Sense & Sensibility Chapter 23

Elinor reels with the news of Edward's engagement to Lucy and is determined to learn more

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Transcript

Frances:  Kia ora, welcome to the amateur austenite. i'm frances duncan, author, austinite, and life coach. my cohost is emma dunning. trainee golfer? interesting choice today, we're discussing chapter 23 of sense and sensibility, also chapter one of volume two. at the end of the last volume, lucy just landed a bombshell that she's engaged. this chapter, eleanor is thinking about what lucy's told her and realizes that it must be true. and she's determined to speak again with lucy about it, has some struggles to get to the point where she can do that, and the chapter ends on the cliffhanger that they're about to have this second conversation. eleonora realises that lucy's not just gonna say this she couldn't doubt it. it's supported by probabilities and proofs, and the only contradiction is her own wishes. edward's just been to plymouth the way that he was when he came to visit them, and then there's the picture, the letter, and the ring. all of this adding up to this is true. this is why he's been acting the way he is. initially she feels upset about the whole thing, but really quickly turns it around. i was so surprised. had edward been intentionally deceiving her? no. whatever it might once have been, she doesn't believe that he is really in love with lucy. he loves her. everyone saw it, so much so that her family had to leave norland.

Emma:  yeah, she's really surprisingly confident for eleanor, isn't she? you would have thought that she might dwell a little longer on either edward's faithlessness or that he was deceiving her or her own blindness and not understanding what was going on. but she actually has, as you say, really quickly gets down to the bedrock that edward loves her.

Frances:  i think two things are part of her coming to that conclusion, that make it both harder and easier for her, she knows she's superior to lucy. that's a big thing. if lucy were drop dead gorgeous and the richest woman, eleanor would be like, i back out. i know i've got no chance here. but the other thing is she also knows she has no chance, because she knows that edward is not going to break off an engagement that he's made because he is a good man. it does not matter if he does not love lucy, he will marry her. so eleanor's well, he's hurt me, but you know what? he's hurt himself so much worse. he may love me, but he cannot marry me, and he will have to marry somebody that he does not love. i can only really feel sorry for him,

Emma:  which is pretty big. i mean pretty, fair minded of her to be pitying someone who'd done her wrong. it

Frances:  says if her case was pitiable, his was hopeless. he has deprived himself of ever being happy because he fell in love with her. again, eleanor's thinking about other people's feelings ahead of her own, as she often does, and wondering whether he can actually be happy with lucy because she has some idea of who lucy is from their brief acquaintance. she refers to her as illiterate, artful and selfish. so illiterate, she doesn't literally mean unable to read, just that lucy hasn't read. she's uninformed. she's not cultivated her mind. artful is more like scheming, manipulative, and selfish still means the same thing. lucy's all about herself. that's a big difference between her and eleanor, eleanor isn't selfish, she constantly puts herself second for other people. and she's even doing it in her head here. does it matter so much that i'm hurt because he's hurt himself more? she can understand how he would have fallen in love with lucy because she's beautiful and he was 19! and all he knew was her beauty and good nature, but over four years, that would have worn

Emma:  over four years you would have expected that he would have had an improvement his own understanding of the world and have opened his eyes to the defects of her education. and i think possibly austen means moral education as well as academic education and that lucy's lack of academic education can be corrected, but that her lack of moral education can't so easily be corrected because her character's already formed.

Frances:  that's those last two words, artful and selfish. the illiterate thing can be worked on, but the artful and selfish, maybe not. that was something that needed to be built in as she was growing.

Emma:  yeah.

Frances:  and that's potentially grown in the four years of their engagement her being in inferior society and pursuing frivolous pursuits has robbed her of the simplicity that's a little that added to her beauty. this is a simple country girl, she's beautiful and lovely, but now she's beautiful and grasping.

Emma:  in poetry of that time, there's this idea that there was something particularly virtuous about innocence and that that was to be preserved.

Frances:  edward's learnt more of the world and it's improved him, lucy's learnt more of the world and it's made her worse. yeah.

Emma:  and that's his tragedy. the first three paragraphs of this chapter, i really like the writing it's an internal monologue of eleanor. she's processing the engagement that she's just learned about, and she's fitting it into what she knows to be true from her experience at norland, and she's deciding how to behave. the writing uses these short phrases that are coming up quickly on top of each other. they're all confused, but she's progressing to come up with the result of what she's gonna do. it just comes across as you read it as a really good representation of the way thinking happens,

Frances:  a good sort of stream of consciousness before streams of consciousness existed. i don't believe it, working through to the point where i do believe it. yes. understanding how it happened, and then how it will end, she comes to it's gonna be difficult for them to marry. it was gonna be difficult for us, and lucy has got less connections and less money.

Emma:  and maybe this is part of the reason why edward is so stalled in his life, because he doesn't want to progress to that inevitable end.

Frances:  the power that missus farris has over him, judging by her behaviour later, it's possible that had he picked up a profession, she would have sabotaged it for him. if it were done without her explicit blessing, and when i say blessing, i really mean her telling him to do it. and she has not decided on giving him a profession. he just has to be idle.

Emma:  well, there are ways and ways of making people believe it was their idea.

Frances:  this is something lucy would be good at doing because she can manipulate, but edward's more straightforward. this is one of the similarities between him and eleanor but perhaps eleanor has got a bit more nounce than him, because when it comes to trying to have the conversation with lucy. lucy's going to be making a little basket for a spoiled child, it's a whole thing. eleanor's expected to be playing cards and she's like, why don't i help lucy finish this very important project for your child in comparison, mary anne at this point does not want to play cards and is just like, no. i'm not interested. i'm gonna go play the piano forte. eleanor would have said something like, oh, lady middleton, you know how i adore your piano forte, which is the thing that she says after to modify as we're saying what mary anne says, maybe i could entertain you while you play cards. eleanor does have a bit more of the, if we use as big a term, of manipulation than edward does. because i'm not sure he'd be able to manage that. he's just awkward in social situations. but eleanor knows what people wanna hear and still is able to get her own way. and flattering with delicacy.

Emma:  oh, mister collins. we had a christmas party at jane austen society of new zealand, and we played some of the games that they play at barton park. that they mention in this chapter lucy and eleanor are both wildly keen to actually talk to each other about this engagement, but they are having a lot of trouble getting time alone because everything's always so busy and noisy. so that's why they have to do this little filigree basket subterfuge. so we played at our christmas party some of the games that are so busy and noisy, one is a card game casino, which is a fishing game. you lay the cards, four cards in the center, the players, if they have a card of the same value in their hand, they can capture the cards.

Frances:  that's the game that they're playing as lucy and eleanor are having their conversation. um, even though they're meeting all the time, they're not supposed to meet for the sake of conversation, hilarious, and they just play whatever was

Emma:  the most noisy. another of the noisy games that's mentioned here is consequences. i have rescued from my recycling pile one of the games of consequences from our parties so that i could share it with you. this is one of those games where you write part of a story and then you fold the piece of paper and hand it on to the next person who writes part of the story and you fold it and pass it on. and it's got a particular format, so i will now read you a story made in a game of consequences. orange david attenborough met grumpy lady catherine de bourgh in the river. david attenborough wore a puffer jacket. lady catherine de bourgh wore a pool floatie in the shape of a unicorn, david attenborough said, marry me. lady catherine de bourgh said, are you going to do it that way? the consequence was everyone got free ice creams and the world said absolutely not.

Frances:  i actually remember playing this game in high school. and it is a lot of fun.

Emma:  but quite difficult to have a private conversation about secret engagements. what if

Frances:  you were trying to put the secrets into the game of consequences?

Emma:  they wouldn't remain secret. no. that reminds me of Emma when they were doing that game, the acrostics game with the letters when frank was doing a secret message

Frances:  to jane. could hint at things.

Emma:  he could. but the risk is that someone else picks it up.

Frances:  that's true. you'd have to be very careful in the things that you say that only one person would understand them. and depending on who it was, probably go over miss steele's head so lucy could be relatively safe in saying things.

Emma:  but again, the secret to keeping a secret is for there to be no secret.

Frances:  the other thing that means that they can actually have this conversation is, sir john's not there. yeah. he's gone to his club, and invites the miss dashwoods, because he's so worried about his wife only having her mother and the miss steel is there. she's gonna be all alone.

Emma:  apart from the three people.

Frances:  apart from the three people. and eleanor, who's normally, do i really want to, is like, yep, i'm there, because she's aware that there's more of an opportunity to have this conversation with lucy, margaret's also there, she's not really mentioned but missus dashwood encourages mary anne to go, which is showing us that missus dashwood not a fan of mary anne, secluding herself from any chance of amusement

Emma:  wallowing in her misery at home. yeah.

Frances:  there's no great conversation the whole time in the dining parlour in the drawing room, which not surprising, because these people aren't made for conversation. these parties aren't made for conversation. the game of casino gets everybody at the table, apart from mary anne who goes to play the piano,

Emma:  thundurously. luckily she plays the piano very loudly and passionately so there can be a secret conversation going on by the fire side as they make the filigree basket.

Frances:  lady middleton, also manipulative, hints to lucy that her daughter's gonna be so disappointed to not get that basket, but she says it in such a way as, i'm glad you're not gonna hurt your eyes, and lucy's like, oh, yep, okay, i'm off to do this thing. so filigree is paper rolled up to make little cute shapes and stuff, apparently it would be glued to a basket to make it pretty.

Emma:  oh, so a filigree basket is

Frances:  a basket with filigree on it, not a basket made of filigree. yes. i'd always thought it was made of filigree, but apparently not.

Emma:  good to know. should i be making a basket?

Frances:  and lucy sits down with an alacrity and cheerfulness which seem to infer that she could taste no greater delight than in making a filigree basket for a spoilt child. tell us what you really think, jane austen.

Emma:  frances, i think that is what jane austen really thinks.

Frances:  i know, that's the point. but it could also be eleanor's thoughts, eleanor lies and says that she would like the work exceedingly, and i'm being so helpful. and by using a little of that address, which mary anne could never condescend to practice, she gets her own way and pleases lady middleton. beautiful. such good work. the two fair rivals were thus seated side by side in the utmost harmony. so austin's like we know what's going on here, we're like everything's lovely and happy and we want to stab each other. would have been interesting if they'd been working with knives. maybe they are, because maybe they're curling the paper like you do, like, with a ribbon where you run the knife

Emma:  on it. in the film you make, they will be.

Frances:  that would make much more interesting, conversation if they are both armed. eleanor weeps for edward more than for herself, and she's supported by the conviction that she's done nothing to merit her present unhappiness. and he's done nothing to forfeit her esteem. austin makes a very clear distinction between her and mary anne no one would know from the appearance of them that eleanor's in mourning, there's obstacles dividing her forever from edward. but mary anne is happy internally, dwelling on the perfections so wrong of a man whose heart she felt thoroughly possessed and who she expects to turn up every minute. they're at completely opposite ends. eleanor's like, this is never gonna happen. maryann's like, this is a sure thing. but they're behaving the opposite way. again, eleanor putting all her feelings on the back burner has to conceal it from her family. it's a relief because it would upset them. and she doesn't want them talking shit about edward. she knows that if she did tell them, she wouldn't actually get anything from it. there's not gonna be any support for her, there's gonna be no assistance. she's stronger by herself. mary anne would not follow her example, and they're not gonna think that she's doing the right thing by keeping herself tightly in self command.

Emma:  it's very understandable that she does not share this at this point because it would have made it harder for her if she had. but this later becomes a big wedge between the sisters. could she have chosen differently? she believes she's stronger alone. does she still believe that at the end of the novel?

Frances:  i'm not sure whether she believes it, but evidence suggests that she is stronger alone because when this all comes out, she still has to manage mary anne and doesn't get to have her own feelings. she briefly does, but then she has to go almost immediately back to looking after mary anne.

Emma:  i wonder if it's one of the lessons of the novel that you are not stronger alone?

Frances:  if that's the lesson, i'm not sure i learnt that from eleanor's story.

Emma:  i'm not sure either because as you say, she very briefly gets some relief from sharing and then it's back to her usual role of being the strong one.

Frances:  it's really unfair, the whole thing is rough on her, she can't show her family what's going on and she has to make sure that lucy doesn't see how much she's affected by it.

Emma:  yeah, that's pride. go eleanor, actually how could you? anyone would have to keep from the hideous lucy that she had hurt you. you would bust a gut not to show that.

Frances:  so austen says she has more reasons than one to want to have a conversation with lucy, and that's one of them, convince lucy that she wasn't hurt. and i think part of that is trying to imply that she isn't interested in edward without ever saying that because she wouldn't flat out lie. but also, she wants to know as much Edward she doesn't think that lucy does, but she wants to actually have some idea whether that's just, her bias.

Emma:  another possible reason would be if edward and lucy do get married, it's important that lucy believes edward's never strayed because it will make edward's life very hard if lucy goes through their marriage believing that he loves elle.

Frances:  if lucy had feelings for him. true. and that's the big thing, right? if edward had strayed with eleanor, she's gonna be pissed either way, but if lucy had feelings for him, him, it would be worse. if lucy had feelings for him, there's a possibility that they could have a good marriage, because she actually cares about him. this is part of what eleanor's trying to figure out. she can tell obviously, edward has spoken about her to lucy, which has got lucy's back up, but it also means that lucy knows eleanor's not gonna tell anyone.

Emma:  well, confidence is an an interesting thing. telling someone in confidence. i'm gonna assume you agree that morally speaking, eleanor couldn't tell anyone.

Frances:  yes. very much so.

Emma:  regardless of her loyalties. she couldn't override having been told something in confidence by someone of lesser importance you can't tell someone of more importance to you. just morally, the confidence has to be kept, no matter how much pain it gives you.

Frances:  her telling anyone would be seen as petty is lucy telling me her superior claims to teach me to avoid him? i've gotta try and figure out how to keep my own feelings in check and how to not see edward. and, yeah, make sure that lucy does not know that she stabbed me in the heart. that bitch.

Emma:  and we shall see if she succeeds.

Frances:  and that is our discussion of chapter 23 of sense and sensibility by jane austen. i've been frances duncan, and this has been emma dunning. thank you for listening, and we wish you happy reading.