Sand Carmen Sonia
RE, an 2
Sense and Sensibility
"If I could but know HIS heart, everything would become easy."- Marianne
Marianne is one of the main characters of Sense and sensibility and she
embodies the "sensibility" of the title, as opposed to her elder sister Elinors"
sense.
She embraces spontaneity, excessive sensibility, love of nature, and romantic
idealism. She doesn't really think before she acts, and she believes firmly that one
should be directed by feelings, not logic.
Though probably intended as a caricature of the oversensitive heroine in the lateeighteenth-century novel, Marianne is a character in her own right: "She was
sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no
moderation.
Marianne is amazed that Elinor could love the colorless Edward. "He is not the
kind of young man there is something wanting," she tells her mother. She looks
on Colonel Brandon as an old man, past romance, although he is only thirty-five,
and falls headlong in love with the shallow Willoughby: "His person and air were
equal to what her fancy had ever drawn for the hero of a favorite story." Always
too impulsive, Marianne goes with Willoughby to look over Mrs. Smith's house,
accepts his offer of a horse, and pokes fun at Colonel Brandon to please him.
Intolerant of the feelings of others, Marianne is displeased by Sir John's jests and
finds Mrs. Jennings vulgar and gossipy. She treats the old lady impolitely during
their trip to London but is eager to avail herself of Mrs. Jennings' hospitality. She is
outspoken and honest, and cannot tell even a polite lie.
Marianne's "sensibility" represents the kind of literary heroine common in the socalled "novel of sensibility," or sentimental novel. These heroines were typically
romantic, innocent young girls, inclined to swoon and be relatively confused.
In the end, impulsive Marianne comes to realize that her unleashed emotions
almost killed her literally (her near-fatal illness was the result of her impassioned
walks in the rain, thinking about Willoughby). She decides to try and incorporate
more practical elements into her life, and resolves to be more like Elinor. Her
decision to marry Colonel Brandon is the ultimate practical step in her life
though she didn't immediately feel sparks with the Colonel, she intellectually
appreciates that he's a good guy, and he can provide a wonderful life for her. We're
not saying that Marianne just completely gives up on feelings after all, Austen
claims that she learns to love the Colonel before she agrees to marry him but
she's certainly wrapped a good, thick insulating layer of sense around her raw,
emotional core by the end of the novel.
Married to him, she achieves happiness because she "could never love by halves;
and her whole heart became in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had
once been to Willoughby."
The people she does love, however, she loves with warmth that leaps over all
barrierseven barriers of propriety. Her sorrows, her joys, her antipathy and her
love will have no moderationno concealing.
Mariannes form is not so correct as her sisters, but more striking, and her
features are all good, her face is lovely: her skin is very brown, but from its
transparency, her complexion was uncommonly brilliant, and in her eyes there is
a life, a spirit, an eagerness which could hardly be seen without delight.
