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Title: Mansfield Park (Penguin Classics)
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| Mansfield Park (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics Jane Austen's most complex novel... | Jane Austen finished "Mansfield Park" in 1813, after "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice." It is a more complex novel than either of its precedessors or its successors ("Emma", "Persuasion", and "Northanger Abbey"). Its heroine, Fanny Price, is rather the middle child in Austen's sisterhood, often overlooked when compared to her more attractive older sisters or more interesting younger sisters. Still, Fanny Price is worth getting to know.
One of a growing brood of children in a lower middle class family in Portsmouth, Fanny is placed for raising with her much wealthier Aunt and Uncle Bertram at Mansfield Park in the English countryside. The ten year-old Fanny is painfully shy, physically sickly, and less educated than her Bertram cousins, who mostly ignore or make subtle fun of her. Another relative, her Aunt Norris, responsible for the day-to-day raising of her cousins, seems to thrive on tormenting Fanny. Only her cousin Edmund comforts her and takes an interest in her. Under his guidance, she begins to catch up to her cousins in manners, education, and physical health as she matures into an attractive young woman. Most importantly, she fortifies a strong sense of moral right and propriety.
The prolonged absence of Fanny's Uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, to tend to his estates in Antigua, leaves the household under the uncertain leadership of Aunt Norris, just as the wealthy Mary and Henry Crawford arrive from London. Mary and Henry are the same age as the older Bertram cousins, but worldly, manipulative, and less grounded in solid values. Henry flirts shamelessly with Fanny's engaged cousin Maria and trifles with Maria's younger sister Julia, while Mary flaunts her considerable charms at Edmund. The Bertrams are tempted into inappropriate behavior, which only Fanny resists.
Sir Thomas re-imposes order upon his return from the Caribbean. Maria is married off to a wealthy if rather stupid neighbor. Edmund courts Mary Crawford, to the distress of Fanny, who is in love with Edmund and who sees Mary for the shallow manipulator she is. Fanny herself is courted by Henry Crawford, who starts by trifling with her emotions but comes to seek her as a wife. Great pressure is placed on Fanny by Sir Thomas, by Edmund, and by Mary to accept Henry as an advantageous match.
The anguished Fanny holds her ground, and is effectively exiled to Portsmouth, where she finds little to love in her vulgar birth family except a promising younger sister. In her absence, the Bertram family falls to pieces in sickness and scandal. Fanny will be summoned back to Mansfield Park, to help heal the family and perhaps to have one last opportunity for personal happiness.
As Tony Tanner's excellent introduction makes clear, Fanny is unique among Austen heroines in her invariably good moral sense. Her attraction as a character is based less on the personal growth and maturation we expect in a Austen heroine and more on her heroic perseverence in the face of very attractive temptations and seemingly reasonable pressures. It is Austen's genius to insert complex characters into the subtle relationships between four families in the story. Those relationships provide a fascinating venue for social commentary and compelling domestic drama. The witty and enthusiastic but morally flawed Crawfords, for example, seem more attractive than the shy, vulnerable, and withdrawn Fanny or the understated Edmund.
"Mansfield Park" is very highly recommended to fans of Jane Austen's romances. Its complex characters and storyline may ultimately be as rewarding to the reader as the more popular novels. | | Mansfield Park (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics A Personal Favourite | If all the Austen books were sisters, Mansfield Park would be the quiet, pensively courageous sibling of the six. Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion all seem to glow like ladies at a ball. (Northanger Abbey would, I guess, be the sister who plays piano and can't really sing...although she tries...)
I felt this novel to have a wonderfully theatrical feel, a closet drama of sorts. The above novels are like social epics whereas Mansfield Park appears stately, stoic and unto itself, thoughtful in a way the others aren't. I still think the other novels are excellent but there is something reserved about this one in particular. I am not a dedicated Austen lover but I would chose this one over the others simply because it is the less popular and to me, the most fascinating. The social-relationship dynamics are similar to the other novels - i.e. learning that the pretty face doesn't always have a pretty soul.
Let's put it this way, I'll probably read this novel again before the others. This is the sister I would like to know, to talk with and share philosophy with. The other sisters, in my opinion are great to dance with and they'll certainly entertain you. Nothing wrong in that. | | Mansfield Park (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics Worth reading, but not buying | I've read "Mansfield Park" three times so far in a desperate attempt to like it as much as Jane Austen's other books (I even love Northanger Abbey, which NO ONE likes anymore), but it seems to get a little worse each time. While it's still worth sitting down and enjoying once, it's a lot more dependant on the tastes and principles of Austen's period than any of her other works, and it seems like on re-reading the good points don't get much stronger while its flaws glare out more and more.
There is much to enjoy in Mansfield Park. Austen's stock characters (the dominating but foolish old woman, the wise but emotionally absent father, the charming young man who does not quite deserve the main character in spite of his attractions), appear in sharper relief than any of her other novels. Mrs. Norris is too horrible for me personally to laugh at most of the time, but her blindness to her own hypocrosy and the sheer absurdity of her judgement will be appreciated by most other Austen fans. The Crawfords are two of her most intricately created and fascinating characters, and truly steal any scene either of them is included in. This novel has been called her "most autobiographical" work, and though I don't see any similarities between the personality revealed in her letters and that of her main character, Fanny's position as the poor dependant on a rich family is much closer to Austen's own than any of her other heroines, and the amount of sympathy for this Cinderella-type heroine will be appreciated even by readers who are not very interested in Jane Austen herself.
But I can't help but feeling that while her other novels have a transcendant universality (Pride and Prejudice will always work no matter how much our culture changes), Mansfield Park is very wedded to one time and place. To a modern reader, the main character, Fanny Price, is almost unlikable for at least the first half of the book. You pity her, definitely, but she's so timid and such a wet blanket that it's hard to feel any real identification. She is the wisest and kindest character in the book, but spends most of the early chapters in a state of guilt-ridden terror from her assumed inferiority and her inability to live with the fact that she cannot love an aunt who has been nothing but nasty to her her entire life. In the latter half of the novel, she gets better as she grows enough of a backbone to at least trust her own judgement, but she's still really an example of a dead feminine ideal that a modern woman just can't admire. While we still value common sense, moral fiber, and a generous and forgiving heart, conviction of one's own inferiority is not really a desirable trait.
This is the most consistant flaw of the book, but there are others almost equally troubling. Without revealing whom she ends up with, Fanny's early revealed crush on her cousin Edmund, whom she meets when he is sixteen and she is nine, gets more disturbing by the year. Not only is love between first cousins considered incestuous now (at least in the US), but the way he considers her his adopted sister, and actually calls her his favorite sister, adds a whole new level of creepiness for anyone raised in a culture in which adoptive family ties are looked at in the same way as blood ties. Then the often-cited fact that he "shaped her mind" by being the only member of the family who seriously talked to her and recommended all her reading material makes it still worse for me, because there's something about Pygmalion-type relationships that really freaks me out. Anyone who joins me in this is sure to be disturbed.
The sole remaining flaw is that three readings in, I can't make any sense of what it's supposed to mean that Sir Thomas makes his living as a slave trader. Though we're suspicious early on because of his frequent business trips to Antigua, when it finally is confirmed that this is what he does, none of the characters attatches any moral stigma to it, not even Fanny. Nor does the narrator weigh in on his profession during any of the frequent asides that judge the members of this family more harshly than her protagonist. It made even less sense when I learned that Jane Austen herself was a confirmed abolitionist in real life. Can it really be that its only purpose is to draw a comparison with Fanny's situation? Maybe even an abolitionist of that time could be ill-informed enough about what the slave trade actually entailed to use it as a metaphor without much thought, but no one picking it up today has the luxury of that kind of ignorance.
In conclusion, it's a must read for anyone scholarly interested in Jane Austen, and still enjoyable enough to be worth reading for any casual fan of her other books. But save your money and use your library card. It's not something you're going to want to read again. | | Mansfield Park (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics Janeites rejoice in the classic Mansfield Park tale of a Cinderella who wins her Prince! | Miss Jane Austen (1775-1817) the spinster daughter of a Church of England clergyman wrote only six novels. Of that number "Mansfield Park" is not as well known as such hits as "Pride and Prejudice"; "Sense and Sensibility"; "Emma" "Persuasion" and Northanger Abbey." It is, however one of Austen's finest works; a true class of English Regency fiction which will always live in the annals of great literature.
Austen's novels all deal with courtship and social mores in small English villages among upper middle class folks. No one ever works! This novel has fascinating characters such as :
Fanny Price: The poor daughter of the feckless Mr and Mrs Price (nine children) who live in a chaotic household in the English seaport of Portsmouth. Fanny is farmed out at the age of 10 to Mrs. Price's wealthy sister Mrs.Thomas Bertram who is wed to Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park. Fanny is the gentlest, most taciturn, socially conservative and physically weakest of Austen's heroines. She is adept at listening and observing the actions of others in her social circle.
Mary and Henry Crawford: These two less than admirable siblings stay at their sister Mrs. Grant's home in the Mansfield parsonage. Mary flirts with Edmuind Bertram; Henry courts Maria Bertram but has his eyes on Fanny. They are both somewhat wild and Austen does not like them. These two bring the amorality of London's fast society to the small bucolic world of Mansfield with disaster ensuing.
Mrs. Norris-One of the most despicable, self-serving, greedy old harridan's in fiction. Mrs. Norris is the sister of Mrs Price and Betram. She coddles Maria and Julia Betram the spoiled daughters of Sir Thomas; she does not care for Fanny. Mrs. Norris could have come out of the pages of Dickens and is odious and unforgettable!
Tom Bertram is the oldest somewhat worthless son of the Bertrams.
Julia Bertram falls in love with Mr. Yates who was instrumental in organizing a play at Mansfield while Sir Thomas is away from home. Sir Thomas owns slaves in Antigua. Austen uses the play as a test of character. She disapproves of such frivolity and sees it as an intrusion into the orderly rural life of Mansfield. Fanny is the only character among the young people who opposes it's production.
Austen is a subtle writer who uses such ordinary events as card parties, strolls in gardens and quiet conversation to reveal character to the reader. Unlike many great novelist she was a Christian woman who demanded high moral standards in her heroines and heroes. This novel ends well with wedding bells for the good and suitable misery for the evil characters.
Austen is not everyone's cup of tea! Her novels are long and there is little overt action. It is true that you often have to skim back over an earlier section to remember who is speaking to whom! Her language is formal but she also relishes a good pun or turn of phrase.
Austen is working in a small area of the human story but in that baliwick of young love and romance she stands unsurpassed. Mansfield Park is a novel to savor. The introduction by Tony Tanner is a brilliant piece of literary commentary as he sees the novel as a clash between the order of Mansfield Park and the disorder of modern life exhibited in the disorderly household of Fanny's family in Portsmouth. Austen found virtue in country living; vice in the big city of London. She lived in an age of frivolity under George IV the Prince Regent (1811-182)so her call for moral behavior was a trumpet which needed blowing. | | Mansfield Park (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics A fascinating glimpse at English life in the early 1800s | Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen (whose death at an early age was a tragedy for literature), was an intriguing window into the life of English families in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The arrogance and pomposity of the land holding families, the invisibility of servants, the status of women, class consciousness, and the self-centeredness of those who didn't have to work for a living all come out in this novel.
The story focuses on Fanny, the daughter of a sister who didn't marry as well as another sister. In a fit of compassion (loosely defined), the wealthier sister takes on Fanny as a companion to use and a project to make. Over the next decade, Fanny evolves from a homesick and chronically shy girl into a most balanced character. Surrounding this story are the highs and lows of the other characters, her aunts, uncle, and her cousins and their friends.
As a story, Mansfield Park is rather tedious and sleep-inducing. The detail is almost overwhelming. The insight into this period, however, is fascinating. Jane Austin clearly was a very astute observer of the life and times of people around her. | | Mansfield Park (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics Product Description | New chronology and further reading; Tony Tanner's original introduction reinstated
Edited with an introduction by Kathryn Sutherland. |
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