Sense and Sensibility
Fanny Dashwood
The grasping sister-in-law
John’s cold, status-minded wife, who talks him out of his promise and makes sure Edward stays away from Elinor.
Fanny Dashwood is Edward and Robert’s sister and John’s wife. She is cold, haughty and intensely selfish, calculating and snobbish. She makes the Dashwoods feel unwelcome in their own home almost as soon as she arrives.
She is the real force behind her husband’s decisions, and she is alert to anything that threatens her family’s fortune or her brother’s prospects. She is quick to act on her own interests and never asks what anyone else needs. Her manners are polite on the surface, and her husband never sees through them.
“Three thousand pounds! You must consider our own dear boy! What right have they to rob your little Harry of such a fortune?”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Fanny whittles John’s promised three thousand pounds down to nothing, asking what right his sisters have to rob little Harry of such a fortune. When she sees Edward growing close to Elinor, she tells Mrs. Dashwood that her mother expects a woman of high rank for him.
When Anne Steele reveals Lucy’s engagement, Fanny falls into hysterics and has the Steeles thrown out. She stays on her mother’s side and does nothing for Edward.
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