What happens in Chapter 2 – The Move to Barton Cottage of Sense and Sensibility?
With John Dashwood and his wife Fanny firmly in control of Norland, Mrs. Dashwood decides to leave the estate as soon as she can find a suitable place to live. Help comes from Sir John Middleton, a distant relative, who offers them Barton Cottage in Devonshire at a reasonable rent. Although the cottage is small and simply furnished, Mrs. Dashwood gratefully accepts the offer, eager to escape the embarrassment of relying on Fanny. The family's departure from Norland is filled with sorrow, especially for Marianne, who bids an emotional farewell to the trees and grounds she has cherished since she was a child. They set off for Devonshire, and the chapter ends with the Dashwood women arriving at Barton Cottage, taking in their new, more modest situation — the rooms cramped, the surroundings pleasant but unpretentious, and the stark difference from Norland quietly heartbreaking.
Analysis
Austen uses Chapter 2 to effectively set up the novel's main conflict between emotion and practicality. The choice to accept Barton Cottage is framed almost entirely in terms of social duty and financial need, but Marianne's farewell to Norland disrupts this detached reasoning. Her address to the trees—talking to the estate as if it can hear her—stands out as the chapter's most striking artistic choice. Austen presents this moment without ridicule or complete approval, creating a space of thoughtful irony for the reader. We’re led to see Marianne's sorrow as both heartfelt and somewhat over the top, a balance that shapes her character throughout the story.
The cottage serves as a tangible representation of the family's changed circumstances. Austen lists its shortcomings (low ceilings, awkward stairs, lack of bedrooms) in the same careful style as the legal dispossession outlined in Chapter 1, implying that home is as much a battleground for power as inheritance law. Mrs. Dashwood's eagerness to enhance and expand the cottage—right away and without practicality—portrays her as a woman whose sensibility matches that of her younger daughter, adding complexity to the straightforward Elinor/Marianne contrast.
The shift in tone from the mournful atmosphere of Norland to the brisk, nearly humorous practicality of the cottage’s shortcomings reflects Austen's signature perspective: loss is genuine, but life continues, and those who dwell too long in sentimentality will still have to deal with the furniture that needs arranging.
Key quotes from Chapter 2 – The Move to Barton Cottage
“Dear, dear Norland! when shall I cease to regret you! — when learn to feel a home elsewhere!”
Marianne's spoken farewell to Norland as the family departs, the novel's first full expression of her unguarded sensibility.
“As a house, Barton Cottage, though small, was comfortable and compact; but as a cottage it was defective, for the building was regular, the roof was tiled, the window shutters were not painted green, nor were the walls covered with honeysuckles.”
Austen's wry inventory of the cottage upon the family's arrival, quietly satirising the Romantic picturesque ideal Marianne prizes.
“Mrs. Dashwood was too sanguine, however, to distrust the future; she had no doubt of being able to do something with the house.”
Austen's aside on Mrs. Dashwood's impractical optimism about renovating the cottage, aligning mother and younger daughter in temperament.