SOURCE: "Elinor Dashwood: The Heroine as Intellectual," in Reshaping the Sexes in Sense and Sensibility, University Press of Virginia, 1998, pp. 11–36.

In the following essay, Perkins advances the theory that Sense and Sensibility is Elinor Dashwood's story, not Marianne's, and argues that her special interest lies in her position as a female intellectual.

Because many first-time readers of Sense and Sensibility find Marianne the more appealing of the two elder Dashwood sisters, they may think of her as the primary heroine. For those readers, Marianne's early disappointment, long suffering, and ultimate fade-out can figure as a major disincentive for rereading the novel. However, once we start to understand how much there is in Austin's rendering of Elinor Dashwood that is not only appealing but politically significant, the realization that the novel is written as her story may awaken in us a desire to return to it and read her...