Captivity in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park
This Complex Novel Explores Confinement of Mind, Body, and Plight
Jul 1, 2009
Mansfield Park is rich in this theme on multiple levels. Here, Jane Austen explores what she sees as the evils of marrying without affection, the smallness of affectations of grandeur, and the difficulty of the overall situations of those, both men and women, but especially women, who lack a family inheritance.
The Art – and Artlessness – of Marriage
In Jane Austen’s day, marriage was a tool for moving ahead in society, for gaining money, and for getting lifelong security from being scorned, especially in the case of women. If affection existed between the two parties, that often was by good chance alone.
In Mansfield Park, Jane Austen shows, through several characters, how much she despised what often turned into a dangerous game that tore people’s lives and emotions apart.
- Jane Austen says of a daughter of Mansfield Park: “In all the important preparations of the mind (Maria Bertram) was complete: being prepared for matrimony by an [sic] hatred of home, restraint, and tranquillity; by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry.”
- Jane has one of the characters, a conniving woman named Mary Crawford, describe marriage:“It is a manoeuvring [sic] business. I know so many who have married in the full expectation and confidence of some one particular advantage in the connexion [sic], or accomplishment, or good quality in the person, who have found themselves entirely deceived, and been obliged to put up with exactly the reverse. What is this but a take-in?”
- Indeed, Sir Thomas Bertram, the patriarch of Mansfield Park, could be said to have been taken in by his wife’s beauty, only to find himself married to a rather dim-witted though kind woman who became addicted to drugs.
- Fanny Price, the heroine of the novel, expresses Jane Austen’s views on the necessity of marrying for love: “Let him have all the perfections in the world, I think it ought not to be set down as certain that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself.”
The False Grandeur of Thinking Oneself Grand
Mrs. Norris, a widow and the small-thinking, mean-spirited sister of Lady Bertram, harangues Fanny Price throughout the novel, telling her how grateful she should be to the Bertrams for taking her into their grand home and how humble she should act due to her own low position.
- Fanny Price’s maternal aunt, Lady Bertram, had married into a fine family, coming from rather more limited means herself. “Their vanity was in such good order that they seemed to be quite free from it.”
- The conniving Mary Crawford tells Fanny Price: “Selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, because there is no hope of a cure.”
- Again, Jane Austen has Mary Crawford, who fancies herself grand, describe the lifestyle that comes from being rich: “A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. It certainly may secure all the myrtle and turkey part of it.”
The Societal Captivity of the Poor
Fanny Price (whose name is no mistake) was certainly taken in by the Bertrams at a price: her freedom. In exchange for living in their grand home, she was expected to be Lady Bertram’s constant companion and was often the victim of Mrs. Norris’ sharp tongue.
- As Edmund Bertram begins to fall in love with her, he wants her to accompany the young people on an outing. His mother and aunt will not hear of it, however: “You can have no reason I imagine, madam,” said he, addressing his mother, “for wishing Fanny not to be of the party, but as it relates to yourself, to your own comfort. If you could do without her, you would not wish to keep her at home?” “To be sure, not, but I cannot do without her.”
- As she was often reminded, Fanny Price was “put” in her situation by her mother, who made a choice to marry for love, rather than money. The evils of such a choice were soon made obvious: “Miss Frances married, in the common phrase, to disoblige her family, and by fixing on a lieutenant of marines, without education, fortune, or connexions [sic], did it very thoroughly.”
- No matter what sort of surface affectations were given her, or the grandness of her surroundings, Fanny Price always remembered her humble beginnings and could not overlook the way she was treated, especially by Mrs. Norris: “The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.”
Fanny Price stays true to herself and her ideals, grows stronger and more beautiful, and in the end overcomes the connivances of the Crawford siblings to win her true love, Edmund Bertram, in marriage, blessed by Sir and Lady Bertram.
By rewarding Fanny Price, who suffered much at the hands of her more mean-spirited relatives, and punishing those of less sensibility, such as Maria and Mrs. Norris, Jane Austen allows readers to understand and juxtapose the varying values and decide for themselves what is right.
For Jane Austen’s part, she makes it clear that she appreciates truth, honesty, and a fine sensibility over loveless marriages and people holding one another hostage with their emotions and vapid weaknesses.
Sources:
Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen, Everyman,1998 reprint
The Wicked Wit of Jane Austen, compiled by Dominiqe Ennright, Michael O'Mara Books Limited, 2002, 2007.
