What illness does Marianne have? - Sense and Sensibility (1996) Discussion

[–] Raincrow11 9 years ago

Well, it's not Victorian Novel Disease (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VictorianNovelDisease), as the source material was written around 1795, long before the Victorian era.

In all seriousness, I suspect that Austen had pneumonia in mind when she described Marianne's illness. Many of the symptoms seem to match relatively well. The bleeding in this 1995 adaptation doesn't actually happen in the book, though, and I have often thought that it seems a touch too melodramatic. On the other hand, in Black Beauty (a book I liked a lot when I was in elementary school), the eponymous horse character is bled after he becomes ill with a lung inflammation. Granted, that probably isn't the best example to use, as Marianne is not a horse... although the 2008 Elinor certainly thinks she has some traits in common with one:

Mrs. Dashwood (2008 version): (watching Brandon take his leave of Marianne and ride away) Why is he leaving now when he has the advantage?

Elinor (2008 version): I have heard that the great tamers of horses do it by being gentle and then walking away. Nine times out of ten, the wild horse will follow.

😉 How nice of you, Elinor.

Anyway, there are other Sense and Sensibility adaptations, and out of the ones I've watched, I'd say that the version produced by the BBC in 1981 has the most intense illness scenes. There is no bleeding in that adaptation, but Marianne is shown to be extremely, deliriously ill: tossing and turning in her bed, dark circles under her eyes, sweat pouring down her face, etc. The more recent adaptations seem a bit afraid to make her look quite so rough.

"Courage is found in unlikely places." ~ The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

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[–] ScrystaLz 9 years ago

I think it was either hypothermia or pneumonia, she was so devastated by heartbreak over Willoughby and wandered into the cold raining weather, if you stay outside in that kind of weather for just an hour or a few, it's enough to give you a fever or at least a cold...and depending on your mental state at the time, sometimes it could get much worse. I think she more likely contracted hypothermia than pneumonia because pneumonia is usually caused by bacterial or viral infection, while hypothermia is low body temperature sometimes caused by being exposed to cold temperature, but both conditions can be very lethal and deadly sometimes, depending on the patient's circumstances...so I think Marianne probably suffered Hypothermia.

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[–] dobieclose-891-515844 9 years ago

You cannot get a cold by being cold. You have to be exposed to the virus ..... Which does not live outside in cold rainy weather.

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[–] ScrystaLz 9 years ago

yes for pneumonia maybe, but hypothermia is different, it's not just a cold, you can contract hypothermia by just being exposed to cold weather for too long...as I emphasized before, I think Marianne contracted either pneumonia or hypothermia, but more likely hypothermia.

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[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

True that cold weather does not cause illnesses, but people who are already mildly ill can get infections and complications if they are overexposed to cold temperatures. Marianne could have had a minor virus, like a cold, but developed bacterial pneumonia or another respitory infection from it because she was run down. She was heartbroken and not taking care of herself. She went walking in the rain, probably was not eating much nor sleeping well.

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[–] Megan1988 (324) 7 years ago

That is true. Remember when Edward said, "You are pale"? Then later, when they're in the carriage heading for Cleveland, Marianne looks ill already. She hasn't been taking care of herself. The book I think, even says that she doesn't eat. In the movie, Charlotte Palmer says, "She ate nothing at dinner." So, not eating, not sleeping well, the cold temperatures, the rain, the broken heart, all makes a bad combination.

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[–] thesnowleopard 9 years ago

Hypothermia is not a disease that you contract. It is a condition that occurs when your body temperature drops and is a huge risk is any cold climate or when you spend too much time in cold water (loss of heat). While Marianne probably was chilled initially, her symptoms don't otherwise match those of hypothermia.

Marianne might have had pneumonia, but there's not a lot of coughing. It's possible she had influenza, instead.

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[–] Julie-30 9 years ago

She has whatever Austen wants her to have.

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[–] jjparish 9 years ago

Its that illness hollywood actresses get where they are lying at deaths door yet still look insanely hot.

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[–] grumpy_otter 9 years ago

In the book it is called a "putrid fever," whatever that means, lol

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[–] ScrystaLz 9 years ago

I had not heard of this so called "putrid fever" before so I did a little research on it and it's a type of disease that's caused by an infection from a certain bacteria called 'Rickettsia' and it can be deadly. Some of the symptoms seem to match those that Marianne had suffered in the film, so that could be it...but what confuses me is that this bacteria is typically transmitted through parasites like ticks & fleas, lice etc, so how could Marianne have contracted the disease just by being in the cold raining weather? Maybe while she was out there in the rain she might've had contact with an infected flea or tick or some other kind of parasite? That's the only likely scenario I can think of in which Marianne could've contracted the disease...

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[–] grumpy_otter 9 years ago

Well that's cool! Certainly the movie and book implied she "caught it from the rain," but Jane Austen had no knowledge of modern bacteriology. I do not doubt perhaps one of her friend became ill after a walk in the rain, and no one thought to blame the seemingly-innocuous bite on her leg.

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[–] ScrystaLz 9 years ago

the film did not specifically imply which illness Marianne had, hence the confusion, all we knew was that she probably got sick from the weather and not some pre-existing condition. If you hadn't told us that the book states it was 'Putrid Fever', we probably wouldn't have guessed it.

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[–] Ray_BLOODY_Purchase 9 years ago

Well, if we could play with a little poetic licence - in my experiences the ticks and fleas often like to come out to play in rainy times. My dog gets them almost regularly after a rain and we live in a desert!

From a German friend who lived in a more European climate and regularly had incident with ticks, you generally never feel them latch on, and in most cases, they'll cauterize the wound and detach once fully engorged.

So, simply leaving the medical particulars to imagination, one could say she may have been bitten by a tick - possible even some good while before the incident, and she fell ill from an infection caused by it. The tick merits no prose dedicated to it because by the time she is being taken care of, the blighter has already absconded.

further, while being in the cold/wet will not technically give one a cold, it will incredibly damage one's immune system - so being in the cold didn't cause anything, but caused conditions that exacerbated her fall into illness/ability to prevent the infection becoming too serious.

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[–] Otter (24464) 6 years ago

She was bled because the "doctor" didn't have any medicines that would work, and he thought bleeding would help, it was basically the only treatment on offer and it did more harm than good. As Mark Twain said, "In those days, if you had a cut throat the doctor would bleed you!".

And if there was no diagnosis, well, there weren't any diagnoses in those days, any more than there were medicines that worked. She lived because she was young and lucky, not because of anything the "doctor" did, in those days the doctor didn't do much except bleed snd tell you whether you should send for the vicar as well as himself. He had nothing that could bring down a fever, for instance.

And FYI he probably wasn't what we'd regard as a real doctor - in the book he was just an apothecary. It's hard for today's internet users to concieve of what life was like without medical care, but that was the truth of Austen's day. A cut finger or a case of the sniffles could turn into septic shock overnight, and the doctors couldn't usually do a damn thing to save their lives in a case like Marianne's.

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[–] Furienna (3375) 5 years ago

Here's a good article about this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7060533.stm

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[–] Quasimodo (16388) 5 years ago

A severe attack of the vapours.

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