English Classics: Mansfield Park

I just finished reading Mansfield Park, a novel by English author Jane Austen first published in 1814 by Thomas Egerton, with a second edition published in 1816 by John Murray. Considered the least romantic and most pragmatic of Austen's works, Mansfield Park was the fourth Austen novel I have read recently, after Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice.

The book tells the story of Fanny Price, a young girl who at the age of ten is sent by her overburdened family to live in the household of her wealthy aunt and uncle at Mansfield Park. Through her development into early adulthood, Fanny navigates societal expectations, love, and moral dilemmas, with her grounded nature forming a contrast to the glamorous world around her. As she grapples with her feelings for her cousin Edmund, the novel explores themes of social class, morality, nature vs. nurture, and the role of women in society.

Fanny's lowly family lives in Portsmouth, which she visits again only eight years after being sent to Mansfield Park. To this end, I also learned some fascinating anecdotes about the area. Portsmouth was crucial to Jane Austen's life and novels, serving as a bustling naval hub where her brothers Francis and Charles served in the Royal Navy, inspiring settings and characters, especially in Mansfield Park, reflecting the era's maritime realities, prize money, and naval family life. Austen often visited them at the lively, ship-filled port.

Mansfield Park was once considered Austen's most controversial novel. Among many scholarly debates, I was most impressed by the concept of antitheatricality, as highlighted by Lovers' Vows (1798), a play by Elizabeth Inchbald that features prominently in several chapters of the book. Antitheatricality is defined as any form of opposition or hostility to theater. Such opposition is as old as theater itself, suggesting a deep-seated ambivalence in human nature about the dramatic arts. 

Although not explicitly stated in the novel, the anti-slavery concept is alluded to through Sir Thomas Bertram's home, the titular Mansfield Park, built on the proceeds of his slave plantation in Antigua. The Slave Trade Act had been passed in 1807 (four years before Austen started to write Mansfield Park) and was the culmination of a long campaign by British abolitionists. Slavery itself would not be abolished in the British Empire until 1833.

I also learned about the term "coming out", which originally indicated that a woman was old enough to be married, so it was time for her "coming out" to display her to eligible bachelors and their families with a view to marriage. Over time, the term also referred to a young woman of aristocratic or upper-class family background who had reached maturity and was presented to society at a formal "debut". To this end, a debutante ball, also known as a coming-out party, was a formal ball that included presenting debutantes during the social season, and required prior instruction in social etiquette and appropriate morals.

The protagonist of the novel is Fanny Price, the daughter of a drunken sailor and a woman who married beneath her. At 10, Fanny comes to live with her wealthy uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram. They take her in as an act of charity to her parents. She is mistreated and always reminded of her "place" as a charity ward, but she eventually comes to be an indispensable member of the family. Modest, always proper, and, as she grows older, quite beautiful, Fanny is secretly in love with the Bertrams' son Edmund but is the subject of proposals by the slick Henry Crawford.

Edmund Bertram is the Bertrams' younger son. Since he will not be the heir to Mansfield Park, he will become a clergyman. He is the only one of the Bertrams' children with both a good head and a good heart, and is Fanny's closest companion. However, he rather blindly falls in love with Mary Crawford, which almost leads to his downfall.

Mary Crawford is the sister of Mrs. Grant, the wife of the second parson in Mansfield Parsonage. She is beautiful and charming, but is also morally shallow and evil. She has been brought up poorly by an aunt and uncle and has been subject to the influences of her fashionable friends. She becomes friends with a reluctant Fanny, while Edmund falls in love with and nearly proposes to her.

Henry Crawford is Mary's brother. Compared to Mary, he is equally charming and possibly even more amoral, and he possesses a sizeable estate. At first, Edmund's sisters Maria and Julia both fall in love with him, and he takes to Maria, despite her engagement. When Maria marries and the sisters leave Mansfield, he falls for Fanny and proposes to her. Everyone is convinced he is a changed man. Eventually, he meets up with Maria again, and the two run off, but their relationship ends badly.

Sir Thomas Bertram is a wealthy landowner, the master of Mansfield Park, and Fanny's uncle. He is authoritarian and rather hard on his children until a series of disasters show him the error of his ways. He owns slaves on his plantations in the Caribbean, a fact that hangs over the book. He means well and eventually does right by Fanny.

Mrs. Norris is the sister of Fanny's mother and Lady Bertram. She is also the wife of the first parson at Mansfield Parsonage. She has no children of her own and is an officious busybody, always trying to derive glory from her association with the Bertram family. She is horribly cruel to Fanny, and always reminds Fanny of her "place" at Mansfield Park.

I'm ending this blog post with a stronger sense of achievement because Mansfield Park is considerably longer than Austen's other works that I had read previously and I still managed to finish the novel in a similar time frame, thanks to the free, AI-enabled online resources, including study guides and audiobooks, which really made my endeavors easier and more enjoyable. But my journey with Austen is not done yet. I look forward to exploring her remaining major works:  Emma (1815) and Northanger Abbey (1817).