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5 The Reasons For Austen’s View on Love. 13
5.1 The Background of Austen’s Family 13
5.2 The Background of Society and Culture at That Time. 14
6 Applicability of Austen’s View on Love to Modern Marriage and Love 15
6.1 Financial Condition in a Happy Marriage . 15
6.2 Blancing Sense and Sensibility well.. 15
7 Conclusions.. 17
Bibliography. 18
1 Introduction
Jane Austen was a great writer in the 19th century. She was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism and biting social commentary have gained her historical importance among scholars and critics. Her greatness lies in her ability to stimulate readers to supply what is not there and expand a trifle in people’s mind and endow with most enduring form of life scenes. Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry. She was the second daughter and seventh child in a family of eight. She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to her development as a professional writer. Her artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years into her thirties. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. In her works, Austen vividly revealed the class relationship, social customs and morals of her time by meticulously and humorously depicting the life of the rural gentry at that time. From 1811 to 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a great published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both of which published posthumously in 1818, and began a third one, which was finally titled Sanditon, but died before completing it. (D.L. Faye, 2009: 36)
Sense and Sensibility, the first novel of Austen is a good representation. Austen wrote the first draft of Elinor and Marianne (later retitled Sense and Sensibility) in epistolary form sometime around 1795 when she was about 19 years old. While she had written a great deal of short fiction in her teens, Elinor and Marianne was her first full-length novel. The plot revolves around a contrast between Elinor’s sense and Marianne’s emotionalism; the two sisters may have been loosely based on the author and her beloved elder sister, Cassandra, with Austen casting Cassandra as the restrained and well-judging sister and herself as the emotional one. The essential theme of the novel is the necessity of finding a workable ground between passion and reason. The story revolves around the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. While the former is a sensible and rational girl, her younger sister is wildly romantic —— a characteristic that offers Austen plenty of scope for both compassion and enthusiasm. When they find the men they love have other lovers, one controls her emotion and the other lets emotion control her action. However, for a long time, it is debatable among many scholars whether or not the sense dominates the sensibility in this novel. It is just this point that attracts me for my study. In my opinion, sense and sensibility is a mixed-up book. In other words, Austen favors Elinor’s sense. On the other hand, she also appreciates Marianne, deeming that her spirit is laudable. It seems that Austen has been wandering up and down between sense and sensibility. In fact, she maintains combining the sense and sensibility. On the whole, this novel is characterized by the opposition and harmony, due to Austen’s special social and cultural background.