Sense & Sensibility: The Deep Cuts

On Mrs. Dashwood and Lady Middleton

December 16, 2025 is the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, which makes this a great year for a re-read of her work. For me, that started with my first real entry point into her novels, Sense & Sensibility, which I read seriously¹ for the first time in 2016. That year, working through the valuable endnotes in the Oxford World Classics edition, I finally wrapped my head around the contextual knowledge necessary to understand Austen’s plots: how the gentry was sustained on the interest rates of land and capital, how the English clergy made their way in the world, how the eldest daughter in a household was the one called “Miss.”

Sense & Sensibility is not usually the gateway drug of Janeites. Few readers are captivated by the pairing of Marianne and Colonel Brandon or charmed by the wit of Edward Ferrars. The concern over whether one should honor or disregard Regency-era social niceties feels inconsequential two hundred years after the fact. Typically, readers find it less polished than Emma, less profound than Mansfield Park, less delightful than Pride & Prejudice, and less romantic than Persuasion.

On all these fronts, it is underrated, but especially on its depth. What struck me on this re-reading was how the novel, in very subtle ways, reflected keen insights through its examination of the novel’s most minor characters. Here are two examples:

Mrs. Dashwood: Austen is never kind on mothers: Mrs. Bertram barely resonates as a living organism; Mrs. Bennet remains a ditz five daughters into life. The only mother who left a positive impression on the heroine is Anne Elliott’s mother—and at the start of the novel, she’s dead. In Sense & Sensibility, it is strongly implied that Marianne’s penchant for self-indulgence is attributable to her mother:

Elinor saw, with concern, the excess of her sister’s sensibility; but by Mrs. Dashwood it was valued and cherished. They encouraged each other now in the violence of their affliction. The agony of grief which overpowered them at first, was voluntarily renewed, was sought for, was created again and again. They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future.

But while most readers fixate on Marianne’s transformation, Austen also gives Mrs. Dashwood her own little redemption arc. She is absent for the scenes in London and Cleveland, where most of the novel’s action takes place, but when she returns in the picture, we see her becoming a better parent, even at her “late” age of 40. After their servant Thomas reveals that “Mr. Ferrars” has wed, thus ending Elinor’s hopes of marrying Edward, Mrs. Dashwood realizes how deeply her eldest daughter has also suffered, if only silently:

When the dessert and the wine were arranged, and Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor were left by themselves, they remained long together in a similarity of thoughtfulness and silence. Mrs. Dashwood feared to hazard any remark, and ventured not to offer consolation. She now found that she had erred in relying on Elinor’s representation of herself; and justly concluded that every thing had been expressly softened at the time, to spare her from an increase of unhappiness, suffering as she then had suffered for Marianne. She found that she had been misled by the careful, the considerate attention of her daughter, to think the attachment, which once she had so well understood, much slighter in reality, than she had been wont to believe, or than it was now proved to be. She feared that under this persuasion she had been unjust, inattentive, nay, almost unkind, to her Elinor;—that Marianne’s affliction, because more acknowledged, more immediately before her, had too much engrossed her tenderness, and led her away to forget that in Elinor she might have a daughter suffering almost as much, certainly with less self-provocation, and greater fortitude. [emphasis added]

Mrs. Dashwood learns, as all parents eventually do, a particularly painful lesson: too often, as our attention is drawn towards our most expressive child, we end up neglecting the pains that another child might be hiding. This discrepancy of parental care could have easily been delivered from Elinor’s perspective—we could have seen her resent the distraction of her only living parent—but, in a novel about overcoming immature errors, Austen lets even her older characters find opportunities for moral improvement. It is one thing for Marianne to learn from her older sister; it’s another for a mother to take cues from her daughter. When Edward—once beloved, now distrusted—arrives a few days later, Mrs. Dashwood tries to model her actions after Elinor’s example:

Mrs. Dashwood, however, conforming, as she trusted, to the wishes of that daughter, by whom she then meant in the warmth of her heart to be guided in everything, met him with a look of forced complacency, gave him her hand, and wished him joy.

Lady Middleton: While Austen’s most famous buffoons—characters like Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine, and Mrs. Elton—are found elsewhere, Sense & Sensibility probably has the largest supporting cast of insipid, selfish dolts in any single Austen novel. You’ve got Mrs. Ferrars, Fanny Dashwood, Robert Ferrars, Nancy Steele Lucy Steele, Mr. Palmer, Mrs. Palmer, John Dashwood, John Willoughby, Sir John—three characters, all named John, all three come in for critique! Austen can be biting about each of these characters, but Lady Middleton, Sir John’s polite but dull wife, gets the harshest treatment:

“There was nothing in any of the party which could recommend them as companions to the Dashwoods; but the cold insipidity of Lady Middleton was so particularly repulsive, that in comparison of it the gravity of Colonel Brandon, and even the boisterous mirth of Sir John and his mother-in-law was interesting.”

“Lady Middleton was more agreeable than her mother, only in being more silent.”

“Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood. There was a kind of cold hearted selfishness on both sides, which mutually attracted them; and they sympathised with each other in an insipid propriety of demeanour, and a general want of understanding.”

And yet, even Lady Middleton can be appreciated in the proper light. After Marianne discovers that she has been rejected by Willoughby, everyone is anxious to share their condolences. But with Marianne in too delicate a condition, everyone unloads their oppressive pity on Elinor instead, to her chagrin:

Neither Mrs. Jennings, nor Sir John, nor even Mrs. Palmer herself, ever spoke of [Willoughby] before [Marianne]. Elinor wished that the same forbearance could have extended towards herself, but that was impossible, and she was obliged to listen day after day to the indignation of them all.

Suffocating from all this concern, Elinor finds Lady Middleton’s dull presence to be a nice change of pace:

The calm and polite unconcern of Lady Middleton on the occasion was an happy relief to Elinor’s spirits, oppressed as they often were by the clamorous kindness of the others. It was a great comfort to her, to be sure of exciting no interest in one person at least among their circle of friends; a great comfort to know that there was one who would meet her without feeling any curiosity after particulars, or any anxiety for her sister’s health.

Then the narrator pauses to reflect on the significance of Elinor’s preference for a woman she has, up until now, found intolerable to be around:

Every qualification is raised at times, by the circumstances of the moment, to more than its real value; and she was sometimes worried down by officious condolence to rate good-breeding as more indispensable to comfort than good-nature.

Lady Middleton’s vapid attention to social decorum, which makes her insufferable 99% of the time, provides a salve at this particular moment. Note that the narrator is not saying the Lady Middleton is misunderstood, that deep down she really is a wonderful person. Nor is the narrator attributing any change to Elinor’s character. It is not the characters who have changed but the situation. Under new circumstances, new character traits take on a different light. People we normally cannot stand might be better appreciated if we were only around them in a different time or place.

Ironically, this ability to appreciate others better is not a product of our selflessness but our selfishness. The reason that Lady Middleton makes such a suitable companion is that Elinor needs some respite from all this meddlesome sympathy. If she were merely trying to love Lady Middleton out of the goodness of her heart, out of Christian duty, she would’ve struggled in vain. But because she needs the type of company that only a boring, stolid gentlewoman can offer, Elinor‘s heart is softened towards her. This turns out to be one of the key insights of Sense & Sensibility: as disreputable as selfishness may be, it is often better than good-natured charity at greasing the wheels of social cohesion.

There’s more that could be said on this, but I’ll stop here.

1. I was assigned it as an undergraduate, but because my professor didn’t really build any assignments around it, I never finished (or even started? I honestly have no recollection). I technically had to read it for my comprehensive exams, but I don’t remember much from that attempt.