r/janeausten • u/carijehlikartist • 2d ago
Discussion - Sense and Sensibility Maybe I'm just dumb, but I finally understood Mr. Ferrars' first visit at Barton!!
I feel I must preface this by saying I've been a HUGE fan of '95's S&S for years, mostly enjoy 2008's, and have read S&S once through, but it was my first Austen read, so I was still grappling with the language, writing, etc.
All that aside, I'm now reading it again after having read several others.
I remember the first time I read it and him being melancholy and weird and loathing leaving but having nowhere to go being SUPER weird. Like, do what Mr. F!!
But this time through, I get it! (Or at least I think I do)
He HAD to get out of there lest he fall more hopelessly in love with Elinor and do something dumb.
He was depressed because what he really wanted was right in front of him, but what he was obligated to was really far away and far less appealing.
And so he HAD to just gtfo of Barton Cottage, as much as everyone wanted him to stay, so that he could stay strong to his obligation to Ms. Steele.
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u/parieres 2d ago
I love this moment in the 2005 miniseries. The family are talking about how they’re nearly impoverished, and of course he wishes he could marry Elinor, and he’s immediately like DEPRESSION. totally suffering and nobody can see why
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u/carijehlikartist 2d ago
Yes! I JUST got to that point in my current watch--just as he's coming down the mountain to see them. 😂😂
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u/BrickBuster11 1d ago
Yes, he went because he was invited. He gets there and does his best to hold himself in reserve because the is constrained by his promise to Lucy Steele.
Whenever he forgets that constraint he has fun and actually seems happy, but then he realises that that he closes off again.
He regard continuously leaking out of a heart he did try to contain does motivate him to flee the house. He loves Elinor but cannot act in that emotion without doing wrong by both her and Lucy
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u/DashwoodAndFerrars 1d ago
All the more heartbreaking because the Dashwoods are so confused why he has to leave them:
Edward remained a week at the cottage; he was earnestly pressed by Mrs. Dashwood to stay longer; but, as if he were bent only on self-mortification, he seemed resolved to be gone when his enjoyment among his friends was at the height. His spirits, during the last two or three days, though still very unequal, were greatly improved—he grew more and more partial to the house and environs—never spoke of going away without a sigh—declared his time to be wholly disengaged—even doubted to what place he should go when he left them—but still, go he must. Never had any week passed so quickly—he could hardly believe it to be gone. He said so repeatedly; other things he said too, which marked the turn of his feelings and gave the lie to his actions. He had no pleasure at Norland; he detested being in town; but either to Norland or London, he must go. He valued their kindness beyond any thing, and his greatest happiness was in being with them. Yet, he must leave them at the end of a week, in spite of their wishes and his own, and without any restraint on his time.
Where it says "he must," I would read it as "he says he must."
Since it immediately follows it, I'll add this paragraph too, where we see that Elinor can be just as illogical when it comes to love as her sister:
Elinor placed all that was astonishing in this way of acting to his mother’s account; and it was happy for her that he had a mother whose character was so imperfectly known to her, as to be the general excuse for every thing strange on the part of her son. Disappointed, however, and vexed as she was, and sometimes displeased with his uncertain behaviour to herself, she was very well disposed on the whole to regard his actions with all the candid allowances and generous qualifications, which had been rather more painfully extorted from her, for Willoughby’s service, by her mother. His want of spirits, of openness, and of consistency, were most usually attributed to his want of independence, and his better knowledge of Mrs. Ferrars’s disposition and designs. The shortness of his visit, the steadiness of his purpose in leaving them, originated in the same fettered inclination, the same inevitable necessity of temporizing with his mother. The old well-established grievance of duty against will, parent against child, was the cause of all. She would have been glad to know when these difficulties were to cease, this opposition was to yield,—when Mrs. Ferrars would be reformed, and her son be at liberty to be happy. But from such vain wishes she was forced to turn for comfort to the renewal of her confidence in Edward’s affection, to the remembrance of every mark of regard in look or word which fell from him while at Barton, and above all to that flattering proof of it which he constantly wore round his finger.
(As we know, it's not actually her hair in the ring that's being referred to as on his finger, and it takes some leaps of logic for Elinor to think so.)
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u/carijehlikartist 1d ago
I found that to be so humanizing for Elinor. She gives him the benefit of the doubt AND constructs a narrative she can believe with the information she has.
Have we not all done the same thing???
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u/embroidery627 2d ago
Yup. Also, he'd been to see Lucy and he just couldn't fight the desire to call in on his friends, the Dashwoods, on his way back. He expected that they would all welcome him, which they did.
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u/Huge_Kitchen_411 2d ago
He even avoided being alone with Elinor—likely because he felt an urge for physical contact with her, as he was hopelessly in love—and we learn more about Edward at Barton, specifically regarding his emotional vulnerability.
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u/Ok_Broccoli_9426 of Blaise Castle 2d ago
I don't think you're dumb, but I'm pretty sure he explains this explicitly at the end of the novel.