Sense and Sensibility Themes

Sense and Sensibility Themes

Women and Femininity

Rumor has it that girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, but we think that Jane Austen might disagree. Her very real, at times rather harsh depiction of the women of Sense and Sensi...

Society and Class

The world of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is a complicated one, in which everyone fits neatly into minute little pigeonholes in the incredibly stratified, hierarchical class system. Imagine...

Love

Love is a many splendoured thing, sure, but it's also a many troubled thing, if you ask Austen. In Sense and Sensibility, she shows us dramatically different facets of this crazy little thing we ca...

The Home

The loss of a cherished home is one of the first major thematic elements of Sense and Sensibility, and that sense of transition and movement persists throughout the novel. Home is identified as any...

Language and Communication

Communication and miscommunication are both central to Sense and Sensibility – the novel is full of moments of misunderstanding as a result of what is said (or notably not said). The characte...

Family

Families can mean a lot of different things to different people. In Sense and Sensibility, Austen shows us a wide range of family relationships that demonstrate this diversity of meaning. For examp...

Marriage

To quote The Princess Bride, marriage is what brings us together today – and every day, in Sense and Sensibility. Basically everything in this book – plot, the characters, their various...

Wealth

Money is nice, and we all want to have it. We know it now, and Austen knew it back in the nineteenth century. For this simple reason, money is a motivating factor in a lot of the decisions that we...

Dreams, Hopes, Plans

Most of the dreams, hopes, and plans that we see unfold in Sense and Sensibility have to do with love, romance, and marriage. Basically, these are the only possible futures that are available to ou...

Competition

The conversations between rivals we see in Sense and Sensibility may be sugar coated, but even the faux-politeness of Austen's dialogue isn't enough to cover up the sting underneath. Competition (e...