Differing Ideas of Success

In class on Monday we compared The Cookbook Collector to Sense and Sensibility, and compared Emily to the practical Elinor and Jess to the more free-spirited Marianne. While I agree that at times Emily is more responsible than Jess, like how Jess is often late for work and Emily would never be late for work, I do not really think she is any more sensible than Jess; they just have different values and ways of measuring success.

Emily is no more successful in relationships than Jess. She dated Jonathan, who was initially only interested in her because she was the CEO of Veritech, not because he liked her as a person. They were not on the same page in the relationship at all. He did not trust her enough to tell her what had happened with Lockbox, but she trusted him with Alex’s electronic fingerprinting idea. In fact, she told him about the idea seconds after questioning whether she really loved him: “Who is this man? And who are you? Do you love him? Does he love you” (111)? Jess certainly made mistakes with relationships, too, particularly with Leon, but in the end, she ends up marrying George, while Emily ends up betrayed by her deceased finance.

Emily is also much more affected by her mother’s death than Jess. She cares a lot more about the birthday letters than Jess does; she puts them on her computer and carefully considers the messages, while Jess read them all at once when she was twelve, and then tossed them aside every birthday. Emily became obsessed with learning more about her mother, while Jess was perfectly comfortable leaving the past in the past. To be fair, Emily was older when her mother passed away, so she had been closer to her, but regardless, Jess was more successful in overcoming this tragedy than Emily was.

Although they are very different, both sisters are able to stick to their values. Emily values financial responsibility and independence, while Jess cares more about saving the environment and supporting other worthy causes. Just because Emily has more power in her job and is more financially successful does not mean she is more sensible than Jess; it just means she cares about different things. Both Emily and Jess have successes and failures, but neither is more sensible than the other.