Analysis of Jane Austen's work
...condemns of Darcy. It was only when Wickham turned to Miss King, who inherited a huge sum of money, after earning Elizabeth’s favor, then she realized her bad judgment and began to reassess Darcy. In Sense and Sensibility, Marianne's spontaneity, excessive sensibility, and romantic idealism led her to fall passionately in love with the debaucherous Willoughby but he spurned her and abandoned her in favor of the wealthy Miss Sophia Grey, causing her to finally recognize her misjudgment of him. After this turn of heart, she ultimately married her long-standing admirer, Colonel Brandon whom she was initially prejudiced against as she thought he was too old for love. Elizabeth and Marianne were blinded by prejudice and trusted the wrong men but found true happiness eventually after they were exposed to the true colors of the men who deceived them. Through the various relationships, Jane denounced the distasteful elements of marriage and society and asserted her stand that hasty marriages based on superficial qualities quickly cooled and led to unhappiness. Other than the theme of marriage in her novel, her novels also discussed the mercenary traits of people which she felt originated from the distinct social classes. Being from the middle class, she attended numerous social events, like dances, plays and parties, in Hampshire, London and Bath. Austen’s personal encounters with people of all walks of life through such events made her conscious of the pragmatism of people. Being disgusted with this, Austen delivered her disapproval of social classes, her dissatisfaction for the use of underhanded means to move up the social ladder, and her contempt for the superficiality of the upper class by usually making them her most comical characters. People of her time were so concerned with social classes and societal status that money was the source of all actions and twist of all incidents. This was substantially depicted in her novels. For example, in Sense and Sensibility, the lack of a good fortune took the Dashwoods sisters into Devonshire, made Willoughby leave Marianne, and saved Edward from Lucy; similarly, in Pride and Prejudice, the fear of poverty of the Bennets sisters accelerated their search of prospective spouses. Austen depicted the despicable, mercenary traits of people of her time through the evident parallel between the experiences of the younger of the two sisters, Elizabeth and Marianne. She brought the readers’ attention to the mercenary qualities of Wickham and Willoughby and emphasized that the significance of social status among people of Austen’s time had resulted in people resorting to unscrupulous and underhanded methods in attempts to move up the social ladder. Once again, this is a subtle criticism and disapproval of social classes. Much of her writing reflected, through gentle satire, her disdain of the sycophancy from the lower class, the ignorance of the aristocracy, and their thirst for insincere flattery. She depicted the Steele sisters as being foolish, flippant, and very ignorant, who gained the approval of Lady Middleton through shameless flattery and pandering to her children. The behavior of the Steele sisters was analogous to that of Mr. Collins, who gained Lady Catherine’s favor through sycophancy and excessive formalities in speech. He was so influenced by Lady Catherine in every aspect of his life that he forgot his own morals and duty. Lady Catherine and Mrs. Jennings fit the portraits of busybody aristocratic women, who having no hobbies and no occupation, must amuse themselves with social interests and keep themselves occupied with unwelcome interference in people’s affairs. Austen also highlighted their ignorance through the shallow comments they gave and their desire to give advice despite their lack of intelligence. The light, satirical, and vivid tone of the novel provided comic relief to the reader while at the same time revealed certain characteristics of the characters. The act of sycophancy was just one of the several aspects of the ignorance of people. This was exemplified in Sense and Sensibility, which Austen analyzed in detail the personalities of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood and introduced the conflict, as suggested by the title, of sense and sensibility. Elinor was restrained and tempered her emotions with good sense and careful judgment; Marianne made no attempts to restrain herself, and lacked Elinor's ability to act with prudence. Austen described them in a much more positive light than she did with John Dashwood and his wife, yet her descriptions indicated that both are perhaps missing something. Marianne was intemperate and gave Austen a wide room for compassion and criticism, and Elinor was always very cautious; they are both extremes, but both became more moderate by the end of the novel. Their differences in character were introduced through their ideals of a suitable man. Elinor's model of a suitable man was Edward, very virtuous, kind, though rather sedate. Marianne yearned for someone more dashing, artistic, and passionate, to coincide with her own interests and qualities. Their conflicting characters were further exemplified in how they handle situations involving the men in their hearts. The drastic temperaments of Marianne could be instantly seen upon the arrival of John Willoughby. She instantly fell in love with him and became so obsessed with everything that associated with him that when Willoughby suddenly and abruptly left the Dashwoods and went to London, Marianne was heartbroken and showed her sorrowful emotions quite unreservedly. Other than allowing her temperaments to maneuver her, she lacked a substantial thinking depth. She regarded Colonel Brandon's age with such exaggeration that it made herself seemed quite silly and naive. She commented to herself on Colonel Brandon's "advanced state of life" as if he were a man in his sixties or seventies, and Austen's wry tone in communicating this thought made Marianne's misjudgment quite humorous. Unlike Marriane, Elinor was composed and cool-headed. Though she was in love with Edward, she remained composed and kept her thoughts and feelings to herself when she found out Edward’s secret engagement to Lucy. This is in stark contrast to Marianne’s reaction when she found out that Willoughby had left her for another girl. Undoubtedly, Elinor was disappointed with Edward when she learnt about his engagement but calmly listened to all that Lucy said regarding the engagement. Elinor considered carefully all that Lucy mentioned and intelligently extracted from Lucy what she was interested to know to assess the veracity of her words. Unlike Marianne, she did not fly into a rage over the matter but analyzed carefully all that she had recently learned. Unmistakably, in Sense and Sensibility, Austen had set up a clear contrast between the calm composure of Elinor and the drastic emotional changes of Marianne. Likewise, in Pride and Prejudice, she assessed the characters of Jane, Elizabeth and Lydia. Lydia’s lack of common sense and responsibility was exposed when she took pride in being the first Bennet girl to be married without taking into consideration the circumstances of her marriage, the personality of her husband, or the prospects of her marriage for the future. As opposed to Lydia’s stupidity, Elizabeth was lively, quick-witted, sharp-tongued, bold and intelligent. She was proud of her abilities to perceive the truth of situations and of people's characters. However, her perceptive abilities failed her frequently because she was influenced by vanity and judged people rashly. By the end of the novel she overcame her prejudice through her dealings with Darcy. Jane, being the only universally well-liked Bennet, refused to judge anyone badly, always making excuses for people when Elizabeth brings their faults to her attention. Though her tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt led her to be hurt by insincere friends, her judgments proved to be more accurate than Elizabeth's overall and did her much less harm. Through the female characters, Austen exposed the various personalities, including the ignorance, of youth girls of her time, while at the same time, showed the development of their characters over time. Jane and Elinor, being the older sisters, were similar as they were mature, cool headed and amiable. They were rewarded with blissful marriages with their good judgment and wise decisions. Marianne and Elizabeth, though each had their flaws in their characters, changed for the better along with the development of the story and were rewarded with happy marriages ultimately. However, Lydia who failed to learn from her mistakes remained inane and childish and had to suffer from her failed marriages. While informing the reader’s that the wise ones would be rewarded for their good sense, she also put in the picture the price that one had to pay for her frivolity through Lydia’s plight. Both of the novels, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, have largely similar themes. Austen illuminated the topic of gender injustices, husband hunting and marriage in an acquisitive society and showed most of its aspects and consequences—comic, trivial, sensual, opportunistic, desperate, and hopeless. She conveyed her disapproval of social classes and detest for opportunists and their unscrupulous ways of handling things. Last but not least, she acrimoniously criticized the stupidity of people of her time. Despite the huge similarities in themes and issues discussed in both the novels, Austen used different styles of writing to bring across her stands in the two novels. The story of Pride and Prejudice was told through Elizabeth, but not in first person narration. As a result, the mood of the novel lacked dramatic emotions. The language used was intellectual and cold and the main actions of the novel were the interactions between opinions, ideas, and attitudes, which weaved and advanced the plot of the novel. Though the emotions in the novel were not to be expressed to the readers directly, Austen’s powers of subtle discrimination and shrewd perceptiveness allowed her to successfully convey her complex thoughts and messages which were to be perceived beneath the surface of the story. Even though the story of Sense and Sensibility was not told through first person narration, the description of ideas with the flow of the novel was much more colorful as the story was not told entirely through one person’s thoughts but through the expectations and realities of a few of the characters in the novel. For instance, Marianne’s and her mother’s romantic characters led them to expect greater drama or trauma than what actually appeared. Reality had always tended to subvert expectations, whether in life or in art, therefore the unexpected twists contributed to the flow of ideas in the novel. In addition, Austen also manipulated the stark contrast between reality and appearance to prepare the readers for twists in the story. This pertained to the development of the personalities of character especially, as many characters in the novel presented themselves as one thing, and end up being another. Willoughby is the prime example of this, as he seemed romantic, open, and genuine, but readers were all aware that he was too good to be true, and indeed, he ended up exposing himself as vain, idle, and cruel in the later part of the novel. Furthermore, though the themes discussed in both the novels were related, the emphasis was placed in different aspects in the two novels. For instance, as the title suggested, Sense and Sensibility was largely about the different personalities of the Dashwood sisters and Austen’s description of the sisters was used to convey her thoughts of the people of her time. On the contrary, Pride and Prejudice tended to emphasize more heavily on the themes of marriage. This was not surprising since the first line of the novel, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” had prepared the readers to expect for description and views of marriages. In addition, the heavy emphasis on marriage in Pride and Prejudice made the ending of the novel extremely predictable, however, in Sense and Sensibility, not much was suggested regarding who the sisters would marry eventually. There was love at first sight between Jane and Bingley, suggesting that something would come out of them. Moreover, though Elizabeth and Darcy had deep prejudices against each other, the first line of the novel had suggested that an eligible man like Darcy must be in need of a wife and since Elizabeth, was in search of a prospective husband due to the entailment of her family’s property, they made the perfect choice for each other. On the other hand, in Sense and Sensibility, it was not hinted at the beginning of the novel who the Dashwood sisters would end up with. Though Elinor was interested in Edward, her extreme sense had given the idea that she would not be willing to go through all the trouble to be with him considering the odds against them. It was unlikely that Marianne would marry Colonel Brandon since she was in favor of romantics and she had clearly stated that she found Colonel Brandon too old for her to love. Other than the different focus of themes in both the novels, Austen was more “forgiving” towards her characters in Sense and Sensibility than in Pride and Prejudice. As I was reading the novel, I initially set up an analogy between Lydia and Marianne rather than between Elizabeth and Marianne. Though Elizabeth’s pride and her prejudice were indeed flaws in her characters, her interpretation of things was much more discerning than Marianne. Marianne’s tempers and emotions reminded me of Lydia’s lack of maturity and stupidity. However, as the novel developed, Austen gave Marianne a second chance and her circumstances were increasingly similar to Elizabeth’s. The fact that Austen ended the novel with similar end...