To what extent is chapter 1 of sense and sensibility a fitting introduction for the novel to come?
Although Austen shows the reader the downsides of both poles, sensibility is harshly and heavily punished and in the end sense wins out when Elinor gets to marry the man she wants and Marianne gives up sensibility and accepts an unconvincing happy ending with a socially respectable result. The first chapter so brilliantly allows for β