Form and Function

            A few posts have questioned the happily ever after ending of Sense and Sensibility, and I also paused at the way everything is tied up so neatly and easily. When Edward comes to propose to Elinor, Austen explains that “[h]is errand at Barton, in fact, was a simple one. It was only to ask Elinor to marry him” (364). She does go on to explain that he needs a lot of support to do it, but the narrator’s simplistic explanation of the task at hand makes proposing, which is generally an incredibly emotionally charged and nerve wracking moment, seem quick and easy. A few pages later, we read a letter from Lucy explaining her marriage to Robert. This use of a letter within a third person narrative is striking to me, because the letter operates so differently here than in the epistolary works we have examined so far. This letter is utterly straightforward, and it lays out Lucy’s situation and the motivations behind it clearly. Whereas the letters in “Lady Susan” and Desmond made us doubt the narrators’ reliability, this letter is meant to straighten things out and assure everyone, including the reader, that Lucy is safely married to Robert. Elinor calmly states, “‘However it may have come about…they are certainly married’” (368). This cut and dry interpretation of Lucy’s letter aligns with the novel’s universally happy ending, where everyone winds up neatly in her or his place. Sense and Sensibility combines an omniscient narrator with the epistolary form to craft an ending that is unrealistically easy, one that, therefore, makes us dig in for its meaning.