Many critics have argued that the impulsive and romantic heroine Marianne Dashwood models her feelings and behavior on the literary convention of the sentimental novel, whereas her prudent and sensible sister Elinor regulates hers in accordance with the social convention of the period. This paper, while agreeing that Marianne has much to do with the heroines in the sentimental novels, argues that Elinor also directly comes from the literary convention of the period, namely the didactic and domestic novel. Criticizing the 'cult of sensibility' of the former generation, the women writers of the romantic period created numerous heroines equipped with self-control, solicitude, judgement and reason. Placing Elinor among the heroines of the literary convention of the Romantic period, this paper further examines the ideological implications of the sensible and reasonable women characters. First, the production of the sensible heroines effectively defied the dominant discourse of the difference between the sexes that assigned reason to man and feeling to woman. Second, the didactic novels of the period attempted to make the novel that had been considered dangerous to female readers a safe and beneficial as well as respectable literary genre. In the process, however, the novel came to be appropriated as a properly masculine genre and the numerous women novelists' existence was almost completely forgotten. By exploring these issues, this paper aims to investigate the interrelationship between gender and genre.
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