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books, Fanny Price, Fiction, heroines, Jane Austen, literature, Mansfield Park, Real Reads Mansfield Park
My fourteen-year-old friend Rose is reading Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park for the first time. Last fall she reviewed the Real Reads version of the novel adapted by Gill Tavner, and after she read your comments encouraging her to read the original—thank you, dear readers!—she decided to try it. In honour of the 201st anniversary of Mansfield Park, which was published on May 9, 1814, here is the first instalment of Rose’s commentary.
After reading the abridged version I was expecting most of the things I saw. One thing that did surprise me was Fanny. She is really relatable, which I didn’t find in the shorter version. She is sweet—probably funny when she knows you well and quiet when she doesn’t. As far as I know this might be one of Jane Austen’s more normal characters. Not everyone can be as sassy as Lizzy Bennet and I think I like that the books show that.
It’s way more apparent here how the adults think they are doing Fanny a favor and how wrong they really are. It also highlights how bad they are at communicating their feelings. Fanny is too scared to share how she feels about being away from home and the truly sad bit about this is that she has every right to be. Nobody is going to care if she complains. In fact they’ve said they will send her away or punish her if she isn’t happy. It’s so awful for them to force these expectations on her! In the abridged version of the book the author made her seem like a wimp. She just couldn’t manage a new environment or even adapt. That’s so wrong! She’s being bullied, shamed, and criticized, all while being as polite and cheerful as she can.
I find this book to be very similar to a lot of modern books about the new girl in school. Someone used to be the best student, tragedy strikes, she moves to a better school, her grades drop, she’s bullied…. She falls for the popular boy, the rival mean girl appears, the main character is good and sweet, she wins, she lives happily ever after…. Reading this book makes you realize how influential Jane Austen was.
The Fanny and Edmund thing can be a bit weird to read about, especially knowing the end. If a modern author were writing this it would turn out that there was some kind of scandal and they weren’t actually cousins. I would feel very safe supporting (read: adoring) that relationship if they weren’t blood relatives. But it seems as if Jane wants me to like the cousins thing. The fact that they are cousins is mentioned every other page and Sir Thomas seems worried that later in life they will like each other. I don’t know if… I’m just not sure how I feel about it yet.
I was astonished at how some characters that seemed in the right in the shorter version of the book were really stuck up, rich idiots in the larger one. The girls, the adults—everyone is holding Fanny’s social standing against her. Overall I ended up liking Fanny way more than I expected. My favorite parts were all mentions of the pug. I am hoping to see him (or is it her?) develop into his true role as the leading character.
If you missed some (or all) of the guest posts from the series I hosted last year in honour of the 200th anniversary, you can read them here: An Invitation to Mansfield Park.
Sarah Emsley 
Really enjoyed the reading of Mansfield Park. Very impressed that a 14 year old has seen what many readers miss, which is Fanny’s humor–I loved the idea that if you got to know her she would be funny, despite seeming ‘quiet’ at first. Also interesting to me is the fact that North Americans seem more troubled by cousin marriage in fiction than do my UK students –wonder what that is about! but a great and subtle and funny reading.
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Check out this article on cousin marriage http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0060320
There’s an interesting implication that while cousin marriage was associated with the aristocracy in the UK, it was more commonly associated with the lower class, immigrant community in the post-Civil War US. Could that have something to do with differing perspectives?
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Rose, I am so glad you read Mansfield Park for yourself. You can see why it is so difficult for modern authors to retell Jane Austen’s stories. I particularly enjoyed your observation that Fanny Price is perhaps more “real” than Lizzy Bennet. I think you are correct in the sense that while most of us admire Lizzy’s whit and sparkle, we can’t all be Lizzy Bennet. I think a lot of readers have trouble accepting Fanny for who she is (quiet, introspective, fiercely loyal). I am glad you could appreciate her.
Regarding cousin marriage, I think it helps to realize that it was normal in the context of the time the book was written. It’s really only become taboo in recent history. In fact, to Jane Austen’s original readers, it probably seemed like a good thing.
I hope you will write more guest posts one day. I enjoyed reading your commentary.
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Elizabeth, You’re right. It seems, from other things I’ve read, to have been quite common and acceptable for cousins to marry in that time period. I wonder why then Sir Bertram was so opposed to it. What do you think?
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Wonderful review! So right on so many levels. The pug as a leading character…LOL!
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Rose, I loved reading your impression of the complete MP compared to the abridged version, and am impressed once again with your astute observations and thoughtful comments! Your comparison of Fanny’s situation to the “new girl in school” was a good one. And I too loved that you came to understand and appreciate Fanny when reading more about her… Your interpretations are most refreshing and I hope we get to hear more from you. Did you find other new words that you liked, such as “defenestrate”? 🙂
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Rose is a very astute fourteen-year-old. I look forward to more posts from her.
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Rose – your perspective is so fresh and spot on, I think! And it shows the strength of JA’s writing – there is not one single word that’s not needed, even though she sometimes might seem verbose. Take out the “extra” words, and you take out the nuance that lets you know that people “think they’re doing Fanny a favor” or who is in the right and who is wrong, even though you can’t point to any actions that say so. Nuance is so very important. And you’re right – JA’s influence is felt in stories written ever since, I believe!
I’m with you about the cousin thing. I know it used to be just fine – but we see now that marrying too close in your bloodline can have terrible consequences. I prefer Emma, being only a sister-in-law to Mr. Knightley, even though she points out at once point that they are like brother and sister, and he immediately says they are not!
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I think… sadly, one must be resigned to the fact that Fanny is an ingenue. On the other hand I have always thought of Mary Crawford as a dark Lizzy Bennett and regret that she and Edmund did not come together.
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Rose, I loved your review. Good for you for reading the real MP. I’m delighted you like Fanny. It bugs me the way readers often misunderstand her–can they really be paying attention?
Reading your comparisons of the two versions makes me wonder if abridged versions of JA’s books for young readers is really a good thing.
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Great review, Rose! I appreciate your observations about how affected Fanny was by her difficult circumstances. Lizzie Bennett does not have nearly as much to contend with, coming from a prominent, respected family, from which she is never truly separated as Fanny is. Drawing attention to herself, with Lizzie’s confidence, would have been impossible in Fanny’s situation. She negotiates a precarious position with careful wisdom, I think.
I worry, though, that the pug might well have entered too boldly on the misguided theatre project (especially if treats were provided). He might have led them all further astray…
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I, too, look forward to future posts from you, Rose. Thanks so much for this one — I’m so glad you decided to read the complete Mansfield Park.
Love your point about Lady Bertram’s pug. You might be interested in this essay by Sally Palmer, who suggests that Austen’s “ambivalent positioning of the lapdog, so ripe with analogies and symbols, at the epicenter of Mansfield Park seems deliberately done” (http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol25no1/palmer.html).
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Dear Rose,
I enjoyed all of your impressions of Mansfield Park especially the thought of Pug as a protagonist. You are destined to be a writer!
Regarding your adversion to the intertwining of first cousins –
Many modern readers have difficulty with the romance/marriage of Edmund Bertram and Fanny Price precisely for this reason. Marriage between cousins, however, had been perfectly legal in England since Henry VIII broke away from Rome and because first cousin marriage was forbidden in Catholic countries, it came to signify commitment to the Church of England.
Another appeal of first-cousin marriages during that time was the desire to centralize family wealth and property so by the Regency period, first cousin marriages were very common with Jane Austen’s own family containing several examples …..and just look at the first cousins that Jane Austen presents as marriage partners in her novels – Darcy and Anne de Bourgh, the well-meaning Mr. Collins and the Bennet sisters, Mr. Willam Walter Elliot and my beloved Anne Elliot.
Currently, in America, about one half of the states legally allow first-cousin marriages and on a global level, about 10% of marriages worldwide are believed to be between first cousins. Most people worry about the deleterious genetic effect to the offspring of a consanguineous marriage but it is no more risky for the baby than if the mother is age 40 at birth. A woman’s use of cigarettes, alchohol, marijuana, or cocaine posses a much greater risk to the fetus than a marriage to a first cousin.
Knowing all of this, I will wait patiently for you to write a sequel where it is revealed that by some twist of fate Fanny and Edmund are not first cousins.
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