Having a strong heart like Elinor and a latent sense similar to Marianne, Jane Austen displayed her characteristics through her characters. Elinor and Marianne were two main characters that Jane Austen used to display her true character.
Elinor is very devoted to her family and tries to do everything she can to support them. Every now and then, when the family is in need of advice, they would all look to Elinor. Marianne was the younger daughter in the family of three sisters and she is always caught up in romantic poetry. At one time in the novel, Marianne went through a catastrophe because the love of her life had left her. Marianne tries to hide her fear to avoid all her distress. Austen 288
Both of the character’s lifestyle reflected that of Jane Austens’. In the writing of the novel Sense and Sensibility, Austen wrote the novel according to her own passionate feelings. People began to notice her writings towards the end of her life. Jane Austen’s lifestyle and characteristics were revealed through her characters Marianne and Elinor in her novel Sense and Sensibility.
Jane Austen began writing novels when she was in her early twenties, she was a very intellectual women. She enjoyed reading many books in her life that gave her an advantage in writing great novels. When Austen wrote the novel Sense and Sensibility, much of her characteristics were seen through the novel. “Jane Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface.
She stimulates us to supply what is not there.” Woolf 19 After Willouby’s sudden break up with Marianne, many deep vivid emotions are shown to the reader.
Austen lived in a society where women mostly worked on farms. Agriculture was the largest employment for women. Weldon 36 While other women were out working on the fields, Austen would be at home diligently thinking about more ideas for her novels. Later as the years passed, Jane Austen became an author for writing novels. From then on, her occupation was to be a magnificent writer. She wrote many books that dealt with her very own lifestyles and emotions. It was not until her death when she began to notice her success in writing novels. One important thing that she could put before her writing was her family. Austen, the seventh of eight children and was ardent towards her family. Her family needed all the help they could receive because her father had passed away.
In the beginning of the novel Sense and Sensibility, Mr. Dashwood died and had no choice but to give his will to his first son and nothing to the rest of the family. Although Jane Austen was not married, she had great romantic feelings and ideas. Austen used Marianne as a character in her novel Sense and
Sensibility, to present her feelings of romanticism. Through out the novel, Marianne usually spoke of Shakespeare’s poetry. Marianne is a lady who is very imaginary and superficial about her dreams. She is all caught up on the romantic part of life. Austen 311 Always being caught up in poetry or another romantic thought, Marianne rarely becomes inconsiderate about what is happening around her. Marianne cares about her family a lot and does not become selfish when there is a problem. The resemblance of Austen and Marianne was that the two of them had romantic feelings and dreams. They also lived their lives as being poor.
Both Austen and Marianne are very dedicated to their family. Happiness will come to the ones who wait patiently for their dreams or goals. Marianne fell deeply in love with a man named John Willoughby. She looked at John like he was the guy of her dreams because he shared the same interest as she did. During the time the two were together, everything was very merry. But as soon as John’s family discovered he was going out with a woman who was without a dowry, they threaten to take his wealth away if he sees her again. After this occurred, Marianne began to go in the state of depression.
Being broken hearted for the rest of her life, she thought, it was not soon until she realizes whom she should have been dating in the first place. She started a new relationship with an old close friend, Colonel Brandon. Marianne lived a happy life after all, as she met the man she could learn to love and Austen discovered her joy in her writing. Austen 305 Jane Austen was devoted to her family all the time and so was Elinor to hers. Elinor was the oldest sister of three daughters from the Dashwood family, and was the most reliable one of all. Whenever there was a dilemma, she would be the responsible daughter and handle the problem. Elinor is a strong women, she was accountable for her duties. Litz 78 Austen portrays her characteristics with Elinor’s by the way they both act when there was a crisis. Every woman has their own responsibilities that they must take care of.
Austen’s tasks were to be obedient to her family and at the same time to be a writer. One similarity that Austen and Elinor had was, the two of them had a great difficulty with men. Austen was never married and wrote romantic novels.
She created the character “Elinor” to display the side of her that fear for men. Where there were parties held, Austen would be fond of dancing but never could really speak to a man because she was too shy. Austen 308 Even though Austen was very smart, she never really got the chance to speak to guys because of her family ties, but using Elinor in her novel to display her feelings toward men, she could achieve her dreams through her writings. Wilson 39
The lifstyle of Jane Austen was incorporated into her writings so she may express her feelings without saying them out loud. Austen’s lifestyle was no different from anyone else’s life in the early 1800s. The only thing that was different about Austen was that she became a popular author. People in her society were very strict and were lawful. This was a big influence for Jane Austen because she was able to see what was going on in her society. Harding 48 She did not live on the easy streets of life; she lived her life like a slave. Women were not paid much working on farms because of the fact that they were females.
Growing up in a harsh society was during the early 1800s, when there were no roads and people got hung for stealing. Weldon 36 Austen grew up knowing what was right from wrong. Being poor as she was, in her novel Sense and Sensibility she related her life in the shoes of the Dashwood’s family. At the same time when her father died, she used this idea in her novel to show how the Dashwood’s became poor like she was. Mercer 309 In writing a novel, Jane Austen used many imaginative thoughts and profound feelings of her own to describe her personality. Austen described what ever she was writing about with a lot of meaning and sense.
“Jane Austen does not expound feelings; she conrveys it. With her artist’s instinct, she knows that exposition by the writer destroys conviction in the reader.” Farrer 39 If she had a character in a field of plain grass, she would detail her scenery with many objects and write about her character with romantic ironic information. Jane Austen thorough describes her characters so the reader would not forget them. Mercer 307
She would try to expand the reader’s mind with many details so the reader does not forget what is happening in the novel. “Jane Austen has a certain style of writing that she kept to, ‘dealt in pictures of domestic life in country villages.'” Watt 42 She even had a certain way of writing that differed from other authors. This is why she is such a great creative writer. She knows what she is going to write about from the beginning. Austen illustrated her feelings through her characters in her novel Sense and Sensibility.
In the beginning of Austen’s career, she was said to be a good writer, but she knew that she could do better. Writing more and more novels, Austen went through a maturing stage in writing the novel Sense and Sensibility. She has gone through two different types of stages of writing and has been successful for writing the ways she does. ” Of all great writers Jane Austen is the most evocative, doing in half a dozen words applied in exactly the proper measures, in exactly the proper place what the sedulous subtleties of Henry James are unable to convey so clearly in as many fine-spun pages. And among the secrets of Jane austen’s inexhaustible charm is that her work, especially in her second period, is so packd with such minute and far-reaching felicities that the thousandth reading of ‘Emma’ or ‘Persuasion’ will be certain to reveal to you a handful of such brilliant jewels unnoticed before…” Farrer 39 Growing up in a society with morals, Jane Austen did not write novels with sex scenes in them. She wrote a lot of her novels base on romanticism. Her writings of romanticism were center on how she felt.
In reality her love life was not there because of family ties, but in her novel, she could go on with her hearts desires. “Jane Austen has no passion, preaches on gospel, grinds no axe; standing aloof from the world, she sees it, on the whole, as silly.” Farrer 39 Many of her writings are all from her imaginations that she constructed with her past experiences. All her dreams came alive in the novels that she has written, but in reality she was still a single women. Jane Austen lived her life as a great successful writer.
Before she could celebrate her glory, she passed away. “The most perfect artist among women, the writer whose books are immortal, died ‘just as she was beginning to feel confidence in her own success.'” Woolf 24 Revealing her character traits through the characters in her novel, she was able to share with the readers her dreams and her desires of her heart. Austen is a romantic type of women, but she does not present herself like that.
By using the character of Marianne, she is able to fulfill that spot of character trait of herself in which she is not able to show off in reality. Also by displaying her strong will and responsible quality, she chooses a character such as Elinor to show this feature of her. Jane Austen’s imagination is unbelievable, because of the way she describes her characters and the sceneries in her novel. Extremely precise, the readers have no questions to ask what the scenery is like.
She lets the reader imagine just as if they were in the story and show how beautiful the scenes are. Watt 42
Furthermore, Austens uses her own writing techniques to achieve her goals to let her readers dream about her novels. “Exactly how this miracle is achieved is, of course, Miss Austen’s secret. It is a secret of language and of artistry, which can be profitably explored by the reader, and of a particular kind imagination.” Readers wonder how Austen gets her thoughts, and the answer is, she used her past and present experiences.
Moreover, Austen portrayed her traits into her characters to show her inner feelings of how she truly is in her heart.
