Sense & Sensibility Chapter 15

Marianne is crying, Willoughby is acting weird then disappears - what is going on? Emma wants to do an episode about dog breeds as characters

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Transcript

Frances:  welcome to this episode of the Amateur austinite. i am frances duncan, author, austinite life coach. my cohost is emma dunning. house hunter. oh, house hunter. and our canine cohost is bingley. you might just hear him in the background occasionally jingling around. yep. there he goes.

Emma:  he's currently doing a downward dog.

Frances:  very appropriate. today, we're discussing chapter 15 of sense and sensibility. willoughby fucks off. i mean, that's the major thing that happens. mary anne and willoughby have a quiet meeting. everyone's out. they come home. mary anne's in floods of tears. willoughby's like, i can't talk about it, and runs away. and eleanor's like, this is pretty suspicious. right? missus dashwood's like, no. it's fully above board. everything's fine.

Emma:  missus dashwood is trying to believe that willoughby's character is just as it appears, and that the marriage is gonna go ahead, and that everyone is going to be happy, despite some disturbing evidence to the contrary.

Frances:  so we don't get to see the bit where willoughby asks to see mary anne alone, but missus dashwood assumes that that's what's happened and that's why mary anne's staying home from going to visit at the park. and she is perfectly satisfied with this. should she be? does this not sound dodgy? should not willoughby have asked her permission to see mary anne alone?

Emma:  yes. missus dashwood is mary anne's guardian, but he probably should have asked her closest male relative. he probably should have asked john dashwood. and the fact that he hasn't should make missus dashwood suspicious. missus dashwood is expecting a proposal of marriage, and the fact that he hasn't asked permission should alert her that something is wrong.

Frances:  she thinks they're already engaged according to this chapter even though, as eleanor points out, it is wild that neither of them have specifically told eleanor or missus dashwood that they're engaged because they're very open people. they would tell. apologies. there will be a lot of spoilers in discussion of this chapter. it's kind of necessary. do you think that willoughby did intend to ask mary anne to marry him at this point? he says later that he did, but i'm not sure if we can actually believe him and whether this was him just continuing what he was doing or trying

Emma:  to get her alone to seduce her. as much as you can believe anything that willoughby says, i think he did intend to propose to her. in the knowledge that he can change his mind at any moment, and this is not the only reason that he might have changed his mind. i think he believed himself that that is what he was going to do.

Frances:  so it was kind of convenient for him that what happened the night before happened, so he wasn't trapped in an engagement that wasn't going to be to his advantage. that is correct.

Emma:  well, not to his financial advantage. we can speculate what willoughby's life would have been like had he married mary anne, and maybe it would have been a better life. we will speculate about that later. i feel certain.

Frances:  one of the things that came up during the group read some people were blaming his future wife for some of willoughby's behavior and some of the things that she potentially influenced him to do. and blaming missus smith, his cousin, aunt, not entirely sure of the connection, for the way that willoughby's behaving. but what's really important is this is all the consequence of willoughby's own actions because missus smith kicks him out, spoiler, because she found out about colonel brandon's foster daughter and said, you need to marry this girl and make it right. and he said, fuck off. i want money. and left because she is very clear about doing the right thing one of our readers was comparing her to missus ferris being a controlling woman with money. but i think this is a very different situation. missus ferris does not want edward to marry eleanor or his current fiance, which is why when he turns up, he's in a whole spin, but missus smith is talking about doing the right thing.

Emma:  and we're to compare willoughby's behavior with edward's behavior as far as doing the right thing is concerned when you have

Frances:  made a commitment to someone seeing it through even if it's unpleasant. because edward would have married lucy even though he did not love her, and it wasn't going to be good for him financially in many other ways. whereas willoughby, by his behaviors, acted as though he's engaged to mary anne. so his faith is kind of committed, but he still leaves, and he never explains to her either. so, yes, good comparisons. the dashwoods, minus mary anne, have gone to visit lady middleton. missus dashwood's very careful about ensuring they maintain the back and forth of visits, that the middletons are dining at the cottage as often as they're dining at the park, and that they visit as often because that's the rules of society that missus dashwood was raised with. and even though she doesn't have the position or the home that she did before, she wants to maintain that, which i like. so mary anne is left alone, and willoughby turns up. when they return, mary anne doesn't even see them. she just rushes out, and it's called violent affliction with her handkerchief to her eyes. is she upset because willoughby won't tell her why he's going away? is it because he won't tell her when he'll be back? it's really confusing because it seems like later, she's expecting him to turn back up all the time. why is she so upset? she was expecting a marriage proposal, and he came and told her he's going away. oh, how had that never occurred to me before? instead of will you marry me, it's i gotta go by.

Emma:  because you know that willoughby is dastardly and marianne doesn't. that's why it didn't occur to you. dastardly is an excellent word.

Frances:  he's also upset, but i'm not sure whether he feels the same as her or whether he's affected by her emotion. just seeing her upset has upset him. is he genuinely upset about having to go?

Emma:  he saw himself marrying mary anne, and he's upset that he is having to forego his passionate marriage to the

Frances:  passionate mary anne. that sounds like it's very about sex.

Emma :  well, he thought he was gonna have

Emma:  yeah. love. he thought he was gonna have love and passion and missus smith's money. and now he knows he has to have one or the other, and possibly

Frances:  neither. but he does make that choice. you could argue it's a selfish choice. you could argue that it was kind of him not to marry mary anne when they had nothing to live on, but he also should have communicated that to her. we have

Emma:  a lot of bingley rolling around on the carpet, scratching in the background there. is that something we feel we want in our podcast?

Frances:  it's very genuine. it adds depth. it adds depth. mhmm. mhmm. there have been many episodes with bingley, and you can hear his collar jinkling in the background. it's like christmas bells. he's very, social. so this is basically an episode about pride and prejudice as well. because bingley is charles bingley.

Emma:  he is mister charles bingley, and he is, a gentleman who lives in the moment and, enjoys his simple pleasures.

Frances:  i should point out that bingley is not a golden retriever as the character is.

Emma :  no. that is true. he's a terrier. and mister charles bingley in the book is the opposite of a terrier. he doesn't hold on. he is not tenacious in the face of opposition.

Frances:  we could just go through dog breeds and name all these different characters.

Emma:  we absolutely need to do a podcast episode of dogs and jane austen just matching every character to dog breeds.

Frances:  would you like to do a sense and sensibility of the characters as dogs? we can add it to the end. this is already gonna be a very long season.

Emma:  i feel like there's a weimaraner in here for sure. and there are some there are some little bichon frise fanny dashwood might be a bichon frise or maybe lady middleton might be a bichon frise.

Frances:  i don't know enough about dogs, so i feel like emma's gonna do this episode and tell me about these different dogs.

Emma:  i'll explain the characters

Emma :  of all the different dogs for you. and we'll

Frances:  look at the pictures and then we'll like use ai to put regency dresses on some of these dogs.

Emma:  oh, so that's not i know ai. that's that's anthropomorphism. it's not okay to do that to dogs. even ai dogs.

Frances:  have you seen our logo? or is it okay because the bird is dead extinct.

Emma:  yeah. you can't harm either jane austen or the huia because they're both dead. but we were discussing mister willoughby and mary anne and the rapid departure of mister willoughby. missus dashwood, keeps offering to put up mister willoughby should he come back to the neighborhood. i absolutely am not coming back to the neighborhood for a year. allynnum is not the only place you can stay in this neighborhood. come and stay with us. she's not taking no for an answer. and willoughby says, you are too good, which is a phrase used in other austen novels, it means no. have you noticed that before?

Frances:  i have not. so it's a polite refusal.

Emma:  yes. too good. but it's interesting that she would have him

Emma :  to stay in their tiny cottage.

Emma:  like, that seems a bit saucy too.

Frances:  well, we know that edward and colonel brandon do. yeah. but she's a widow, so they're chaperoned. still. that makes sense of the next line. he's looking at the ground. you are too good. missus dashwood looked at eleanor with surprise. eleanor felt equal amazement for a few moments. everyone was silent. and now that makes sense because you are too good meant no. yeah. so they're like, what is happening? why? why? missus dashwood thinks it's because of missus smith and says to him, you only can judge how far it might be pleasing to missus smith if you come back to the neighborhood and stay with us instead of her. and he uses the word engagements, my engagements at present. interesting word choice, willoughby.

Emma:  it comes up later in the book as well that double meaning of the word engagements to mean social engagements and marital engagement.

Frances:  and it's austen, so she definitely means the double meaning of it.

Emma:  yes.

Frances:  this was intentional to make us think because she's so good. never has been her equal.

Emma:  there's all this, foreshadowing of exactly how selfish he is. he says, i will not torment myself any longer. he's thinking about his own torment.

Frances:  yes. all of this is about his feelings. i am now suffering under a very heavy disappointment, focusing on himself, not mary anne, who he's just devastated and not clearly told her what's going on. the gentlemanly thing to do would have been to say, i don't know if i can come back and somehow subtly slide in there. i know i've given you some ideas that our relationship is going to be of a certain level, and i don't think i can fulfill that promise anymore. however you subtly do that, i don't know. but he doesn't. mhmm. so she still thinks that they're basically engaged because he's been acting like they are.

Emma:  and all he said is i have to go away.

Frances:  and not said why. and it's the consequences of his own actions. fuck that guy.

Emma:  eleanor is immediately uneasy, anxious, and distrustful. missus dashwood is immediately trying to find excuses for willoughby's behavior. so eleanor was fearing there had been no serious design formed on his side, like, he never intended to marry her. and then she's wondering, have they had a big fight? but then she thinks, no marian loves him so much. it seems impossible that they could have quarreled. it really shows the difference between

Frances:  eleanor and missus dashwood's characters. mhmm. that eleanor's like, something smells wrong here. and missus dashwood is desperately grasping at straws, almost blaming eleanor.

Emma:  yes. absolutely. she does. oh, eleanor, how incomprehensible are your feelings? like, she is reproaching eleanor for having doubts about willoughby.

Frances:  has he been acting apart this whole time? do you suppose him really indifferent to her? yeah. you had rather take evil upon credit than good. and of course, eleanor is correct. willoughby does say that he is going because missus smith has sent him to london. and missus dashwood does catch on to that. i'm persuaded that missus smith suspects his regard for mary anne, disapproves of it, perhaps because she has other views for him, and on that account is eager to get him away. interesting that she's making this assumption about missus smith when there are other characters in the novel behaving this way, but missus smith is not one of them. fanny dashwood and her mother, missus farris. they are very like this, and it's treated that it's awful for them to be doing that. but here, it's almost treated like a reasonable thing. i struggle with this, particularly because in the end, when lucy marries robert, it's all cool even though she has no money and less standing than eleanor. and she's uneducated and she's scheming. it doesn't seem to matter who a potential bride is, but what they are, except that lucy somehow breaks all those molds because she's so good at manipulating. but missus smith wanted willoughby to do the right thing and marry someone who was probably not the right girl. she didn't necessarily have the right standing, and she'd done some dodgy stuff. fully his fault, not hers. she was a child. and we later find out that had he married mary anne, missus smith would have approved of that because she's a good genuine person, and she has a good standing, but you never know which character's motivation is what they're assuming that missus smith wouldn't like mary anne because she doesn't have the money.

Emma:  yeah. it's a funny assumption because actually, missus dashwood has never met missus smith. and as far as i know, she doesn't know much about her. we've not heard any conversations with the middletons about missus smith.

Frances:  no one sees missus smith. she's homebound, possibly bedbound. and one of the things that willoughby talks about later is maybe she was a bit pissed that he didn't give her much of his attention when he was there because he was running around with mary anne the whole time. and yet you are there to see her. this novel has a lot of women pulling the strings and powerful women. but they're seen as manipulative, whereas if a man pulls the strings it's perfectly reasonable. and i think austen intended us to go, what? what?

Emma:  missus dashwood really believes that all of willoughby's looks and behavior, add up to a declaration of love and consideration of mary ann as his future wife? and has not my consent been daily asked by his looks, his manner, his attentive and affectionate respect? have we not perfectly understood each other? she believes that his open behavior is the same as asking permission to marry mary anne. so that is why she left them in the cottage together. she believed that that was the same as asking permission. she believed that he had asked permission.

Frances:  but eleanor is very clear, there is no excuse for his concealing their engagement, a plain and open a vowal as difficulties would have been more to his honor. mhmm. i don't want proof of their affection, but i do of their engagement.

Emma:  and then we have

Frances:  marianne's behavior when she reappears after her crying about at dinner that night. without any desire of command over herself?

Emma :  yes. so it's super judgmental. i think on jane austen's part here. mary anne was expecting a marriage proposal, has instead had the love of her life disappear for an unidentified time. and jane austen appears to have the expectation that she will have fortitude and that it's unreasonable that she should have a violent oppression of spirit. that she should have a desire to have command over herself just hours after this has happened. that when people mention 17 year old.

Frances:  i agree. i wonder though if Austen is highlighting it here so much, because this is actually how it continues for months and months and there is a real difference between her and eleanor and how they manage these difficulties. but a lot of that, yes, eleanor is older. and also eleanor is very aware of the rest of the family, and she's being considerate of their feelings, not making them more upset on her behalf. missus dashwood is already upset on mary anne's behalf. why make everyone miserable when you can just be quietly miserable alone, i think is kind of eleanor's motto.

Emma:  yes. certainly at this stage of the novel, just the way that this is phrased, this violent oppression of spirits continued the whole evening as if the whole evening is too long for this level of reaction.

Frances:  it's worse because she was without any power and without any desire of command over herself.

Emma:  i just think the expectation that she would that's a high expectation to hold for a 17 year old who was expecting a marriage proposal.

Frances:  that's a really good point. yeah. later, we learn that mary ann is behaving the way that she thinks is appropriate, that you should be this upset, that you should not be getting better, that you should not be sleeping, that you should be crying all the time. i think Austen is harking back to the death of their father, that mary anne was indulging and reindulging, and her mother was as well. and maybe some of the snark might also be a little bit of eleanor going, oh, god. not again. because she had to step up and be the grown up while her mother and sister, mourned her father, she didn't get to. i'm not sure she's gotten over that. so mary anne behaving like this again is probably a bit of a knee jerk reaction on eleanor's part to be annoyed about it.

Emma:  yeah. but are we hearing eleanor here or are we hearing jane austen?

Frances:  i don't know.

Emma:  i think we're hearing jane austen. but is this gonna change? is eleanor going to learn that in fact to, express and share your emotions is desirable?

Frances:  some people would say that she does learn that in the course of the novel, but i'm not sure if she does. the problem being because mary anne is so deeply afflicted continuously throughout the novel that when it becomes eleanor's turn to express her emotions, she again has to dampen them down because mary anne has another breakdown. mary anne's crying about the situation that eleanor's in. so eleanor doesn't even get a chance to grieve that herself because she has to be there for mary anne. and that sucks. it is unfair.

Emma:  yeah. i think as a reader, we are supposed to get the impression that this reaction is excessive.

Frances:  yeah. yeah. also because what's appropriate to do in public and what's not appropriate to do in public. and if you're dining with family, it's still slightly kinda formal?

Emma:  well, it's all sort of stiff up my lip and the value of self control.

Frances:  which comes in a lot more in later ages like when we hit victorian.

Emma:  well, it's also tied with religion. it's

Emma :  consideration for others.

Emma:  it's putting other people before yourself.

Frances:  oh, was mary anne not raised female? come on. it's the first thing we're taught. everybody else is more important than you. sit down. be a good girl. don't make waves. yeah. it comes back to the feeding and encouraging it as a duty, and that's very definitely eleanor's thought. she's saying that he was not acting like himself. it would've been more like him to acknowledge what was going on. he's not acting the way that he was before. it's like he's an entirely different character now.

Emma :  that's because he has met with

Emma:  a difficulty. he can be charming and sunny when things are going his way. but when he

Emma :  meets with a difficulty, more of the flaws in his underlying character become apparent.

Frances:  it turns out missus dashwood might be relying on the people around them for knowledge of willoughby as well. he's no stranger in this part of the world. who's ever spoken to his disadvantage? but do the middletons have that much penetration? do they speak ill of anybody?

Emma :  well, that's the point of reputation, isn't it? that's why reputation is so important because that is how you judge people and make decisions which affect the rest of your life is based on people's reputation. so you have to be very careful whose judgement you trust. Elinor says, i love willoughby, sincerely love him. and i'm not talking about romantic love, but it's interesting to think that she had, a good impression of willoughby and was looking forward to a time when her sister would be happy married to willoughby, and she loses that too.

Frances:  i think it shows the depths of willoughby's charm that eleanor, who's supposed to be the the rational one, etcetera, etcetera, can't see through him. even though she does question things, she's like, no, but i do love him. and then later, when he turns up and explains himself, she almost gets sucked in again. he's so good at this. i'm sure that he could have given them a great speech here and left on really good terms had he wanted to. but it seems like maybe he's actually kinda pissed off that things haven't gone his way, so he's not putting in the effort he might have otherwise.

Emma:  i think he's feeling genuine emotion here. that's why he's not as eloquent as he becomes later and not as smart about how he does things.

Frances:  yeah. that's true. because were he being smart, he would've cooked up a much better story and left under better yeah. that's true. yeah. mhmm. dastardly willow be. and that is our discussion of chapter 15 of sense and sensibility by jane austen. i have been frances duncan. this has been emma dunning and bing lee. who is now asleep? yay. thank you for listening, and we wish you happy reading.