Sense & Sensibility, chapter 45: Pro vs. Anti Redux

We’ve had a week to process Willoughby’s dramatic monologue and its many implications, but it doesn’t seem like enough time has passed, does it? Of course, since this chapter picks up immediately after he leaves, Elinor only now gets time to think, what the heck was that about?

Still struck with the intensity of the encounter and his deep feelings for MA, she feels that “his influence over her mind [is] heightened by circumstances which ought not in reason to have weight.” Those “circumstances” that ought to have weight (clarification prompted by Tali’s comment) are his abandonment of Eliza the Younger, his choice to marry a wealthy woman he speaks meanly of, and his sporting with MA’s feelings for a time. She’s anxious to “now [blame], now [acquit] herself, for having judged him so harshly before,” an anxiety that I for one do not share. She comes close, though, when she considers that his “open, affectionate, and lively manner,” while enticing, is nevertheless “no merit to possess.” She fails to connect this quality to emotional outbursts and a damaging behavioral pattern (which Willoughby has proven capable of) if left unchecked. But don’t worry—Elinor knows she should condemn Willoughby’s actions. She’s just not there yet.

The Dashwoods (sans Maggie, who’s staying with friends) are reunited when Mama Dashwood arrives alongside Col. Brandon. Happily, she receives the good news and gets to see MA awake before urging her daughter to get back to sleep. It turns out that even Mama Dashwood “could be calm, could be even prudent, when the life of a child was at stake.” It further turns out that she’d been ready to go to Cleveland just as Col. Brandon arrived at the cottage. Even more striking? She admits “her own mistaken judgment in encouraging the unfortunate attachment.” So for once Mama is acting responsibly and not the slightest bit distracted or daydreamy …

Mostly.

During the ride over to Cleveland, as emotions were high and Mama was fearful about MA’s prognosis, Col. Brandon “opened his whole heart to [her].” Now fully “acquainted with his earnest, tender, constant, affection for Marianne” and acknowledging his “noble mind” and “sincerity,” Mama Dashwood is firmly on Team Brandon. Perhaps a little too firmly. Not only does she blithely assume that MA will automatically transfer her affection from Willoughby to Brandon, but she also rewrites history in terms of how she viewed Willoughby. “There was always a something, if you remember, in Willoughby’s eyes at times, which I did not like,” she informs Elinor, although of course Elinor doesn’t recall Mama Dashwood ever opining on Wills’ shifty expression before. Mama also asserts that MA would be happier with Brandon even if Willoughby was available, a subject that the level-headed Elinor will theorize about at a later date.

Elinor doesn’t see it quite that way (and who could blame her?), but she does agree with her mother that Brandon is the better choice of the two men. Indeed, in naming Col. Brandon’s superior qualities, she appears to be recounting the failings of Willoughby: Brandon’s “character [...] does not rest on one act of kindness” (contrast Willoughby’s singular kind act of carrying MA out of the rain), “he has been long and intimately known” among their neighbors (contrast what little they knew about Willoughby’s reputation), and the more she has learned about Brandon, the more she’s come to “value and esteem him” (contrast her hesitation with Willoughby, who has often been dismissive of others).

Let’s take it even further. It can’t be coincidental that two men are moved to confess their true feelings about Marianne to her family members in the span of a few pages. Both are in love with her; both believe that they cannot pursue anything with her. One man is demanding and arguably forceful, and then goes on to make himself look like the victim at every turn. He’s stuck with a rich wife and has no hope of even being acquainted with MA again. The other man offers “an involuntary confidence” but it doesn’t occur to him to “ask for hope or encouragement.” Willoughby is already bitter about the possibility of Col. Brandon ending up with MA—weird, given how much he and MA have bullied Brandon behind his back. But Brandon is sensitive to MA’s broken heart and indifference towards him, quite aware of the age gap, and so expects nothing from her.

I mean … how much more obvious does Austen have to be?

Emotionally, poor Elinor is all over the place. She mourns her sister’s loss of Willoughby to the point where she temporarily wishes that Mrs. Willoughby would die (!), but checks herself quickly. Then, seeing her mother’s happy approval of Col. Brandon as MA’s suitor gives her flashbacks to when Edward once made Mama Dashwood happy for Elinor’s own sake. The narrator points out that Elinor herself gave her mother a “temperate account of” her feelings toward Edward, so I’m not sure if Elinor’s slighted feelings now are supposed to be read as purely selfish or more repressed suffering. (Sound off in the comments if you’ve got any insight.) In any case, she doesn’t dwell on her feelings but rather focuses on MA’s improved health and the prospect, however remote, of seeing her sister mistress of Delaford. 

Next time, Marianne Dashwood lays out her plans for the future as she learns from the mistakes of the past.