How Austen Uses Gossip and Secrecy in 'Sense and Sensibility' Anonymous 12th Grade

As a novel of manner, ‘Sense and Sensibility’ perfectly encapsulated the paradoxically frivolous yet ruthless zeitgeist of Regency England. Austen periodically manipulates the aura of gossip and secrecy that pervades the novel not only to reinforce the superficial nature of gossip but to construct complex bonds between participants in the social game of secrets.

Austen exploits gossip to highlight the hypocrisy of Regency England; it allows the construction of facades, thus propagating double standard. On a more comic front, Austen satirises the Middleton family whose conflicting values and diction highlight the foolhardy nature of gossip. Whilst Mrs Jennings externally requests ‘no secrets among friends’, her repeated surmises as to the reason for Colonel Brandon’s sudden departure are satirised by conflicting certainties and doubts; Austen contrast her ‘lay[ing] any wager’ with her sudden ‘wonder’, highlighting the senseless pretence of uncertainty and foolish gossip. Her character as microcosm of the landed gentry demonstrates how having ‘nothing to do’’ led the upper strata of Regency society to ‘vulgar’ habits; yet Austen’s paradoxical representation of the impropriety and appeal of gossip also demonstrates the double...