From High Sensibility to Having More Sense

In case you haven’t heard, I’m working on a Sense and Sensibility book: Colonel Brandon in His Own Words. From the title (or if you read Fitzwilliam Darcy in His Own Words), you will have guessed that this novel will be told completely from the hero’s point of view, covering the scope of the original novel and a lot more. The upcoming book is about 3/4 done right now, and I hope to have it out sometime this summer! (Read some sneak peeks here and here)

So I’ve been dwelling in the world of Sense and Sensibility for several months now, immersing myself in the story and trying to get a handle on everything Jane Austen told us – about the characters’ traits, their pasts, timelines, activities, including how they grew and changed. Which led me to this quote at the end of the book:

Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favourite maxims. She was born to overcome an affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and with no sentiment superior to strong esteem and lively friendship, voluntarily to give her hand to another! – and that other, a man who had suffered no less than herself under the event of a former attachment, whom, two years before, she had considered too old to be married… But so it was. Instead of falling a sacrifice to an irresistible passion, as once she had fondly flattered herself with expecting, – instead of remaining even for ever with her mother… as afterwards in her more calm and sober judgment she had determined on – she found herself at nineteen, submitting to new attachments, entering on new duties, placed in a new home, a wife, the mistress of a family, and the patroness of a village.

I love this insightful account of the revolution in Marianne’s character throughout the course of the story. In the beginning, she is ruled by her feelings alone. Without a single scruple she throws caution (and propriety) to the wind… and herself into Willoughby’s arms, taking her romantic sensibilities so far that she cannot imagine going on without him.

As she says in the ’95 film (but not in the book) of heroines like Juliet, Guinevere, and Eloise, “To love is to burn, to be on fire, …To die for love? …What could be more glorious?”

By the end of the book, though, Marianne has by painful experience gained a more balanced perspective and a measure of common sense. She’s learned that her sister’s more reserved approach to life may have some merit after all. She also ultimately discovers it is possible to love again, and that the second, though different, may be just as satisfying (and far more enduring) than the first.

There’s only one unsettling thing about the quote above, and that’s that Jane Austen tells us (or at least implies) that Marianne didn’t love Brandon when she married him, having no sentiment superior to strong esteem and lively friendship. But I prefer to believe that she was at least half in love with him at the time, because it says a bit further on that, since she could never love by halves, her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband as it had once been to Willoughby.

I haven’t written that part of my novel yet, so I’ll have to decide how I’m going to handle the issue when I get there. I guess since I’m writing from Colonel Brandon’s point-of-view, he might not necessarily  be aware exactly how Marianne feels about him, only that she said yes!

I’ve always identified more with Elinor – sensible, steady, responsible, playing by the rules. But, if I look back to my pre- to early teens, I realize I may have started out much more like Marianne than I care to admit – overly romantic (something I probably haven’t completely outgrown, to tell the truth) and prone to melodrama. After all, Romeo and Juliet was my first movie obsession (and Leonard Whiting my first movie crush – anyone with me?) And like Marianne, I wallowed in the misery of my first heartbreak for months. Fortunately, I too lived to love again.

So what about you? Are you more Elinor or Marianne? Would you choose the dashing Willoughby, or Col. Brandon, “the very best of men”? Tough decision, probably because we tend to want it all. We’d like to think we are both smart and emotionally deep; and our ideal man would embody all the best of both Willoughby and Brandon. And what do you think; did Marianne love Brandon when she married him or only later? Does it matter?