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How does arriving at Barton Cottage influence the Miss Dashwoods in Sense and Sensibility?
Quick answer:
The Dashwood's arrival at Barton Cottage sets the main plot into motion, exposing the Dashwood women to new company in the form of the Jennings and the Middletons and introducing important characters like Colonel Brandon and Willoughby. Their relocation to a humble cottage also highlights their reduced financial circumstances, making it simultaneously more important and more difficult for Elinor and Marianne to make advantageous marriages.
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 see—with any regularity—her sister-in-law's brother Edward Ferrars, with whom she seems to have fallen very much in love. Their circumstances dramatically reduced, they can only afford to keep three servants in their employ, and they simply do not have the room to entertain much company. Through the Middletons, the ladies meet Colonel Brandon as well as Mrs. Jennings. Colonel Brandon is everything gentlemanly and good, while Mrs. Jennings is a relatively harmless gossip who meddles incessantly. They also meet Willoughby, the man who eventually abandons Marianne for Miss Grey and her fifty thousand pounds. After their falling out from society—caused by their reduced circumstances and fortune—most people think it unlikely that any respectable gentlemen will propose to them. (Thankfully, these...
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people are wrong.)
Having to transition from Norland Park to Barton Cottage is a huge
shock and a huge transition for the Dashwoods. Their manner at Norland
was so grand and beautiful as to "engage the general good opinion of their
surrounding acquaintance" (Ch. 1). However, the estate was left to Mr. Henry
Dashwood's son, with nothing for his wife and daughters, except five hundred
pounds a year. Therefore, upon Henry Dashwood's death, the girls are forced to
leave Norland and accept a cottage to rent from another family member.
The cottage is certainly small in comparison to Norland manner, with only two
sitting rooms, four bedrooms, and two garrets. It is comfortable and well
built; however, the girls were disappointing because it looks nothing like what
a cottage should look like. As Austen describes:
The building was regular, the roof was tiled, the window shutters were not painted green, nor were the walls covered in honeysuckles. (Ch. 6)
The mere size of the house and the fact that they no longer live in Norland
is enough to bring tears to their eyes, but they are determined to be happy.
Hence, one way that their arrival at Barton Cottage influences their
lives is that they must learn to accept a significant
change. They are now poor when before they were very
rich.
In addition, their arrival at Barton Cottage helps move the plot
forward because it is here that they meet some other central
characters, especially Colonel Brandon and Willoughby, but also other
characters like Mrs. Jennings, Sir John Middleton, and Lucy Steele.