He's dignified and well-to-do, but beyond that, we don't get much from first impressions. The Colonel appears to be rather dull to the insensitive eye, but beneath his tranquil surface, there's a whole lot going on. Elinor Dashwood is the first to appreciate this, but gradually, other characters including, finally, Marianne, when she decides to marry him realize that he's a whole lot more than meets the eye.
First of all, Colonel Brandon is clearly a sensitive soul, even though his exterior seems unflappable and even rather remote. He's the only person who appreciates Marianne's music the same way she does — respectfully and thoughtfully — and we get the impression that his quiet persona hides a deeply intellectual inner self. Colonel Brandon is also by far the character with the most significant emotional trauma to deal with, which he manages to do in an admirably mature, applause-worthy fashion.
He's the ultimate combination of feeling and logic, and comes off as the only real grownup in this whole cast of characters. All in all, Colonel Brandon may seem to be on the boring side, but he's actually not — he's just more under control than the other folks we meet here.
We don't get to know him too well, but we can imagine that he's a pretty rewarding friend to have, once you get past his rather stiff exterior. His brother, who did not treat her well, divorced her two years after the marriage and Eliza was left to fend for herself, eventually becoming pregnant by an unnamed lover and winding up in a poor house, where Brandon found her after returning from the East Indies.
Eliza later died of consumption, but not before extracting a promise from Brandon that he would look after her daughter, also named Eliza.
Jennings and others wrongly assume the younger Eliza to be Brandon's "natural" illegitimate daughter. But the events of the book disabuse Marianne of this way of thinking. When she first drafted the text that would become Sense and Sensibility , Austen was a late teenager , around the age of her elder heroine, Elinor. But by the time the book was being readied for publication, Austen was almost exactly the age of Colonel Brandon. And both were about the same age, I should add, as Emma Thompson when she starred in Sense and Sensibility as Elinor, performing a screenplay that Thompson herself wrote and won an Oscar for.
I wonder whether Austen, like Colonel Brandon, experienced her mids as a new beginning. I wonder if, upon re-reading her early drafts of the book that would become Sense and Sensibility , she thought about how her younger self imagined that age, and smiled at the bounty ahead of her.
Had he been a strong person, he would have pleaded and there was an end to it. Edward Ferrars does not do what Willoughby does. Even worse: he stays with a, what turns out to be fickle, woman he doesn't love anymore because they have grown apart, just Fortunately for him, she leaves him, but that is a person you can depend on.
Marianne does say what she says about older men in the beginning, but she quickly comes round to the fact that Willoughby is nowhere to be seen when she is in need, indeed he has left her to rot in such a horrible and despicable manner, where the other guy shows himself a support and one you can count on.
That speech about 'flanel waistcoats' is also part of the irony don't forget. Like LM said, Marianne has to learn that first impressions are not everything and that sometimes a man who is not so passionate on the surface is a better buy than a man who comes across better. Brandon is potentially a much better man to marry.
He worships her, he is quiet, he is happy she has no money, he is so honorable as to care for the child of an old flame of his it is not even his , even at the point where he is openly ignored by Marianne, he continues to try his best without leaving it altogether.
He is just a man you can trust. His affection is not going to go away over night. Willoughby would potentially have married Marianne and maybe after a few years they would have grown apart because the only thing he is bent on is pleasure.
Suffice to say that is not a sure catch, certainly not in days that women depended entirely on their hubands. For as loong as Brandon lives he will worship the ground Marianne walks on, will care for her mother gladly when she becomes elderly and things do not move so smoothly anymore, he will gladly take the youngest's education up etc. Whether Willoughby would have gone further than taking the girl to London for the season, is the question.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed. Ha, Kiki, ironic or not the flannel waistcoat prejudiced me against Colonel Brandon forever! And I've never even seen a flannel waistcoat in my life. There's no doubt that Brandon's the better man. But Willoughby for all his caddishness is such an attractive character, and Brandon with all his goodness is such a boring one.
There's not a spark of chemistry between him and Marrianne, and I'm afraid the whole tragic story of his first love made me roll on the floor laughing. I'm not sure if Jane Austen intended Brandon as a happy ending for Marrianne in which case he fails to convince since he's such an unsatisfactory character or as a chastisement for her rash love for Willoughby. Exit, pursued by a bear. Yes, Willoughby is a bit of a puzzle. After that talk with Elenor, I felt quite sad for him But you could be right actually.
Although, wasn't it a common opinion that woman's love grew over time and that a man's attachment was formed based on passion? That last bit about Brandon, that 'a three week absence' and nothing to occupy him with in the evening hours apart from calculating the difference between 36 and, what was it, 17?
That absolutely cracked my up, together with the flanel waist coats and rheumatism. M the Third hit the nail onthe head,and theirin lies the genius of Jane Austen.
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