Book info:
Form: paperback
Genre: Jane Austen novel ;p
Target audience: anybody
Synopsis:
Brace
yourself, it will be a long, detailed synopsis with spoilers but hey, the book
is a classic, right? Let me indulge myself a bit ;)
Once upon a
time there were three sisters. One of them, being the prettiest, married very
well, the second one, a bit wild, married very badly but for love and the third
one married just because it was the right thing to do. The first sister, Lady Bertram, a rich wife of a baronet, was spending her days idly by the side of
her husband, Sir Thomas, enjoying luxuries of Mansfield Park, their country
estate. She had four children: two sons, Tom and Edmund, and two daughters,
Maria and Julia. She also decided to help her other two sisters, less fortunate
when it came to the choice of husbands.
That’s how
Fanny Price, our heroine, aged just 10, arrived to Mansfield Park - she was Aunt Bertram’s charity case. As one of many children of the second sister,
Frances, and Lieut. Price, a retired naval officer, Fanny was sent away to live with her fine relatives. Her mother was very
grateful as it was considered a great opportunity and social advancement. Of
course nobody asked the opinion of the shy, awkward child. Fanny was never exactly mistreated by the
Bertrams but she never felt at home with them either. Still Edmund, the
younger son, being the most good-natured of all, managed to show his young
cousin real kindness from time to time. Fanny’s other maternal aunt, Mrs.
Norris, the local parson's wife, showered attention and affection on her
Bertram nieces, particularly Maria, but was frequently unpleasant and
mean-spirited toward Fanny, making the girl feeing inadequate.
The narration starts when
Fanny is 16. Sir Thomas must leave for a year to deal with problems on his
plantation in Antiqua. He takes his eldest son, Tom, along in hopes to isolate
him from bad company he had been keeping. Meanwhile Mrs. Norris finds a husband
for Maria Bertram – a completely stupid but very rich Mr. Rushworth. Maria
accepts his proposal subject to Sir Thomas’s approval on his return.
About this time, the fashionable,
wealthy, and worldly Henry
Crawford and his sister, Mary , arrive at the parsonage to stay
with Mrs. Grant, their half-sister. The arrival of the lively, attractive Crawford
siblings disrupts the staid world of Mansfield and sparks a series of romantic
entanglements. Mary and Edmund begin to form an attachment, despite her
original interest in Tom as the eldest son and the heir of Mansfield Park.
Although Edmund worries that Mary’s cynical remarks may mask a lack of firm
principle and Mary is unhappy that Edmund wants to become just a simple country
clergyman, their mutual attraction grows. Fanny fears that
Mary has enchanted Edmund, and that love has blinded him to her flaws - of
course, she is in love with him herself but her judgment is definitely better
than the judgment of any of interesting parties. Meanwhile, during a visit to Mr. Rushworth's ancestral estate in
Sotherton, Henry deliberately plays with the affections of both Maria and
Julia, driving them apart. Maria believes that Henry is falling in love with
her and treats Mr. Rushworth dismissively, provoking his jealousy. Fanny
witnesses Maria and Henry in compromising situation and is appalled by their lack
of decency. Encouraged by Tom and his friend Mr. Yates, the young people decide
to put on Elizabeth Inchbald's play Lovers' Vows, a rather
frivolous farce which allows Henry, Maria, Julia, Mary and, to some extend, Edmund continue their public flirt.
When Sir Thomas
unexpectedly arrives home in the middle of a rehearsal, the theatricals are
abruptly terminated. Henry, whom Maria had expected to propose, leaves, and she
feels crushed, realizing that he didn’t love her. Although she neither likes
nor respects Mr. Rushworth, she goes ahead and marries him out of spite. They
leave for Brighton, taking Julia with them. With Maria
and Julia gone, Fanny and Mary Crawford are naturally thrown into each other's
company. In fact Mary
goes out of her way to befriend Fanny. Henry returns to
Mansfield Park and, lacking other distractions, decides to amuse himself by
making love to the shy new best friend of his sister. However, Fanny is steadfastly if secretly in love
with Edmund, and the tables are turned - Henry actually falls in love with
her. To further his suit, he uses his family connections to raise Fanny's
brother William to the rank of naval lieutenant. However, when he proposes
marriage, Fanny rejects him out of hand, partially because she disapproves of
his moral character, and also because she still hopes Edmund might love her
back one day. Sir Thomas is dismayed and startled by her refusal, since it is
an extremely advantageous match for a girl without any dowry or useful
connections.
To bring Fanny to her
senses, Sir Thomas sends her home to Portsmouth, hoping that the lack of comforts
will help her appreciate Henry's offer more. At Portsmouth, she develops a firm
bond with her younger sister Susan, but is taken aback by the contrast between
the dissolute surroundings of her mother’s house and the environment at
Mansfield. Henry visits and tries to convince her that he has changed for good
and is worthy of her affection. Although Fanny still maintains that she cannot
marry him, her attitude begins to soften, particularly as Edmund and Mary seem
to be moving steadily toward an engagement.Henry leaves for London,
and shortly afterwards, Fanny learns that scandal has enveloped him and Maria.
The two had met at a party and rekindled their flirtation; as a result Maria has left
her husband for him. A national scandal sheet gets wind of the affair, Maria is
exposed as an adulterous wife, Mr. Rushworth sues for divorce, and the proud
Bertram family is devastated. To make matters worse, Tom has taken ill, and
Julia, fearing that her father will
lock her up, punishing for the sins of the older sister, has eloped with
Tom's flighty friend Mr. Yates.
In the midst of this crisis, Fanny
returns to Mansfield Park with her sister, Susan. Sir Thomas realizes that
Fanny was right to reject Henry's proposal and now regards her as his daughter.
During an emotional meeting with Mary Crawford, Edmund discovers that Mary does
not condemn Henry and Maria's adultery, only the fact it was discovered. She implies that if Fanny had only accepted
Henry, there would have been no affair. She also speaks very callously about
the possible death of Tom and the perspectives it would create for the younger
son. Edmund, who had idolized Mary, feels that her true, rather ugly nature,
has been finally revealed to him. He returns to Mansfield Park and goes ahead
with plans to be ordained a minister, abandoning any engagement plans.While he is despairing of ever
getting over Mary, Edmund comes to realize how important Fanny became to him.
After a while he declares his love for her, they are married, and eventually
they move to the Mansfield Park parsonage, where they live close to those they
love best. Henry Crawford refuses to marry Maria, who is banished by her family
to live, secluded, "in another country," (France) where she is joined
by her aunt Mrs. Norris, the initial creator of her misery.
What I liked:
If you wonder why my
synopsis is so long and detailed here are two main reasons. First – I admit
that Mansfield Park is my favourite Jane Austen book and I can talk about it
forever. Second – I wanted to show how dissimilar that novel is when compared
to those awful movie adaptations. Really, truly, completely different.
First of all the main
heroine, Fanny, is perhaps the most complex female character created by Austen,
maybe because she is portrayed not as a young adult but we can follow most of
her childhood as well. Plenty of readers don’t like Fanny for being a bit
priggish. Jane Austen's own mother thought Fanny "insipid". I don’t
agree with such an assessment. Although, as any young girl, she is sometimes
given to wishful thinking and she is often too timid to speak up her mind,
Fanny can be surprisingly perceptive and intelligent; it is quite stunning as
she lacked any moral guidance or support among her real or adoptive family.
Still she is the only one who can assess the Crawfords in the right way, she
notices how badly Maria treats her fiancé before almost anybody else and she can
criticize the household of her own mother in a very clear-headed way. By rejecting
Henry she shows a lot of courage; she also grows in self-esteem during the
latter part of the story, weathering a major crisis caused by Maria’s divorce
and Tom’s illness.
Many modern readers find Fanny's timidity
and disapproval of the theatricals difficult to sympathize with but I found it
in perfect accordance with her introvert character – she did enjoy listening to
Henry Crawford’s skillful reading, she just didn’t want to offend her absent
uncle doing something overly frivolous; I suppose she also didn’t want to mix
with a crowd who treated her indifferently at best and disapproved of her at
worst. Their attitude might be well summed up by this quote:
“My dear Miss Price,” said Miss Crawford, as soon as she was at all within hearing, “I am come to make my own apologies for keeping you waiting; but I have nothing in the world to say for myself-I knew it was very late, and that I was behaving extremely ill; and therefore, if you please, you must forgive me. Selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, because there is no hope of a cure.” Mary Crawford, Mansfield Park, Chapter 7
Apart from Fanny
there are plenty of other great characters, presented here, but two of them,
namely Henry and Mary Crawford deserve a paragraph or two of their own.
They are a pair of antagonists, predators,
but they are presented as quite likeable creatures, so nice to be with and so
interesting nobody notices their wickedness. Let’s start with the lady. I would describe Mary Crawford as Elizabeth Bennett
without moral principles – she is clever, she has a great sense of humour, she
is additionally rich (twenty thousand pounds of dowry, no small matter) and
pretty spoiled. You might argue that her faults stem from the fact that she
wasn’t given proper education and
example in her childhood but so wasn’t Fanny and there is vast difference
between the way of thinking of these two young women. Mary is so dazzled by the
glitter of the beau monde that she rarely notices any real values in people.
She likes luxury, she appreciates theatre and fun, she thinks she is entitled
to everything the best, including men. Although from time to time she can be
also understanding, generous and kind, she thinks mostly about her own
convenience and social status. She tolerates Fanny to please Edmund and Sir Thomas
but, given a choice, she remorselessly forgets her timid friend to enjoy a more
interesting company.
Her brother is even worse – it is a predator similar to
Monsieur Vicomte de Valmont from Les Liaisons Dangereuses, another classic reviewed by me here. As he has definitely too much money for his own good and
is too lazy and lax to find himself a proper occupation he preys on women for
fun (mind you we speak about the Napoleonic Wars period, such easy time to find
an occupation for an aggressive, clever man of means!). The way he plays both
sisters Bertram is really callous and ruthless; after the marriage of Maria he
doesn’t hesitate to contact her in public and when she pretends reserve he
decides to conquer her again – not because he loves her but because he must
prove his seductive skills before himself and all the world around. Of course
the fact that he might be ruining more than one life and a reputation of the
whole family in the process never even crosses his mind. He would do anything
and everything for a moment of thrill.
What I didn’t
like:
One small carping:
I really hated the fact that Jane Austen didn’t punish Henry Crawford for his
villainy. While Maria Bertram was sent into exile in the really acidic company
of her aunt Norris he was left with all the privileges of a rich squire and his
reputation didn’t suffer either. NOT FAIR. His only punishment? He didn’t get Fanny and he knew what he lost. I wish Austen at least made him poor (gambling?) and then forced him to marry
for money some horrible harpy, twice his age.
Final verdict
I may risk a statement
that Mansfield Park is not an easy
novel to understand. It enjoys that
dubious distinction of being disliked by more of Jane Austen's fans than any
of her other novels. Perhaps it is because its themes are very different from
those of her other books, which can generally be summed up by one sentence or,
indeed a phrase: Sense and
Sensibility is about
balancing emotions and reason, Pride
and Prejudice is about consequences of judging others too quickly, Emma is about growing into adulthood while
being terribly nosy, and Persuasion is about giving others and yourself
second chances. The theme of Mansfield
Park, on the other hand, defies such a simple description. Is it an allegory of Regency England? Is it about the negative
impact of slavery? Is it about the right and wrong education of children? Is it
about the difference between appearances and reality? Is it about the
consequences of breaking with society's rigid rules? In my opinion any, or all
of those themes can, and have been applied to Mansfield
Park – let it be the proof that this novel is something truly exceptional and worth reading.
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