10 August 2019 - Mansfield Park

Austen novels pretend to show us a clear view of a social world, with stern rights and wrongs, but are secretly about the unclarity of good conduct. In Mansfield Park, we are subtly told that Sir Thomas is a slaveowner through his Antigua holdings, which ties in with his authoritarian household management style. Yet antihero Fanny, the novel’s ostensible standard of morality, agrees with him except on one point—she wants the freedom to marry for love, not for money. Meanwhile, Mrs. Price shows us the risks of marrying for love, and Maria Bertram shows us the risks of marrying for money, and on the third hand the marriage of Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram makes points in both directions. Mary Crawford, Fanny’s counterpart and counterweight, is shown as clearly wrong, but also has a playful personality that reminds us of the author’s voice. We mortals can’t keep up with Jane Austen; all we know for sure is that it is not a man’s field.