What happens in Chapter L of Sense and Sensibility?
Mrs. Ferrars, initially hesitant to protect her stern reputation, eventually accepts Edward back as her son. When he shares his engagement to Elinor Dashwood, she ultimately agrees to the marriage. However, her financial support is minimal: Robert receives a thousand pounds a year, while Edward is left with just two hundred and fifty from the Delaford living and the ten thousand pounds already given to Fanny. Despite these constraints, Edward and Elinor manage to get by. Colonel Brandon improves the Parsonage, and the wedding occurs at Barton church in early autumn. The newlyweds spend their first month at the Mansion-house, and Mrs. Jennings’s predictions largely come true when she visits them by Michaelmas. John Dashwood, strolling past Delaford House, subtly suggests to Elinor that she should facilitate a match between Marianne and Colonel Brandon, praising the Colonel's timber. Mrs. Ferrars visits but never truly favors Edward and Elinor; instead, Robert and Lucy gain her favor through their flattery and humility, with Lucy becoming a favorite while Elinor is seen as an intruder. The narrator notes how Robert was led into marrying Lucy due to her careful management of his visits. Surrounded by family and friends eager for her to marry Colonel Brandon, Marianne eventually does so at the age of nineteen. Colonel Brandon finds joy and energy restored through Marianne, who wholeheartedly devotes herself to him. Willoughby feels a twinge of regret at her marriage and later learns from Mrs. Smith that honorable behavior towards Marianne could have brought him happiness and wealth, but he neither succumbs to grief nor withdraws from society. Mrs. Dashwood remains at Barton cottage; Margaret, now old enough to dance, takes Marianne's place in the community. Elinor and Marianne, living almost within sight of each other, maintain a harmonious relationship between themselves and their husbands.
Analysis
The final chapter unfolds through a series of settlements — financial, matrimonial, and moral — all conveyed in Austen's sharply ironic style. The opening lines present Mrs. Ferrars's maternal feelings as a ledger: sons are "annihilated" and "resuscitated," akin to entries being crossed out and reinstated, reducing familial love to mere arithmetic. This same irony shapes the income comparison: thirty thousand pounds versus three, a thousand a year against two hundred and fifty. Austen emphasizes the disparity by italicizing "three" and positioning the figures in parallel clauses.
The Lucy Steele section serves as the chapter's most extended satirical moment. The narrator explicitly identifies Lucy's motivation as "an earnest, an unceasing attention to self-interest," while the term "conscience" is mentioned only in the context of being sacrificed — a clear moral judgment delivered with the tone of a conduct-book compliment. Robert's vanity is dissected with similar precision: he has "more to say" about himself than anything else, and his pride is tripled ("proud of his conquest, proud of tricking Edward, and very proud of marrying privately").
In contrast to this ironic framework, the depiction of Marianne's marriage is presented in a more elegiac tone. The repetition of "She was born to…" frames her fate as a paradox: the passionate girl who rejected prudence ultimately embraces "strong esteem and lively friendship," and, in a humorous twist, a husband who still wears a flannel waistcoat. The final paragraphs concerning Willoughby are notably balanced: he is neither condemned nor cleared, finding "no inconsiderable degree of domestic felicity" in horses, dogs, and sports. The chapter concludes with sisterly harmony, a quiet resolution that counteracts the initial disruption of the Dashwood household.
Key quotes from Chapter L
“The whole of Lucy’s behaviour in the affair, and the prosperity which crowned it, therefore, may be held forth as a most encouraging instance of what an earnest, an unceasing attention to self-interest … will do in securing every advantage of fortune, with no other sacrifice than that of time and conscience.”
The narrator delivers a sardonic verdict on Lucy Steele's conduct after explaining how she manoeuvred Robert into marriage and won back Mrs. Ferrars's favour.
“Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favourite maxims.”
The narrator introduces the account of Marianne's eventual marriage to Colonel Brandon.
“Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had once been to Willoughby.”
The narrator summarises Marianne's happiness in her marriage to Colonel Brandon near the chapter's close.
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Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Chapter L
- constitutional
- Relating to or beneficial to a person's physical constitution or health; here used ironically about a flannel waistcoat worn to guard against illness.