Sense and Sensibility 46-50: “Adult Supervision Required”
In our final recap and dissection of Sense & Sensibility, Emily and Lauren tackle the topic of adulthood – what does it really mean? Also included: happy endings, emotional growth, and Taylor Swift.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Anchor | Breaker | Castbox | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Radio Public
Don’t see the latest episode on your platform of choice? Click play above!
Show Notes
It’s our last Sense and Sensibility ‘theme episode’ and the end of the first season of Reclaiming Jane! This first season has truly flown by. It’s funny how far away April felt when we were planning out our schedule last fall, but we blinked and we’re done with our first Austen novel. Thank you, Janeite community, for the warmest of welcomes you’ve given us over the past few months.
We have one more episode after this where we’ll give our thoughts on Sense and Sensibility as a whole now that we’ve read the whole thing, as well as introduce our “Advising Austen” segment where we give alternately silly and serious advice to the characters of our latest read. Then we’ll go on a brief hiatus in May before returning at the beginning of June to dive into Pride and Prejudice.
Never fear, though, there will be plenty of other ways to engage until then — check our Support page to learn more!
Transcript
Reclaiming Jane Episode 10 | Sense and Sensibility 46-50: “Adult Supervision Required”
[00:00:00] Lauren: This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.
Emily: I'm Emily Davis-Hale,
Lauren: and I'm Lauren Wethers.
Emily: And today, we're talking about chapters 46 through 50 of Sense and Sensibility, with the topic of adulthood to guide our conversation.
Announcements
Emily: Before we get started on the meat of today's episode, we have some housekeeping to take care of.
Lauren: Some very exciting announcements.
Emily: So first, you've probably noticed that this is episode 10 of Sense and Sensibility, which is the last section of this book, the final five chapters, but we're not done.
Lauren: No, we have one more episode of season one so that we can wrap up Sense and Sensibility with our final, final thoughts on the book and all of the themes that we read through it.
Emily: So that will be coming out in two weeks in accordance with our established schedule. And then after that, we will be taking a short hiatus before we start season two and our next book, which is…
[drumroll sounds]
Together: Pride and Prejudice!
Emily: The gateway to Austen mania.
Lauren: But we will still be making some content for Reclaiming Jane in the meantime, which brings us to announcement number two.
We are relaunching our Patreon with new benefits and a special bonus for everyone who pledges between April 21st and June 2nd, which is when season two premieres.
Emily: We have designed an exclusive season one supporter sticker for the beloved members of the Fanny Dashwood Hate Club that will go out to everyone who joins Patreon before June 2nd.
Lauren: And we are also planning some watch parties throughout May so that our patrons can join us in enjoying some Sense and Sensibility on the screen and not just on the page.
Emily: So if you are interested during that time in chatting with us, seeing us work behind the scenes and possibly dunking on some screen adaptations [00:02:00], as well as proudly displaying your hate club membership, please come and find us at Reclaiming Jane Pod on Patreon.
Lauren: Come hang and see what the chaos is like when we're not edited.
Initial Reactions
Emily: Last episode.
Lauren: Or last one with new content for Sense and Sensibility since our next one will be like a retrospective look at all the things that the book has taught us. And some things we'd like to teach the characters.
Emily: We're going to play Pomp and Circumstance the entire time.
Lauren: Oh, we are? Oh, this is news to me.
Emily: No, we're not. Just when you said retrospective, my, my brain started going [sings Pomp and Circumstance]
Lauren: Ah, we're going to get a copyright strike.
Emily: This is going to be such a fun section to talk about. I mean, they, they all are. We always find a way to have fun regardless. But I was like sitting on the couch, reading this section and just, I couldn't stop smiling. It was like, am I about to cry over the last five chapters of Sense and Sensibility?
Cause it's like, it's just all, it's all coming together with everyone's stories wrapping up. But then also us wrapping up our first season when, you know, six months ago, this was.
Lauren: Just an idea.
Emily: Yeah. It was just an idea. We were all enthusiastic about it, but that's very different from making it a real thing.
And now we're wrapping up our first book and people have wanted to take this journey with us.
Lauren: Yeah, it's so cool. It makes me so happy.
Emily: It’s just amazing. And I'm surprisingly emotional about it.
30 Second Recaps
Lauren: Anyway. Okay. Sentimentality over. I'm super excited to hear your thoughts. Shall we get into recaps so that we can vent all this excitement and chat about these final chapters of Sense and Sensibility?
Emily: Yes.
Lauren: It is your turn, dear friend, to go first.
Emily: It is indeed.
Lauren: I believe in you, especially because you have such an emotional reaction to this.
Emily: Yeah, which just does not bode well for my ability to recap in 30 seconds, because I'm going to be thinking of all the things at once.
Lauren: But you'll know all the things.
Emily: We'll see. [00:04:00] No, positivity. This is, this is the last set of recaps for Sense and Sensibility, going to knock it out of the goddamn park.
Lauren: There it is. There's the energy we're looking for, see? Okay. 30 seconds on the clock.
Emily: Okay.
Lauren: On your mark. Get set. Bake!
Emily: They're back at Barton Cottage. Marianne is recovering. [pause] I told you I was going to forget.
It turns out that Lucy is married to Robert Ferrars now, and Edward shows up, imparts this news and proposes to Elinor. They get married. And then of course, Marianne and Colonel Brandon also get married. Edward and Elinor moved to the Delaford living and everyone is just happy and having a lovely time and I. Love it.
Lauren: Excellent. You still have five seconds to go.
Emily: Okay.
Lauren: Look at that.
Emily: I got to the meat.
Lauren: Yes, you did.
Emily: Okay. On your mark, get set. Go.
Lauren: Okay. They go back to Barton Cottage. Elinor tells Marianne what happened with Willoughby. Marianne's like, okay. I actually have some peace of mind now that I know he wasn't like a complete jackass, even though he was, they think that Edward married Fanny, Elinor was really upset.
Then he shows up and actually -- or not Fanny, dear God, had married Lucy, but it turns out his brother married Lucy and he wants to marry Elinor. Marianne and Colonel Dashwood [editor’s note: clearly Lauren was going too fast and getting names wrong] get married like two years later. Everybody's super happy. Edward and Elinor, somehow aren't poor because his mother decides to halfway forgive them.
And that's it.
Emily: Well done. I think we both did a pretty good job.
Lauren: I think so too. I'm still laughing over Edward marries Fanny. Wrong, wrong character.
Emily: Heaven forbid.
Lauren: Let's not do incest today.
Emily: Oh man.
Initial Reactions to Sense and Sensibility’s Closing Chapters
Lauren: Okay. Initial reactions.
Emily: Initial reaction. I was very surprised by end-game Elinor and Edward, but was pleased with the way it was handled in terms of character arcs.
It felt very aligned with Edward's personality that although he was no longer in love with Lucy, that he saw it as being a boyish folly, [00:06:00] that he was going to honor that agreement, and marry her despite his growing feelings for Elinor. I think I was saying in earlier episodes that I just wanted Elinor to be able to move on, but I'm very glad they ended up together.
I'm very happy about that. I wish that we had seen more of Colonel Brandon courting Marianne, because I feel like it would be adorable.
Lauren: Yeah. I wish that it hadn't just been wrapped up in a paragraph like, “Oh yeah. Colonel Brandon married Marianne. Marianne came to love him with her whole heart because she doesn't do anything half-assed.” Whole ass one thing. Don't half-ass two things, in the words of Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec.
Emily: Iconic.
Lauren: But like, it, it explains it, but I want more detail.
Emily: It makes sense, the things that were focused on, but also we're romantic bitches.
Lauren: But yeah, like I, I, we get the romantic scene with Elinor and Edward, and then we get the denouement, but Marianne's like coupling with Colonel Brandon is part of that, like, epilogue.
I liked that it was two years later. I liked that it didn't happen immediately because that would have felt extremely off. That being said, I am just selfish and I want like another two years later, another climactic scene.
Emily: Yeah. We're not unhappy with the way Jane Austen handled this. We just want more, which frankly is a mark of good writing.
Lauren: It's an endorsement. Yeah.
Emily: Yeah, there really isn't that much to really go over in detail for this, because it really does focus on Marianne recovering from her illness, Elinor sharing what Willoughby had said, and then Edward showing up and proposing. Although, of course, all the details around that are just like the last bit of what the fuck.
Lauren: So the way that this whole thing came about, because there's also like a very brief, like, comedy of errors where the servant comes to the Dashwoods' house. And they said, “Oh, well, I saw. Mr. Ferrars [00:08:00] and Lucy, they've gotten married and Lucy told me and showed me how happy she was,” and all this stuff. And of course, doesn't use the first name of the Ferrars brother just says, Mr. Ferrars got married. And so of course they all assume.
Emily: He does say that he didn't actually see the face of the Mr. Ferrars. Said like, “Oh yeah. He didn't like, he didn't look up at me, but then he always was very quiet.” So, you know, there's nothing to suggest that it isn't Edward.
Lauren: Exactly.
Emily: And then Edward shows up.
Lauren: Yup. And then there's like an awkward conversation where they're all dancing around the fact that they think that he's married. And so, nobody knows what to say. Elinor is like, slowly dying inside. And finally gets up the courage to ask like, “Oh, you know, well, how is Mrs. Ferrars doing? Is she at such and such a place?”
And he's like, “my mom? No, she's in London. Like why?”
Emily: That scene was straight out of a modern romcom. “What? No, my mom's in London.” “No, no. We mean—”
Lauren: Your wife.
Emily: Mrs. Edward Ferrars. And he says, “Oh, you mean Mrs. Robert Ferrars,” because Robert had been going to see Lucy in London after the whole fiasco about the engagement went down and basically trying to talk her out of it.
And she flattered him into deciding to marry her instead.
Lauren: The manipulation continues and, and then, you know, she's not even ever really punished for it because she knows how to manipulate and flatter literally everyone who she ever meets. And so even though Edward --
Emily: Except Elinor. And Marianne.
Lauren: Yeah. They are immune to her, to her charms, so to speak.
Emily: But Robert and their mother are putty in her hands. And so everything works out for them.
Lauren: Yep. Edward was disowned for getting engaged to Lucy, but then Robert actually marries her and then he gets disowned, but then is forgiven and still gets his thousand pounds a year and still hangs out with his mom and Fanny all the time.
Emily: It's just wild. It's absolutely wild. Like even more [00:10:00] so is that, Edward and Lucy had still been writing to each other because he had left London for Oxford and had no suspicion of anything. And then she writes to him and basically says, well, since you didn't really love me anyway, I just married your brother.
And we're leaving London. Bye!
Lauren: An awful letter.
Emily: Signed Lucy Steele or Lucy Ferrars. But then he, within 24 hours after getting that letter dashes to Barton Cottage, which was very romantic hero. And I really appreciated that, especially because then they're hearing from their other acquaintances, like John in London, who's saying, “we haven't heard anything from Edward. We assume that he's just holed up in Oxford. Hopefully he'll make up with his mother soon.”
And meanwhile, Edward's just been hanging out at Barton college with the Dashwoods being blissfully happy with Elinor. Oh, I love it so much.
Lauren: Again. Rom-com conventions.
It's like in a 21st-century Rom-com that would be the equivalent of somebody like getting on a plane from New York to go to wherever.
Like, “where are you going?!”
“To make things right!!” Cue, like, dramatic scene, like running through the airport to go catch the flight. And just like the other love interest opens the door and the romantic hero standing in front of them, like, “forgive me. Take me back.”
Emily: It was very sweet. I loved it. And I also loved that Edward and Colonel Brandon really had a chance to get to know each other better now because… have they interacted before?
I think they must've met briefly.
Lauren: Briefly, but I don't think really time to form like.
Emily: An acquaintance. But both of them are visiting at Barton Cottage at the same time. And they're able to get to know one another better. And, generally they just, they seem to be great pals right off the bat. And I love it.
I'm just -- Lauren can see I'm just grinning manically. I'm so, I'm so pleased that everyone turned out happy.
Adulthood in Sense and Sensibility
Emily: In addition to all these sort of interpersonal things. I was really struck, [00:12:00] especially given our theme of adulthood, by Marianne, because she really finds a way to incorporate more sense into her worldview because she realizes that indulging so quickly and deeply without reserve in her sensible side was — well, she blames herself a little too much, I think, for getting involved with Willoughby because he absolutely manipulated her.
But she does come to realize that, “actually he treated me pretty badly.” And so she wants to go on this course of self-improvement. So we get a little hint that, okay. She's not like completely changed because she says, “Oh, you know, with, with only six hours of reading per day, I can learn in a year all of the things that I feel I'm lacking now.”
Lauren: Bless her heart.
Emily: It’s so Marianne, but she does speak in a way that reveals just how much introspection she's really done, how much self-awareness, she's gained. And it's a much more mature version of Marianne, but it's still very much Marianne.
Lauren: It's the adult version of Marianne.
The conversation with Marianne and Elinor is like a really mature retrospective look at a relationship that went wrong. And the type of clarity that I feel like comes from that type of introspection and maturity, where you can actually look at things without the haze of that emotion from the relationship still over your eyes.
And you can look at things and say like, okay, here's how I felt at the time. Here's how this person made me feel. And I can understand why all of those things happened.
Emily: And with Marianne generally seeming to have more access to her emotions than Elinor does. I think Marianne has ended up more mature for that in the end, then Elinor did, because Elinor never really confronted her feelings in the same way, because she focuses so heavily on doing things logically and trying to think her way through it.
So she didn't indulge in the kind of [00:14:00] feelings that I think she would have needed to move on. But then in the end she didn't need to move on. So like it turns out okay. But Marianne definitely did the work to be considered more mature and to really come into her own. I think.
Lauren: I'm really glad you said that, like, obviously because of the title we've been having these ongoing conversations about sense versus sensibility and the balance between the two and with how Marianne's character arc went, it always has felt to me as though sensibility was kind of censured in a way and tied more with youth and then sense was necessarily what you came into as an adult and kind of putting down one in favor of the other.
But I like what you say about how, because of her sensibility, Marianne was able to mature much more and because Elinor didn't let herself indulge in that feeling, she lacked some of that emotional growth, because then I feel like that adds more balance to the sense versus sensibility.
It's not saying you have to cast sensibility aside in order to become a mature adult. It's saying like, because of her sensibility, she was able to regain. Like, or not to regain, but to indulge in more of the sense with the understanding that comes from indulging those emotions.
Emily: Yeah. I mean, if Edward had ended up marrying Lucy and if Elinor had had to deal with that, I don't think that she would have found as complete and healthy a way to cope with it on her own terms as Marianne did, you know, looking back at her relationship with Willoughby and how that ended.
Lauren: I agree. She needed to indulge in those emotions a little bit more rather than just repress them.
Emily: So, yeah, I, I'm very proud of Marianne.
Lauren: Poor little 17-year-old Marianne.
Emily: I know. Yeah.
Lauren: That's just, Oh, that's a lot. That's a lot for anybody to go through, especially a teenager, poor thing.
Another adult theme that I saw was like the parental guilt that Mrs. Dashwood feels. Because she realizes when they're hearing the news about what they think is Edward's marriage, just how affected Elinor is. And she has a realization like, “Oh, I've been paying a lot of attention to Marianne because she's demanded a lot of my attention and in [00:16:00] doing so. I have neglected my other daughter who seems to have been just in just as much need, but just wasn't saying anything about it. And did I mess up as a mother?”
Jane Austen never had children. I don't have children. So like neither of us could or can relate to like having a child. But I think it's, something, that's widely relatable to people who do have children of the constant guilt of am I doing enough? Have I failed my child in some way?
If I did fail my child in some way, have I like messed them up forever? Like, oh no, what have I done?
Emily: Yeah. That was something that we had expressed concern about before, because Elinor, so thoroughly repressed any outward expression of her feelings for Edward that, you know, everyone was concerned about Marianne coping with Willoughby's loss, that they kind of glossed over Elinor because she seemed fine.
Lauren: And again, some of the blame lies with Elinor, because like we said, her repressing her emotions is not healthy. And also expressing sadness is good for us, but also lets other people know like, “Hey kind of drowning. I need help.” And if we don't ever express that, no one really knows that we need help unless they are so attuned to like our personality that they know when we're hiding things.
But you can't, you can't expect the people around you to be mind readers. Like sometimes you have to ask for help.
The other thing about adulthood that just made me giggle when Elinor and Edward are kind of like talking through, how did this all happen? They say something about how, “now with the philosophic dignity of 24, Edward could look back,” I was like, 24?!
Emily: Baby.
Yeah, of course, I read that, and then, you know, I'm saying, Oh my God, he's so young. And then remembered that. My husband was 24 when we got married.
Lauren: And you were how old?
Emily: 22? Yeah. Yeah.
Lauren: And you considered yourself an adult cause you were an adult, but just now it feels really young.
Emily: But yeah, actually thinking about [00:18:00] like, how relatively young I was when I got married and then looking at like Lucy and Edward's relationship, they were infatuated with one another before, but they didn't actually have a relationship in the way that we think about a couple who's dating today.
And so they, they didn't have the opportunity or didn't put in the work or whatever to learn who the other person was, and to be able to grow and change with them. Which, you know, I, I've been with my husband now for 11 years. We've had some time to do those things. Yeah. So I think that was one thing that I was thinking about.
And drew parallels to my own life.
Lauren: Absolutely. And I think too, think of ourselves as young and silly, the older that we get, I feel like the only thing I know is that I will know more in the future, but that doesn't mean that I was necessarily like immature or whatever. Just you, just…you just learn and you grow more as an adult.
And so now, like 24 to me seems young or 22 seems young, even though it's not that far removed, just because I've been able to learn so much more in those past years.
Emily: I mean, it also seems really young because both of us have siblings who are older than that.
Lauren: Or that same age. Cause my younger brother is 24, but he will always be my baby brother to me.
Like, no, you're not an adult. That's not real. You don't have a job and an apartment what are you talking about.
Adulthood in the Regency Era
Emily: Yeah. So speaking of things like jobs and maturity and taking on responsibilities and considering yourself adult, I have some, I guess, historical context?
Lauren: Please share.
Emily: Kind of weird to research, I guess, because most of what I came up with was marriage, which is also relevant to the section.
Lauren: I know one of the things that I learned in a history class that I took that was on marriage and gender in historical Europe was about the concept of childhood and how childhood either didn't [00:20:00] exist as a concept, or has changed throughout time. And I'm interested to see too, I guess, how the concept of adulthood has changed over time too, because it used to obviously be much younger than it was when you were considered an adult versus like our modern conceptions of adulthood.
Emily: Yeah. I'm glad you bring that up. It's a little easier to frame it instead as what did they consider childhood? Because as with many of the topics we've discussed, the Regency period was transitioning.
So throughout a lot of history, especially in Europe and Western Europe, basically up until the Regency with, you know, other pockets here and there. Children were treated and were expected to behave as just miniature adults. And so you can see that partially in like the way they were dressed. They just had little miniaturized grown-up clothes.
But with the Regency era, we're starting to see more of an emphasis on children as the heart of the family and as needing the freedom to explore and learn on their own and develop until they reach their adulthood, which of course is still kind of a slippery idea. The age of majority. So your legal adulthood was 21 and actually was still 21 in the UK until like the 1970s when it was lowered to 18.
But part of that crucial transition from child to adult was going through education. Whatever that might look like for your gender and your class, boys might be formally educated at different schools. Girls might stay at home and learn how to manage a household, but there was actually kind of a distinct period of moving out of childhood and into the responsibilities of adulthood.
So it seems like responsibility was really the main [00:22:00] dividing factor there. Women's responsibility was the households, managing the family, being married. And marriage similarly was sort of a threshold for men, but it indicated more that they had the means to take on the responsibility of supporting a family.
And that distinction, I think also contributes to what we see and have seen as women becoming mature more quickly than men, because girls being educated at home, contributing to household management are starting that kind of role a lot younger than boys would, you know, finish their formal education.
And of course we're talking about like the clergy and gentry and noble classes, not necessary the...
Lauren: working classes?
Emily: The working classes. Yeah. It seems that responsibility was kind of the marker for when you can be considered an adult.
Lauren: So would they have considered Marianne an adult, do you think, at the beginning of the book?
Emily: Probably not.
I mean, it's also, there were, you know, kind of society rituals, like the coming out, the presentation into society of again, restricted to certain classes.
Lauren: Right.
Emily: So in that sense, Marianne may have been considered an adult just for being eligible to marry. But, yeah, it's, it's kinda hard to say because they're all in different shades of gray.
So Elinor, I think would definitely be considered an adult all the way through. She's kind of helping her mother manage the house. Marianne maybe less so because she's a younger sister and so still kind of has people caring for her wellbeing. So yeah, kinda, that's kinda hard to say. Yeah.
Lauren: Okay. That makes sense.
Were they debuting in front of the queen at this time? Or did that start with Queen Victoria?
Emily: No, there were presentations.
Lauren: Okay.
Emily: At this time, I don't know like what the requirements were. I don't know if being basically [00:24:00] like gentleman's daughters, the Dashwoods would have ever been presented at court.
Apparently like your, your introduction to society could also just happen at like a smaller local ball or something like that.
Lauren: That makes sense. I could see that like being presented in front of the queen as being like reserved for the 1%, like the rest of you are rich, but you're not that rich. So. Sorry.
Emily: If you have a title in your family, you can be presented to the queen. Yeah.
Lauren: Cool. Thank you.
Emily: You're welcome.
Lauren: Is that all the historical context that you wanted to share?
Emily: Yeah. Basically, and there wasn't a lot to find about adulthood. Like I said, it's mostly in contrast to how childhood is treated. And a lot of it is just discussed in terms of marriage, you know, because your, your role as an adult is kind of defined by your place within a family.
So, yeah, there, there wasn't really a lot to say historically, because I think it's also a little more similar in some ways to how we think of adulthood today, more similar that is than some other topics we've looked at.
Lauren: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think it's still really helpful to be able to have that context of how they conceived of adulthood.
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah. Cool. Thank you.
Pop Culture Connection: Jane Austen Meets Taylor Swift
Emily: So I'm really excited to hear what you have prepared, what you have to say, because you were so adamant about not talking to me about this right before we got started recording.
Lauren: About just Sense and Sensibility in general or about my pop culture connection? Which one are you excited about?
Emily: Both.
Lauren: Okay. Yeah. I think as far as Sense and Sensibility in general, this has also been fun for me to reread it. Because the last time I read this book was in 2013. I think I enjoyed reading it much more the way that we did.
Emily: Yeah. I've got to say, I think I also enjoyed it much more than I would have reading it on my own because I get to share the experience with you.
And then also do all of this additional thinking about different topics that just wouldn't have occurred to me if I'd just read it like any of my other books.
Lauren: I feel [00:26:00] like we got so many cool, different ways to read it.
Emily: And I got so much more out of it than I would have if it had just been on my regular list.
Lauren: Yeah. That's one of the things that we want to provide for people who are listening to the podcast who have read these books before is like, maybe you can still think of a new way to read it. And then that would be a really cool impact to be able to have. To help people read their favorite book a different way.
Emily: I'm a big fan of rereading. I know some people can't stand to reread, but I love it. Especially at different life stages.
Lauren: I feel like you get so much more out of it and... oh, speaking of different life stages. So that was actually a perfect segue into the pop culture connection that I had for today.
Emily: Tell me about it.
Lauren: Okay. So we've said before that we record these episodes a couple of weeks ahead of time. So at time of recording, Taylor Swift has just released her rerecorded album of Fearless, which came out in 2008, I want to say. So this has been, I mean, for most of her fans, they're listening to this album in two completely different life stages.
And I definitely am, like this album came out when I was 15 and now 27. So Fearless as an album is looking at relationships through the lens of a teenage girl who was writing these songs about her younger teenage self. So I think Taylor Swift was 18 or 19 when she wrote the songs and was looking at things that had happened to her a couple of years prior.
And so with this rerecording, it's an adult woman, who's now 31, looking back at these songs through a completely different lens and it's a rerecording. So, you know, the songs aren't really changed too much, but sometimes the notes are changed or the inflections are changed and you can hear the emotional shift in that, in the way that she's singing these songs.
And similarly, these last chapters of Sense and Sensibility are also a retrospective on love and on relationships. Very similar to how Fearless is a retrospective look at how you feel when you fall in love for the first time and all the magical feelings that are associated with, like, getting your first kiss or seeing the way that someone... looks at you differently.
And I was listening to Fearless because I wanted to listen to [00:28:00] it just in general. But then as I was listening to these songs, I was thinking about how many of these things could relate to Marianne. And we've talked multiple times about how, you know, if we picked up the characters from Regency England and put them in the 21st century, what would they do?
Marianne absolutely. 10000% would be blasting this album throughout the course of her relationship with Willoughby. So like, “You Belong With Me.” She's definitely playing that one like when they're still kind of like on good terms, but like they haven't made it explicit yet. Like, why can't you see you belong with me?
Like what the hell. I'm standing right here. And “Forever and Always,” that's another one that I feel like she would have played:
“Cause one second it was perfect, now you're halfway out the door/And I stare at the phone, he still hasn't called” — waiting for that letter when they’re in London.
And then you feel so low you cant feel nothing at all
And you flashback to when he said, "Forever and always"
Oh, and it rains in your bedroom
Everything is wrong
It rains when you're here and it rains when you're gone
'Cause I was there when you said, "Forever and always"
Tell me that doesn't sound like something Marianne would just blast at full volume just to feel! Because also, because it was written by someone who was also a teenage girl, it so perfectly captures the agonies of what that love feels like and the intensity of those emotions.
And then I think the final thing would be the song Fifteen, which is more well-known because it was a single. That one I can see Marianne listening to later, because again, it's like a retrospective look similar to how these last chapters of Sense and Sensibility are kind of looking back at failed relationships, new relationships, all that type of stuff.
And I remember before the album came out and I was like, okay, I know the songs that are going to hit differently emotionally now that I'm 27 than they did when I was younger. What I didn't expect was for “Fifteen” to hit so hard because it's that retrospective look at like, “Oh, look at this innocent baby bird you were when you were 15 and don't you wish you could tell her these things,” and like, yeah, I do.
Like, it's just so well-written and just [00:30:00] like. And another thing where when you look at something through the lens of adulthood and with the additional maturity, you get so much more meaning out of it. When I listened to that song at 15, I did not get as much out of it as I did listening to it again at 27,
Emily: I, I expect that we'll get a lot of feedback on this Taylor Swift segment from especially one particular friend who knows who they are.
Lauren: Yes they do.
Emily: And whom we appreciate very much.
Lauren: Yes. That has been my pop culture connection. Because I think the last chapters of Sense and Sensibility are a retrospective look at the trials and tribulations of love written with the calmness, maturity that comes with time and distance. And then similarly Fearless is also a very similar retrospective look and it's made especially relevant and poignant by the re-release of something that was written by an adult woman who's now in her thirties and is able to look at all of those songs that she wrote and recorded as a teenager with additional maturity and...
Emily: experience.
Lauren: Experience. Yeah. Like added wisdom.
Emily: Yeah. I mean, that's also something that we've talked about, the idea of feeling things more deeply as a younger person.
And I think it's not necessarily that we feel things more deeply. It's just that every strong emotion is the strongest we've ever felt before. And so with that distance, we can say, well, that was the most agony I'd ever been in. That was the deepest I'd ever been in love before, but now I've experienced those things on so many different levels since then, and yeah. Being able to put it in perspective.
And it doesn't even take very long to be able to have that kind of distanced look. I mean, I listen to playlists all the time that were like my go tos, like during one summer in college and I'll listen to them now and I'm just thrown back to that moment, like, wow, what was my life?
Lauren: Yep.
Emily: And that was like five years ago.
Lauren: Right? Yeah. But I mean, there was [00:32:00] an, I'm in the Popheads subreddit because of course I am. And it's just a forum for people who love pop music and also wants to talk about it and dissect it academically because I'm a nerd in all areas of my life. But somebody asks like, what is, what's the album that always takes you back to like a specific era?
Of your life or a song or whatever, and ask for people's opinions. And mine was only from five years ago, it was like, Oh, A Seat at the Table by Solange, because it was like this beautiful exploration of like what it means to be black and what it means to be a black woman specifically that came out like the year that I finished grad school and had just started a new job.
And I moved into my very own place for the first time. And Solange was living down here at the time. So she threw an album release party that like somehow I got into and it was just like, yeah. And so whenever I listened to that album, I always just think of the ups and downs of being on my own for like my first real adult year.
That was only like five years ago. But how much has changed in between 23 versus almost 28? You know? I mean, yeah. Distance comes quickly. It doesn't need to be a decade. Sometimes it's five years between like early twenties and late twenties. And you did a lot of growth.
Emily: Like shit, I'm still using the same water bottle that I had then. I actually am though, like I got this Nalgene in 2014.
Final Notes & Takeaways
Lauren: I think really my only other note about this section is that for whatever reason, Lucy thinks that she's in Lemonade with this letter she wrote to Edward. I just feel like. She wrote that as though she were Beyoncé in the Hold Up music video, like smashing everything else.
Like baby, I don't know what you think this is, but you were not--
Emily: You are not the Beyoncé in this situation.
Lauren: You are not the Beyoncé of your story. You are Becky with the good hair. I don't know what you thought this was.
Emily: Okay. I know, I know that there are character playlists out there for all of these people. Send me your recommendations.
Lauren: Oh, my gosh. Yes.
Emily: I want to hear the playlists for all of them.
Lauren: Also somebody, if they already have an existing playlist for Marianne add “Forever and [00:34:00] Always” to your playlist, post haste. Immediately. Thank you.
{pause}
We have one more wrap-up episode, we will also be giving some slightly inebriated advice to these characters.
Emily: I forgot we're getting drunk for that.
Lauren: Well, that was the original plan. So, you know, we'll see.
Emily: We'll be giving some unsolicited and slightly drunk advice to fictional characters.
Lauren: It just sounds like a wonderful time.
Emily: It does. I'm very excited for that. So yeah, that episode will be much less analysis and not coming with like historical notes prepared or anything versus fun.
We're just going to shoot the shit.
Lauren: Yes.
Emily: It's gonna rock.
Lauren: Yep. So more of. Why does Fanny think that she's Beyoncé in Lemonade — or not Fanny, Lucy! Why do I keep getting them mixed up? It's the second time I've done it this episode!
I do remember thinking, like, I think I wrote down when we first were introduced to Lucy, like there's going to be another member of our hate club and she never truly earned co hate club member status.
But she definitely is like vice-president.
Emily: Yeah, she definitely earns at least that just because of the parting shot at Elinor. Oh my God. Just knowing it was their servant and not bothering to clarify at all that oh, actually I'm not married to Edward. I'm married to Robert.
Like yeah. I read that. And then like two paragraphs later, Elinor basically says the same thing.
It was like, yes, I'm glad you saw that because. She's not a heinous bitch like Fanny, but she is a petty bitch.
Lauren: Yes. Yeah.
Emily: And not in a fun way. No.
Lauren: And Willoughby doesn't even deserve mention, he does not deserve another mention on this podcast.
Emily: Nope.
Lauren: He's a piece of trash.
Emily: We are done with him.
Lauren: It's like, lest, lest you believe that our hate is solely directed towards the women of this book.
It is not. We have equal wrath for Willoughby. It's just deeper.
Emily: Doesn't even deserve a mention.
Lauren: No. Fanny and Lucy are eternally frustrating and that's more fun to hate. [00:36:00] Willoughby's actual trash. And so I don't even want to waste energy on hating him. I just don't want to think about him.
Shall we do our very final, final takeaways from Sense and Sensibility?
Emily: And you are going first.
Lauren: Aw, hell.
Emily: Positivity. Come on Lauren. What's your final takeaway from this section?
Lauren: My final takeaway is that time may not heal all, but it certainly provides new methods of understanding. And I'm really excited for what new understanding I gain as I get older, because I like looking at aging that way, instead of the typical “I'm afraid to age, I don't want to turn XYZ age.”
Like no, I get to learn so much new stuff.
Emily: I like it.
Lauren: What about you? What's your final takeaway?
Emily: I think mine is that emotional growth is not linear.
Lauren: I like that. I think that speaks for itself.
Emily: Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time, we'll be doing a final recap of Sense and Sensibility and giving some questionable advice to the characters in our first Advising Austen segment.
Lauren: Bring a libation of your choice.
To read a full transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaimingjanepod.com, where you can also find show notes and links to our social media.
Emily: If you'd like to support us and help us create more content, you can join our Patreon @ReclaimingJanePod or leave us a review on iTunes.
Reclaiming Jane is produced and co-hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis-Hale. Our music is by LaTasha Bundy and our show art is by Emily Davis-Hale.
Lauren: We'll see you next time.
Emily: This is a call to historical romance writers. I want to see an entire book of them being, just awkward dorks.
Lauren: Oh my gosh. Somebody please write the AO3 Sense and Sensibility fan fiction, because we want this.
Emily: This is another thing that I'm just like, Am I going to have to write this myself?
[00:38:00] Lauren: With what time?
Emily: None. Exactly. This is, this is why I also haven't written Brandon X Willoughby.
Lauren: Patreon benefit?
Emily: Hmm.
Lauren: I feel like that'd be really funny.
Emily: And it would be hilarious. If we hadn't missed April fools. That would have been perfect.
Lauren: Oh no. Okay.
Emily: We'll see. So, if you want to know if I ever write those, subscribe to our Patreon.
