Any other love for Mansfield Park?
Anyone else feel Mansfield Park is cruelly underrated?
Pride And Prejudice instantly became one of my favorite novels when I first read it two years ago. I finally decided to explore the rest of Austen's work and spent this winter reading her other books. To my surprise, Mansfield Park, which I knew had a reputation as her least popular book, became my favorite. I assumed its reputation was due to the references to the slave trade, but some digging showed me critics had a lot more issues: the heroine is too perfect and makes no mistakes, the romance is poorly written, it's too didactic, etc. Some crazy reviewer even saw Mary Crawford as having the typical personality of an Austen heroine, comparing her to Elizabeth Bennet (because we can all picture Lizzie planning to marry the eldest son of a Baronet for his inheritance, wishing someone would die so someone else would inherit his money and title, wishing a man good luck in seducing her innocent friend, and proudly displaying her ignorance of country life, right?). Although some of the novel's critics have a point, I can't help but feel that some of them severely misjudge it.
Mansfield Park is different from all of Austen's other novels, I have to concede, but I find it more realistic. The heroine comes from a poor family with more children than the incompetent mother can handle. Some others like the Dashwood sisters and the Elliots go through periods of relative financial strain but still perfectly comfortable; none of them seem exposed to the genuine poverty Fanny Price grew up in, and none but Catherine Morland with as many siblings to worry about. Fanny also endures eight years of psychological abuse from her rich relatives who cannot emphasize enough her inadequacy and lack of worth next to her cousins; except from Edmund, any affection is tempered with a reminder to "know her place." The narrator assures us the Bertrams don't mean to be, cruel, of course, but the same cannot be said of her aunt Norris...
Oh, how I LOATHE Mrs. Norris! I haven't hated a literary antagonist this much except Miss Minchin of A Little Princess, and I've certainly never hated an Austen antagonist this much, no matter how much the likes of Lady Catherine and Mrs. Ferrars disgust me. Why does she do everything she can to prevent her niece from being happy? Did her magic mirror tell her she's the fairest one of all? Mrs. Norris is just so despicably cruel, I wanted to claw my way into the pages and strangle her!
Fanny's painfully realistic reaction to her circumstances is probably what drew me into the book so much. Audiences (of the female variety, at least) seem to have an incredible tolerance for male characters who have suffered a lot in the past or had a crappy childhood, even villains; female characters who suffer, even heroines, seem to get a lot less leeway. Yes, Fanny is quiet, passive, timid, obedient, and tries to fade into the background, unwilling to even consider that her wants or needs deserve to be met or that she is capable of acting on her own... but what else would you expect from a girl raised to believe she has no right to be happy and treated like she's unworthy of love and affection (at least, less than the other children around her)? It's depressing, but nothing for feminists to complain about, and certainly not boring imho.
Actually, Fanny's personality makes the moment when she finally stands up for herself all the more impressive to me. She's been conditioned to believe she has no right to stand up for herself, so when she adamantly refuses to back down and accept Henry Crawford, it requires more strength and resolution than for a confident girl like Elizabeth Bennet when rejecting Mr. Collins. And yet, her judgement in her critical decision is probably one of critics' complaints about her; Fanny judges correctly where other characters judge wrongly, so she's apparently too perfect to tolerate. If the novel spent a lot of time sermonizing about this, it would be a problem, but no mention is made of this at all. Nobody acknowledges Fanny has the right to issue a proverbial "I told you so" when Crawford shows his true colors. It's just there for us to see and admire the heroine for without being told to.
I don't find the novel any more didactic than Austen's others, and the romance is written in the same manner as most of her others, too - off-screen. The only romance we really follow from start to finish is in Pride And Prejudice; in most others, we know the final couple is attracted to each other without much dwelling on why, and we don't get to follow along for the walk where they confess their feelings, the proposal is made, and they make their plans. I've grown to like this pattern, although it surprised me at first, and I was used to it after seeing Edward Ferrars' proposal to Elinor Dashwood, Marianne's entire development of feelings for Colonel Brandon, and Henry Tilney's proposal to Catherine Morland conspicuously skipped over. Nothing could be more natural than for the development of Edmund's feelings for Fanny and their courtship to be completely skipped over in an Austen novel.
Maybe the novel is considered morally didactic because the virtuous heroine, after so much suffering, enduring so much emotional abuse and deprivation of affection, is rewarded for her virtue instead of suffering the consequences of a mistake like Elizabeth's misjudgement of Darcy and Wickham or marianne's overindulgence in her feelings. I think this gives it the perfect balance of realism and hope, while lamenting how virtue should be admired more than fortune and title than it generally is. Isn't that one of the points of Persuasion, too?
I'm looking for more Austen fans out there who appreciate the realism of Mansfield Park and can see its heroine's strength in the midst of her tragic weaknesses, maybe even sympathize with her. Or even more logical explanations of what there is to dislike.