SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility

Introduction

The novel Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811. For the purpose of consumption by public, it was Austen's first novel. When the book was out in the market, it began to get popularity and people loved it. In this novel, Jane Austen portrayed some of the characteristics the traits of which can easily be found in all her later work. Sense and Sensibility is the first full length novel of Jane Austen. The main theme that one can observe in the novels of Jane Austen is the everyday affairs of a woman's life of England in the early part of the nineteenth-century England. Similarly, this novel of Jane Austen also expresses same theme. With the aid of this novel, we learn a woman's feeling in a romantic relationship and significance of family.

Language of the Chapters

Jane Austen had used a very clear language in this novel. There is no mincing of words in the whole novel instead Austen used a simple language in both the chapters. There are no long sentences. The language she used contains no fancy words. There are no flowery flights not only in these two chapters as well as in the rest of the novel. She used the essence of delightfulness in her language. Even in the scenes where she had to describe a difficult situation or conditions she opted to keep her style and language simple, clear and easy to understand (Claire 1997, 155).

Comparison and contrast of chapter 2 and 4

Some of the finest examples of Austen's ironic writing are found in the scene in which John Dashwood is persuaded not to help his relatives financially. "I would not wish to do anything mean," he says complacently, and moments later decides to give them nothing. His wife reminds him, "They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly any servants; they will keep no company, and can have no expenses of any kind! Only conceive how comfortable they will be!" John Dashwood needs only the excuse, which his wife willingly gives him, to deprive his relations of money which they desperately need to facilitate their already precarious condition. Once he has been able to rationalize his ruthlessness with the weakest arguments possible, he easily clears his conscience of all subsequent responsibility (Austen 2008, A4).

Unlike the authors of today's era who prefer to describe cruelty in an explicit way, Jane Austen preferred to give the description of cruelty in a less explicit way. On the contrary, Jane Austen' preferred style to elaborate any cruelty in a subtle way. A critic of literature Mark Schorer calls this method of describing cruelty as verbal brutalities that is to shock the readers by portraying the cruelty that underlies social pride. In chapter two, the character of Fanny Dashwood coerces her husband to not to be so affectionate and sympathetic to his stepmother and half-sisters. Fenny used to envy her mother in law (Claire 1997, 157).

Austen's standards of behaviour, reflected in her use of such ...