Disapointing Ending

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?

I agree. I didn't like Sense and Sensibility that much - I read it after Pride and Prejedice (which I liked well enough), and I thought that it didn't live up to P&P, but I definatly agree with you that the ending was cheap.

I don't love it as much as Pride and Prejudice but I still enjoy the entire Sense and Sensibility anyway. Most of Jane Austen's endings tend to be like that, though not always noticeably.

Yes that is true. Its almost as if she JUST wanted to finish off writing the book & had ran out of ideas. Sense and Sensibility is zilch compared to Pride and Prejudice.

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Originally Posted by thevintagepiper

I don't love it as much as Pride and Prejudice but I still enjoy the entire Sense and Sensibility anyway.

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I very much enjoyed Sense and Sensibility; even as a whole, which is amazing, considering it's pathetic, grovelling, subpar, diminished ending.

That is why I was so diappointed, then irritated, and then enraged, upon finishing this novel. It had been an appreciable and favorable read up to that point.

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Originally Posted by thevintagepiper

Most of Jane Austen's endings tend to be like that, though not always noticeably.

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That makes me sad. Throughout the whole of this book and especially after I was finished with it I was looking forward to P&P, and Emma. At first I was looking forward to reading more of the like and now I'm looking forward to some better resolutions and aggregates from her other novels.


Thanks Charles and VP for your thoughts. :nod:

Ah, hello Shakira! :nod: I must have missed you . . .

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Originally Posted by Shakira

Sense and Sensibility is zilch compared to Pride and Prejudice.

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Well that makes me feel better. I was/am still looking forward to reading her others, though I do hope that their culminations and resolutions do more for me than did S&S.

ShoutGrace,how did you want the book to end?

I was disappointed about the ending of the book for a different reason. I don't think Colonel Brandon and Marianne are at all compatible. Marianne has a wild, poetic sort of heart that could never settle down with a man like Brandon! In my opinion, Colonel Brandon is a dry, lethargic and pitiful character who is a bore to read. He would be a great match for Elinor --who ISN'T a bore to read but has the same sensible and level-headed personality as Brandon-- but not for Marianne. She isn't looking for a calm, safe marriage; she is looking for something romantic and tragic.

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.

So david which others have you read???

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Originally Posted by downing

ShoutGrace,how did you want the book to end?

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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.

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Originally Posted by Danika_Valin

Marianne has a wild, poetic sort of heart

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

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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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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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Originally Posted by ShoutGrace

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 .

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I think Marianne kept her "wild and poetic heart" even till the end of the work. I will need time to find evidence as well, but even at the end of the novel, Marianne continually dramatizes her situation (which is terrible beyond question) as if she "enjoyed" it in some way. As if she was happy that she had found her tragic romance. It distresses Elinor to deal with Marianne's dramatic afflictions while she, at the same time, is upset about Edward's engagement to Lucy Steele. Doesn't Marianne also point out the spot on the hill where she fell and Willoughby found her and speak of it not as only a passing thought or a sad reflection, but as something that still gives her some painful pleasure to think about?



EDIT--- And on second thought, my thoughts about the improbability of Marianne being happy with Colonel Brandon may also be in the abruptness of the ending. If she DOES change, the change happens very quickly.

I read Sense & Sensibility and thought that Colonel Brandon with Marianne was pretty good. Of course, Colonel Brandon isn't much described except for his sense and strength of character, but remember he was very much loved by the old Eliza, so I definitely think he knows how to appreciate the deep emotions of Marianne, as proved when Elinor was secretly more burdened by Marianne's outbursts to protect Elinor, he found "all that was amiable" in her caring for her sister.

Well, that's one way to think about it anyway =P. As for Edward and Elinor, would we have wanted it to end another way? =P

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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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I think, so far I have studied literature, that the reason of Jane's little work on the ending, as it has happened in other books in a lower scale, may be because she gives it less importance, for everything ends well and needs no detali while the main problems and what she wishes to transmit of her times and society take place with much more description and perhaps it is in the last chapters where little by little we are presented with what is to be the end of the whole book:)

Sense and Sensibility works better as a film. (The version with Emma Thompson) I do agree that the ending was a bit rushed and unfulfilling for a reader. Pride and Prejudice is a far better work of Austen's I feel; both in its original text and as a film.

Read most of Jane Austen's novels. The endings are short and almost ironic in their "happiness." With a close reading you can tell how sarcastic Austen is being by discussing the characters' "perfect happiness" at the conclusion of the novel. Sense and Sensibility is the same. The ending is not important; the changes undergone by the characters are. The actual marriage for them is not the most important point. It's about the relationship and "romance" between the sisters and how their differences have been resolved. It's a "happy" ending, but the ending itself is not important. This was done on purpose... Austen didn't just get bored of writing. Almost all of her endings are short and sparse in explanation.

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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.