I am old enough to have been in College (1973) for the rediscovery of women who wrote neglected “edgy” literature, Woolf, Lessing, who were soon being overshadowed again, as they had by men from the Beats, by Gravity ‘s Rainbow, Foucault, Derrida, and followers
Despite Trilling, modern women novelists were only saved for Grad School by Women Studies born just when I graduated from a new, progressive Liberal Arts College, Pitzer.
That all sounds about right, and familiar! Pitzer sounds like a great place to have spent time for grad school. By the time I was in grad school (UCL, 1990s) women's studies were such an exciting thing. We worshipped Gilbert and Gubar, and were just beginning to read classic women's novels from a feminist lens. Good times!
I owe my dissertation to Showalter’s A Literature of Their Own key theme that male protagonists in the Brontes, for example, were not the men they wanted to marry but the men they wanted to be, and not the women their mothers had no choice but to be.
Regarding actually evil characters, I think it goes without saying that Mrs. Norris is evil personiphied, and the Crawfords are tainted by evil. In her last encounter with Edmund, Mary Crawford reminds me of a cat, in the worst sense, and not an adorable little kitten. The word devious comes to mind. And she was playing with Edmund. I do think Henry loved Fanny, but it was not a pure love. Agree Edmund Bertram is somewhat of a wet noodle, but I will continue to study him. He has human failings, and J.A. generally did not like perfect characters, though there Is Anne Elliot. Even almost-perfect Mr. Knightley becomes jealous of Mr. Frank Churchill, which I think is understandable. I think Mr. Elliot is also tainted by evil as shown by his refusal to aid Mrs. Smith. Sir Thomas is duly punished for his sins and redeemed, in a sense. He realizes his errors and comes to understand that only Fanny was in the right. He is a complicated character.
Thanks so much for this perspective on Fanny! I love how you have brought Adam Smith into the conversation. Brilliant. She and Jane Eyre (whom you also mention) are perhaps my favorite heroines ever.
As for relating, I relate to Fannie oh so much. I wrote a Substack post about her a few months back titled Fanny Price Is my Hero where I talk all about it. Something I didn’t put in that post, though, is how I think it would have gone with Henry. From a similar experience I have had, I think he was trying to change himself for and through her. I think he wanted her to be his goodness, his morality. I think he would’ve married her, but he would not, as most of us cannot, truly have changed, and she would not have saved him. They both would have been miserable.
In my romantic youth, I thought it could have worked out for Henry. Now I think if Henry had married Fanny, eventually he would have cheated on her. But Edmund is a wet noodle - the way he says to Fanny, after the news of Maria and Henry's affair breaks, "But yours - your regard was new compared with - Fanny, think of me!" is infuriatingly myopic. Honestly, the improved Tom would have been a much better choice for Fanny. He at least has a sense of humour, which Fanny needs to help leaven her rather solemn virtues.
I’ve been so drawn in to this article and will be re-visiting it for sure. Mansfield Park was the Jane Austen work that didn’t really grab my attention the first time I read it (rather topically of course, also feeling like Edmund was a wet noodle and Henry was a baddie and didn’t know who I was supposed to actually like 😅). But I’m currently re-reading this one and I’m so glad to have all this history and context you’ve provided. Thank you!
Mrs. Norris Seemed to be a part of himself. I think the word Seemed is important, and at the end she is Cut Out, too late to save some of Sir Thomas's damaged children, at least, Maria, but yet, there is redemption. Tom has been changed by illness and reflection, and Sir Thomas seems to be influencing Mr. Yates for the better, and then, Fanny and Edmund and there is a hint of children as they needed a bigger home, supplied by the parsonage at Mansfield. I do not believe Sir Thomas is evil, but he allowed himself to be guided merely by interest. He did offer Maria an escape from a bad future marriage, which is more than he did for Fanny, when he tried to coerce her into marriage with Henry Crawford.
To Mr. Turnbull. I think that just because there are poor examples in church or navy doesn't mean J.A. discounted those bodies. In the church there are always the Mr. Henry Tilneys, the Mr. Edward Ferrar's and the Mr. Edmund Bertrams, and in the royal navy there are the Admiral Croft's and Capts. Wentworth and his friends. And J.A.'s father was a rector, and I am sure he enjoyed laughing at Mr. Collins's character as much as anyone else, and he would have mocked the foibles of Mr. Elton, had he lived to enjoy his ridiculous behavior..
And then Tom Bertram walks in just in time to see that threatre encounter, and his reaction is priceless. I do think Tom, with all his faults, has a sort of dry and wry sense of humor. He has wit, but we know what Jane Austen had to say about with and wisdom, that wisdom is better, and will always have the laugh on her side.
Great point about Tom - you're reminding me that yes he is smart, but sad and disillusioned. Perhaps an instance where it seems Austen is pointing out that the "system" they are in might be damaging even to those who are meant to gain from it.
Yes, indeed! Thanks for bringing to my attention - and I thought I knew Sir Thomas's self-serving inner monologues well - that painful one at the end, where Mrs Norris had 'seemed a part of himself.' Finally, too late, he has that hideous insight - that all he has achieved is to express a masculine, and powerful version of the same controlling and unlovable anti-life force which is all that has ever animated his sister-in-law. Just so brilliant.
Yes, thank you, Judith - every time you pick up this novel there is something to discover, and sometimes it's devastating. Thank you for this brilliant comment - Sir Thomas's "powerful version of the same controlling and unlovable anti-life force" wow!
JA's attitude to the Church of England... Mr Elton and the odious Mr Collins are a bad advertisement (and Mr Wickham in P&P would have taken up the living if it had only paid better!) But it's clear my pal Mr Tilney will be taking his responsibility seriously and becoming a valued vicar. The one institution Jane wholeheartedly favours is the Navy. (Actually is Fanny Price's Dad Royal Navy? Disproving that assertion of mine if so.)
Yes definitely bad PR from Austen on C of E here! And yes your guy Tilney is looking good.
And yes I do believe the Navy is the one institution Austen seems to buy into (scholar Jocelyn Harris has a lot on this).
One fact that is pointed out with Austen and the Navy is that Austen's brothers (I believe Frank and Charles) would have been patrolling the seas after the slave trade was outlawed so they were actually involved in anti-slavery patrols.
And Mr. Price? Looks like he is retired from the Marines - so we're good!
Thank you for all the engagement with this conversation 😊
Regarding my silly zzz comment, don't think I was expressing bordom or sleepiness, I wanted to know if my comment would post before I wrote a longish one, and since my name begins with a Z, well, ...
Gotcha - thank you for clarifying! I did think you were saying it had put you to sleep, but that is my own insecurity coming out because it is an outrageously long post! I appreciate your comments - and the longer the better, obvs 😊
I'm not sure I have given this no doubt excellent piece my full attention, because I couldn't get past the assertion that Henry Crawford is a villain! Are you sure? Last time I read the novel I rather fell for him and wished Fanny had not been so prissy. I'm going to quote Taylor Swift obviously ' he was chaos, he was revelry...he's crazy but he's the one I want...you ain't gotta pray for me, me and my wild boy, all my wild joy...'
I love this question. In fact I'll add a question to the end of this post inviting people to comment on how they feel about Henry Crawford and also Edmund, whom I've called a "wet noodle hero" and no one's called me out on it yet 🤣
But on Henry: He is absolutely charming, intelligent, interesting, and really wants to change. But I feel that after he ruins Maria's marriage, Austen is seeing him as Mr. Wrong. And in some ways he needs to be wrong in order for Fanny Price to be Right. BUT - this all could be interpreted quite differently.
At the end of this novel, Austen sort of answers this question and she's leaning a little more toward your take, and Team Henry, as she writes: "Would he have persevered, and uprightly, Fanny must have been his reward — and a reward very voluntarily bestowed — within a reasonable period of Edmund's marrying Mary."
So there it is - Austen appears to agree that if only Henry had persevered, there would have been a Fanny-Henry happy ending. But yet he doesn't persevere. So it's complicated.
One thing I know for sure - you are absolutely right to fall for Henry. Austen meant for us all to fall for Henry and Mary; probably even Austen was in love with this book boyfriend. And I've read somewhere that Cassandra liked Henry and wished he were the hero of this novel - so we're in very good company when we're crushing on the Crawfords. 😊
No no! Henry C is BAD NEWS! Charming and attractive which allows him also to get away with being selfish and irresponsible. That Fanny's refusal causes him to fall in love with her for real is his just and ironic punishment. Together with added irony that if he'd displayed the constancy which he's temperamentally incapable of then he would have gained her affections. (But I do quite fancy Mary C. She could have put some zing into Boring Bertram whose first name I don't remember because of now mixing him with Bertram in Shakespeare's All's Well )
Surely you make Jane Austen very proud here. She likely would be shaking her head at our confusion-crushing on Henry C. (though happy bc she did this to us).
But then what's this - you actually harbor some complex feelings for Mary C, which is essentially the same thing! So your vigilance is appreciated but clearly we all need to look out for each other with these Crawfords. 😂
Thank you for confusing the Bertrams. My work here is done. 💮
Mary's just trying to make life more fun for these boring Bertrams and driech Fanny. And does she actually ruin anybody's life with casual flirtations? Not that I've spotted. So yes still a bit smitten 😍.
OK yes fair point - your book-girlfriend is better than her brother. She has a lot of good qualities, I definitely agree. Glad we haven't ruined this for you! 🎉
What a great post. I love these analyses you do - they provoke so much thought and help me to think about the books I love in a completely novel way. Thank you!
That was a test to see if I could write a comment. This was a fascinating post. I have a slightly different view of several of the characters. Sir Thomas erred grievously with regard to how he raised his children and in treatment and neglect of Fanny Price, allowing her to be mistreated by Mrs. Norris. However, he was "so unintelligibly moral" but allowed "interest" and surface appearance to cloud his judgment. My favorite scene is when he and Tom meet on the stage of the theater as Sir Thomas encounters Mr. Yates. Sir Thomas does eventually realize his many mistakes in the management of his children, and I think, in a sense, he is redeemed. Tom emerges from his illness, I hope, a different man, no longer the frivilous party boy of his former life. He has behaved very badly, but he is not, ultimately, a tragic figure, and his prophecies regarding doctor Grant end up coming to pass. He "would soon pop off." I admire Edmund Bertram, and he shows himself to be a flawed human being, like the rest of us, but I am not certain I quite understand his being one of J.A.'s two favorite heros. I do admire Edward Ferrars, who upholds his engagement to Lucy Steele, when he has nothing to gain and everything to lose. And then there's dear Mr. Knightley.
Trouble with filming the theatre scene is that filmmakers even more than the rest of us are pretty keen on theatricals whereas the story requires a certain shocked disapproval by us readers as well as Fanny. (Easier to achieve if we pre-read up on Lovers Vows it is the most gruesome tosh) Im pretty sure the Billie Piper film version leaves out the theatricals altogether.
And yes that scene where the clueless Mr. Yates is in full theater-mode as Sir Thomas walks in on him is just hilarious - in the text at least. (Not sure it's captured in any of the adaptations as well, need to re-watch!)
And yes totally with you on the Edmund and Edward characters/heroes as puzzling and also agree: Mr. Knightley is just the best.
Plain Jane, so appreciate your comments, especially about the theatre scene and the Edmund/Edward characters. Mr. Turnbull. enjoy your comments very much as well. We do have to watch out for one another as regards these Crawfords. They can be very charming, and disarming, if we are not careful.
I am old enough to have been in College (1973) for the rediscovery of women who wrote neglected “edgy” literature, Woolf, Lessing, who were soon being overshadowed again, as they had by men from the Beats, by Gravity ‘s Rainbow, Foucault, Derrida, and followers
Despite Trilling, modern women novelists were only saved for Grad School by Women Studies born just when I graduated from a new, progressive Liberal Arts College, Pitzer.
That all sounds about right, and familiar! Pitzer sounds like a great place to have spent time for grad school. By the time I was in grad school (UCL, 1990s) women's studies were such an exciting thing. We worshipped Gilbert and Gubar, and were just beginning to read classic women's novels from a feminist lens. Good times!
I owe my dissertation to Showalter’s A Literature of Their Own key theme that male protagonists in the Brontes, for example, were not the men they wanted to marry but the men they wanted to be, and not the women their mothers had no choice but to be.
Love that - and perhaps that is also how we can think of Austen, as writing and imagining across gender lines and all the other boundaries.
Regarding actually evil characters, I think it goes without saying that Mrs. Norris is evil personiphied, and the Crawfords are tainted by evil. In her last encounter with Edmund, Mary Crawford reminds me of a cat, in the worst sense, and not an adorable little kitten. The word devious comes to mind. And she was playing with Edmund. I do think Henry loved Fanny, but it was not a pure love. Agree Edmund Bertram is somewhat of a wet noodle, but I will continue to study him. He has human failings, and J.A. generally did not like perfect characters, though there Is Anne Elliot. Even almost-perfect Mr. Knightley becomes jealous of Mr. Frank Churchill, which I think is understandable. I think Mr. Elliot is also tainted by evil as shown by his refusal to aid Mrs. Smith. Sir Thomas is duly punished for his sins and redeemed, in a sense. He realizes his errors and comes to understand that only Fanny was in the right. He is a complicated character.
Thanks so much for this perspective on Fanny! I love how you have brought Adam Smith into the conversation. Brilliant. She and Jane Eyre (whom you also mention) are perhaps my favorite heroines ever.
As for relating, I relate to Fannie oh so much. I wrote a Substack post about her a few months back titled Fanny Price Is my Hero where I talk all about it. Something I didn’t put in that post, though, is how I think it would have gone with Henry. From a similar experience I have had, I think he was trying to change himself for and through her. I think he wanted her to be his goodness, his morality. I think he would’ve married her, but he would not, as most of us cannot, truly have changed, and she would not have saved him. They both would have been miserable.
Thanks for engaging with this - love the sound of your Substack essay/post, will look forward to reading that with a cuppa! 😊
In my romantic youth, I thought it could have worked out for Henry. Now I think if Henry had married Fanny, eventually he would have cheated on her. But Edmund is a wet noodle - the way he says to Fanny, after the news of Maria and Henry's affair breaks, "But yours - your regard was new compared with - Fanny, think of me!" is infuriatingly myopic. Honestly, the improved Tom would have been a much better choice for Fanny. He at least has a sense of humour, which Fanny needs to help leaven her rather solemn virtues.
Interesting take - love it! Perhaps shipping Fanny and Tom is one for the fanfic. Thanks for this! 💮
I’ve been so drawn in to this article and will be re-visiting it for sure. Mansfield Park was the Jane Austen work that didn’t really grab my attention the first time I read it (rather topically of course, also feeling like Edmund was a wet noodle and Henry was a baddie and didn’t know who I was supposed to actually like 😅). But I’m currently re-reading this one and I’m so glad to have all this history and context you’ve provided. Thank you!
Thank you - so very glad to hear this. Enjoy the re-read! 💮
Mrs. Norris Seemed to be a part of himself. I think the word Seemed is important, and at the end she is Cut Out, too late to save some of Sir Thomas's damaged children, at least, Maria, but yet, there is redemption. Tom has been changed by illness and reflection, and Sir Thomas seems to be influencing Mr. Yates for the better, and then, Fanny and Edmund and there is a hint of children as they needed a bigger home, supplied by the parsonage at Mansfield. I do not believe Sir Thomas is evil, but he allowed himself to be guided merely by interest. He did offer Maria an escape from a bad future marriage, which is more than he did for Fanny, when he tried to coerce her into marriage with Henry Crawford.
To Mr. Turnbull. I think that just because there are poor examples in church or navy doesn't mean J.A. discounted those bodies. In the church there are always the Mr. Henry Tilneys, the Mr. Edward Ferrar's and the Mr. Edmund Bertrams, and in the royal navy there are the Admiral Croft's and Capts. Wentworth and his friends. And J.A.'s father was a rector, and I am sure he enjoyed laughing at Mr. Collins's character as much as anyone else, and he would have mocked the foibles of Mr. Elton, had he lived to enjoy his ridiculous behavior..
And then Tom Bertram walks in just in time to see that threatre encounter, and his reaction is priceless. I do think Tom, with all his faults, has a sort of dry and wry sense of humor. He has wit, but we know what Jane Austen had to say about with and wisdom, that wisdom is better, and will always have the laugh on her side.
Great point about Tom - you're reminding me that yes he is smart, but sad and disillusioned. Perhaps an instance where it seems Austen is pointing out that the "system" they are in might be damaging even to those who are meant to gain from it.
Yes, indeed! Thanks for bringing to my attention - and I thought I knew Sir Thomas's self-serving inner monologues well - that painful one at the end, where Mrs Norris had 'seemed a part of himself.' Finally, too late, he has that hideous insight - that all he has achieved is to express a masculine, and powerful version of the same controlling and unlovable anti-life force which is all that has ever animated his sister-in-law. Just so brilliant.
Yes, thank you, Judith - every time you pick up this novel there is something to discover, and sometimes it's devastating. Thank you for this brilliant comment - Sir Thomas's "powerful version of the same controlling and unlovable anti-life force" wow!
JA's attitude to the Church of England... Mr Elton and the odious Mr Collins are a bad advertisement (and Mr Wickham in P&P would have taken up the living if it had only paid better!) But it's clear my pal Mr Tilney will be taking his responsibility seriously and becoming a valued vicar. The one institution Jane wholeheartedly favours is the Navy. (Actually is Fanny Price's Dad Royal Navy? Disproving that assertion of mine if so.)
Yes definitely bad PR from Austen on C of E here! And yes your guy Tilney is looking good.
And yes I do believe the Navy is the one institution Austen seems to buy into (scholar Jocelyn Harris has a lot on this).
One fact that is pointed out with Austen and the Navy is that Austen's brothers (I believe Frank and Charles) would have been patrolling the seas after the slave trade was outlawed so they were actually involved in anti-slavery patrols.
And Mr. Price? Looks like he is retired from the Marines - so we're good!
Thank you for all the engagement with this conversation 😊
Plain Jane, you are very gracious.
🙏😊
Regarding my silly zzz comment, don't think I was expressing bordom or sleepiness, I wanted to know if my comment would post before I wrote a longish one, and since my name begins with a Z, well, ...
Gotcha - thank you for clarifying! I did think you were saying it had put you to sleep, but that is my own insecurity coming out because it is an outrageously long post! I appreciate your comments - and the longer the better, obvs 😊
I'm not sure I have given this no doubt excellent piece my full attention, because I couldn't get past the assertion that Henry Crawford is a villain! Are you sure? Last time I read the novel I rather fell for him and wished Fanny had not been so prissy. I'm going to quote Taylor Swift obviously ' he was chaos, he was revelry...he's crazy but he's the one I want...you ain't gotta pray for me, me and my wild boy, all my wild joy...'
I love this question. In fact I'll add a question to the end of this post inviting people to comment on how they feel about Henry Crawford and also Edmund, whom I've called a "wet noodle hero" and no one's called me out on it yet 🤣
But on Henry: He is absolutely charming, intelligent, interesting, and really wants to change. But I feel that after he ruins Maria's marriage, Austen is seeing him as Mr. Wrong. And in some ways he needs to be wrong in order for Fanny Price to be Right. BUT - this all could be interpreted quite differently.
At the end of this novel, Austen sort of answers this question and she's leaning a little more toward your take, and Team Henry, as she writes: "Would he have persevered, and uprightly, Fanny must have been his reward — and a reward very voluntarily bestowed — within a reasonable period of Edmund's marrying Mary."
So there it is - Austen appears to agree that if only Henry had persevered, there would have been a Fanny-Henry happy ending. But yet he doesn't persevere. So it's complicated.
One thing I know for sure - you are absolutely right to fall for Henry. Austen meant for us all to fall for Henry and Mary; probably even Austen was in love with this book boyfriend. And I've read somewhere that Cassandra liked Henry and wished he were the hero of this novel - so we're in very good company when we're crushing on the Crawfords. 😊
No no! Henry C is BAD NEWS! Charming and attractive which allows him also to get away with being selfish and irresponsible. That Fanny's refusal causes him to fall in love with her for real is his just and ironic punishment. Together with added irony that if he'd displayed the constancy which he's temperamentally incapable of then he would have gained her affections. (But I do quite fancy Mary C. She could have put some zing into Boring Bertram whose first name I don't remember because of now mixing him with Bertram in Shakespeare's All's Well )
Surely you make Jane Austen very proud here. She likely would be shaking her head at our confusion-crushing on Henry C. (though happy bc she did this to us).
But then what's this - you actually harbor some complex feelings for Mary C, which is essentially the same thing! So your vigilance is appreciated but clearly we all need to look out for each other with these Crawfords. 😂
Thank you for confusing the Bertrams. My work here is done. 💮
Mary's just trying to make life more fun for these boring Bertrams and driech Fanny. And does she actually ruin anybody's life with casual flirtations? Not that I've spotted. So yes still a bit smitten 😍.
OK yes fair point - your book-girlfriend is better than her brother. She has a lot of good qualities, I definitely agree. Glad we haven't ruined this for you! 🎉
What a great post. I love these analyses you do - they provoke so much thought and help me to think about the books I love in a completely novel way. Thank you!
Thank you so much, June!
Thank you so much for all the thought and time you put into these posts. They are some of the high-lights of my month!
That makes MY month! Thank you, Merle!
That was a test to see if I could write a comment. This was a fascinating post. I have a slightly different view of several of the characters. Sir Thomas erred grievously with regard to how he raised his children and in treatment and neglect of Fanny Price, allowing her to be mistreated by Mrs. Norris. However, he was "so unintelligibly moral" but allowed "interest" and surface appearance to cloud his judgment. My favorite scene is when he and Tom meet on the stage of the theater as Sir Thomas encounters Mr. Yates. Sir Thomas does eventually realize his many mistakes in the management of his children, and I think, in a sense, he is redeemed. Tom emerges from his illness, I hope, a different man, no longer the frivilous party boy of his former life. He has behaved very badly, but he is not, ultimately, a tragic figure, and his prophecies regarding doctor Grant end up coming to pass. He "would soon pop off." I admire Edmund Bertram, and he shows himself to be a flawed human being, like the rest of us, but I am not certain I quite understand his being one of J.A.'s two favorite heros. I do admire Edward Ferrars, who upholds his engagement to Lucy Steele, when he has nothing to gain and everything to lose. And then there's dear Mr. Knightley.
Trouble with filming the theatre scene is that filmmakers even more than the rest of us are pretty keen on theatricals whereas the story requires a certain shocked disapproval by us readers as well as Fanny. (Easier to achieve if we pre-read up on Lovers Vows it is the most gruesome tosh) Im pretty sure the Billie Piper film version leaves out the theatricals altogether.
Oh wow so you were very much awake!
Love these insights.
And yes that scene where the clueless Mr. Yates is in full theater-mode as Sir Thomas walks in on him is just hilarious - in the text at least. (Not sure it's captured in any of the adaptations as well, need to re-watch!)
And yes totally with you on the Edmund and Edward characters/heroes as puzzling and also agree: Mr. Knightley is just the best.
Plain Jane, so appreciate your comments, especially about the theatre scene and the Edmund/Edward characters. Mr. Turnbull. enjoy your comments very much as well. We do have to watch out for one another as regards these Crawfords. They can be very charming, and disarming, if we are not careful.