Abstract

Jane Austen gave us a vivid portrait about “sense and sensibility” in her novel Sense and Sensibility. The whole story focuses on two sisters, Elinor and Marianne. The two sisters had differentiated characters. One was said to be calm and the other arduous. As a proverb goes, character determines life. Elinor’s calm won herself a satisfactory way to her happiness while her sister had to suffer from her immature behaviors. Such a tremendous contrast has drawn a wide discussion both at home and abroad. Therefore, it is worth working out what factors result in such big different personalities in the same one family and the underlying behind the dissimilarities. Despite of these obvious differences, they still had similarity in some aspects. Austen, as a woman, can be said an excellent writer in the British literature of the 18th century. It is a very important reason why this story has been analyzed repeatedly and the discussion has included many a view. Here, the thesis is to present readers with a more comprehensive and extensive understanding from the view of personalities’ analysis with the hope of finding something unrevealed before. In addition, Jane Austen is also a feminist. Thus, special emphasis will be put on feminine characters. The 18th century is also significant writing background. In such novel century, many same sounds came out from those writers.

Key Words:  Jane Austen  personality’s analysis  difference  similarity   

摘  要

简•奥斯丁在她的小说里给了我们关于理智与情感生动的描写。故事围绕埃莉诺和玛丽安两姐妹展开。两姐妹性格迥异，行为举止各具特点。埃莉诺为人冷静理智，而玛丽安感性冲动。埃莉诺的沉着冷静让她在寻找幸福的道路上比较顺利，玛丽安的冲动急躁使得她的爱情之路屡受磨难，最后才获得平静的爱情。两姐妹的性格差异之大使得这部作品获得了极大的关注度。我将深入探讨故事人物的性格差异。想一想，在同一个家庭的教育之下，两姐妹会在性格上差异如此之大。差异背后的深意亟待探寻。尽管如此，在某些方面她们的性格又有些相似。奥斯丁可以说是18世纪英国文学界一位十分出色的作家。这也是这本小说令人瞩目的原因。在这个小说的世纪，我们可以听到来自那些小说家们心声。那些心声也埋在了这本书里了。这本书曾经被许多人从各种角度反复的讨论过，如今，该论文将从性格差异分析的角度为读者对《理智与情感》有更深刻的理解。18世纪是个传奇的年代，也是这本小说重要的历史背景。

关键词： 简•奥斯丁 性格分析 差异 相似

1 Introduction
1.1 A Brief Summary of the Novel
The 18th century is a century flooded by tens of thousands of novels. It is lucky for all of us that, Jane Austen was born in that century and then she tried her best to write wonderful novels to pass down along the history. Her road to writing began as early as 14 years old. She was a remarkable writer in the time which she lived in. As a female writer, she created a legend. In 1811, her first novel Sense and Sensibility was published.