there's an extra moment in Sense and
Sensibility where Marianne and Eleanor
are talking about age and Marianne 17
Eleanor disconcertingly self processed
is only 19 and Ellen Marianne has been
teased about the the evident torn dress
that Colonel Brandon age 35 has been
developing for her mainly shown by the
fact that he never can talk to her at
all and she scornful of the notion that
an embarrassed by the notion that she
could ever be interested in this man
who's reached this hugely advanced age
and Eleanor says well perhaps 3517
shouldn't have anything to do with each
other
but perhaps if a woman of twenty-seven
nice woman 27 came along Colonel Brandon
who's so nice but so melancholy might
find happiness with her Marianne says 27
she says a woman of seven and twenty
could never hope to feel or inspire
affection again and it's one of the many
things I think Marianne says in Sense
and Sensibility that we should flame
comical I mean Eleanor laughs at her but
I think far too few readers and literary
critics laugh at Marianne because as
well as being you know as well as her
fake being painful she's ludicrously
hilariously foolish sometimes and this
thing about age is ridiculous but age is
very very important
and the the the clock is ticking on
quite a lot of the female characters in
Austen's novels and we all know about
Charlotte Lucas whose subplot in Pride
and Prejudice has always made a huge
impression on readers Charlotte Lucas is
guess what twenty-seven
and she is the only carrot the only
female character interesting in all Jane
Austen's novels who marries a man
younger than herself because mr. Collins
although he's always played by
middle-aged men in dramatization is in
fact a serious looking young man of 25
and Charlotte Lucas grabs at him because
at 27 we've almost no money he provides
her with a comfortable way of life even
if she has to spend much of that life
avoiding him except of course when they
go to bed I mean she's pregnant by the
end of the novel so you know she can't
avoid him completely and 27 is also
interestingly the age that the heroine
of the hit of Jane Austen's last
completed novel persuasion is and Elliot
is 27
apparently her bloom is gone her sister
Elizabeth her older sister is 29 and
still unmarried
and although handsome as anything feels
the approach of the years of danger and
the miracle the miracle of persuasion is
that actually somehow a bit of sea air
at Lyme Regis and a bit of jealousy on
Captain Wentworth's part when he sees
the attentions of mr. Elliot and the
bloom comes back we shouldn't think that
Jane Austen subscribes to some of the
prejudices of getting about age that her
characters have after all in M mrs.
Weston Emma's former governess finds a
nice husband gets pregnant has a baby
without dying and she's in her
mid-thirties it's all possible but age
consciousness is part of the sort of the
voltage of her novels it's part of what
everybody's aware of and particularly of
course women are aware of
you