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Jane Austen Society of Australia << More JASA writings on Sense & Sensibility
Study day - Sense & Sensibility:
The Retreat from Reason
JASA members participated in a lively study day entitled Sense and
Sensibility: The Retreat From Reason. The delightful first session, From Reason
to Romance was more about ‘making Sense out of Sensibility’. The scene for
the group discussion was set with music and readings from the period, which relaxed us all
and smoothed the way to a lively discussion on the qualities of the characters in the
novel. This led to discussion and comparison of those characters, with people known to us
today! It just shows how relevant is the characterisation of Jane Austen in the 19th
century to our modern times. In her introduction, Yvette Field pointed out that…
the novel is frequently seen as a debate between Elinor, representing
sense and Marianne, representing sensibility, but most of us recognise that both sisters
have sense and both have sensibility. The difference is that Elinor feels the need to
subdue her feelings for the good of everyone, so she acts with common sense and social
civility, whereas Marianne glories in her feelings almost to destruction and scorns those
who show no overt emotion or aesthetic sensitivity. That is one view of the difference, on
the side of sense. Claire Tomalin in her recent biography of Jane Austen, (p 155) with
what sounds like a decided preference for sensibility, sees the novel as ‘a debate
about behaviour in which Austen compares the discretion, polite lies and carefully
preserved privacy of one sister with the transparency, truth-telling and freely expressed
emotion of the other’.
This left the debate, obviously and more interestingly, to members.
Yvette continued:
As Maggie Lane (Jane Austen’s World. 1996, p 118) has
remarked, in Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen is reacting to her youthful reading. She
also has Marianne react to the music and poetry and aesthetics of the period.
In the novel three points are made in reaction to the cult of
sensibility; one is that people can exaggerate and falsify their feelings to be seen as
superior, another is that however profound and true feelings may be, they should never be
an excuse to ignore ‘the common decencies of social behaviour’. (Lane, p 118)
and the third is that to give way to excessive grief can lead, against all moral precepts,
to self destruction.
We considered the qualities and traits of some of the characters: where
they showed ‘excess sensibility’, we were asked to consider if this sensibility
actually endowed the character with virtue, benevolence and compassion. Suffice to say the
opinions of the groups were varied and the depth of meaning of Jane’s characters will
live on to fight another day!
Our second session dealt with the practical aspects of life during this
time. We looked at the legal structure of family life, focusing on Wills, Settlements and
Entails of Property. We were given the background as to how these legal enactments came to
be established and how they affected the lives of both the nobility and the middle
classes. We looked at the incomes and expenditure of people and how the impact of the
legal system and customs of transfer or sharing of wealth could make one’s life
either bearable or not. Nothing much has changed! Yvette introduced members re-enacting an
excerpt from King Lear which Jane Austen knew well. The similarities are obvious, between
the way Goneril and Regan reduce to nothing their father’s attendant knights, and the
way John and Fanny Dashwood similarly reduce to nothing the promise he had made to his
father to care for the family. Members will of course recall that powerful Lear extract
from Act 2 sc iv: (non-significant lines have been edited out)
Regan.
I pray you, father, being weak, seem so
If, till the expiration of your month,
You will return and sojourn with my
sister,
Reducing half your train, come then to me.
Lear.
Return to her? And fifty men dismissed?
No! rather I abjure all roofs.
Goneril.
At your choice, sir.
Lear.
I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,
I and my hundred knights.
Regan.
Not altogether so.
What! Fifty Followers?
Is it not well? What should you need of
more?
Yea, or so many.
Goneril.
Why might not you, my lord, attendance
receive
From those that she calls servants, or from
mine?
Regan.
If you will come to me, I entreat you,
To bring no more than five and twenty; to
no more
Will I give place or notice.
Lear.
What! Must I come to you
With five and twenty! Regan, said you so?
(to Goneril) I’ll go with thee,
Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty,
And thou art twice her love.
Goneril.
Hear me, my lord,
What need you five and twenty, ten, or five,
To follow in a house where twice so many
Have a command to tend you?
Regan.
What need one?
Lear.
O Reason not the need!
Over lunch, we were challenged with a questionnaire and a S&S crossword puzzle, testing our knowledge of the novel and
our ability to find the answers.
Our third session looked at the ‘Power of the Weaker Sex’. We
noted how the character of Marianne was portrayed as having extremes of emotion and
distress, such that those extremes became dominant over other events in her life. We
witnessed some wonderful (over?)acting of scenes from the novel, which were then the
subject of a dialogue, contrasting the learned approach of Dr Jungfreud with the practical
opinion of the apothecary, Mr Harris. We looked at the neuroses, which appeared to arise
from the sensibilities displayed by the characters. The suggestion was that the neurosis
inevitably led to disorders in health.
In all the discussions we marvelled at how all these threads of human
nature were drawn together by Jane Austen, to give us this most enjoyable of novels.
Without Jane and her hard working JASA Committee, this day would not have been possible!
For those who have access to the Internet, have some fun checking out
the site www.gutenberg.net/, and if you are a genius and believe in the impossible and Dr
Jungfreud, try to access www.jungfreud.com.
Georgina Blythe
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