Research on the Feminism in Sense and SensibilityA paper submitted in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for literature classto the College of Foreign LanguagesHebei United UniversityOctober 2011A BSTRACTJane Austen was a quite renowned English writer in the 19th Century, who is also the representative of English romanticism. Her writing focused on middle-classe life with humor and understanding. Austen was in many ways a realist, and the England she depicted was one in which social mobility was limited and class-consciousness was strong. Many of her works were very influential to the world, especially to the academy world. Sense and Sensibility is the one of her famous works, although it was the first work of Jane Austen, its writing skill was quite good. And from the timeit was published, people have begun to research on it. They make the research on different themes embodied in it: the author’s attitude on marriage, the symbolism writing skill, the femininism in the novel. This paper mainly will discuss the femininism in the novel, and probe into the femininism contained in the two main characters, as well the femininism displayed by the symbolism.KEY WORDS:Femininism Symbolism Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility摘要简·奥斯汀是英国十九世纪杰出的作家，是英国浪漫主义小说创作的代表。

她的小说以中产阶级的生活为主要题材，在对主人公生活描写反应当时社会状态和人们对婚姻的态度。

其多部作品耐人寻味，对世界产生了很大影响，托·巴·麦考莱评价她“作家当中其手法最接近于（莎士比亚）这位大师的，无疑就要数简·奥斯汀了，这位女性堪称是英国之骄傲”。

《理智与情感》是简·奥斯汀小说创作的第一部作品，其娴熟的写作手法，巧妙的故事情节安排，自其出版之日期就在英国乃至世界产生了很大的反响。

在对简·奥斯汀及其作品的研究中，学者们多从作者对婚姻的观念，作品创作中象征主义手法和作品中女性主义等方面入手。

本论文主要研究《理智与情感》中体现的女性主义，谈谈小说中两位主人公在大胆追求幸福过程中体现的女性主义。

关键词：女性主义象征主义简·奥斯汀《理智与情感》1.IntroductionJane Austen was one of the most influential writers in the 19th century English, and as the prier of English romanticism, her works demonstrated new flavor to the academy world, and also the whole world, she was thus honored forever by the world. Sense and Sensibility as one of his representative works, since the publication of it, it has aroused the readers’great interest, for the multi themes displayed in it , and the writer’s unique writing skill. Until now, people from all over the world have been making research on it., which showed the lasting reading value of the works.1.1Jane AustenWriting in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, Jane Austen appears historically, both in her social attitudes and formally in her art, as a kind of connecting link or hinge. Her attitude to society was still an eighteenth-century one, but in her attitude to the individual she looks forward to the later nineteenth century. She was born in Steventon, Hampshire, on 16 December 1775. Her mother was Cassandra Leigh Austen and her father was George Austen, rector of Steven. They belonged to the class known as ‘lesser gentry’, a rank some way below that of most of her fictional heroiness. At the age of seven Jane, along with her sister Cassandra, was plucked from her home enviroment and sent away to boarding school run by a Mrs Crawley, first in Oxford and then later in Southampton. By all accounts it was not a happy exerpience.Pride and Prejudice went begging, as we have sold for sixteen years; and Northanger Abbey(1798) was sold for a trivial sum to a publisher, who laid it aside and forgot it, until the appearance and moderate success of Sense and Sensibility in 1811. An anonymous article in the Quarterly Review,following the appearance of Emma in 1815, full of generous appreciation of the charm of the new writer, was the beginning of Jane Austen’s fame. She died, quietly as she had lived, at the Winchester, in 1817, and was buried in the cathedral. She was a bright, attractive little woman, whose sunny qualites are unconsciously reflected in all her books.1.2Jane Austen’s WorksHer artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years until she was about 35 years old. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she tried then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it.1.3Sense and SensibilitySense and Sensibility is a novel by the English novelist Jane Austen. Published in 1811, it was Austen's first published novel, which she wrote under the pseudonym "A Lady".The story is about Elinor and Marianne, two daughters of Mr Dashwood by his second wife. They have a younger sister, Margaret, and an older half-brother named John. When their father dies, the family estate passes to John, and the Dashwood women are left in reduced circumstances. The novel follows the Dashwood sisters to their new home, a cottage on a distant relative's property, where they experience both romance and heartbreak. The contrast between the sisters' characters is eventually resolved as they each find love and lasting happiness. Through the events in the novel, Elinor and Marianne encounter the sense and sensibility of life and love.The book has been adapted for film and television a number of times, including a 1981 serial for TV directed by Rodney Bennett; a 1995 movie adapted by Emma Thompson and directed by Ang Lee; a version in Tamil called Kandukondain Kandukondain released in 2000; and a 2008 TV series on BBC adapted by Andrew Davies and directed by John Alexander. An upcoming adaption is an American drama-romantic comedy film titled From Prada to Nada which was adapted by Luis Alfaro, Craig Fernandez, and Fina Torres to be a Latina version of the novel with an expected release date of January 28, 2011.2. Reasons of feminisim in Sense and Sensibility2.1 Social and cultural backgrounds of the novelJane Austen wrote her novels during the first two decades of the ninitheenth century. This is a peiord of Romanticism in English literature. It was also a time that saw the end of the Agricultural Revolution and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It was a period of the great estates owned by wealthy families. During this time people emphasis the nature rights of man and the abolition of class sistinction. The political writings of the time also reflected the acute struggle. The English people became more and more dissatisfied with the reality of the their country. And at that time women had little rights, espically they had no right to choose their lovers. Women’s marriage is deterimind by the males in the family. People believed that the girl marry a man who can improve the family condition should be very gracious. Sense andSensibility was written at this time.2.2 Feminisim on Jane AustenThe most remarkable characteristic of Jane Austen as a novelist is her recognition of the limits of her knowledge of life and her determination never to go beyond these limits in her books. She describes her own class, in the part of the country with which she was acquainted; and both the types of character and the events are such as she knew from first-hand observation and experience. But to the portrayal of these she brought an extraordinary power of delicate and subtle delineation.Gilbert and Gubar suggest that Austen was able to write from within such a male-dominated culture was by defining a small space separate from the world at large( it,s that little bit of ivory again ). Austen, they argued, admits and accepts the discomforts of a patriarchal culture yet manages to both use and subvert the limitations that it imposes. Margaret Kirkham sees Austen as highly sympathetic to the rational feminisim movement of the Englishtenment.3. Feminisim in Sense and Sensibility—the Two Main Characters3.1 MatianneMatianne is left a deep impression to the readers. Matianne is a woman, who has great courage to devote to real love and a woman who experiences hard life and final got ture love. She never can cover her emotion. She don’t care others’ common and find the ture love. She is beautiful, kind and full of passion.“ I should expect in the man who could seriously attach my sister. His eyes want all that spirit, that fire, which at once announce virtue and intelligence”“To satisfy me, those characters must be united. I could not be haappy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own.”From the words we can know that Marianne is a lady who have the courage to choose her own lover.When MRS JENNINGS introduce her to Colonel Brandon she refused to marriy him.“But at least, Mamma, you cannot deny the absuidity of the accusation, though you may not think it intentionally ill-natured. Colonel Brandon is certainly younger than Mrs.Jennings, but he is old enough to be my father; and if he were ever animated enough to be in love, must have long outlived every sensation of the kind”“In my eyes it would be no marriage at all”As long as she fall in love she pursue it without any diffculties.The first time she met Willoughby, she is eager to know about him and can’t cover her emotion.“But what are hia manners on more intimate acquaintance? What his pursuits, his talents, and genius?”Erred against common-place notion of decorum, she engaged to Willoughby without permittion.3.2 ElionrElionr is a woman who is always be sensd. She always can hide her enmotions very well. Athough she never do against the tration, she has her determine to believe in love and pursue it.After hearing the new that Edward has got engagement to Lucy she still love him and hide her sorrow.“Certainly,” answered Elinor, without konwing what she said; but after a moment’s reflection, she added, with revived security of Edward’s honour and love, and her companion’s falsehood.”“His affection was all her own. She could not be deceived in that. Her mother, sisters, Fanny, all had been conscious of his regard for her own vanity. He certainly loved her. What a softener of the heart was this persuasion!”4. ConclusionSense and Sensibility was the first Jane Austen published. Though she initially called it Elinor and Marianne, Austen jettisoned both the title and the epistolary mode in which it was originally written, but kept the essential theme：the necessity of finding a workable middle ground between passion and reason. The story revolves around the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Whereas the former is a sensible, rational creature, her younger sister is wildly romantic——a characteristic that offers Austen plenty of scope for both satire and compassion. Commenting onEdward Ferrars, a potential suitor for Elinor's hand, Marianne admits that while she "loves him tenderly," she finds him disappointing as a possible lover for her sister.Soon however, Marianne meets a man who measures up to her ideal：Mr. Willoughby, a new neighbor. So swept away by passion is Marianne that her behavior begins to border on the scandalous. Then Willoughby abandons her；meanwhile, Elinor's growing affection for Edward suffers a check when he admits he is secretly engaged to a childhood sweetheart. How each of the sisters reacts to their romantic misfortunes, and the lessons they draw before coming finally to the requisite happy ending forms the heart of the novel. Though Marianne's disregard for social conventions and willingness to consider the world well-lost for love may appeal to modern readers, it is Elinor whom Austen herself most evidently admired；a truly happy marriage, she shows us, exists only where sense and sensibility meet and mix in proper measure.BILIOGRAPHYCHRISTOPHER GILLIE ,2000,A Preface to JANE AUSTEN, Beijing University. JAN E·AUSTEN,2003,SENSE AND SENSIBILITY，beijing, Beijing Foreign Langue University.吴伟仁，2005，《英国文学史及选读》，北京，外语教学与研究出版社。