To the end of Book one

The rape of the locks
When Willoughby procures a lock of Marianne's hair—and we never really know whether she actually says yes to his doing so—Elinor takes this as proof that the couple are to be engaged.

This sort of interaction seems ambiguous to us today. Perhaps we might sense something special about a woman willingly handing over something that was once part of her but that sort of signal seems to have no place in our modern exchanges.


 There is a nuance here that I think worth lingering on a bit. Someone might say, "Well how significant can a lock of hair be in world in which people easily and readily consent to have sex with one another?' Except, how significant is the decision to have sex with someone? Do modern men and women wake up the night after first having sex with someone confident that the status of their relationship is now solid and determined?

We like to think we live in a world where a certain idea of freedom has altered the context of the sorts of behaviourial significance Sense and Sensibility deals with. But we do not.

To fully grasp this, imagine a really vulgar updating of Sense and Sensibility in which Marianne allows Willoughby to hang her panties from the rear-view mirror of his car and to post photographs of her breasts on his web page. We would probably think less of both of them for this but would we assume anything at all about the nature of any commitment between them? Of course we wouldn't; they could break up tomorrow.

That was the sort of problem 18th century novels traded in. At the end of Pamela, our heroine marries Mr. B and surrenders her long-preserved virginity to him. That is a huge problem because Richardson has treated hymen as equivalent to virtue for the entire novel up until now. Now that she no longer has that to hold back, what is to ensure that Mr. B doesn't discard his new wife. To his own shock, Richardson realized he didn't have an answer to that question and he kept rewriting the end of Pamela trying to come up with a decisive sense that Pamela's triumph is secure.

So what does it signify that Willoughby has a lock of Marianne's hair?

Well, what would it signify if Edward had a lock of Elinor's hair? He does not but she thinks he does and she isn't displeased:

That the hair was her own, she instantaneously felt as well satisfied as Marianne; the only difference in their conclusions was, that what Marianne considered as a free gift from her sister, Elinor was conscious must have been procured by some theft or contrivance unknown to herself. She was not in a humour, however, to regard it as an affront, and affecting to take no notice of what passed, by instantly talking of something else, she internally resolved henceforward to catch every opportunity of eyeing the hair, and satisfying herself, beyond all doubt, that it was exactly the shade of her own. 

 This paragraph should completely demolish the reading that holds that Marianne has too much sensibility and Elinor too much sense. Here we see Elinor secretly enjoying that Edward appears to have stolen a lock of her hair. Her sensibility clearly equals, and possibly exceeds, Marianne's.

I read recently that 31 percent of women replied to a opinion poll by saying that they like it when the catch men staring at their breasts. That is, in one sense, not surprising at all given the way that many women dress today. In another sense, however, it is a bit of a jolt because of the word "stare" in the question. Morally speaking, we don't expect that answer.

I suspect that most of the 31 percent who said yes would not have done so if they had not been guaranteed anonymity. We regard having a certain feeling as having a different moral status than behaviour that lets everyone know about that feeling. Of course, lots of women do put their breasts on display but the tacit assumption is that they do not accept staring as a reasonable response. And the dress is dependent on fashion. If cleavage were not the style of the day, a woman who showed too much of it would soon learn that others disapproved. And even those women who might enjoy a bit of staring would be well advised to not let it show that they enjoy this.

And that, for Elinor and me at least, is the crucial distinction. Her private responses are no different from Marianne's. Both girls would probably answer the modern poll question by saying, "in certain circumstances, yes." The difference is that Elinor would be much more conscious of the judgments others might be making about her behaviour. A point she tries to make to Marianne with no luck:

"I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes," said Elinor, "in a total misapprehension of character in some point or other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why, or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge."

 "But I thought it was right, Elinor," said Marianne, "to be guided wholly by the opinion of other people. I thought our judgments were given us merely to be subservient to those of our neighbours. This has always been your doctrine, I am sure."

 "No, Marianne, never. My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection of the understanding. All I have ever attempted to influence has been the behaviour. You must not confound my meaning. I am guilty, I confess, of having often wished you to treat our acquaintance in general with greater attention; but when have I advised you to adopt their sentiments or conform to their judgment in serious matters?"

 "You have not been able then to bring your sister over to your plan of general civility," said Edward to Elinor. "Do you gain no ground?

 "Quite the contrary," replied Elinor, looking expressively at Marianne. 

Oddly, and this ought to shock us a bit, Elinor sees more moral significance in Marianne's assent to Willoughby cutting her hair than she sees in the prospect of Edward having secretly stolen hers. It's the public behaviour that matters. This is true even though  it isn't that hard to read feelings. Again and again, we encounter situations in Austen novels where everyone can probably guess that a person's private feelings are very different from what their public behaviour would indicate. Austen clearly regards people who behave this way as morally superior beings.

And she is right to do so.

In any case, it turns out that  Elinor is again mistaken for the lock of hair is not hers but that of one Lucy Steele who, to compound the horror, is secretly engaged to Edward. Worse, because of her younger sister's lack of discretion, Lucy figures out that Elinor has feelings for Edward and, under the guise of seeking her advice, cruelly rubs this in.

And Elinor suffers through this. Not stoically, I hasten to add. A Stoic tries train herself to not feel the pain of such things. Elinor feels it very deeply. She struggles to not let it show in her behaviour.

And thus endeth book one. A quick note. The first time we read this book, we read Marianne's story. In that story, Elinor can appear rather priggish and difficult.

The second time, we should read Elinor's story. For book one is more about Elinor than it is about Marianne.