Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Into the open with Catherine Morland
- 2 Elinor Dashwood and concealment
- 3 Elizabeth's memory and Mr Darcy's smile
- 4 The religion of Aunt Norris
- 5 The story of Fanny Price
- 6 Emma's overhearing
- 7 Anne Elliot and the ambient world
- Bibliography
- Notes
- Index
2 - Elinor Dashwood and concealment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Into the open with Catherine Morland
- 2 Elinor Dashwood and concealment
- 3 Elizabeth's memory and Mr Darcy's smile
- 4 The religion of Aunt Norris
- 5 The story of Fanny Price
- 6 Emma's overhearing
- 7 Anne Elliot and the ambient world
- Bibliography
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Marianne Dashwood has looked forward to coming to London because there, as she expects, she will see again the man she loves, John Willoughby. But though he leaves his card, he doesn't visit, he doesn't answer her letters, he's nowhere to be found. After a few days she has worked herself up into a nearly hysterical state, so her sister Elinor drags her off on a shopping expedition to one of the smartest streets of the West End:
Wherever they went, she was evidently always on the watch. In Bond-street especially, where much of their business lay, her eyes were in constant inquiry; and in whatever shop the party were engaged, her mind was equally abstracted from every thing actually before them, from all that interested and occupied the others. Restless and dissatisfied every where, her sister could never obtain her opinion of any article of purchase, however it might equally concern them both; she received no pleasure from any thing; was only impatient to be at home again.
(S&S ii: 4, 187)Like much of the writing in Sense and Sensibility, this is hyperbolic and exaggerated, but perhaps it gives a fair approximation of Marianne's feverish, restless state. Rather than just telling the reader that Marianne was constantly on the lookout for Willoughby, the narrator seems to enact an odd collusion with her character. The rhythms of the prose partake of her hectic emotions, though the judgements are those of her calm and staider sister.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Hidden Jane Austen , pp. 28 - 50Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014