Disapointing Ending

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Originally Posted by ShoutGrace

I have never been as aggravated with the ending of a novel as I am with the ending of Sense and Sensibility.

This novel has been described by some to be tedious and wordy. I personally enjoyed 98% of it; the last 7-8 pages were a great disapointment, however. Austen took 260 pages to properly create and colour her characters, develop the plot and create a story, and then used 7 pages to sum everything up.

The book fell flat on it's face!! At the end of the novel, she briefly describes how Edward's and Lucy's marriage dissolved, and then even more pithily mentions Marriane's marriage to Colonel Brandon. I couldn't believe it.

It's as if Austen woke up one day and decided to finish the book by noon; one way or the other. The way the novel was going, I don't think it would have been out of the ordinary for it to last another 200 pages.

Was anybody else disapointed in the manner the ending was executed?

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You're not alone in that statement. Most people think the ending is a little rushed, myself included. It's a fair comment I think. However it's not really the point: Austen has told the story that interests her and all that remains is the summary.

I think the problem is peoples expectations. They expect some kind of romantic coming together and this book is not really a romance. It's about Sense (good sense, common sense) and Sensibility (emotionality, and lack of good sense) and Austen is not really interested in the romantic element in this book, the marriages at the end are a convention, a mechanism to finish the book. Austen wrote within a narrow convention permitted for women writers at the time and her novels have to finish with this convention whether she likes it or not. P&P could be described as romance, and Persuasion too, but this is not what interests her here. It's closer to tragedy: Marianne ought really to have died.

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Originally Posted by Danika_Valin

She isn't looking for a calm, safe marriage; she is looking for something romantic and tragic.

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You're not alone in thinking that certainly most modern readers feel like that. Marianne is one of the great tragic figures in literature but really you've missed the point of the book if you think that Austen thinks her behaviour is in any way laudable, and personally my sympathies lie with the author's.

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Originally Posted by ShoutGrace

I would have been satisfied if Austen had taken the time to properly relate (in my unesteemable opinion, obviously) the resolution of her novel, both in terms of length and thoroughness.



But at the end of the novel, after all of her 'travails'?



I'm quite sure that Marianne wasn't looking for anything quite so tragic as she received :D .

I think this might have been true for Marianne more towards the beginning of the novel. After her emotional despair and physical affliction, however, I think she changes some. Her conversations with Elinor bear this idea out, I think, but I'll need some time to find the evidence :D .

Her marriage to the Colonel makes sense to me; but I wanted it to happen over the course of another 100 pages, not 1 paragraph.

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I agree with you. So your not disappointed with what happened, just how it was written?

I personally love the story (though not as much as P&P). To me S&S and P&P are so similar and yet so opposite. The characters of P&P had things to overcome and lessons to learn, but there was no tragedy involved. Had Elizabeth not been guarded, and sensible with her feelings when she was interested in Wickham, she might have ended up like Marianne. Elizabeth and Marianne are both passionate, but Elizabeth did not get carried away and display her feelings before the whole world; and Marianne did. And because Marianne was less guarded and sensible with her feelings, she had to suffer the consequences of her actions. I think that the difference between the two novels is simply the difference between Elizabeth and Marianne.
To me someone to saying that they wish Marianne had ended up with Willoughby, is like saying you wish Elizabeth had ended up with Wickham.

Yeah, I understand that. I think that P&P is more of a comedy than a drama, and S&S is exactly the opposite..
And Willoughby > Marianne sees it herself: that she wouldn't have been happy with Willoughby because he wouldn't have been satisfied with 'just love' (no money), that story wouldn't have had a happy ending, this one kinda has, but I do agree with you guys: it would have been nice that you were a little more convinced of Mariannes love for Brandon.

COPIED from my other post:

"i think Marianne's marriage to the colonel is the author's slap in the face to her readers: that a person with the temperament of Marianne's is better off with an old bore. Everyone, specially of today's standards, thinks this treatment is sick, including myself. That's why a lot thinks that S&S is the least of all the Austen novels. The ending had gone too far on dictating about decorum on its audience."

I felt the ending was fitting to the "rapid drop off" usually found after the climax, in the denouement / "untying of the knot" as related in Aristotle's Poetics. It is a basic structure of that part of the story, that it is a "rapid drop off" that shows that "everyone got what they deserved."

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Originally Posted by Sir Bartholomew

COPIED from my other post:

"i think Marianne's marriage to the colonel is the author's slap in the face to her readers: that a person with the temperament of Marianne's is better off with an old bore. Everyone, specially of today's standards, thinks this treatment is sick, including myself. That's why a lot thinks that S&S is the least of all the Austen novels. The ending had gone too far on dictating about decorum on its audience."

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This is interesting. I have always considered Marianne's marriage to the colonel shows that she had learnt to value other things, things which she did not considered as important (to gain afffection).

I have never really seen it in that way. Good to see another angle though. Thanks.

You do have a point there since Jane Austen would normally mock the Romantics and the social laws of politeness, behaviour (conduct) and social class...

I also didn´t like the ending of sense and sensibility. In myopinion is too forced, it´s not natural, it´s weird. Brandon and Marianne simply don´t go together, I think Marianne should have remained single.
Elinor should have married Brandon and Edward should have been very unhappy with Lucy.

I dont think the ending of sense and Sensability is all that disapointing. You have to remember that by the time the ending comes around, Marianne has aultered quite alot, removing herself from her fancy free sensiblities that ended up with breaking her heart and ruinning her health. She became quite calm, with a bit of reserve and a person with more respect for everyone around her. She had in fact become someone who could quite easily be happy with a man like Brandon.
And i'm glad Elinor married Edward. My only disapointment was that Robert and Lucy should be forgiven.

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Originally Posted by Danika_Valin

I wanted her to marry Willoughby. He made mistakes in his past, but he genuinely loved her. That is the sort of relationship I think Marianne should have had. Something loving but extremely complicated.

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I agree with you. I also wanted Marianne to marry Willoughby especially when Jane Austen said at the end of the novel that Willoughby regarded Marianne as the perfection of a standard woman.. ( or something like that).
However, when I think about all the wrongs he has done towards Marianne and how much she suffered because of him ( and esp. at such a young age!) I tend to think that he didn't deserve her.

And for some reason when i read the book, Colonel Brandon reminded me a bit of Mr. Darcy. His shyness and all that goes with it.

i agree somewhat. it did seem as if the whole book led up to this big ending an then...nothing. as much as i would have liked her to go into it more, i still enjoyed the book. at first i thought marianne unhappy with colonel brandon in my mind she was meant for wiloughby and him only. but the more i think of it, wiloughby while her great love is like that first love in high school or jr high, where you think you'll die without them, and can imagine your life only with that person. but she grew up and realized she could love again and she picked someone i think perfect, he was a man that took love seriously he wsa devoted to her throughj the whole book, and devoted to his first wife so much so that he took her child as his own-i could go on, but i won't i'm getting off topic...anyways yes the ending lacked something. but all in all it ws a good book, and a lot of janes books end this way.