Clarifying The Relevance of 80/20 with respect to the Complexity of Ideas in Jane Austen's 'Sense And Sensibility' A Critical Reflection

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, Ranchi University , language: English, abstract: In Sense And Sensibility, the revised title of Jane Austen's 'Elinor And Marianne' "sense" refers to common sense or wisdom whereas "sensibility", the power of being emotionally alive or proactive. But this is a clichéd perspective overworked and worn out by a large number of Austen scholars. The present essay endeavours to bring about a successful comprehension of the novel on the basis of Pareto's Principle, also known as the law of the vital few, the principle of factor sparsity or the 80/20 rule. Jane Austen (1775-1817), the most endearing novelist to her readers and one of the finest writers of prose fiction, who once humbly said about her craft that she wrote on a piece of ivory "two inches wide" (See Tony Tanner, 1986) composed her first novel ('Elinor and Marianne' later renamed 'Sense And Sensibility') in 1795 in the form of letters as an epistolary novel, later revising and re-revising it as a narrative novel before it finally published in 1811. Her authorship was penned covertly under the title "By a lady". This anonymity was to continue until her death, but posed no hindrance to her fame, which continued to surge, holding her in high esteem as a skilfull and accomplished writer. But it was only after her death that her novels came to be critically appreciated and revalued by such eminent critics as Sir Walter Scott, A.C. Bradley, F.R. Leavis, Ian Watt and Henry James to name a few.