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Fanny Price is born to a poor family, but is sent to her mother's rich relations to be brought up with her cousins. There she is treated as an inferior by all except her cousin Edmund, whose kindness towards her earns him her steadfast love. Fanny is quiet and obedient and does not come into her own until her elder cousins leave the estate following a scandalous play put on in their father's absence. Fanny's loyalty and love is tested by the beautiful Crawford siblings. But their essentially weak natures and morals show them for what they really are, and allow Fanny to gain the one thing she truly desires.
It's never quite specified what exactly ails Fanny Price, the heroine of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, but she's physically weak and often sickly, and can't walk very far before she needs to rest. Maybe asthma? Whatever it is, it's likely something that could be treated easily if she'd lived in today's world. Oh well. She is the way she is. And maybe it plays into her personality, for she's as retiring emotionally as she is physically. It takes Fanny, a naturally shy creature, quite a while to adjust when her aunt, Lady Bertram, decides to relieve her sister (Mrs. Price) of one of her many children to help ease her financial burdens, and Fanny's taken out of her familiar home and brought to the country estate of Mansfield Park to be raised alongside (but not quite the same as) her cousins, Frederick and Edmund and Maria and Julia.
Of the lively Bertram children, it is only Edmund that makes the effort to draw Fanny out of her shell, and so by the time she becomes a young woman of marriageable age, she's of course quietly-but-devotedly in love with him. To the rest of the family, she's sort of halfway one of their own. But things turn upside down when a new parson arrives, complete with his wife and her half-siblings: Henry and Mary Crawford. They're Londoners, and have city attitudes that contrast sharply with Fanny and her country morals. Henry's flirtations nearly break up one of the Bertram girls' happy engagements, while Mary and Edmund begin to grow closer despite her concerns that his planned future, as a clergyman, won't be lucrative enough to sustain her in the lifestyle she'd like to lead. And then Henry, to amuse himself, decides to try to make Fanny fall in love with him...only to find that he's the one who grows besotted. Since this is Austen, it ends with a happily made marriage and everyone getting more or less what they deserve.
Those who like to read Jane Austen for her sparkling, witty female leads, like Eliza Bennett or Emma Woodhouse, will be disappointed here: Fanny Price is more like Elinor Dashwood, but with the fun quotient dialed down to almost zero. I'm glad I didn't read this book until I was in my 30s, because I think if I'd read it when I was younger I would have found her so tiresome and boring I would have put the book down. That's my most significant criticism of the book: Fanny can be hard to root for, even though we're clearly supposed to. She's definitely sympathetic, but she's also kind of a stick-in-the-mud. She always always behaves appropriately and is horrified by transgressions of her strict moral code. At the end of the day, I found her good heart outweighed the irritation of her teacher's pet persona, but I can imagine plenty of readers finding it hard to really like her and therefore really like the book.
But even though "bad kids" Henry and Mary are much more interesting than our protagonist, I still very much enjoyed reading this book. Jane Austen's turns of phrase and lively wit are just as much a part of this book as they are her others, and it's her quality of writing that I find enjoyable more than her characters anyways. It's maybe a trifle overlong. If you haven't read her work before, I wouldn't recommend starting here, because it's one of her slower books (start with Sense and Sensibility instead). But if you have read her and like her and wonder if you should read this, too, I do recommend it. ( )
It has been far too long since I first read this book. Each rereading of a great book brings additional pleasure and additional understanding. This book will be discussed at BYU Education Week August 2021, so I revisited it.
Review from my First Reading
It is a delight to read these older books which have words such as: charity, humility, grace, charm, virtue, kindness; these kind of words have so much disappeared from our everyday discourse but yet these are words that bring joy, words that are delightful to get reacquainted with. It is so nice to read a book that uses discourse different from our "modern" everyday conversation. I enjoy reading classic literature.
Because it is Jane Austen, I had something of an idea how the book would end. Still, I was in a fair amount of suspense because I hadn't read any book summaries, and thus wasn't sure which way it would go. ( )
So many reviews, this is just a note to myself. I enjoyed the read, Austen has a way with words that no one else does. However, I didn't love anyone in this book and so was not invested in the story. ( )
Come on now, why is Pride and Prejudice Austen’s most beloved novel when Mansfield Park is so much better! No, I know, Elizabeth Bennett is far more witty and lively than Fanny Price, who, uh, isn’t either of those things. Mr. Darcy is far more dreamy than Edmund Bertram, who is rather a bore. And the love story in P&P throws sparks all over the damn place, while the main love story in Mansfield Park is so not the point that it only gets a desultory narrator’s treatment in the last couple of pages of a 400 page novel. I imagine Austen going “Yeah, okay, you expect it, so here it is, it happens, whatever.”
Mansfield Park though is a far more complex novel, wide ranging, touching on issues like nature vs nurture, ethical vs factual education, the identity and nature of home, even the slave trade and the moral quandary of indirectly benefitting from the morally indefensible, for good measure. Meanwhile, Fanny suffers nobly as a bit of a doormat, but then resists what she knows is bad, although materially highly rewarding, with an admirably stubborn and immovable will, while her cousins from the rich side of the family make poor decisions and completely fall apart. She’s the steady and under-appreciated bit of good surrounded by glitz and glam, an underdog worth rooting for. ( )
About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.
Quotations
But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them.
It is Fanny that I think of all day and dream of all night.
Last words
On that event they removed to Mansfield, and the parsonage there, which under each of its two former owners, Fanny had never been able to approach but with some painful sensation of restraint or alarm, soon grew as dear to her heart, and as thoroughly perfect in her eyes, as every thing else, within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park, had long been.
Fanny Price is born to a poor family, but is sent to her mother's rich relations to be brought up with her cousins. There she is treated as an inferior by all except her cousin Edmund, whose kindness towards her earns him her steadfast love. Fanny is quiet and obedient and does not come into her own until her elder cousins leave the estate following a scandalous play put on in their father's absence. Fanny's loyalty and love is tested by the beautiful Crawford siblings. But their essentially weak natures and morals show them for what they really are, and allow Fanny to gain the one thing she truly desires.
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Book description
Adopted by the rich Bertrams, Fanny finds her bold cousins are daunting, her aunts and the remote Sir Thomas intimidating. Only thoughtful Edmund recognises her qualities and helps to improve her lot. But when the delightful Mr and Miss Crawford arrive to enliven the family group, even he dismisses Fanny's reservations. At first all is excitement and pleasure. Gradually, however, the effects of recklessness and selfishness accumulate. As Fanny's unswerving integrity and quiet strength become the support of the shattered family, she finds a happiness she could not have anticipated. While displaying the sparkle and clarity for which Jane Austen is renowned, the tone here is often sober and uncompromising. The issues of probity and responsibility are explored, alongside the often unhappy complexities of family life, in a considerable and profoundly satisfying novel.
Haiku summary
A maid of pure heart, Enduring persecution, Her wisdom triumphs. (hillaryrose7)
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Discussion Thread: Mansfield Park
Wikipedia in English (1)
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Of the lively Bertram children, it is only Edmund that makes the effort to draw Fanny out of her shell, and so by the time she becomes a young woman of marriageable age, she's of course quietly-but-devotedly in love with him. To the rest of the family, she's sort of halfway one of their own. But things turn upside down when a new parson arrives, complete with his wife and her half-siblings: Henry and Mary Crawford. They're Londoners, and have city attitudes that contrast sharply with Fanny and her country morals. Henry's flirtations nearly break up one of the Bertram girls' happy engagements, while Mary and Edmund begin to grow closer despite her concerns that his planned future, as a clergyman, won't be lucrative enough to sustain her in the lifestyle she'd like to lead. And then Henry, to amuse himself, decides to try to make Fanny fall in love with him...only to find that he's the one who grows besotted. Since this is Austen, it ends with a happily made marriage and everyone getting more or less what they deserve.
Those who like to read Jane Austen for her sparkling, witty female leads, like Eliza Bennett or Emma Woodhouse, will be disappointed here: Fanny Price is more like Elinor Dashwood, but with the fun quotient dialed down to almost zero. I'm glad I didn't read this book until I was in my 30s, because I think if I'd read it when I was younger I would have found her so tiresome and boring I would have put the book down. That's my most significant criticism of the book: Fanny can be hard to root for, even though we're clearly supposed to. She's definitely sympathetic, but she's also kind of a stick-in-the-mud. She always always behaves appropriately and is horrified by transgressions of her strict moral code. At the end of the day, I found her good heart outweighed the irritation of her teacher's pet persona, but I can imagine plenty of readers finding it hard to really like her and therefore really like the book.
But even though "bad kids" Henry and Mary are much more interesting than our protagonist, I still very much enjoyed reading this book. Jane Austen's turns of phrase and lively wit are just as much a part of this book as they are her others, and it's her quality of writing that I find enjoyable more than her characters anyways. It's maybe a trifle overlong. If you haven't read her work before, I wouldn't recommend starting here, because it's one of her slower books (start with Sense and Sensibility instead). But if you have read her and like her and wonder if you should read this, too, I do recommend it. (