Dynamic and impulsive, Marianne Dashwood is the exact opposite of her restrained and prudent sister, Elinor. So, when Marianne falls in love with the impressive but reckless John Willoughby, she ignores her sister's warning for restraint and patience. Elinor, on the other hand, stoically faces her beloved's decision to abandon her and struggles to hide her own romantic disappointment, even from her close ones.

Through the experience of love and the threat of its loss, the two sisters learn that reason must be combined with sensitivity and emotion in order to achieve personal happiness in a society where money and social status govern and even determine the fate of love.

The first major novel of 19th-century English literature is beyond a coming-of-age story and an enjoyable "comedy of errors." With subtle irony and imperceptible sarcasm, the author reveals the hypocrisy that pervades the aristocracy and the mores of England of that era, describing the struggle of the two so different sisters to live with dignity without renouncing their humanity and feelings.