Sense and Sensibility

The spoiled child is a recurrent motif in Austen’s novel and symbolizes the decadence a young person falls into when they are indulged. The first spoiled child is little Harry, John and Fanny Dashwood’s infant son, who will receive the entirety of the Norland estate, thereby injuring the Dashwood sisters. Austen makes clear her disapproval of this preference for Harry by stating that the child possesses qualities that “are by no means unusual in children of two or three years old” and even the defects of “an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise” (3). Again with understatement, Austen implies that Harry is already a menace and will grow to be more so following the sense of entitlement that possessing Norland at the expense of others will give him. Harry is a miniature of his father John, an older child spoiled by being his father’s first and only male successor and therefore in the eyes of patriarchy, his most important heir.

The young Middletons, whom Elinor and Marianne encounter at Barton Park, are also spoiled. The center of their mother Lady Middleton’s life, these children are indulged and permitted to misbehave. Lady Middleton warms to the Steeles who pander to the spoiling, while she dislikes the Dashwoods who do nothing to encourage it. Austen shows how the attitudes of marriageable girls toward children suggest the type of mother they will become and the kind of citizens they will bring into the world. The flattering Steeles view maternal spoiling as “so natural” and cluster around Lady Middleton’s screaming daughter—one bathing her wound with lavender water and the other stuffing sugar plums into her mouth (141). Austen wryly comments that “with such a reward for her tears, the child was too wise to cease crying” (139). Here, Austen implies that the Miss Steeles will be bad mothers who will raise cunning, undisciplined children. The Dashwoods, by contrast, do not seek to escalate the triviality of a child falling over; when they become mothers, they will not lose all sense of proportion and ensure that their children are disciplined and pleasant in society.

Spoiled children also feature within the younger branch of the Dashwood family. Mrs. Dashwood, who admires Marianne’s temperament for resembling her own and lives vicariously through her heady romance with Willoughby, spoils her by not reining in her antisocial capers or monitoring her intimacy with Willoughby. Mrs. Dashwood’s spoiling does not arise from the bestowal of material favor, but from the exceptions she makes for her daughter. She considers that demanding to know once and for all whether Marianne and Willoughby are engaged, as would be common for a mother at that time, “would be most ungenerous” and that she should “never deserve” her daughter’s trust again (97). Elinor considers that in her attempts to match Marianne’s “romantic delicacy,” Mrs. Dashwood neglects to apply the “common care” and vigilance that might serve Marianne’s interests in the long term (97). Similarly, Colonel Brandon indulges his ward Eliza when he allows her to go to Bath with a school friend. This visit, which sees “the girls […] ranging over the town and making what acquaintance they chose” (234), leads to Eliza’s meeting with Willoughby and her subsequent pregnancy. Eliza, a tragic parody of Marianne, expresses the full danger of indulgence and lack of supervision.