Achieving a Balanced Life in Jane Austens Sense and Sensibility Essay

Achieving a Balanced Life in Jane Austens sense experience and feelingWe are often told that too much of anything can be a bad thing. Even Aristotle, one of the greatest thinkers of all time, insisted that the only track to real contentment and inner peace is The Golden Mean (Funk & Wagnalls 328). This smell lesson is learned by devil of Jane Austens most well-known quotations. Only when Elinor and Marianne Dashwood get through a fit between Sense and Sensibility do they suffer true happiness in their lives. The dichotomy between scent out and impressibility is one of the lenses through which Austens Sense and Sensibility is most commonly analyzed. This notation is most clearly symbolized by the psychological contrast between the novels two main characters. Elinor, the older of the two, represents qualities of sense, such as reason, restraint, social responsibility, and a clear-headed business sector for the welfare of others. In contrast, Marianne, her greener siste r, represents the qualities of sensibility, such as emotion, spontaneity, impulsiveness, and rapturous devotion. As both Elinor and Marianne suffer disappointments in love, they undergo transformations that bring distributively character closer to the other in behavior and personality. Elinor, the epitome of all that is right and conventional, begins to show emotions, traits that appeared to have been hidden within her. Marianne, the over-reacting and highly emotional boylike lady, evolves into a more mature and dignified woman. In the final abridgment we find that only when these two young women achieve a balance in their lives, can they truly enjoy a peaceful existence. In other words, the novels success is a result not of the triumph of sense over sensibility, or sensibilit... ...rself as a mature and responsible young woman. By adapting some of each others traits but maintaining some of their own, these women have achieved the needed balance. Perhaps Yasmine Gooneratne s ays it best when she writes, The complete human personality needs sealed qualities in balanced proportion. Sense and sensibility, reason and passion, mind and heart, complement each other (73). This is The Golden Mean.Works CitedAristotle. Funk and Wagnallas New Encyclopedia. 1992. 328.Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. New York Doherty, 1995.Gooneratane, Yasmine. Jane Austen. London Cambridge, 1970. 73.Mansell, Darrel. The Novels of Jane Austen An Interpretation. London Macmillian, 1973. 66.Reinstein, P. Gila. Moral Priorities in Sense and Sensibility. Renascence 35.4 (Summer 1983) 269-83. (I demonstrate this using the MLA Database)