Sense and Sensibility

In literature there are two main types of conflict: internal (sometimes called psychological) and external. In Sense and Sensibility, we see both types of conflict at play.External conflicts exist...

As the title suggests, the primary theme of Sense and Sensibility is the use of sense vs. sensibility. In protest against the romantic literature of her day that praised extreme emotionalism and...

The relationship between the Dashwood sisters is that of the title: Sense and Sensibility. While each sister begins clearly representing one quality rather than the other, by the novel’s end, Jane...

In Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen uses what's called a third-person omniscient point of view. This is where the narrator sees all and knows all. Such a point of view gives us privileged access...

Sense and Sensibility is set in gentry (what we might roughly call upper middle class/lower aristocratic) locales in early nineteenth century England, settings Jane Austen would have been...

The novel starts out being set in Sussex County in England but then the Dashwood women must relocate. We learn of the initial setting of the novel in the very first couple of sentences in the...

Jane Austen does not typically use a lot of literary devices in her writing, but instead usually prefers a much more direct approach that allows her story line and characters to be the heart of the...

Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are quite different from one another, with respect to their emotions and how they show their feelings. Both characters feel intense loss over their father's death, but...

Willoughby owns a small estate that doesn't bring him much income while Colonel Brandon's estate makes him a wealthy man. However, it is character issues more than wealth that divide these two...

As the title suggests, the theme of sense (logic, reason, common sense, sound thinking) versus sensibility (emotion, romanticism, feelings, passion, impulsive behavior) is the most important...

John Willoughby and Colonel Brandon are the two main competitors for Marianne's hand in marriage. They are both foils of one another, each acting as the polar opposite of the other and therefore...

In Sense and Sensibility, the women in the Dashwood family—Elinor, Marianne, Margaret, and their mother—are more at home in the countryside of Devonshire than in London. One setting in the book is...

As it is stated in the title, Sense and Sensibility illustrates the clash that occurs when emotions rule our common sense. Austen presents, in a variety of story lines, that romance and social...

The title of the book itself could be construed as representing the main conflict. Elinor is the Dashwood sister with "sense" in the story, whereas Marianne is, for the most part, a slave to her...

Jane Austen wrote Sense and Sensibility as a protest against the Romantic era and its emphasis of feelings over rational thought. Many Romantic authors and poets dramatized emotions, especially...

The Dashwood women's removal to Barton Cottage significantly changes the company they keep as well as their prospects for marriage. Obviously, the family move means that Elinor will no longer...

Marianne first learns to show emotional restraint. She comes to realize that she doesn't need to always wear her heart on her sleeve. She learns to restrain herself from jumping to conclusions. At...

As the title suggests, Austen's main point in Sense and Sensibility is to philosophize or moralize about two different perspectives or personality types. Hence, since Austen uses two sisters to...

Austen made her central characters sets of siblings who have opposing characteristics and even opposing educations. This choice permits her to explore the ideas of human nature and environmental...

Among others, Jane Austen alludes to William Gilpin, author of essays on the picturesque, when Marianne says: Every body pretends to feel and tries to describe with the taste and elegance of him...

In order to understand Sense and Sensibility (indeed, any of Austen's works), it is critical to understand Georgian society and culture (1714-1830, includes Georgian Regency 1811-1820), especially...

The climax is the most emotional moment of the plot and also the moment when the resolution comes into view. As the title suggests, since the plot is about two parallel and intertwining stories of...

Lucy was naturally clever; her remarks were often just and amusing; and as a companion for half an hour Elinor frequently found her agreeable; but her powers had received no aid from education: she...

One major theme in Sense and Sensibility is the contrast between the rational mind and emotions. Jane Austen wrote this novel as a protest against the passionate ideas found in popular works of the...

Elinor and Marianne in Sense and Sensibility have some character traits in common but most of their traits are opposites. The character traits that they have in common are that they are both well...

There are three narrative structural elements that we find in Jane Austen's Chapter 11 and 12 of Sense and Sensibility. The first is one we find all throughout the book and that is Austen's chosen...

The title itself could be construed as symbolic. Elinor is the sensible Dashwood sister in the story, whereas Marianne is given to sensibility, or emotions. In the long run, however, once Marianne...

Three literary devices that contribute to the success of the novel are antithesis, point-of-view, and irony. Antithesis is the putting of opposites together. As the title of the novel indicates,...

There are several differences between the book and the movie Sense and Sensibility, originally authored by Jane Austen and adapted for film by Emma Thompson, who also stars as Elinor. Naturally,...

Jane Austen actually very seldom uses metaphor. Her preferred writing style is much more direct, saying exactly what she wants to say without making allusions or comparisons. I certainly cannot...

Mr. and Mrs. Palmer resided in Somersetshire, England in the novel Sense and Sensibility. Somersetshire is located in southwest England, and today the county's name has been shortened and is...

The narrator of this text is of the third person omniscient variety. This means that the narrator is not a participant in the events that take place in the story (this is the "third person" part),...

Elinor and Marianne represent, respectively, the sense and sensibility of the title. Their biggest contrast lies in their respective temperaments, which really couldn't be any more different....

Jane Austen’s intent in the novel Sense and Sensibility with her inclusion of the accounts of gossip and social drivel is to mock and decry it. Austen was famous for her distaste for typical...

One scene in Sense and Sensibility that demonstrates Marianne's sensibility (violent, unrestrained emotion) is when she bids farewell to the trees, leaves, flowers, wind, etc., etc. at Norland Park...

Austen routinely uses both direct characterization and indirect characterization to draw the picture of her characters. She began using this dual approach to characterization in Pride and Prejudice...

Allusion is definitely one literary element Austen frequently uses in Sense and Sensibility. One allusion can be found in Chapter 5 in which Marianne is saying adieu to Norland. Her long, dramatic...

Sense and Sensibility begins with a rather staid discussion of how fortunes were disposed of in the time of Austen. The two Dashwood sisters suffer considerable disappointment in their fortunes;...

The character of Edward Ferrars is far from an ideal consort to the main character. In presenting Edward, Jane Austen introduces us to a man who is described as "not handsome", and with manners...

Austen shows that it is faithfulness and upright character that are most important in a man. Willoughby may be dashing, charming, and handsome, but his character is weak. He falls in love with...

The usual take on Elinor and Marianne is that Elinor is the reserved, rational one, and Marianne is the emotional, Romantic one. There is plenty of evidence in the book to support this...

The lines you quote actually come from the 1995 film version directed by Ang Lee with script written by Emma Thompson. Though there are a lot of similarities between the film and the actual novel,...

When Elinor says I am afraid...that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety she is basically stating that Marianne is breaking the rules of social propriety that...

There are two different ways one could approach writing a compare and contrast essay about Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. The first is comparing elements within the novel with each other and...

The climax is the point where everything changes. The turning point of this story is when Marianne gets sick. It's a physical manifestation of her inner turmoil, and exposing oneself to the...

One literary device Jane Austen uses in Sense and Sensibility is didacticism. The didactic novel was a popular form in the 1790s, which compared two ideologies and preached that one was right and...