Winter 2020 ARTS130: Commitment and Relationships Essay

This essay analyzes the theme of commitment and relationships as depicted in Nick Hornby's novel *High Fidelity* and Jane Austen's *Sense and Sensibility*. The essay explores how the protagonists in both novels navigate the complexities of love, marriage, and personal growth. *High Fidelity* is examined through the lens of Rob Fleming's struggles with commitment and self-esteem, contrasting his stagnant approach to relationships with the evolving relationships in *Sense and Sensibility*, where Elinor and Marianne's experiences highlight the societal pressures and expectations surrounding marriage. The analysis considers the characters' individual journeys, their interactions, and the societal contexts that shape their choices, ultimately presenting an argument about the evolving nature of commitment in literature. The essay fulfills the requirements of an argumentative essay, including a thesis statement, supporting arguments, and acknowledgment of counter-arguments, as required by the ARTS130 course assignment, and utilizes scholarly sources to support its claims.

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The chosen topic is commitment and relationship among couples. I am going to study
Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity and Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility concerning
the chosen topic.
High Fidelity
The High Fidelity of Nick Hornby is a novel about the lives of Rob Fleming, a 35-year-old
man residing in London, England. Rob has a poor past of marriages and wants somebody to
stay off. He has a troubled album store named the Championship Vinyl. Rob saw Laura
lately, but as the novel starts, we learn that Laura left Rob for a guy called Ian. Rob's first five
most unforgettable breakups are mentioned at the outset, but Laura is not mentioned there. It
is observed that Laura has influenced him mentally and physically as Rob tells all the wrongs
of his past marriages and how they apply to him now. In his interactions with others, Rob
feels so nervous that he questions himself regarding the previous connections and mistakes.
Furthermore, Rob cannot seem to let go of the past and step on with his life. Despite
the conditions with his past friends or his most current friendship with Laura (Praisler, 93 –
101). Rob's love life is similar to his business, and often rob reminisces about his past lovers
and DJ days, Rob has two workers who at first he doesn't like. Still, he doesn't dare to tell,
much as he's experiencing issues with Laura, so instead of pursuing something, he steps back
and puts an end to things. Rob's search for self-confidence is one of the most influential
topics in this whole book (Walraven). His battle for self-esteem stems from several many
things, two of them the most significant. Rob battles for self-respect as he has been discarded

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by women, has a poor record store and his masculinity is not healthy. The protagonist Rob
Flaming is a guy with several characters, still not believing in himself. It is seen in High
Fidelity about Rob's past ties and girlfriends. Rob focuses briefly on these partnerships, and
he then relates to his new split with his former mate, Laura. Through the five most
unforgettable breakups had a significant influence on Rob and his life as a whole (Gratzke,
6). In the early days, he explained why such disintegrations were so unforgettable and why
the girl had dropped them on him. From the outset of his battle for self-confidence, he talked
to Penny Hardwick, number 2 on his survey of the five most unforgettable breakups. Rob was
so nervous about rubbing her breast for the longest time while dating Penny. He was still
trying but he gave up a little after, knowing he would get nothing from her. He was still
trying. Penny had recently started to see a boy called Chris Thomson, who at the point had
most girlfriends out of anyone. It became known that just after three weeks of Rob being out
of the picture that Chris came in and got done what Rob could not. "You never got so much
as a bit of tit in three months, and I shagged her in the first week!" Rob continued to feel bad
about himself from this moment on (Stepić, 144-155). Rob feels humiliated by the case and
all of Penny's ties. All it took was for one man to destroy his self-confidence, an over-sized
moron. Rob has influenced him too much in his whole life. He then felt like a loser, and then
his marriages, be it a romantic one or not, came to all this disappointment (MALYKHINA,
154). Rob puts all these previous feelings into fresh ones, and he will never get his trust back
again since he cannot let go of the previous. He is trapped and hates going as he experiences
rejection as, each time, the five most unforgettable disintegration has been refused several
times. To properly rebuild Rob's self-confidence, he must locate a girl for whom he can't
forever stay because he held to the notion of rejection because of his confidence. His new
relationship with Laura has left a great deal of faith in his issue. Laura is the one who
supports growth and change in life and its relationships, while Rob stays stagnant. Tellingly,

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when she left him, he asks to visit her, and this indicates that Rob can't be alone and that he
trusts someone else. Since breaking up, he needs to meet Laura and stay in contact with her.
Knowles also notes that Laura moves ahead and progresses her life and friendship (TATE, 31
– 44). Rob stays stagnant because he doesn't want to adjust. After all, it requires letting go of
his experience and the problems resulting from prior interactions. Rob manages each area of
his life, including his job in a record shop, his self-confidence problems, relationships with
associates, and especially his relationship with girlfriends. Because he's focused on what
everyone else said about it, Rob cannot grow and grow in his character and person. He is
highly emotional and cannot communicate with people in the manner he wants to develop a
long term stable friendship.
The allusion Hornby tries to offer is that people need not be too concerned about what others
say of them, regardless of Rob's vulnerability and lack of self-confidence. The character will
concentrate on developing themselves and current partnerships, and let go of past
relationships (Carroll, 201 – 214). Although we should benefit from previous partnerships,
we cannot let it influence our present partnerships enough that we can battle for the trust we
have in ourselves, so we eventually scare others away, which is what Rob does. He does not
believe himself, so anytime something goes wrong, he ends up resorting to the idea that he is
a bum and that his life does not work. He blames himself for his issues, which therefore
triggers his mistrust.
Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility is a book written by Jane Austen in 1811. The story correlates
the life of the Elinor and Marianne twins in Dashwood as they grow up. They've had a
younger half-brother, James, and Margaret. The book tracks the three sisters of Dashwood as
they travel out of the estate where they were born, Norland Park, with their widowed mother.
The four women in Dashwood have to search for a new house, as Norland is passed over to

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John, the result of the first union between Mr. Dashwood and his young son (Jones, 126).
You will hire a small home on the land of a distant relation, Sir John Middleton, at Barton
Cottage. We share passion, affection, and heartbreak. Between 1792 and 1797, the novel was
initially published in southwestern England, London and Sussex.
The plot of Sense and Sensibility revolves around love and relationship. The book starts as
single yet eligible young ladies, Elinor and Marianne, and only concludes when they all
marry. Most novel characteristics and the basis of much of their discussion are concerned
with relationships, future partnerships, and marriages (Zheng, 1 – 15). Living is also indeed
of vital significance for the book, as Marianne and Elinor fall in love and seek to meet their
caring people. Yet in the universe of Sense and Sensibility, marriage is not just about passion.
Currently, income, family harmony, and social status are most frequently the problems.
In comparison, households and parents frequently make as many attempts as particular
husbands or women to agree on obligations. For example, Mrs. Ferrars only worries about
marriage her sons with rich women in the top class (Anderson, 578 – 580). She doesn't know
if Edward likes Lucy and cuts down all the connections she knows about her participation.
The choice to marry her sons is too much for her. It is mainly because of their relationships
affect much the entire family than your interests. Marriage is a central aspect of the
functioning of Austen's protagonists in high society, and this decides who inherits family
wealth and assets, which is particularly essential for women who are almost entirely
dependent on the prospects of their husbands.
Nevertheless, for example, Willoughby weds Miss Gray for wealth, Elinor and Marianne
eventually marry for love (Pasaribu & Sahri). To Colonel Brandon, this implies, though she
didn't love him at first sight, redefining her definition of passion, and encouraging herself to
develop affections. The novel reveals the value of affection concerning the family. The
relations between Elinor, Marianne, Margaret, and their mother are deeply tied to all their

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trouble, and they are happily tightly connected after the book. Therefore, while marriage
sometimes is not about passion, it does not have to be this way, as the stories of Marianne and
Elinor prove (Fitzpatrick Hanly, 1057 – 1075). And as marriage brings together families and
establishes new family structures, deep and enduring bonds of family love can be formed.
Austen's marriage emphasis represents the nature of women at the end of the 1700s and the
beginning of the 1900s. The conditions for women in Austen and the world were very
different. There were huge variations. In those days, decent young people could hardly make
their fortune and be entirely female. Overall, women were not exposed to education, politics,
and professions. We were not well regarded or well-paying the few jobs open. The only way
for women to leave home and have some income, therefore, was to marry (Hudson, 193 –
213). However, many women are studying and employed in society, and most will find
marriage just for the sake of affection.
Austen does not actively embrace the rising features of her class partnerships and
interpersonal relationships. She often communicates her frustration, albeit not so directly,
with the condition of the women of her period. The heroines Elinor and Marianne in Sense
and Sensitivity create a whole different form of female character that fits the senses and
desires. This kind of courtship phenomenon on a woman's hand does not reflect British
culture (Levitt, 181 – 186). Apart from the courtesy and marriage mentality of Elinor, this is
far from perfect as women were highly appreciated for being submissive and compliant.

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Works Cited
Anderson, Monica Fay. "Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen." Theatre
Journal 69.4 (2017): 578-580.
Carroll, Rachel, and Adam Hansen. "‘[S] he Loved Him Madly’: Music,
Mixtapes and Gendered Authorship in Alan Warner’s Morvern Callar." Litpop:
Writing and Popular Music. Routledge, 2016. 201-214.
Fitzpatrick Hanly, Margaret Ann. "Sibling rivalry, separation, and change in
Austen's Sense and Sensibility." The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 97.4
(2016): 1057-1075.
Gratzke, Michael. "Love is what people say it is: Performativity and
Narrativity in Critical Love Studies." Journal of popular romance studies 6 (2017).
Hudson, Glenda A. "Forbidden Familial Relations: Echoes of Shakespeare’s
King Henry VIII and Hamlet in Austen’s Mansfield Park and Sense and
Sensibility." Jane Austen and William Shakespeare. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham,
2019. 193-213.
Jones, Keri. "Curing the Sentimental Novel: Literary Illness in Jane Austen’s
Sense and Sensibility." LIT (2018): 126.
Levitt, Dobra. "Parental relationships in Jane Austen's novels: new perceptions
on rereading." Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal 38 (2016): 181-186.
MALYKHINA, MARGARITA. "FROM BOYS TO MEN: MASCULINITY
IN THE MAKING IN NICK HORNBY’S FICTION MARGARITA

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MALYKHINA." Imagology Profiles: The Dynamics of National Imagery in
Literature (2018): 154.
Pasaribu, Azmir, and Zulfan Sahri. "Portrayal of the Nineteenth Century
English Women in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility." (2017).
Praisler, Michaela. "Twenty-first Century Novel Discourse. Nick Hornby's A
Long Way Down." Cultural Intertexts 3.05 (2016): 93-101.
Stepić, Nikola. "OBJECTS OF DESIRE: masculinity, homosociality and
foppishness in nick hornby’s high fidelity and about a boy." Angelaki 23.1 (2018):
144-155.
TATE, ANDREW. "Nick Hornby's Melancholy Comedy." Anglistik 27.1
(2016): 31-44.
Walraven, Lisa. A Man's Man's Man's World: Music, Misery, and Masculinity
in the Work of Nick Hornby. MS thesis. 2019.
Zheng, Liping. "Feminism and the Film Adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense
and Sensibility." International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Culture 5.1
(2018): 1-15.