Sense and Sensibility is written by Jane Austen published in 1811, during the Regency Era. The author writes about society and how people's lifestyle during that time, as in the style of stories. One thing that Jane Austen showed in her books is about romance, that most of the characters in the book have storylines about marriages. As Marianne as an example, she has a different view on love and marriage with her sister. This might be due to her personality and situation in the family, which compared to Elinor, she’s more sensitive, that she’s emotional. Her personality has a lot of impact on her opinion of love and forming her own theory of this, which to summarize these theories, the common traits of them is that they all contain more subjectivity than objectives.
Unlike others, which first judge and are attracted by others’ lot and manner, Marianne’s easier to be attracted by someone that has common interests with her, which is also something that she really cares about. It’s not saying that having common interest is bad for people in marriages, besides, it’s important. Such as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, since they don’t have common interest, they have problems with communicating about events happening, but Marianne is being a bit ‘extreme’ on this. She even thinks Edward Ferrars has no real taste since he doesn’t know much music, which she told Elinor. Besides, Colonel Brandon and Willoughby showed their respect and knowledge on these aspects and quickly gained Marianne’s favorability. Marianne loves things related with art, which are music and dances, also books, she has a very high pursuit of this. She has different feelings on Colonel Brandon and Willoughby, but she didn’t say anything about how she dislikes them like she said about Edward, and even falls in love with Willoughby. She makes a difference between her reaction to Edward, Colonel Brandon and Willoughby, showing that she’s paying attention to people who have a shared interest with her and are easier to be fascinated by.
As Marianne is always being attracted by parts that are related with people’s feelings, and showing her feelings on her face, she absolutely put sensibility before sensible. Primarily by sensibility rather than sensible is that Marianne places emphasis on emotions and passions, then is practically considerate. In the book, Marianne despites the warnings of her sister Elinor and others about Willoughby’s character, but she still follows her emotions to guide her believing in Willoughby’s affection to her. She believes in emotions and feelings, which fully answers that her action of insisting follow Willoughby to Allenham ignoring her sister and only go on the way her feeling told her to. This conveys that Marianne allows her emotion to control her and she expresses herself in the way she prefers. As she feels being constrained by the external expectations, Marianne is using her own style of overlooking the complex consideration of love, and follows her heart to make herself enjoy, to present that she pursues her own happiness and not being bound to the social expectations.
Since Marianne doesn’t care a lot about reality, and follows her own heart, it’s quite obvious that she idealizes romance. Idealization of romance shows that Marianne seeks for all kinds of soul connections between her and her ideal mate, and dismisses the concerns of reality. When Marianne met Willoughby, she’s fascinated into his appearance and admires him, which she quickly puts him as an ideal romantic partner, thinking that their relationship is more than prejudice of mundane. But just because her imagination is so perfect, when Willoughby’s called away to London, she’s heart-stricken and feeling betrayed. Marianne believes her relationship with Willoughby is based on their shared emotions and sensibilities, but the truth is that this is only her illusion and place this so perfect just in the form of her idealization, not accepting any suggestions from others, and even disregards the differences in social status and other practical considerations. Her idealization makes Willoughby a perfect person she had ever met, but overlooking his real character, leading to disillusionment and melancholy after Willoughby’s leave.
Therefore, if Elinor’s theory of love is based on sensible considerations, Marianne’s love theory is quite emotional, which refers to sensibility. She is absolutely a romantic and sentimental person, not like her sister who is reserved and prude, in which she quickly falls in love with Willoughby. She is attracted to Willoughby due to his behavior and the common interest with her, which she might consider as ‘have real taste’. Just like her characteristics, in her love theory, she prioritizes sensibility over reasons that openly expresses her feelings toward Willoughby and tolerates her emotions to direct her behaviors, making herself satisfied, despite it may not last for long. Moreover, Marianne also excessively idealizes romance. To idealize romance isn’t something bad, but Marianne has been too overemphasized that she ignores his true character and Elinor’s and others’ advice to her. To sum up, the biggest trait of Marianne’s love theory is sensibility, which she considered the most essential thing of a fulfilling romantic relationship.
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