"I can no more forget him, than a mother can forget her nursing child." Jane Austen wrote these words about her novel, Sense and Sensibility, in a letter to her sister Cassandra in 1811. Such maternal feeling in Austen is interesting to note, especially since each of her readers is well aware of the lack of mothers in her. novels. We frequently encounter heroines and other major characters who, if not orphans, have mothers who lack maturity, affection and/or common sense. Specifically, I would like to examine Sense and Sensibility, which, according to the introduction to Ros Ballaster's novel, "is full, even overpopulated, with mothers" (vii). By discussing the maternal figures in this work, I hope to illustrate the different possibilities of what mothering and motherhood may entail in Austen, and what this curious spectrum of strengths and weaknesses means for the heroine involved. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay When discussing the mothers in Sense and Sensibility, it makes sense to start with Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor and Marianne's mother. We meet her just a few pages into the novel and are immediately made aware of her sincere and unpretentious interest in Elinor's relationship with Edward Ferrars. Unlike most of Austen's mothers, Mrs. Dashwood is neither calculating nor preoccupied with a particular agenda for her daughters: "Some mothers might have encouraged intimacy for reasons of self-interest...and others would have could suppress it on grounds of prudence... but Mrs. Dashwood was not influenced by any of these considerations either. It was enough for him that he appeared amiable, that he loved his daughter and that Elinor reciprocated his partiality” (13). As generous as this attitude was, it also illustrated a certain lack of caution in Mrs. Dashwood. So, as a parent, she is not without fault. Like Marianne, Mrs. Dashwood is romantic and fanciful, more inclined to act on feeling than reason. Also similar to her youngest daughter, she often misunderstands both the characters and situations of individuals. When Elinor tells Marianne of Mrs. Ferrars's difficulties in marrying Edward, "Marianne was astonished to find how far the imagination of her mother and herself had exceeded the truth" (18). Furthermore, Mrs. Dashwood's reaction to Willoughby is just as naive as Marianne's. “In Mrs. Dashwood's opinion he was as blameless as in Marianne's opinion” (43). Only Elinor, acting with the maternal prudence that her mother does not possess, has reservations regarding Marianne's suitor. Thus, Mrs. Dashwood clearly fails as an authority figure for her children. It does not discourage them from acting rashly (such as Marianne's trip to Miss Smith's home with Willoughby without a chaperone), nor does it provide the type of structure or discipline that would prevent such situations from occurring. in the first place. She does, however, possess the caring and affectionate disposition that allows us to see her as, if not always a good mother, at least a loving and well-meaning mother. When Marianne falls ill, only her mother's presence can put her at ease: "Marianne's ideas were still, at times, incoherently fixed on her mother" (264). Jennings, like Mrs. Dashwood, is a good and kind woman, but fails to provide the maternal protection one might expect of her. The “good-natured, cheerful, fat old woman, who talked a lot, seemed very happy andrather vulgar” (29) is interested in Elinor and Marriane, and the time they spend together in companionship eventually becomes a deeper, more caring mother-daughter relationship. Like Mrs. Dashwood, she has a tendency to openly misinterpret events (such as Willoughby's letter to Marianne), and like Mrs. Dashwood, she has not been entirely successful in keeping Elinor and Marianne under a mother's watchful eye. ? Marianne's illness is not only due to her own carelessness, but also to the negligence of her guardian. Although Mrs. Jennings is a good-hearted woman, as a mother she seems to falter, both when supervising Elinor and Marianne, and, more apparently, with her two daughters who seem more like caricatures than like intelligent, balanced individuals. Fanny Dashwood and Lady Middleton are less generous portraits of motherhood. I mention them together because they are inexorably linked according to Austen, both described as selfish and corrupt forms of motherhood. Lady Middleton, “although perfectly well-bred…was reserved, cold, and had nothing to say beyond the most banal question or remark” (26). She adores her children who, although they are described as "loud" and "annoying", remain visibly anonymous. They are rarely named, or even assigned a gender, as if it is not their individuality that matters, but rather their ability to serve as a pet or accessory to their mother. Her role as a mother is the defining factor in who Lady Middleton is, and she doesn't seem interested in anything else. Ironically, this particular form of devotion seems detrimental to everyone involved: it reduces one to a superficial and limited individual, and creates children who are spoiled brats. Like Lady Middleton, Fanny Dashwood is presented as having "cold-hearted selfishness". (194), and uses his son (who, interestingly, is never actually present in the novel) to rationalize his greedy character. She convinces her husband John to give Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters considerably less than he had originally planned, with the reasoning that "to take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy would be to impoverish him to the degree the most terrible”. " (7). Apart from a conversation with Lady Middleton which concerned the comparison of the sizes of their son, it is only in this case that we see Fanny feigning an interest in her son, and later we discovers that she intends to spend some of "poor little Harry" (7) money on a new greenhouse for the garden. These two women's interests in their children strive to achieve a goal. specific; Lady Middleton craves compliments and attention, Fanny Dashwood craves money Their poor mothering skills are not surprising, however, but simply reflect Austen's clear portrayal of them as superficial individuals with unbalanced values. . In Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's now classic, The Madwoman in the Attic, they talk about a strange breed of women in Austen's novels who, unlike the heroines, are angry, ruthless and often powerful. , “they are mothers or surrogate mothers who seek to destroy their docile children” (170). Such a description cannot but bring to mind Edward's mother, Mrs. Ferrars. “A small, thin woman, straight to the point of formality in her figure, and serious to the point of sourness” (196), she seems to use her sons to achieve her own narrow goals and reward her own pride. Mrs. Ferrars makes it known that Edward and Robert will marry well and has chosen a career that she considers ambitious and prestigious, such as going into law or politics. Elinor's distrust of Madame's "dispositions and designs", 1995.