The title "Sense and Sensibility" sets up a juxtaposition between two ways of thinking, behaving and knowing that are embodied in the novel's two protagonists, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. In these characters Austen ostensibly contrasts practicality with sensitivity, restraint with impulsiveness and strait-laced sense with exorbitant sensibility. Each opposing trait to be found in the Dashwood sisters, Elinor personifying sense and Marianne, sensibility.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines sense as "a sane and practical attitude to situations", Elinor Dashwood certainly embodies this t…
