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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.
Known for her cheerful, modest, and witty character, Jane Austen had a busy family and social life, but as far as we know very little direct romantic experience. There were early flirtations, a quickly retracted agreement to marry the wealthy brother of a friend, and a rumored short-lived attachment -- while she was traveling -- that has not been verified. Her last years were quiet and devoted to family, friends, and writing her final novels. In 1817 she had to interrupt work on her last and unfinished novel, Sanditon, because she fell ill. She died on July 18, 1817, in Winchester, where she had been taken for medical treatment. After her death, her novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published, together with a biographical notice, due to the efforts of her brother Henry. Austen is buried in Winchester Cathedral.
Author biography courtesy of Barnes & Noble Books.
Mary Crawford is, or so it seems, the very model of a Jane Austen heroine. Spirited, warm-hearted, and, above all else, witty, she displays all the familiar Austen virtues, and she stands in need of the familiar Austen lessons as well. Like Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine of Pride and Prejudice (1813), she banters archly with the man she is falling in love with, and, like Elizabeth, she must learn to set aside her preconceptions in order to recognize that love. Like Emma Woodhouse, the heroine of Emma (1816), she speaks more brilliantly and speculates more dazzlingly than anyone around her, and, like Emma, she must learn to rein in the wit that tempts her at times to impropriety. But Mary Crawford is not the heroine of Mansfield Park (1814)—Fanny Price is, and therein lies the novel's great surprise. For Fanny differs not merely from Mary, but also from our most basic expectations of what a novel's protagonist should do and be. In Fanny, we have a heroine who seldom moves and seldom speaks, and never errs or alters.
"'I must move,'" Mary announces, "'resting fatigues me'." Before her arrival at Mansfield, she had made a glamorous circuit of winters in London and summers at the country houses of friends, with stops at fashionable watering places in between, and at Mansfield she is no less mobile. A vigorous walker, she soon takes up riding, cantering as soon as she mounts. Fanny, by contrast, has hardly left the grounds of Mansfield since her arrival eight years before, and she is further immobilized by her weakness and timidity. A half-mile walk is beyond her, a ball, she fears, will exhaust her, and she is prostrated by headache after picking roses. She must be lifted onto the horse she was long too terrified to approach, and her exercise consists of being led by a groom.
"'Now, do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat,'" says Mary to her listeners, who have not, in fact, caught the joke at all. So dazzling a talker is Mary that she must serve as her own best audience, amusing herself with witticisms the others cannot hear. With a keener eye and a sharper tongue than those around her, Mary sets her words dancing alongside the inanities, vulgarities, and hypocrisies that make up the other characters' speech. Fanny, by contrast, barely speaks at all, and when she does, it is in the silencing language of moral certainty. "'Very indecorous,'" Edmund says of Mary's far more captivating discourse, and Fanny is quick to agree and contribute a judgment of her own: "'and very ungrateful.'" There is little that can be said after that.
"'I will stake my last like a woman of spirit,'" Mary proclaims in the midst of a card game that Fanny had been reluctant to play at all. Mary wins the hand, only to find that it has cost her more than it was worth, and, in doing so, she reminds us that to act is necessarily to risk being wrong. Fanny, by contrast, is always right. "'Fanny is the only one who has judged rightly throughout'"—this is Edmund Bertram speaking to Sir Thomas in the aftermath of the theatricals, but it could just as properly be the narrator at the novel's end. The language of Fanny's right judgment suggests, however, that her moral certainty is a function of her passivity: "'No, indeed, I cannot act,'" she had insisted, and the double meaning of "acting" suggests that Fanny knows not to "act" in a theatrical sense because she never really "acts" at all.
It is in the contrast between Fanny and Mary that we can most clearly see that Mansfield Park is, in the words of the critic Tony Tanner, "a novel about rest and restlessness, stability and change-the moving and the immovable" (Jane Austen, p. 145; see "For Further Reading"). Mansfield Park is hardly the only Austen novel to take as its subject matter a pair of opposed terms, but typically these terms stand in a dynamic relation to one another, each altering the other until a proper synthesis or balance is achieved. In Sense and Sensibility (1811), for instance, the rational Elinor Dashwood and her romantic sister Marianne must each learn from the other to moderate her mode of feeling; similarly, Mr. Darcy must modify his pride and Elizabeth, her prejudice before marriage can unite them. Other of Austen's novels draw careful distinctions within a single term, as when Persuasion (1818) establishes a continuum from the most laudable to the most lamentable instances of conforming to the wishes of others. Mansfield Park stands alone in this regard, for it unequivocally endorses one set of terms and unequivocally condemns the other. Rest has, in this novel, nothing to learn from restlessness, and restlessness can in no way be redeemed.
Anonymous
Posted February 26, 2005
Ever since I read Pride and Prejudice, I've been completely hooked on to Jane Austen! This is the second novel of hers I read, and I have to say, I liked it even more than Pride and Prejudice (which was awesome!). Fanny's sweet character and manners touched me, and to meet all of the characters and travel along with them in time is a very touching experience, which makes you miss them when you've finished the book, as if you'd let go of old friends. I recommend this book to anyone who likes Jane Austen, or who wants a comfy read.
9 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 26, 2002
Austen's novels really warm my heart. I fall in love with them as soon as i see them and Mansfield Park has totally made think different about life and how people act, which is what her novels are based on. I highly reccomend it.
5 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 9, 2011
this seemed to start just after Crawford's proposal and the text and chapters are not well laid out. i think i will download a paid version.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 15, 2009
What more can be said? Either you like her work or you don't. It doesn't rate in my top 5, but it's still a good piece of literary work.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 4, 2005
I have read all of Jane Austen's novels, and Fanny Price is my favorite heroine. I love her realistic character traits, and gentle nature. Mansfield Park is fantastic. I thought that Austen portrayed life-like characters and plausible events. This novel is still relevant to people's lives today. My only dissappointment is that the ending seemed abrupt. I thought there should be more explanation for Fanny and Edmund. Other than that, I love this book. Highly recommended.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 7, 2012
There are incorrect words, random letters.
VERY HARD TO FIGURE OUT THE WORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 23, 2012
I found the boook too be very long and boring. The language was hard to understand and made it difficult to be interesting. I hardly felt there was romance. I am glad the styles of writing has changed since this book was published. I dont think i will ever read anymore of this author.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 13, 2011
i love this book
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 9, 2010
I loved this book. The only thing about it that I didn't like was that I felt Edward always loved Fanny, he was just blind sided by another woman. I hate that Fanny had to know she was second best to him.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 26, 2009
Mansfield Park was so good. The story was captivating to where I could see Mansfield Park and it's surrounding landscape. I could even feel each emotion that the characters felt. Jane Austen has yet to disappoint me.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted September 8, 2008
In a popularity poll of Jane Austen¿s six major novels, Mansfield Park may come close to the bottom, but what a distinction that is in comparison to the rest of classic literature! Even though many find fault with its hero and heroine, its love story 'or more accurately the lack of one', its dark subtext of neglect and oppression, and its moralistic tone, it is still Jane Austen with her beautiful language, witty social observations and intriguing plot lines. Given the overruling benefits, I can still place it in my top ten all-time favorite classic books. Considering the difficulty that some readers have understanding Mansfield Park, the added benefit of good supplemental material is an even more important consideration in purchasing the novel. Recently I evaluated several editions of the novel currently in print which you can view here. For readers seeking a medium level of supplemental material, one solid candidate is the new reissue of Oxford World¿s Classics'2008' which offers a useful combination of topics to expand on the text, place it in context to when it was written, and an insightful introduction by Jane Stabler, a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Dundee, Scotland and Lord Byron scholar. Understanding all the important nuances and inner-meanings in Mansfield Park can be akin to `visiting Pemberley¿, the extensive estate of the wealthy Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen¿s more famous novel Pride and Prejudice. One is intrigued by its renown but hard pressed to take it all in on short acquaintance. The greatest benefit of the Oxford World¿s Classics edition to the reader who seeks clarification is Jan Stabler¿s thirty page introduction which is thoughtfully broken down into six sub categories by theme The Politics of Home, Actors and Audiences, The Drama of Conscience, Stagecraft and Psychology, Possession, Restoration and Rebellion, and Disorder and Dynamism. Written at a level accessible to the novice and veteran alike, I particularly appreciate this type of thematic format when I am seeking an answer or explanation on one subject and do not have the time to wade through the entire essay at that moment. Her concluding lines seemed to sum up my recent feelings on the novel. ¿The brisk restoration of order at Mansfield Park and healing of the breach between parent and child is underwritten by the same doubt that lingers around the last scene of Shakespeare¿s King Lear: `Is this the promis¿d end? 'v. iii 262'. Recreating the urge to defy parental authority while teaching us to sit still, and pitting unruly energy against patient submission to the rule of law, Mansfield Park is an enthralling performance of the competitive forces which governed early nineteenth-century politics, society and art.' For me, Mansfield Park is about Jane Austen teaching this unruly child to sit still and enjoy the performance! With patience, I have come to cherish Fanny Price, the most virtuous and under-rated heroine in classic literature! Re-reading the novel and supplemental material was well worth the extra effort, expanding my appreciation of Austen¿s skills as a story teller and the understanding of the social workings in rural Regency England. I am never disappointed in her delivery of great quips such as ¿But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.¿ The Narrator, Chapter 1 Also included in this edition are four appendixes the first two on Rank and Social Status and Dancing which are included in all six of the Oxford World¿s Classics Jane Austen editions and have been previously reviewed, followed by Lovers¿ Vows 'the theatrical that the young people attempt to produce in the novel', and Austen and the Navy which helps the reader understand Jane Austen¿s connection to the Royal Navy through her brothers James and Francis and its influence on her writing. The extensive Explanatory Notes to the text help place the novel in context fo
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted September 4, 2004
Of the four Austen novels I have read (the others being Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility), Mansfield Park was my favorite. Why? To be frank, though I love Austen's work and would never want to speak badly of it, the heroines in none of her other novels appeals to me as much as Fanny. Emma is too obviously obsessed with social class, and Eliza's apparent high opinion of herself and her abilities annoys me. Fanny is the only heroine who actually sticks to her beliefs. As always, I recommend the movie, but not after you've read the book!
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 7, 2012
Nothing much happened, just a lot of talking.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 9, 2012
What.
1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 31, 2012
O ok....cool.........is ur nook cting up? Mine wont post.......i gtg.....its pointless to stay bc i cant post and im super tired ;(
1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 31, 2012
O ok...thats really cool :) my nook wont post bc of the lag ;( i guess i should quit for the night
1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 31, 2012
O ok cool....i thought she was packing her stuff for boot camp lol....sorry i took so long to reply...i hate this lag
1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 31, 2012
O ok...cool! I gtg bc my nook wont post ;( night....sorry for having u come on
1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 6, 2012
To climb
1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 6, 2012
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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