Sense & Sensibility, chapter 27: I'll Never Walk Berkeley Street Again

Have we reached the zenith of Marianne at her most unreasonable in this chapter?

The facts are these: She’s obsessed with the weather, which is currently perfect for hunting season. She steals a visitor card before Mrs. Jennings—her hostess and the person to whom the card is intended for—even knows it’s there. She refuses to dance at a party and doesn’t come out of her room when visitors are at the house. In other words, she’s quite the little pill.

Here’s the thing to remember, though, about MA: Her actions are unreasonable. Her behavior and self-centeredness is unreasonable. I argue, however, that her logic is understandable. It’s just that readers have to move past Elinor’s very valid distress and concern to understand it.

I present the following exchange between the sisters:

    “You are expecting a letter then?” said Elinor, unable to be longer silent.

“Yes, a little—not much.”

    After a short pause, “You have no confidence in me, Marianne.”

    “Nay, Elinor, this reproach from you! [Y]ou who have confidence in no one!”

    “Me!” returned Elinor in some confusion; “indeed, Marianne, I have nothing to tell.”

    “Nor I,” answered Marianne with energy, “our situations then are alike. We have neither of us anything to tell; you, because you communicate [nothing], and I, because I conceal nothing.”

Oooh, Regency burn. And also a prime example of the unreasonable behavior that makes MA so frustrating. But that use of the words “tell” and “communicate” are, in themselves, telling. What have we heard MA say before? “[S]ometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning” (ch. 18). From her perspective, MA has effectively communicated her feelings to those around her through her actions. She cried and fasted for a few days after Willoughby left. She took the first chance she got to travel to London, where Willoughby himself claimed to have gone. Shapard muses that, for MA, “prosaic details regarding actual engagement or marriage plans are a minor matter.” Marianne Dashwood, in the view of … Marianne Dashwood, does not “conceal” her feelings.

But Elinor does.

Look at it from MA’s perspective. Earlier in the year, she watched her older sister’s relationship with Edward steadily progress. She’s fully on Team Edward. And now that relationship appears to be at a standstill because of Elinor’s inaction. How is MA supposed to interpret Elinor’s mildness and statements of indifference? Elinor has to be lying to her.

Of course, not for the first time in the novel, MA has hit close to the mark. Elinor is in fact hiding a substantial piece of information concerning her prospective relationship with Edward. And Elinor suspects that she appears to be hypocritical to some extent: she’s “not at liberty” to defend herself and doesn’t know “how, under such circumstances, to press for greater openness in Marianne.” Meanwhile, she’s stuck watching Marianne a) wear a hole in the carpet from all her pacing and b) react in shock to the news that Willoughby declined to appear at a dance she attended. All she can do is write to Mama Dashwood and “procure those inquiries which had been so long delayed.” (Would that everyone had a kind, patient older sister.)

On top of that, MA’s refusal to just talk like a mere mortal sensible person puts Elinor in an awkward position. It’s bad enough that Mrs. J is unintentionally feeding into MA’s anxiety about Willoughby, but what’s worse is that the supposed engagement is talked about as if it’s fact. (Irony of ironies, the only people who gossip about the engagement—the Middletons, the Palmers, and Mrs. J—are the people MA scorns.) 

It culminates in a recent visit from Col. Brandon, who asks Elinor to confirm the existence of an engagement. “Tell me that it is all absolutely resolved on,” he urges, “... that in short concealment, if concealment be possible, is all that remains.” So Col. Brandon struggles to conceal his own feelings, too, eh? Though he’s aware that hiding his love for MA is the respectful thing to do should she become Mrs. Willoughby. Elinor can’t be truthful because she’s not a fly on the wall of her sister’s brain, and since she kind of wants to protect Col. Brandon from a bigger heartbreak, she basically answers, Yeah … it sure looks that way. Then, with a bit of a dramatic flourish, Col. Brandon hopes that Willoughby “may endeavor to deserve her” before departing. 

You ever feel deep, debilitating anxiety for a character in a book even when you know how it ends? Asking for a friend.

Next week, a London ball ends badly for the Dashwood sisters.

Credit for the above illustration goes to Laurie A. Conley