related Characters: Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor Dashwood, Edward Ferrars
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 335
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 49 Quotes

That Lucy had certainly meant to deceive, to go off with a flourish of malice against him in her message by Thomas, was perfectly clear to Elinor; and Edward himself, now thoroughly enlightened on her character, had no scruple in believing her capable of the utmost meanness of wanton ill-nature.

Related Characters: Elinor Dashwood, Edward Ferrars, Lucy Steele
Page Number: 341
Explanation and Analysis: