I was watching Sense and Sensibility for the umpteenth time over the holiday break, and two scenes really caught my modern-girl eye.
Scene 1 - The Dashwood women are sitting in the cottage front room, as their "man who does" lugs wood for the fire into the room, all the while chatting about local doings. He casually mentions that he bumped into "Mr and Mrs Ferrars". They all assume he is referring to Edward Ferrars, on whom Elinor Dashwood had been holding onto hope for the entire film, but whose love affair was thwarted by a prior engagement. However, this is a misunderstanding which is not cleared up until the denouement of the film, which leads to a waterfall of emotions that Elinor has been holding for a whole 120 minutes.
Scene 2 - The young, impetuous and beautiful Marianne Dashwood marries the older, but still wealthy, respectable and kind Colonel Brandon, whom she had ealier spurned due to her affections for the dashing yet caddish Willoughby, who marries for money instead of following his heart and love for Marianne. We see Willoughby alone, on his horse high up on the hill as he watches the happy couple celebrating and showering gold coins on the friends and family, then turns away unhappily.
If these two scenes were played out today the level of drama would be lost due to the wealth of information we can now access or deduce from our online connections
For example, the misunderstanding of the first scene would be rendered entirely irrelevant when the youngest daughter, Margaret Dashwood, checked her Facebook to see that Edward Ferrars' relationship had changed from "It's complicated" to "Single". She would then need only follow the links from his friends list to see that "Lucy Steele" is now "married to Robert Ferrars" and the whole ensuing distress felt by Elinor could have been avoided.
The second scene shows Willoughby showing remorse and regret for losing Marianne whom he rejected for stability and wealth, and it shows her to be blissfully ignorant to his distress. If he had a mobile phone, he might have texted that he was thinking of her in that moment, bringing up old wounds for her yet making him feel better to have reached out to his true love. The scene also made me wonder how he had found out she was marrying the Colonel... after all, Marianne didn't have a blog, although in this day and age it would be a safe bet to assume she would have one, being of a somewhat sensitive and over-sharing nature unlike her stoic elder sister.
It also made me realise that having this knowledge makes us sadder, and less able to move on from those who break our hearts, or those hearts that we have broken. Something that, in this day and age of endless Google searches and plethora of information shared in mulititude of places, makes it more and more difficult to actually do, unless you are strong enough to avoid it voluntarily.
But who amongst us has that kind of strength these days? Sheer curiosity alone can be enough to lead you to Google and enter a name that should have long since been relegated to the corridors of memory, and find new and fresh ways of opening those wounds.
Being able to "stalk" old love interests, re-ignite those flames, and rake through the debris of current information is a not good thing. It keeps us welded to the past, and leads us to making silly decisions... we are able to torture ourselves via Twitter, Facebook, blogs.
Even for poor Elinor, who imagined her loved one was forever separated from her, having her misunderstanding cleared up instantly would probably not have lessened her anxiety. There was no guarantee that he was going to pursue for her, after all.
It's probably a good lesson in just accepting the circumstances, that we find ourselves in... and if something is meant to be... it will be!
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