Sense & Sensibility Chapter 12

It's pretty clear that Marianne loves Willoughby and there's speculation that Elinor loves someone who's name begins with F

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Transcript

Frances:  welcome to the amateur austinite. i'm frances duncan, author, austinite life coach. my cohost is the lovely rachel Pilois book buyer, austinite, and all around nerd. hi. today, we're discussing chapter 12 of sense and sensibility. willoughby has offered to give mary anne a horse, and she has not thought about any of the practicalities about that.

Rachel:  it's like how you shouldn't give someone a puppy if, they're not capable of taking care of it and also don't have any of the things needed to look after a dog. it's like saying, here's a puppy for christmas. i'm giving this to you at, like, 10:00 or christmas eve, but i didn't get you any kind of puppy food or, a crate or a bed or any kind of thing that they can go to the toilet in, or any toys or anything. you just have the dog by itself.

Frances:  yeah. so there's a lot of paraphernalia that needs to be in place.

Rachel:  for a horse, the paraphernalia is an entire stable.

Frances:  there's also questions about the state of mary anne and willoughby's relationship in this chapter, questions that aren't resolved, the beautiful wording for eleanor thinking about, how mary anne and willoughby are is that the story of the horse is an extravagant testimony of how they are.

Rachel:  which is a really nice way of putting it, but also is very fitting for marianne's character to be like, this is the best thing that could ever happen.

Frances:  my boyfriend's giving me a horse. cool. cool. okay. um, so it needs a stable. it needs food. it needs a groom. um, who's gonna pay for this? you know that we don't have a lot of money. right? also, you barely know this guy. accepting a present from somebody is a huge deal, particularly one this big. it kinda comes with obligations. mary anne thinks the expense would be a trifle, mary anne is every child who wanted a pony.

Rachel:  my question, is this the brown mare that colonel brennan wouldn't buy off him?

Frances:  no. because apparently, it's exactly calculated to carry a woman.

Rachel:  i don't know anything about horses. does that mean a brown mare couldn't carry a woman?

Frances:  i don't know. extravagant of willoughby to have a bunch of horses. he does not have the money to maintain a stable of any kind of size, really. probably a road horse, but he doesn't have enough money for a carriage. he really doesn't have enough money for hunters, but it sounds like he probably has them.

Rachel:  hot take. willoughby actually stole the horse and gifted it to marianne. and the mare that he wanted to sell to colonel brandon, he also stole and was just trying to make the money on it.

Frances:  so this is his way of laundering the horses?

Rachel:  yeah. it's horse trafficking. it's illegal horse trafficking.

Frances:  awesome. new lore about willoughby. the question posed for our, uh, readers during the book club was, to what extent did willoughby and mary anne's behavior overstep conventional social rules. what do you think?

Rachel:  i think it does. i think it always has. him giving her a horse and her accepting it is one thing that is definitely, over the bounds. i think him when he was visiting every single day was maybe a bit much. the fact that he's, so easily inserted himself into these lives. it comes up in a in a couple of paragraphs within this chapter about, margaret saying that he saw willoughby cut a lock of Marianne's hair for him your lover would have a lock of your hair to remember you. y'all have known each other how long and you're, like, trading locks of hair it's a lot. she's 17. it's intense. if it's intense sounding in a modern perspective, it's probably not appropriate in the time that this is set in.

Frances:  eleanor has to walk like this really thin line on it because she knows her sister's temper. opposition on so tender a subject would only attach her the more to her own opinion. so yeah. you don't get to tell me i'm gonna do more of that thing.

Rachel:  tell me she's a child, but tell me she's a child. i feel for eleanor in this because it's like she can see what's happening with her own eyes. she understands what's happening better than mary anne does. but she knows that if she actually speaks her mind and scolds her sister about it, it's not gonna go well.

Frances:  had they been engaged, potentially, it would be an okay thing, but they still haven't made any engagement public. when mary ann tells willoughby she can't take the horse so they've obviously had private conversations. this is another private conversation, but eleanor manages to hear this one. and the way that they're talking an intimacy so decided and meaning so direct has marked a perfect agreement between them. she's like, okay. right. they are engaged. but why have they not told anyone? yeah. they're very frank people. why have they not expressed their engagement to everybody around them? that's the thing that still continues to make no sense even though she does believe that they are engaged. mary anne has a whole argument with eleanor that knowing somebody doesn't necessarily take time, saying that she doesn't know her brother john, but she really knows willoughby. it does show later that not the case. you do know john. you know he's a dick. you don't realize yet that willoughby is also a dick. yeah. but sometimes you feel like you know someone really quickly. in some cases, that's a red flag.

Rachel:  yeah. i think it depends on how you get to know them real life, you and me, we got to know each other very quickly. we had coffee like, well, i mean, we'd met a few times beforehand and not really had much conversation. but then we went out for coffee and, like, we were there for a couple hours, but it was like

Frances:  we're both queer and neurodiverse, so that's a thing.

Rachel:  and we both love jane austen.

Frances:  so when you have a similar, like, neurotype to people, that happens. but it can be a manipulative thing that abusers do to make you feel like you know them really well really quickly.

Rachel:  yeah. this was all a ruse. i'm actually super neurotypical, incredibly straight. i've never read a single Austen in my life.

Frances:  what do you want with me?

Rachel:  so your skin is really nice.

Frances:  back to the skin wearing thank you

Rachel:  he has made it impossible for them to actually get to know each other properly. if he had been honest about anything, his own likes and opinions if he hadn't just been acquiescing to mary anne, then maybe this wouldn't seem so sketchy because then she would actually know him better.

Frances:  they're talking about books and music. can you really get to know somebody by discussing those particular topics at a deep level.

Rachel:  i think it does teach you some things about a person by what especially what they read. i think that can say a lot. someone comes up to and they start telling me that they're only reading, like, jordan peterson i'm like, cool. you're not someone i really wanna be hanging out with or associating with. but if someone's like, well, i've been, reading all this really cool fiction with all these, like, really weird things. i'm like, that sounds like my kind of person. i think in this time as well they're not so worldly. my friends and i recently have been discussing what's going on in the us and stuff you can talk about politics and gender and all these things, and you do get to learn about people. but in this society, in this setting, in their lives, they don't have easy access to global information. they are in a very insulated world. they can't get into all these deep topics so much to find out more about each other mary anne doesn't really have opinions on a lot of topics like that to get to know him. so is

Frances:  it a little perhaps lacking in mary anne's education to be able to have a deep conversation potentially?

Rachel:  potentially. what else is she supposed to have deep thoughts on if not books and music and things like that. you know?

Frances:  well, that's fair. she would not have been taught to think on global issues. no. the name of the horse that willoughby intends to give her is queen mab, which apparently is named after a fairy in romeo and juliet.

Rachel:  there are fairies in romeo and juliet?

Frances:  mercutio describes her as the fairy's midwife. she gives birth to dreams. that's apparently queen mab's role. some people have said that this was an intentional choice of name, probably is because Austen right? to indicate that this is a dream. it's not real. there's not that depth there.

Rachel:  my, annotated version of sense and Sensibility says, the horse's name has erotic implications. the fairy queen mab was said to send sexual dreams and to encourage fantasies of love, which adds another level of context to it. it's not all just a dream, but it's a dream of sex.

Frances:  fantasies of love. so it's not real either. yeah. oh, it just makes me think that he's like an incubus. the way that he talks to mary anne about it, that word earnestness comes up again. the eagerness, earnestness is sort of the thing that they share. but when it comes to the hair, i think it's quite funny that eleanor's like margaret, i'm sure he hasn't got her hair. remember when you thought that she was wearing a thing from him and it actually ended up being our dead uncle? how do you know that this isn't his dead uncle? and that's when margaret's like, no. i saw it.

Rachel:  saw it with my own eyes. believe me. also, can we just talk for a moment? is it weird that mary anne wears, a miniature of their great uncle around her neck?

Frances:  no. no? they lived with him. he was kind of like their grandpa

Rachel:  okay. that's true.

Frances:  and people wore or had miniatures and jewelry and little memento mori of people, actually, even when they were alive. so pictures and things made with their hair because you didn't have the same contact, and you didn't have photographs.

Rachel:  i guess if mary anne had, like, options of miniatures between different people that she loved.

Frances:  this is how lucy proves to eleanor that she and edward are together because she has a miniature of him. these things are not made lightly.

Rachel:  yeah. i'm gonna make miniatures of all my friends, or i would if i had any artistic talent.

Frances:  margaret hanging around in the background making problems.

Rachel:  i don't think she's making problems. she's a child who's telling her sister the things that she's seeing. she's actually, i think, potent well, not helping, but, you know, it's like, eleanor should know this. well,

Frances:  yeah. but then when missus jennings is like, we don't know who eleanor loves. who does eleanor love? and margaret's like, i can't tell you. i'm not allowed to am my eleanor. and Elinor was like, oh, shit.

Rachel:  yeah. shut up, you dumbass.

Frances:  and she's like, i don't want his thing to become a joke. because it's always a joke with them. right? yeah. and mary anne makes it worse. and it's so funny because mary anne's like, you're making it up. no. no. no. no. no. no. no. no. no. there's no such person. and margaret's like, well, then he must have died because there used to be one.

Rachel:  there used to be one, and his name began with an f.

Frances:  so funny. i wonder who

Rachel:  you could be referring to. they don't know who she's referring to until edward later shows up.

Frances:  which he does. yeah. just to make things awkward. is this part of the reason that margaret needs to exist to do this bit?

Rachel:  does that really add to the story? i guess it adds to the drama a bit. it adds to missus jennings' drama in her life. but

Frances:  well, they know something of edward before he turns up. perhaps they may not have perceived as much when he came to visit because there's not a lot of him spending time with the middletons. he's mostly with the dashwoods. and then it's an ongoing joke that then when lucy turns up, missus jennings is still talking about to make it more awkward. but for once, lady middleton is useful. she starts talking about the weather, and then colonel brandon continues talking about the weather because he's always considerate about the feelings of others. because they're like, this is uncomfortable. lady middleton was like, this is inappropriate. i know the rules. this is inappropriate. therefore, i should talk about the weather. she doesn't actually care about people. colonel brandon actually cares about people. then willoughby asks mary anne to play on the pianoforte, and it says that various people are trying to get them to change the topic. but is willoughby doing it for eleanor's good? or was he just like, well, i'm not interested in this conversation, and i want mary anne to play the piano?

Rachel:  i think he wanted the attention back on him and mary anne. he didn't care that the attention was on eleanor, not i think because he cared for eleanor but because i think he really enjoys the attention of this courtship and also i think if he draws attention to himself, colonel brandon there and if everyone's paying attention to them, it's just another stick in colonel brandon's back.

Frances:  so colonel brandon has suggested a little visit to, his brother in law's place. it's got lovely grounds, etcetera, etcetera. and it turns out that sir john has been taking people there, like, twice every year for, like, ten years. so, you know, sir john loves a party. so we're always gonna go there for a picnic. even though it is autumn at the moment. and it's described as a bold undertaking considering that it's rained for the last two weeks. oh, yeah. but they're gonna have a picnic and go on the little river.

Rachel:  good luck, guys. yeah. that's gonna be a raging river and a very damp picnic. hopefully, it doesn't rain that day.

Frances:  yeah. it's referred to as a noble piece of water. hilarious.

Rachel:  i've got a note against the word noble. in my book it says distinguished by imposing or impressive proportions.

Frances:  so huge

Rachel:  so it's a big river.

Frances:  i was trying to figure out if it was a river or a lake, but all it says is a noble piece of water.

Rachel:  a very large thing of water, a sail on which was to form a great part of the morning's amusement. i think it must be a lake. either way, it's big. and it's probably bigger than normal and very full because of rain.

Frances:  and that is our discussion of chapter 12 of sense and sensibility. i've been frances duncan. this has been rachel Pilois bye. thank you for listening, and we wish you happy reading.