Love

We might stop and note here, again, how little importance Austen attributes to love. We think love is all you need.

If Frank's story were a Hollywood movie, the central question would be, "Is Frank really in love?" because Hollywood always takes it that two people who are really in love are good persons. Love, we think, is a good and pure thing that guarantees the goodness of everything it touches. The lover in a movie might hurt the one he loves but, again because he is in love, he will do what it takes to fix the situation. In Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen blows that illusion to smithereens. As we will see, Willoughby really is in love and that is not enough.