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Natalie Bradford

ENG 333

October 16, 2020

Male Sensibility: Colonel Brandon’s Liminal Masculinity

There are several different styles of masculinity at play in Sense and Sensibility.

Willoughby is emblematic of the charming but treacherous masculinity of which Austen is so

wary in many of her works. Edward Ferrars represents a more docile, gentlemanly conception of

masculinity, though he too has secrets which have profound affects on the novel’s heroines.

Colonel Brandon might perhaps be offered up as a foil for Willoughby, his stability of character,

trustworthiness, and dependability contrasted against Willoughby’s charm, carelessness, and

wicked behavior. However, the distinction between these characters is perhaps not so clear-cut as

it first appears. Brandon is not characterized by a monolithic masculinity. Rather, the style of

masculinity which he performs negotiates the space between the highly sentimental masculinity

that Marianne ascribes to Willoughby and the stolid frumpiness with which she initially credits

Brandon. Despite Marianne’s early conviction that Brandon is old and unfeeling, his behavior at

various points in the narrative demonstrates that he is capable of deeper emotion than Marianne

believes him to be, tying him to her preferred sentimental philosophy. It is particularly clear in

Brandon’s retelling of his history with his first love Eliza, her daughter, and Willoughby, that he

displays two separate masculine identities which are tied to his changing position in society. This

depiction of Brandon’s masculinity as existing between two extremes is related to Austen’s

larger project of examining the ways in which people’s natures are revealed to others. By placing

Brandon in the liminal space between two identities, she offers one male character in the novel
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who, though he is not immediately legible to the Dashwoods, his secrets are not concealing

anything untoward about himself.

Gender identity is bound closely to class, and at the time that the Dashwood sisters are

getting to know him, Brandon is a wealthy, landowning member of the gentry. As such, he

would be expected to perform his masculinity in a particular manner. He would have prodigious

responsibility for the upkeep of his estate and those who are dependent upon him, a duty which

would necessitate that Brandon act responsibly, honorably, and with economic soundness. This

style of masculinity would have been the hegemonic form in the nineteenth century as it

determined the behavior of England’s ruling elite. It also would have been profoundly

conservative, intended, as it was, to preserve a family’s patrimony—issues such as honor,

reputation, and virtue would have been integral to it’s performance as indicators of class

distinction and as justification of the aristocracy’s position. This form of masculinity was old,

even as Austen composed her works, and perhaps grew out of feudal obligations. It is this style

of masculinity against which Marianne would have been reacting when she dismisses Brandon as

irrelevant for failing to meet her more progressive ideas of what a man ought to be. Marianne’s

idea of appropriate and attractive masculinity is informed by her interactions with sentimental

and Romantic schools of thought and echoes the values of those artistic and intellectual

movements. Compared to the masculinity of the landed gentry, a sentimental masculinity would

be less pragmatic, more passionate, and rooted more in expression than traditional virtue.

Though there are figures associated with the gentry who display this masculinity in the novel,

such as Willoughby, who is landed yet also sentimental, it is not the gender identity most closely

associated with nor most appropriate for the landowning class. Colonel Brandon displays
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characteristics of both forms of masculinity and, by the events of the text, comes to be positioned

at their crux as he acts with sentimentality while also maintaining his hegemonic position.

The scene in which Brandon tells Elinor about Eliza is littered with references to the

depth his emotions, which far exceed the extent to which one would expect them to be felt under

the dictates of the hegemonic masculinity that Brandon is elsewhere supposed to adhere to. In

describing his attachment to his cousin, Brandon says that he “‘cannot remember the time when

(he) did not love Eliza,’” showing the strength of his first attachment, a concept to which

Marianne assigns great importance (145). Brandon’s expression that he “‘hoped that (Eliza’s)

regard for (him) would support her under any difficulty’” is also imbued with sentimentality—it

seems to place a tremendous amount of faith in the strength of love to believe that a relationship

such as his and Eliza’s could somehow sustain her through the misery of her marriage (145). Of

Eliza’s divorce, Brandon says, “‘it was that which threw this gloom,—even now the recollection

of what I suffered—’” (146). Being thrown into a gloom and the difficulty Brandon has in

expressing his suffering again reveal the depth of feeling that he experienced at the time, but this

sentiment also speaks to Brandon’s emotional state in the present. Brandon is not dour and

serious simply because that is his nature as an old man, as Marianne believes, but his manner

comes from the despair of having lost his love and then witnessed her ruination, a truly Romantic

transformation.

When his story reaches more recent events, such as Willoughby’s treatment of Eliza’s

daughter and his connection to Marianne, Brandon’s sensibility continues to be evinced

throughout his speech. That one of the reasons he cites for having kept him from revealing

Willoughby’s nature to the Dashwoods is that he “‘thought (Marianne’s) influence might yet

reclaim him’” reveals the same belief in the importance and power of love as expressed by his
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hoping that Eliza’s love for him would enable her to survive her marriage (149). It seems foolish

for a sensible man such as Brandon to imagine that Willoughby could ever be redeemed,

especially by something as intangible as Marianne’s influence, and the fact that he gives

credence to this idea underscores Brandon’s surprising romanticism, which borders on naïveté.

Brandon also charges Willoughby with having “‘already done that, which no man who can feel

for another, would do’” in ruining and abandoning Eliza (148). This statement reverses the

distribution of sensibility between the two men as it has thus far been expressed by the narrative.

While it has seemed that Willoughby has been in possession of all ability to emote strongly,

Brandon here claims that he is deficient of feeling. Colonel Brandon, instead, is the only one

between the pair of them who can “feel for another” and who is capable of genuine emotion; his

performance of masculinity is the one which is truly sentimental, not Willoughby’s.

The backstory which Brandon provides for himself in this conversation is itself a sort of

appeal to the credibility of his sentimental disposition, rife as it is with Gothic and Romantic

tropes. He reveals that Eliza was “‘an orphan from her infancy…under the guardianship of

(Brandon’s) father’” and that she “‘was lost to (him) forever’” when she was “‘married against

her inclination’” to Brandon’s brother (145). These tropes serve to establish Brandon as a sort of

heroic figure, one from an entirely separate and more sensationalized genre of literature than the

work which he actually exists in. The language with which he expresses himself further

emphasizes the credibility of his sentimental masculinity as it heightens the register of the

emotions he is conveying. In relating the failure of his and Eliza’s elopement, for example,

Brandon describes the “‘treachery’” of Eliza’s maid for having “‘betrayed’” them and refers to

his being sent away as being “‘banished’” (146). These terms have powerful and dramatic

connotations that exceed what would be required of a matter-of-fact telling of this history.
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Sentimental and genteel masculinities are both present within Colonel Brandon as

differing aspects of his performance of gender, but they also distinguish different points of time

in his life. While in the present, Brandon does appear to be able to perform both the placid

masculinity of the gentry and the emotive masculinity of the Romantic, it is also true that the

latter is more characteristic of his past self and the former applies more to the Brandon whom the

Dashwoods know. The point at which the shift between these identities occurs is not Brandon’s

loss of Eliza, the emotional turning point of Brandon’s tale, but rather his inheritance of

Delaford, its economic turning point. Class and wealth are closely connected to how one

performs gender, as well as to the masculine identities to which one has access, and they are no

less integral to Brandon’s style of masculinity. It is Brandon’s inability, as the second son, to

perform the hegemonic masculinity of the landed gentry which causes him to fail in his courtship

of Eliza. It is because Eliza’s “‘fortune was large’” and the Brandon family’s estate was “‘much

encumbered’” that Brandon’s father forced her to marry his brother, rather than letting them

marry according to their inclination. The death of Brandon’s brother “‘left to (Brandon) the

possession of the family property’” and transferred upon him the privilege and responsibility of

being an estate owner (147). Brandon’s acquisition of hegemonic status imposes upon him the

need for a new, more respectable, stable, and responsible masculinity for which he was not

previously eligible. It also requires that he sacrifice some of the characteristics of his earlier, less

rigid masculinity. Brandon himself draws attention to this change when he references his

“‘present forlorn and cheerless gravity’” in speculating that Elinor “‘might think (him) incapable

of having ever felt’” the deep emotions that he describes in his tale.

The discussion of Brandon and Willoughby’s duel is another point which emphasizes the

negotiation of these two masculinities within Brandon’s character. The meeting between the two
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men to settle Willoughby’s mistreatment of Eliza’s daughter displays Brandon’s performance of

sensibility alongside his enactment of hegemonic virtue. The first mention of this encounter is

Brandon’s rather cryptic remark to Elinor’s inquiry about his having seen Willoughby, that “‘one

meeting was unavoidable’” (149). The obscurity of this statement amplifies the drama of the

situation while the fact of its being “unavoidable” frames the duel as though Brandon were

merely fulfilling a duty. The conversation between Elinor and Brandon continues with Brandon

claiming to have met Willoughby “‘by appointment, he to defend, (Brandon) to punish his

conduct. (They) returned unwounded, and the meeting therefore never got abroad’” (150). This

further indicates the divergent impulses of the masculine identities which Brandon is caught

between. As a member of the landed gentry, Brandon’s reputation and that of his ward are

important to their situation, but dueling is perhaps not the manner of addressing the insult to

which most men in his position would turn. This may be especially true given that dueling was

“illegal and widely criticized throughout the eighteenth century,” as is stated in the footnote

(150). The attention that Brandon pays to the duel having “never got abroad” shows that he is

aware that his actions are on the cusp of appropriateness for his station. His apparent reluctance

for the meeting to be broadcast suggests that he is concerned with performing his masculine

identity as he ought to, even as he steps outside of the strictest dictates of that masculinity’s

propriety. The duel demonstrates Brandon’s more Romantic inclinations as well as his prudent

ones. To take a question of honor onto the field of battle surely betrays a depth of emotion that

goes beyond mere virtue. The idea that Brandon is “punishing” Willoughby’s conduct by calling

him out, though they both left the duel unscathed, is no less naive than any of the impractical

principles espoused by Marianne. Elinor’s response to learning of the duel is to sigh “over the

fancied necessity” but she does not presume to criticize the practice “to a man and a soldier”
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(150). Elinor acknowledges that Brandon’s “unavoidable” meeting was not truly necessary, but

was a rather fanciful impulse dictated by his consideration of masculinity. With her hesitancy to

censure Brandon, she notes that his being a “man” is what prompted him to call Willoughby out.

She even seems to be aware of there being multiple forms of masculinity at play in the situation

as she acknowledges Brandon’s status as “soldier” makes him perhaps more likely to duel than

men such as Sir John or Edward Ferrars.

Though on the surface Brandon is a steadfast and upstanding member of the gentry,

performing his gender as is expected of a man in his social position, he is revealed to possess

hidden depths of emotion and sensibility that lend themselves to a separate reading of his

masculinity. The divide between a class-dictated masculinity and one determined by aesthetic

shapes much of Brandon’s development in the eyes of the novel’s heroines as Marianne comes to

find him increasingly interesting and Elinor’s respect for him likewise grows. Brandon’s

masculinity is dynamic, as it draws from the identities between which it is positioned, and the

threshold space that it occupies differentiates Brandon from other male characters in the novel.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. Edited by Claudia L. Johnson, 1st Edition, W. W.

Norton & Company, 2001.