Sense And Sensibility, Or Growing Up Dichotomous, By Jane Austen

In her article, “Sense and Sensibility, or Growing Up Dichotomous,” Ruth ApRoberts claims Jane Austen’s work, Sense and Sensibility, is a reflection about relations “...between head and heart, thought and feeling, [and] judgment and emotion.” (ApRoberts 351). Through the beginning, the title already shows the readers it is a “test [to] the characters on its polarity” (ApRoberts 355), a metaphor to many of the characters in the novel. Each of them represents more with sensibleness or sensitiveness, especially the main heroines, the Dashwood sisters. The book is in third person omniscient point of view, meaning the narrator, Austen herself, lets us readers read and observe the minds of most of the characters, including Elinor and Marianne. The story is about the fate of these sisters, overcoming several obstacles, including finding love in successful marriages, heartache from loss and judgment from the people in their lives. Throughout the piece, it …show more content…
She doesn’t approve Edward for her sister, finding him somewhat lacking on looks and “has no real taste” (Austen 10). She tells her mother in one scene that she believes she will not find a man as passionate as her: “Mama, the more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much! He must have all Edward’s virtues, and his person and manners must ornament his goodness with every possible charm” (Austen 11). Her statement to her mother on this whole romantic notion she believes in comes off as outright dramatic. Her use of exclaiming how she requires so much shows how she does want much more in a man. She explains she wants a man who has sense and is sensible, which is described to be as the ideal man not only in her eyes, but the society’s as well. This man, being evenly both of these traits, represents him being perfect, something that is hard to