Summary
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen is a poignant and elegant novel that explores the balance between emotion and reason, love and social expectation, through the lives of two very different sisters: Elinor and Marianne Dashwood.
After the death of their father, the Dashwood women are left with little income and forced to leave their family estate. Elinor, the elder sister, embodies sense—rational, composed, and self-restrained—while Marianne represents sensibility, or emotion—passionate, expressive, and romantic.
Both women experience heartbreak: Elinor harbors secret sorrow when Edward Ferrars, the man she loves, is engaged to someone else, while Marianne falls deeply for the charming but unreliable John Willoughby, only to be devastated by betrayal.
Their parallel journeys through love, disappointment, and eventual growth reveal Austen’s keen insights into character, class, and the limited roles for women in Regency society.
As the story unfolds, Elinor and Marianne come to understand the value in each other’s approach to life and love.
Austen suggests that true happiness requires a blend of reason and feeling, making the novel as emotionally resonant as it is socially observant.