Sense and Sensibility

Two posts in one day. I have been doing laundry all day at my sister’s house, and don’t have much else to do here but watch movies, write blog posts, ponder life and wait for laundry to wash and dry.

I am currently watching Sense and Sensibility, starring Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Greg Wise and Alan Rickman (and a young, unknown named Hugh Laurie). It is one of my favorite Jane Austen novels, second only to Pride and Prejudice. The movie won a Golden Globe, and does an excellent job of remaining quite faithful to the book, thanks to Emma Thompson rewriting the screenplay herself.

There are several themes in this novel (and movie) that stand out to me, and each time I watch the movie or read the novel, I always get something different from it. This time around, there are several themes/questions that I am pondering as of late:

1. Is it better to be reserved with emotions, like Elinor, or be blatantly obvious with them, like Marianne, in regards to feelings toward the opposite sex? This theme also came up briefly in Pride and Prejudice, when Charlotte Lucas told Elizabeth Bennett that it is better to show more affection than you feel to secure the man in question as quickly as possible before he is lost to someone else. Elizabeth Bennett disagreed with this theory. I believe in the past, I would say I have been more like Elinor, very reserved with my feelings and emotions. And I wonder if that hasn’t been part of my problems with guys in the past, that I have been too reserved. For me, it’s been a defense mechanism. But I also wonder if it’s not what is preventing me from really having the relationship I long to have.

2. Marianne meets and instantly falls in love with John Willoughby. He courts her for several months, and then without any notice, leaves and goes to London. When she goes to London with Mrs. Jennings and the rest of the party later, and runs into him at a party, he acts very indifferent toward her. She writes to him to ask what is going on, and his cold response tells her that he wishes to apologize if he was too free with his emotions and conveyed sentiments that he did not intent to convey; in other words, he’s sorry if he led her on, but he never meant to make her think that he liked her as anything other than a friend. She is heartbroken, and ends up going for a walk in the rain, catching an unnamed illness and almost dying because of it. My sister and I now use the phrase “I’ve been Willoughby-ed” in reference to guys that lead someone on and then decide that “you are just friends” or “you are reading too much into it” or do anything Willoughby-esque. I am tired of being Willoughby-ed. I am tired of guys that make you think one thing, just to find out later you were wrong. In Willoughby’s case in the novel, however, he really did love Marianne, but due to circumstances, some of his own doing and some beyond his control, he cannot marry her, and instead marries for money. She can at least take solace in the idea that it’s not because she’s not good enough. That is something that I am also tired of. I’m tired of not being (fill in the blank)-enough. Tall enough, smart enough, pretty enough, funny enough, etc. etc.

3. The end of the movie does give one hope, however. Elinor has fallen in love with Edward Ferrars, and finds out from her friend Lucy Steele that Edward and Lucy have been secretly engaged for the last five years. She thinks that it is over forever, especially when she hears that “Miss Steele and Mr. Ferrars were married over the weekend.” Turns out, Lucy runs away with Edward’s brother, Robert, which frees Edward up to ask Elinor to marry him. Edward had been in love with Elinor since he met her, but refused to act on it due to his honor and duty to his previous engagement. So, even though her heart had been broken, she finds out that he loved her all this time and she gets her happy ever after ending. It gives me hope that even though I think that men are wankers now, that one day I may get my happy ever after ending as well. Jane Austen wrote fiction, yes, but not fairy tales. The endings were actually endings that could happen in “real life”.

So…what do I take from this? Many things. But also many more questions have been prompted. Thanks, Jane.