] We really don't see much of Edward in these opening chapters.

]Hardly lover-like, though there is some feeling in that "So far from hence!" line.

] Why do you think JA showed so little of the interaction between Edward and Elinor? I think it because the novel she was trying to write was the conflict between "sense" and "sensibility" rather than conflict in love.

In preparation for the group read (and, I guess hoping to come across something that would amaze the whole room ;-) ) I've been looking at a book I've had for a while Reshaping the Sexes in Sense and Sensibility, the author argues that Jane Austen was subverting many traditional gender roles in this novel.

In the book, he quotes another critic who says that Edward Ferrars "is the only Austen hero who does not condescend to women" and that this is a deviation from the way most heroes behave in novels. He goes on to point out that Edward's tendency to be self-deprecating and that when he uses irony it is very low-key and turned on himself, rather than aggressively and with the intent of putting down someone else or 'one-upping' someone, which was more commonly seen in males in novels.

The author of the book, Perkins, says that not only is Edward's irony non-aggressive, his entire personality is non-aggressive.
He tends to be passive, shy, reticient, which are more the territory of feminine heroines, and, although he is of age, he is being bullied by his mother to marry an heiress, rather than the traditional heroine being forced into a marriage by her father.