Sense And Sensibility Analysis

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Marianne Dashwood: From Sensibility to Sense In Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, Marianne Dashwood is a young, attractive character filled with imagination, enthusiasm, and love. Marianne is entirely emotional, living life impulsively and fervently, and because of her actions, is taught a life lesson. Marianne possesses sensibility in most of the novel, with every facet of her life demanding passion. Marianne believes that individuals should act on their own feelings and emotions rather than acting on logic, reason, and common sense. Marianne appears to react subconsciously and heedlessly to situations rather than consciously assessing and reasoning before she acts. Marianne physically pours out her feelings by playing passionate, joyless songs on the piano or by having crazed, emotional outbursts. In her love life she hits high and low extremes: Marianne is emotionally whimsical when she is in love with Willoughby however, she is completely struck with sadness and despair when the relationship takes a troublesome turn. Marianne’s emotions do not only affect her, but also impact her family and everyone else around her. As Marianne begins to notice her actions, she begins to shift her characteristics from those of irrationality, imagination, and emotion to reason, intellect, and restraint in feeling. This transformation shows the differences between Romanticism and Neo-Classicism. Romanticism is emphasizes passion and imagination, while Neo-Classicism concentrates on thinking logically and unemotionally. There are two scenes in particular that depict Marianne’s transformation from sensibility to a mediation between sensibility and sense. The first scene occurs when Marianne receives the letter from Willoughby that leads her to react with an emotional rant. Willoughby sends Marianne to her lowest temperamental state by writing a cold-hearted letter
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