This year, I’ve been reading through the novels of Jane Austen in publication order, something I don’t think I’ve ever done before. Thanks to the hosts of the Reading Austen 2025 event for putting me onto this project, and be sure to check out the other posts so far – lots of good stuff there.
The first half of the year has taken us through three books: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Mansfield Park (1814). The middle one of the sandwich has long been my favorite, but this time around I found myself with more thoughts burgeoning in connection with Mansfield Park. First of all it struck me that in certain ways it’s a reworking of motifs from Pride and Prejudice. For example, the plot turns upon the main female character bravely refusing the proposal of a man of good fortune, while the denouement is brought about by a (foster) sister’s elopement with an unreformed bad boy.
Originally, that elopement gave the hero a chance to show his true nature and regain his love by rescuing her sister from disgrace. In the reimagined version, this plot strand ends in tragedy, rather than being lifted into comedy — partly because rather than being separated into two people, one good and one bad, here the same man plays both parts, and is unable to save himself. Henry Crawford’s good side, it seems, came out when he fell in love with gentle Fanny Price, recognizing her value in a way nobody else in the book had done so far, but his bad side reasserted itself when he could not resist dallying with Maria Bertram. He’s sort of a Jekyll-and-Hyde character — and while I find his transformations are not sufficiently supported to make for a successful psychological study, he does indicate some of the potential for the rising new form of the novel to take on such material.
I think we’re so used to reading the kind of novels Jane Austen was instrumental in creating that we tend to forget how innovative this kind of thing was back then. She was demonstrating that the moral choices of individuals mattered — that not only the deeds of gods and heroes, or even kings and aristocrats, were important in shaping the world, but the deeds of very ordinary humans. She brought the stuff of mythology into the drawing room, clothing it in everyday drama, even in banal trivialities. And yet within such an unremarkable setting, people are given the chance to make choices that shatter or sustain life. With very small actions — a word, an attitude, a right or wrong way of thinking — they alter the course of their fortunes and the destiny of their families. And her novels continue to fascinate because this is our challenge, too.
Most of her books are also revolutionary in giving this kind of agency to women. But as I reread Mansfield Park, I noticed how the interesting moral developments actually belong to the male characters, at least in potential. Besides the example of Henry Crawford’s lost battle with his own double nature, there is Edmund Bertram, who ought to love Fanny but instead becomes infatuated with Henry’s sister Mary, an enchanting but unwholesome siren. Only Henry’s perfidy opens his eyes to the truth. And then there is Sir Thomas Bertram, who also in the end comes to admit Fanny’s true worth and recognize his responsibility in creating the conditions for his daughter Maria’s moral lapse.
These are characters who make major shifts in their worldview — but in a way that happens to the side, offstage, or in reported narrative, not giving us the full insight into their minds that we get with an Elizabeth Bennet or Emma Woodhouse. Austen is intrigued by the male potential for moral growth, a theme also central to her previous novel, but seems hesitant to fully embrace the male perspective. Maybe that’s one reason this book doesn’t quite satisfy me, but seems like a tantalizing gesture toward a kind of novel that Austen was not ready to write.
Meanwhile, although she is the central character, Fanny is more of a spectator than a protagonist in this book, an observer of truth in a world where all is play-acting and layers of deception, including self-deception. With her dependent, impoverished status, ignored, overlooked, or even abused by all the others, there is not much she can do, other than perceive things as truly as she can. As with Elizabeth Bennet, her “fine eyes” are her best feature, at least in the metaphorical sense.
Meanwhile, perceiving Fanny’s beauty and value becomes a litmus test for the other characters, tending to turn her into an object for their powers of observation. She doesn’t change, and that’s the whole point. She is the one who sees the side of things that is lasting and worthwhile, and who silently calls for others to do the same.
This, again, can be frustrating for readers who expect something different from a protagonist. Fanny does undergo a transformation, but it’s subtle and happens only at the end of the story, during a visit back to her slovenly, vulgar parents’ house, when she finally gives up longing for a lost home and family, and transfers her allegiance fully to Mansfield. At first that struck me as a snobby valuing of money and comfort over family ties, but on reflection I think it’s meant to indicate that when people have fallen too far into the forces of degradation, one has to let them go and focus on a realm where change is still possible. Possibly for the very reason that they have the resources to not be completely preoccupied with survival, people like Edmund and Sir Thomas have the option to grow and make better choices — and Henry had that chance, but muffed it.
I’m so glad I reread Mansfield Park and found it more compelling than I’d remembered, even if not entirely successful. I’m very much looking forward to the second half of the year, to Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. If you’re reading along, or have any reflections about Austen, please share your thoughts.