Sense and Sensibility: Notes on Rereading

A quick preface to the first article of this blog. I had an old blog but it has been several years since I posted with any regularity on it, and I think the direction of my blog-style writings has changed since then. So, I've started a new blog - not that there will necessarily be any more coherence in the themes, but hopefully it will reflect my modern, twenty-five-year-old self with more accuracy.

I've just finished reading Sense and Sensibility, which I hadn't read in full for a good few years - possibly since my second year of university, if not before then. Like many, I'm a big fan of the Ang Lee film (1995), which won an Oscar for Emma Thompson's adaptation from the novel and started some fantastic actors: Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, Thompson of course, Gemma Jones, Harriet Walter, Imogen Stubbs, Hugh Grant, Imelda Staunton - so many, in fact, that it seems like a 'best-of-British-acting' reunion (perhaps foreshadowingthe Harry Potter films, which star at least six of the same actors ...?). The film is charming and funny, and includes some lovely original music.

Rereading the novel, the first that Austen published (in 1811), served to remind me of several things that the film leaves out through the need for economy:

A. Pairs of sisters
There are three pairs of sisters in the novel, and only one in the film. Marianne and Elinor of course are in both. But the film leaves out Lucy Steele's elder sister Nancy. Nancy, by the way, is rather important in the novel, since it's her that reveals Lucy's secret engagement to Edward to her prospective in-laws and sets in motion the chain of events which eventually leads to the happy ending. In the film, it's Lucy who does this herself, which is not inconsistent with her general character, but robs the film of the interesting contrast between one pair of sisters who, although very different in some ways, are both artless and behave with integrity (the Dashwoods), and the other pair who are irritating, greedy and false (the Steeles).

There are also Mrs Jennings's two daughters, one of whom was cut from the film, along with her four children, leaving her husband, Sir John, Mrs Jennings's son-in-law, a widower. This does raise a question of characterisation: what happened to his wife/Mrs Jennings's daughter, and why are they both so cheerful about it? The dead woman is never once mentioned in the film, which does start to stretch the bounds of credibility a little. I can understand why they'd cut her in the film, as she's pretty dull and doesn't add to the plot particularly, but her absence does make both Sir John and Mrs Jennings seem rather callous.

B. Willoughby's appeal
I had completely forgotten that Willoughby comes to see Elinor when Marianne is seriously ill at the end of the novel, begs Elinor to forgive him, and pours out his love for Marianne. It's a typically morally dubious decision on Willoughby's part, since he's already married to a rich young lady and is rather rude about her during his conversation with Elinor, but it serves to underline his very real love for Marianne and encourages us to see his downfall as tragic, the result of fundamental flaws in his character, rather than deliberate manipulation or evil.

In the film, this is cut, and we simply see Willoughby perched on a hill, looking down with a mournful expression at the double wedding taking place below him. On the whole, I think this was a sensible decision. The drama of Marianne's illness would have been interrupted, and the film unnecessarily lengthened, by its inclusion, and the symbolic exclusion of Willoughby from the celebrations makes him the rather lonely, regretful figure that Austen presents, but in a more efficient, visually-striking way.

C. Mrs Jennings
Mrs Jennings is a widow in both novel and film (where she's played by Elizabeth Spriggs). Along with her son-in-law and daughters (daughter singular in the film), she is continually both helpful and irritating to the Dashwoods through her lack of tact and perpetual cheerfulness. She is introduced as "a good-humoured, merry, fat, elderly woman, who talked a great deal, seemed very happy, and rather vulgar". She teases Elinor and Marianne and practically everyone else about romantic entanglements, real and imagined, and Marianne is often quite rude to her because she fails to see that most of Mrs Jennings's comments are well-meant.

What is developed much more in the novel, and gave me a lot of joy to read, was the fact that Mrs Jennings rises in the estimation of Elinor and Marianne throughout the book because of her loyalty and good sense. Four quotations are enough to illustrate this:

1. When Mrs Jennings is defending Edward for keeping to his engagement with Lucy:

'Then,' cried Mrs Jennings, with blunt sincerity, no longer able to be silent, 'he has acted like an honest man. I beg your pardon, Mr Dashwood, but if he had done otherwise, I should have thought him a rascal.'

Here, Austen cleverly has Mrs Jennings act as the ventriloquist's dummy for the reader. She says what we're all thinking: that Edward's actions prove him to be so honourable as to give up his own chance of happiness and fortune - what a hero.

2. When Marianne is ill at Cleveland, the residence of Mrs Jennings's daughter Charlotte and her husband Mr Palmer:

Mrs Jennings, however, with a kindness of heart which made Elinor really love her, declared her resolution of not stirring from Cleveland as long as Marianne remained ill, and of endeavouring, by her own attentive care, to supply to her the place of the mother she had taken her from; and Elinor found her on every occasion a most willing and active helpmate, desirous to share in all her fatigues, and often, by her better experienced in nursing, of material use. 

Again, Austen has been clever enough here to make Mrs Jennings not only kind, but actually useful and skilful. We begin to see her true worth lies beyond all her hilarity and cheerfulness, in true loyalty and generosity.

3.  When Marianne leaves Cleveland, having recovered, --

... after taking so particular and lengthened a leave of Mrs Jennings -- one so earnestly grateful, so full of respect and kind wishes as seemed due to her own heart from a secret acknowledgement of past inattention ...

The reader wholeheartedly supports Marianne's other conversions, to see that Willoughby is a scoundrel and Colonel Brandon a gentle and passionate lover - and therefore we are inclined to agree with this one, which seems to suggest that Mrs Jennings's good qualities should take precedence in our overall judgement of her character.

4. In the penultimate paragraph of the novel:

... and fortunately for Sir John and Mrs Jennings, when Marianne was taken from them, Margaret had reached an age highly suitable for dancing, and not very ineligible for being supposed to have a lover.

Mrs Jennings, still desperate for romantic gossip, is unrepentant. One possible interpretation is that she has no need to repent: her gossip has done no real harm, so she doesn't need to change. Another way of reading this is to admire Jane Austen for not making Mrs Jennings a completely likeable character, even at the end, when the characters have been properly sorted into the good, the bad, and the just-about-pitiable (i.e. Willoughby). We are much more sympathetic towards her than earlier in the novel, but we are made to remember what her essential character is like, and this possibly introduces a bittersweet note into the conclusion, as well as an amusing one.

In between reading Austen novels, I sometimes start to wonder whether her importance has been overblown. But every time I reread another, I remember: she is subtle and brilliant and deserves to be praised in the highest terms.