Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen. It follows the Dashwood sisters — Elinor and Marianne — as they navigate society in England in the late 1700s.
The plot of S&S revolves around Elinor and Marianne Dashwood’s social connections and love interests. The book begins with the Dashwood family (Elinor, Marianne, their mother, and their younger sister Margaret) being forced to move out of their family home after it’s been left to their half-brother, John. The women move into a cottage of a distant relation in Barton. While there, Marianne falls in love with Willoughby, a local gentleman. Elinor, meanwhile, has some romantic attachment to Edward Ferrars, the brother of her brother John’s wife, Fanny.
Willoughby, it turns out, is a bit of a rascal, and after leading Marianne on (to the extent that all of their social circle believe they must be engaged), decides instead to marry a Miss Grey, who has a large fortune that Willoughby decides he cannot be happy without. Elinor’s attachment to Edward Ferrars is complicated by both his mother’s disapprobation of their (potential) relationship as well as by Edward’s previous engagement to Lucy Steele, a young woman he met through his tutor and her uncle, Mr. Pratt.
After being “dumped” by Willoughby, Marianne changes from an exuberant, self-assured young woman into a bit more of a melancholy one. These changes are further exacerbated by an illness she contracts later on in the novel.
Ultimately, Elinor ends up marrying Edward Ferrars after Lucy Steele leaves Edward in favor of his brother Robert (who will inherit the family estate from Mrs. Ferrars). Marianne ends up marrying Colonel Brandon — an “older” man of 35 years who has been in love with Marianne since the start of the novel. Colonel Brandon is well-liked by all who know him, but he has a mild manner, which Marianne does not appreciate until the end of the novel.
Opinion
I generally like S&S, and I think Jane Austen is a nearly-unmatched social commentator. Her sharp wit and irony are fully on display in S&S.
As with many other novels of this era, it of course has a happy ending. I don’t necessarily hold that against it, but the contemporary reader does need to suspend some disbelief regarding the ending.
That said, I do have two gripes with the book. The first is that I don’t know why we’re supposed to like Edward Ferrars. We are supposed to like him, since he’s Elinor’s eventual husband. But we get very little description throughout the book of his good qualities. His best traits seem to be his honesty and his loyalty — which aren’t nothing! But he seems a bit of a dud otherwise. He isn’t clever, nor does he seem particularly intelligent or interesting. We are told early on that Elinor loves him, yet we are never really shown what makes him lovable.
Second, the “shipping” of Marianne and Colonel Brandon happens in like 1.5 pages at the end of the book. We see Marianne’s personality and temperament change throughout the novel, and we as readers intuit that this more-sensible version of Marianne is, in fact, a better match for Brandon. But the explanation for their marriage is kinda just that Marianne was finally worn down and agreed to marry him? It’s a bit unsatisfying.