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Title: Mansfield Park (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
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Manufacturer: Barnes & Noble Classics
List Price: $5.95
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| Mansfield Park (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Barnes & Noble Classics Excellent | I think this is my favorite Jane Austen book so far, although I still have Persuasion and Northanger Abbey to read. Most Austen fans would not count Mansfield Park as a favorite, though, at least from what I've heard. It's not that it's a profoundly different book from the more popular Pride & Prejudice or Sense & Sensibility, but many people seem to dislike the main character, or at least are not as impressed by her, as by P&P's Elizabeth Bennet or Emma's Emma Woodhouse. It's true that Fanny Price is a very different heroine than Lizzy or Emma, but her circumstances are profoundly different, too. She doesn't have Lizzy's spunk or Emma's forthrightness, but Lizzy and Emma both have the advantage of being more secure in their surroundings, both financially and emotionally. Fanny has a lot working against her from the start.
A generation before Fanny's birth, three sisters chose their paths of marriage: one to a respectable parson, one to a wealthy landowner, and the other to a basically worthless sloth. Fanny had the misfortune to be one of the numerous products of the latter. Her aunt, Mrs. Norris (married to the parson), convinces their other sister, the wealthy Mrs. Bertram, to take Fanny in as a ward. While this sounds like a kindness, it's really only an ego booster for Mrs. Norris. She has no love for Fanny and from the day the poor girl comes to live with the Bertrams at Mansfield Park, she is never allowed to forget that she is the beneficiary of charity and should grovel, beg and prove her gratitude every waking second. Not only are there constant verbal reminders from her aunts, uncle and cousins, but Fanny's status as a poor relation is made clear by her clothing, her rooms, the social functions she's allowed to attend (or not), and even whether or not she has a horse to ride. It's not that anyone is outwardly unkind to Fanny (except Mrs. Norris, at times) per se; she's just a non-entity entirely dependent on the whims of her superior relations, and she's always painfully aware of it.
The main event is the arrival of Henry and Mary Crawford, a brother and sister who proceed to turn things topsy-turvy in the circle of families around Mansfield Park with their somewhat laissez-faire, urban view on the rituals of courtship. The bittersweet backdrop to all this entanglement and game-playing is Fanny's genuine, unrequited love for her cousin Edmund, one of the few people who treat her as an equal. Other reviewers have expressed disdain and frustration with Fanny, labeling her a boring, moralistic, judgmental prig, but I didn't feel that way about her at all. I felt she handled herself and her situation the best she could, and the fact that she's a plain, ordinary girl with none of Elizabeth Bennet's wit or Emma Woodhouse's beauty only makes her more human to me. I enjoyed it and will definitely read it again.
| | Mansfield Park (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Barnes & Noble Classics Product Description | Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. From its sharply satiric opening sentence, Mansfield Park dealas with money and marriage, and how strongly they affect each other. Shy, fragile Fanny Price is the consummate "poor relation." Sent to live with her wealthy uncle Thomas, she clashes with his spoiled, selfish daughters and falls in love with his son. Their lives are further complicated by the arrival of a pair of witty, sophisticated Londoners, whose flair for flirtation collides with the quiet, conservative country ways of Mansfield Park. Written several years after the early manuscripts that eventually became Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park retains Austen’s familiar compassion and humor but offers a far more complex exploration of moral choices and their emotional consequences. Amanda Claybaugh is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She also wrote the Introduction and Notes for the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. |
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