Abstract: Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) is one of the most influential women writers in the history of world literature. Her novels are known for her minute observation and lively and humorous words. Her literary works deeply influenced many women’s concepts of marriage, love and family. Sense and Sensibility is the first published novel of Jane Austen. The two heroines in the novel are two sisters who have the very different personalities. The essay tries to dissect the sisterhood between the two sisters in this novel through personality structure in Freud’s psychoanalysis. This essay is composed of four parts. Part one introduces the author and her works, and summarizes the researches at home and abroad and the rationale statement of the thesis. Part two inquires into the contrast in the sisterhood through analyzing the two sisters’ personalities, love conceptions and behaviors. Part three inquires into the affinity in the sisterhood through analyzing the family stress, love, marriage and life the two sisters facing. Part four explores the mutual influences and growth in the two sisters through analyzing the sensibility in rational elder sister and the sense in sentimental younger sister. This essay makes the following conclusions through dissecting the sisterhood in Sense and Sensibility: the first, as shown in the title of the novel Sense and Sensibility, the contrast in the two heroines’ personalities and other respects become the most outstanding characteristic of the sisterhood in the very sisters. The second, in the story line, the two sisters trust and help each other all the time, which adds emotional color in their sisterhood: they are going through and growing up in their life experiences. The third, owing to the sisterhood, the two sisters can reflect on themselves and make improvement accordingly, both from their own selves and from each other, which reveals the significance of coexistence of sense and sensibility. |
