Elinor and Marianne are two sisters with very different personalities. Elinor is practical and reserved. Marianne is emotional and vivacious. They struggle to understand each other, but ultimately they learn from one another. Although the sisters find romance in unexpected places, it is their sisterly relationship that defines them.

I have always loved stories about siblings, that this book is full of comparisons and contrasts between various groups of siblings. Austen is a genius at weaving an interesting story with really intense character development and explorations of different personalities. You can just tell that she must have observed these behaviors and characteristics in real life, since they ring so true.

2024 reread: Reading in Spanish made me read slower and really think carefully about each sentence in a new way. It was very refreshing to see this story from a bit of a different perspective, but the translation that I had was a free ebook, and it was full of errors.

We see a lot of siblings who react in the opposite direction from their sibling- Marianne does music and Elinor does drawing. Marianne seems to react even more emotionally because Elinor is so reserved with her emotions.

Marianne doesn’t even try to control her emotions. It’s not healthy to be so overwhelmed with your emotions, good or bad emotions, that you don’t even make an effort to control them, and your emotions end up upsetting everyone around you. Marianne is rude to people quite often because she follows this ideal of "being true to herself", to the point where she won’t even be polite to people that she doesn’t like. Because she feels like that would be a "betrayal" of her true feelings.

Eleanor is so in control of her emotions, that when something bad happens to her, she ends up consoling her mother and her sisters, instead of being true to her own feelings and expressing her own grief. It’s not healthy to bottle everything up inside. She is untrue to herself because she is obsessed with being polite and doing what she perceives to be her duty.

They are two extremes of emotional intelligence, but emotional maturity is finding a balance. And through the story and their difficult experiences, both sisters eventually find that maturity.

Marianne is somehow cleansed by her illness. That brush with death has given her a perspective and serenity to replace her excessive grief over Willoughby. She finally makes an effort to control her emotions to the great relief of everyone involved.

Elinor is cleansed when she hears that Edward is not married, because it’s after she finds out he is not married, that she finally breaks down and cries, and shows her true feelings. This extreme shock of happiness is what unlocks her emotions.

For happy-go-lucky Marianne, it is her serious illness that changes her heart. For serious Elinor, it is happiness that changes her heart.

Just like all of Jane Austen's novels, we have characters who represent two extremes of some character trait, and quite often these pairs are siblings.
Sibling pairs-
Marianne and Elinor and Margaret and John Dashwood
Lucy and Anne Steele
Fanny, Robert, and Edward Ferrars
Colonel Brandon and his elder brother
Lady Middleton and Mrs. Palmer

The Dashwood sisters are all that is good and generous, while their brother John is greedy and selfish.
Lucy Steele is scheming and sharp-minded, while her sister Anne is silly and foolish.
Fanny and Robert Ferrars are selfish and greedy, while their brother Edward is honorable and compassionate.
Mrs. Palmer is always cheerful, while her sister Lady Middleton is always solemn.

But often it is other characters who are reacting to someone's exuberant behavior by doing the opposite. Mrs. Jennings and her daughter Charlotte are extremely happy for no reason, so Mr. Palmer reacts by being very somber and critical.
Sir John Middleton is outgoing and friendly, and Lady Middleton reacts by being cold and aloof.

But the biggest reaction is how Elinor reacts to Marianne’s emotional outbursts by doing the opposite. She never allows herself to have an emotional outburst, but must always keep her emotions hidden inside. This means that she has cut herself off from true connection with even her own family. She is hidden behind her walls of decorum.

There are also a lot of contrasts and parallels between Willoughby and Edward Ferrars- they are in similar situations, but they react in completely different ways.
Both are involved with other women before they meet the Dashwood girls. Edward does the honorable thing, while Willoughby abandons Eliza pregnant and alone.
They are both poor, dependent on their rich relations. Edward doesn’t care about riches as long as he has a clear conscience, while Willoughby, in debt, is willing to do any kind of atrocity if it means gaining riches.
Edward is constrained by his conscience to not act on his feelings for Eleanor. Willoughby acts on his feelings for Marianne because he has no conscience.

Where does Lucy Steele fit into this? Who is her opposite? The obvious answer is her sister Anne Stelle. Anne is comparable to Marianne, but she has those strong emotions with no education or sense to guide them, leaving her on the point of idiocy. Lucy takes Elinor’s trait of being practical and reserved to the point of being false and lying and scheming. Two groups of sisters taking their traits to extremes.

But there is someone else that I notice has some things in common and the opposite to Lucy Steele, and that, oddly enough, is Colonel Brandon.
They are both involved in love triangles with the Dashwoods. They both make Elinor their confidante. Brandon befriends Elinor in order to support and encourage both the Dashwood sisters, stemming from his love for Marianne and a wish to serve her family. He is reliable and kind and generous in every way. A true brother to Elinor even when he has no hope of gaining Marianne’s love.
Lucy "befriends" Elinor in order to tear down Elinor’s hopes, and triumph over her, stemming from her love of herself. Her own selfish desires guide everything she does. She has to tear others down to feel good about herself and raise herself above them, gain control over them in some way. She loved to watch Elinor squirm under the little barbs of her words.

Or is Brandon’s opposite actually John Dashwood? The indifferent brother and the supportive new brother to Elinor? We see John's greed vs. Brandon's generosity.
Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon both have affectionate relationships with their future sister-in-laws before any romance is settled with the lady they love. Maybe there is more to explore in these brotherly relationships as well.

There are also a lot of doubles in the book. Marianne and her mother are said to have very similar stormy emotional personalities. Marianne and Willoughby have a similar foolishness in expressing themselves intensely, thoughtlessly. Lucy Steele and Fanny Dashwood have very similar greedy personalities. Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Palmer have the same inane laughter. Brandon and Edward are both quiet and reserved, although in different ways. Brandon is reserved because his life has been hard. Edward is reserved more from social awkwardness. Elinor and Brandon are similar in their practical ways and their selfless wish to care for everyone.

Overall, this book has many layers to explore. Every time I read it, I see something new, some new aspect of the characters and how they interact. I never get tired of rereading Jane Austen!