Jane Austen proposal scenes, part 1: Sense and Sensibility

Emma Thompson (Elinor Dashwood), Kate Winslet (Marianne Dashwood), and Gemma Jones (Mrs. Dashwood) in Sense and Sensibility (1995)

On Valentine's Eve, my local chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) gathered to watch proposal scenes from television and film adaptations of Jane Austen's novels. The next night I decided to read the proposal scenes from Austen's canonical novels to my partner. It was, so to speak, an eye-opening experience.

What became clear from my readings was how reticent Austen often is about her heroes' actual proposals and her heroines' acceptances. She follows their love stories in detail, relating conversations and letters verbatim for 300 or 400 pages. Then she often passes over the moment of the actual proposal quickly, or narrates it in the third person using indirect speech.

Over six posts I will offer clips of proposal scenes from Austen film and television adaptations, juxtaposed with their source texts in Austen's novels. Each proposal scene has three stages: éclaircissement, when the misunderstandings keeping the couple apart are at last resolved; the declaration, when the hero speaks of his love for the heroine, and proposes; and the acceptance, when the heroine finally acknowledges her love for the hero to herself, and to him.

In the film and television adaptations the declaration and acceptance are necessarily often elaborated. In Austen, éclaircissement is all, and everything that follows a matter of course. As is definitely the case in this first scene.

A word of warning: these posts discussing the proposal scenes will necessarily involve spoilers. 

Sense and Sensibility

Background to the proposal scene: Elinor Dashwood had previously formed an attachment to Edward Ferrars, but then received the unwelcome knowledge that he has been engaged to another woman, Lucy Steele, for more than four years. Elinor, though secretly still harboring feelings for Edward, has put aside all thoughts of him as a marriage partner. One day in spring the news arrives that Mr. Ferrars has married, and a few days later Edward rides up the lane to Barton Cottage on an unexpected visit. . .

The film adaptation: screenplay by Emma Thompson, directed by Ang Lee (1995)

https://youtu.be/Bm3QywZFBuA?t=395 [scene ends at 11:29]

The novel:

They all waited in silence for the appearance of their visitor. His footsteps were heard along the gravel path; in a moment he was in the passage, and in another he was before them.

"It was Edward." Illustration by Hugh Thomson for Sense and Sensibility (MacMillan, 1896). Image source: Project Gutenberg

His countenance, as he entered the room, was not too happy, even for Elinor. His complexion was white with agitation, and he looked as if fearful of his reception, and conscious that he merited no kind one. Mrs. Dashwood, however, conforming, as she trusted, to the wishes of that daughter, by whom she then meant in the warmth of her heart to be guided in every thing, met him with a look of forced complacency, gave him her hand, and wished him joy.

He coloured, and stammered out an unintelligible reply. Elinor’s lips had moved with her mother’s, and, when the moment of action was over, she wished that she had shaken hands with him too. But it was then too late, and with a countenance meaning to be open, she sat down again and talked of the weather.

Marianne had retreated as much as possible out of sight, to conceal her distress; and Margaret, understanding some part, but not the whole of the case, thought it incumbent on her to be dignified, and therefore took a seat as far from him as she could, and maintained a strict silence.

When Elinor had ceased to rejoice in the dryness of the season, a very awful pause took place. It was put an end to by Mrs. Dashwood, who felt obliged to hope that he had left Mrs. Ferrars very well. In a hurried manner, he replied in the affirmative.

Another pause.

Elinor resolving to exert herself, though fearing the sound of her own voice, now said,

"Is Mrs. Ferrars at Longstaple?" [the home of Lucy Steele's family]

"At Longstaple!" he replied, with an air of surprise. "No, my mother is in town."

"I meant," said Elinor, taking up some work from the table, "to enquire for Mrs. Edward Ferrars."

She dared not look up;—but her mother and Marianne both turned their eyes on him. He coloured, seemed perplexed, looked doubtingly, and, after some hesitation, said,—

"Perhaps you mean—my brother—you mean Mrs.—Mrs. Robert Ferrars."

"Mrs. Robert Ferrars!" was repeated by Marianne and her mother in an accent of the utmost amazement; and though Elinor could not speak, even her eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder. He rose from his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not knowing what to do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there, and while spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to pieces as he spoke, said, in a hurried voice,—

"Perhaps you do not know: you may not have heard that my brother is lately married to—to the youngest—to Miss Lucy Steele."

His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but Elinor, who sat with her head leaning over her work, in a state of such agitation as made her hardly know where she was.

"Yes," said he, "they were married last week, and are now at Dawlish." [A seaside resort in Devonshire where they have gone for their honeymoon.]

So far, the differences are minor. Thompson reassigns and alters some of the dialogue and changes some of the action (Edward walks to the fireplace and handles a sheep figurine (!) on the mantelpiece rather than ruining a pair of scissors and its sheath; I would also say that in revealing his brother's marriage he speaks haltingly rather than hurriedly), but up to this point in the scene the screenplay is faithful to the novel.

But then Thompson must necessarily depart from Austen's depiction of the proposal scene, which emphasizes Edward's awkwardness and discomfort, rather than his passion, and which is narrated rather than incorporating dialogue:

Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease. Edward, who had till then looked any where, rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw—or even heard, her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie, which no remarks, no inquiries, no affectionate address of Mrs. Dashwood could penetrate, and at last, without saying a word, quitted the room, and walked out towards the village—leaving the others in the greatest astonishment and perplexity on a change in his situation, so wonderful and so sudden;—a perplexity which they had no means of lessening but by their own conjectures.

Unaccountable, however, as the circumstances of his release might appear to the whole family, it was certain that Edward was free; and to what purpose that freedom would be employed was easily pre-determined by all;—for after experiencing the blessings of one imprudent engagement, contracted without his mother’s consent, as he had already done for more than four years, nothing less could be expected of him in the failure of that, than the immediate contraction of another.

His errand at Barton, in fact, was a simple one. It was only to ask Elinor to marry him;—and considering that he was not altogether inexperienced in such a question, it might be strange that he should feel so uncomfortable in the present case as he really did, so much in need of encouragement and fresh air.

How soon he had walked himself into the proper resolution, however, how soon an opportunity of exercising it occurred, in what manner he expressed himself, and how he was received, need not be particularly told. This only need be said;—that when they all sat down to table at four o’clock, about three hours after his arrival, he had secured his lady, engaged her mother’s consent, and was not only in the rapturous profession of the lover, but, in the reality of reason and truth, one of the happiest of men. (Chs. XLVIII–XLIX)

Thompson approximates this third-person narration very cleverly by having the actual proposal reported by Margaret from the treehouse (an invention of Thompson's, of course) to Mrs. Dashwood and Marianne below. Nothing, of course, can be heard of Edward's proposal, but (as in Austen) "in what manner he expressed himself, and how he was received, need not be particularly told," or shown. In the film, after revealing that it is his brother Robert who has married Lucy Steele, Edward's declaration (from 10:10 to 11:00 in the video clip above) is a combination of Emma Thompson's imagination and snatches of the conversations—further éclaircissement—between Elinor and Edward that occur in the days after his proposal and her acceptance.

There is another key difference between this film and the novel: Edward Ferrars is 24, but Hugh Grant was 34 at the time of filming; Elinor Dashwood is 19 (perhaps 20 at the end of the novel), while Emma Thompson was 36. As I wrote in "Six months with Jane Austen: Favorite adaptations and final thoughts," "Having the characters appear older than they are intended to be changes our perceptions of them. In particular, it gives Edward's flirtation with Lucy Steele (Imogen Stubbs) a different character, and it makes Elinor's 'strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment' less remarkable." This version is beautifully shot by Ang Lee, has a witty script by Thompson, and is well-performed by a cast of wonderful actors. But there is no way not to notice that in terms of their ages Thompson is closer to Anne Elliot (from Persuasion) than Elinor, and Grant to Mr. Knightley (from Mansfield Park) or Col. Brandon than Edward.

For more on the novel: please see "Sense and Sensibility, inheritance, and money"

Next time: Pride and Prejudice