It had seemed there for a while that Marianne was starting to grow up a little and realize that others--especially Elinor--have sorrows quite as painful as her own.

But leaving London in Ch. 42 seems a setback for Marianne, and that she is regressing. We are told that even though she wanted to leave London, when it came time to go, she could not

"bid adieu to the house in which she had for the last time enjoyed those hopes and that confidence in Willoughby, which were now extinguished for ever, without great pain. Nor could she leave the place in which Willoughby remained busy in new engagements, and new schemes, in which she could have no share, without shedding many tears."

Then we read that she is rejoicing in 'tears of agony' to be at Cleveland, where she fancies she can see Combe Magna from the summit of the hill and that this brought her moments of precious, valuable misery. So much for getting over it!

Through the group read, I've been reading Some Words of Jane Austen by Stuart Tave. One of the arguments he makes in his chapter on Marianne and Elinor is that Marianne is attracted to violence and violent emotions, almost like an addiction, I suppose.

It is like she's squeezing every bit of over the top emotion she can get out of this, isn't it? I mean, it's not actually possible to see Combe Magna from there, Willoughby isn't there just now, and he's already married. I confess that I couldn't help thinking to myself when I read the first part of this chapter "Drama queen!"

Tave also argues that because Marianne has not only allowed but made her emotions go over the top in so many instances (such as getting upset about the way a person reads poetry, for example, or refusing to eat and sleep when Willoughby left Barton, even though she believed he'd only be gone for a short time), that when true misery hits, there is not really anywhere to go with her emotional demonstrations. It's kind of like--what do you do for an encore?