The "Anonymous" group should answer two of the following:
Q1:How does Austen critique and satirize the state of marriage, whether in actual married couples (ex: Mr. & Mrs. Palmer) or in young women striving to become married themselves (ex: Lucy Steele, in later chapters)? As an unmarried woman of a somewhat Romantic bent, what fears and biases about the union does Austen seem to have?
Q2: In Chapter 16, Marianne rhapsodizes about the natural world, including the sublimity of autumn. Elinor archly responds, "It is not every one...who has your passion for dead leaves." Marianna responds, "No; my feelings are not often shared, nor often understood. But sometimes they are" (87). Do you think the narrator is continuing to mock Marianne's pretensions here--in other words, is she too full of sensibility? Or is Elinor simply too inclined to have her grow up?
Q3: Related somewhat to the above, how does Marianne misread her sister throughout the book (so far)? Where does she mistake sensibility for sense? And why might Marianne not realize that sensibility takes different forms (as with Colonel Brandon, too)?
Q4:According to Elinor (and in the eyes of society), how does Marianne and Willoughby's relationship transgress what is socially permissible? Since he has not declared his intentions for her (though everyone assumes he has), how might a specific action of his be mistaken--or how might it compromise her (or her family) in the future? Or is Elinor just being too conservative and eighteenth-century in her tastes?
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