Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility--------------------------------------------------Pray, pray be composed, cried Elinor, and do not betray what youfeel to every body present. Perhaps he has not observed you yet.For Elinor Dashwood, sensible and sensitive, and her romantic, impetuousyounger sister Marianne, the prospect of marrying the men they loveappears remote. In a world ruled by money and self-interest, the Dashwoodsisters have neither fortune nor connections. Concerned for othersand for social proprieties, Elinor is ill-equipped to compete withself-centred fortune-hunters like Lucy Steele, whilst Marianne's unswervingbelief in the truth of her own feelings makes her more dangerouslysusceptible to the designs of unscrupulous men. Through her heroines'parallel experiences of love, loss, and hope, Jane Austen offers apowerful analysis of the ways in which women's lives were shaped bythe claustrophobic society in which they had to survive.