Reading: Mansfield Park

[white_hart]

After reading Kindred, which is about slavery in the USA a short time after Jane Austen was writing, I decided to re-read the one Jane Austen novel which explicitly mentions slavery, Mansfield Park.

I actually first read Mansfield Park recently enough that my thoughts are on LJ, and my opinion hasn't really changed; I know a lot of people dislike Fanny Price, but I still find her sympathetic and relatable, and her quiet determination in the face of pressure to accept Henry Crawford's proposal (and, indeed, the careful observation which allows her to understand Henry's character in a way that no-one else, except perhaps Mary Crawford, does) is all the more impressive for coming from a character whose life has shaped her into a person who always puts other people's wants and needs before her own. Yes, a shy, anxious, insecure heroine isn't as fun as a sparkling, witty Lizzy Bennet, but Fanny feels very real and I found it easy to care about her predicament. I do wonder if some of the dislike for Mansfield Park comes from people expecting a fluffy romance and not getting that, because while none of Jane Austen's novels are actually fluffy romances (honestly, I can't think of one that isn't really an anti-romance when you look at it closely) Mansfield Park is one of the hardest to see that way; although Fanny does end up with the man she is in love with, he isn't in love with her and they have a marriage of best friends rather than a grand romance.

I also really enjoy the glimpses of the wider world we get in this novel; Sir Thomas's business interests (and yes, the slavery that his wealth is founded on), the Navy in the Portsmouth scenes (which feel as though a Patrick O'Brien novel could be taking place only a few yards away). Like all Austen's novels, it also has interesting things to say about the position of women in English society in the early nineteenth century; the experiences of Maria and Julia Bertram, Mary Crawford's catalogue of the woes of her friends' marriages, and the pressure exerted on Fanny herself to marry Henry, despite her conviction that he is fickle and insincere (and while I think she is probably too hard on Henry, because she is so much in love with Edmund, his attachment to her clearly isn't all he would have her believe it to be), all show how constrained women's lives were, how the crucial question of marriage, answered on the basis of very little real information or knowledge, would make or break the rest of life.

I'm not sure I can have a favourite Jane Austen novel; there were moments during this re-read when I thought maybe Mansfield Park was my new favourite, but then I remembered Persuasion and Northanger Abbey; Pride and Prejudice is justly acclaimed a classic, and I really like Emma too, so I think all I can actually say for it is that it's definitely in my top five, though they are all so close, and the only one I think I actually like less than the others is Sense and Sensibility.

Comments

[sartorias]

S&S is definitely a first pancake.

[white_hart]

That's a good way of describing it.

[ironed_orchid]

The 1999 film with Frances O'Connor has some scenes, which although short, emphasized the fact that the families wealth came from the slave trade. I thought it was a very good way of making sure that people viewing now understood, in case references which would be clear to Jane Austen's contemporaries were lost on us.

[white_hart]

A recentish article about Mansfield Park mentioned that Lord Mansfield was a noted abolitionist, while there was a Norris who spoke in support of slavery; presumably Austen's readers would have been aware of these allusions in a way modern readers aren't.

[sollers]

In the past, the references were not so much lost as swept under the carpet. When I was studying "Mansfield Park" for A Level in the early 1960s I raised the matter and was told not to let myself be distracted by side issues as that wasn't the sort of thing the examiners were looking for.

[white_hart]

I was talking to one of our Austen scholars at the Faculty end of term dinner recently, and she was saying something similar - that the public understanding of what Austen is "about" changes every decade, and Mansfield Park as postcolonial text is probably this decade's thing.

[sollers]

It was more "this is nothing to do with the characterisation of the main characters; it doesn't involve the actions of the main characters; what the examiners want to see is that you have memorised plenty of quotations to show that you can back up what you say". There wasn't the slightest interest in what the book was about except on the most superficial level (Lady Bertram plays fairy godmother).

[jinty]

I dislike Emma, mostly because I read it for A level which destroyed it for me. Also I find the character very annoying and the thing where she ends up married to Mr Keithley unconvincing. But of course there are still lots of good elements to it.

[white_hart]

I like Emma despite (or perhaps because of) Emma's many, many flaws, and while I do find her marriage to Knightley a bit squicky because of the age difference, they do genuinely seem to like each other.

[nineveh_uk]

I read Emma for A Level and love it as a result, but we had a teacher who adored it and made it a lot of fun. Howard's End, on the other hand, I would gladly set on fire.

[white_hart]

I love Howard's End, but then I never studied Forster, only read him off my own bat.

[callmemadam]

I'm always trying to point out to people that, far from being feeble, Fanny is the toughest character in the book and at the end is the only one who gets what she wants.

I love those scenes at Portsmouth and am always amazed that Fanny can resist Crawford when he comes down.

I find Mansfield Park the most discussable of Austen's books but Emma is my favourite.

[white_hart]

Yes, resisting in Portsmouth must have been incredibly hard. She's tough and absolutely principled, and even if her principles are not necessarily the ones that would be admired now I still admire her for sticking to them.