Sensibility as Emotional and Physical Weakness

Blog post 2

Grace Geracioti

In Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen presents sensibility not just as a social and emotional fault, but as something closely related to or the cause of physical sensibility or weakness.  This is shown in the 43^rd chapter (Volume III) when Marianne, who has been presented as the sister with the most sensibility, gets terribly sick. 

            Marianne’s sickness is convincing, involving a doctor who visits and “allows the word ‘infection’ to pass his lips, [gives] instant alarm to Mrs. Palmer, on her baby’s account” (p. 298 Kindle version).  Yet it is no coincidence that Marianne falls ill directly after arriving to Cleveland “with a heart swelling from emotion from the consciousness of being only eighty miles from Barton” (p. 293).  She is unable to sleep the whole night, suggesting that her sickness is a physical manifestation of this overflowing emotion or sensibility. 

Austen implies that perhaps this sickness is more contrived that Marianne lets on, as Marianne “confessed herself unable to sit up, and returned voluntarily to her bed” (p.298).  Austen is presenting a double sensibility here, as not only is Marianne weak enough when faced with her emotions to become sick but she is also unable to literally stand up to her sickness.  This also goes back to her inability, thus far, to stand up to her own emotions, causing her to uncontrollably sob among other dramatic emotional reactions throughout the novel.  She quickly succumbs to her illness, without any hints of trying to persevere. Instead of describing Marianne’s efforts to sit up, Austen writes that Marianne declares to the others that she is unable to.  Instead of writing of her inability to stay out of bed, Austen describes how Marianne chooses to go to bed.  Austen presents a certain amount of weakness and over the top sentimentality in Marianne’s illness and actions when ill, yet still implies a certain amount of power.  Marianne is the one to declare herself unable to sit up and stay out of bed, directing her own actions rather than taking orders from others, even the doctor.  And because this is a physical malady instead of an emotional one, Marianne is able to get away with it without scorn from her sister Elinor, or from the presence of “sense” in general. 

Austen is thus deceiving in the way that she presents this illness, as it is equally a direct cause of Marianne’s emotional distress, whether voluntary or not, as it is somehow very much under her control.  So while it is presented as a form of weakness to affect a woman of sensibility like Marianne, it could also be a deliberate act by Marianne to be able to control her own actions.  This is further shown when Marianne’s health is quickly forgotten in the next chapter, when Mr. Willoughby arrives to speak to Elinor.  The first time Austen shows that Marianne is better is fleeting in conversation when Willoughby says; “’Your sister,’ said he, with abruptness, a moment afterwards—‘is out of danger.  I heard it from the servant’” (p.308).  Austen spends a whole chapter on Marianne’s illness and has now settled it in one exchange between Elinor and Willoughby.  The sickness is presented as something very dangerous to Marianne and then overcome without any obstacle, giving Marianne more strength in her ability to deal with something that serious and to get through it.  It further suggests, perhaps, that Marianne’s sickness was more of a tool of sensibility rather than the unfortunate result of it.   

Marianne (Kate Winslet) in "Sense and Sensibility" 1995 

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