What one reviewer said about Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, Maureen O'Brien:
"Mansfield Park" is a great book, and no one reviewing here has claimed otherwise. (Well, there are a few exceptions, but they're better left unmentioned.) But there has been a great clamor over the quality of its protagonist, Fanny Price. One camp has her a valiant heroine full of moral rectitude and therefore admirable. The other paints Fanny as prig, passive and odious.
I fall into the latter camp.
There are several common defensive positions taken no behalf of Fanny Price (who, I dare say, is used to having people do all the fighting for her). I've taken these positions and constructed rebuttals to them:
1) "Fanny had to be passive. She was penniless, without strong family connections, and living in a precarious position at the mercy of her guardian, Sir Thomas."
The novelist is god of her creation. Austen created Sir Thomas and Mansfield Park, took Fanny's father and turned him into a drunk, her mother into a slattern, leaving her at the mercy of the world. Fanny's passivity and helpless situation was manufactured by the author. It did not have to be so, as evidenced by Austen's other books.
2) "Fanny's morals are virtuous and to be admired, not to be discredited. She was a strong character, as evidenced by her staying true to her principles."
What are Fanny's principles? She talks bad about no one, unless someone she likes talks bad about them first. She does not laugh, speak on her own behalf, or like to be the center of attention. She is content with small things. She dislikes flirting. Basically, she disdains action, which she considers pushy and rude. And, indeed, she exhibited a constant stream of passivity throughout the book.
First, there's a literary reason why passivity fails to hold the reader. Action reveals character. A character's thoughts and speech are unreliable. It's only in the crucible of conflict we see what a character is made of - we see her make a decision and act on it. Fanny doesn't act. Or rather, her action is not to act. In literature, passivity creates a gap between a reader and a character. We don't care as much.
Then there's a socio-political reason, too. In a society where women could not hold office, vote, or own property, women were at the mercy of men. The Taliban would feel right at home in 1810s England, surrounded by women swaddled under petticoats and dresses, who had no rights of citizenship. Women were expected to be demure, passive, and pretty, like baubles. It is no wonder that modern-day sensibilities object to Fanny, who embodies that time's feminine ideal. Nowadays women can survive on their own. Who would want to go back? Fanny is in this light an ugly reminder of how things could be and, in some places, still are.
Most importantly, Fanny's passivity bogs down the narrative itself. The ending of "Mansfield Park" relies on a series of serendipitous events, none of which Fanny drives herself. First, Sir Thomas is a decent, moral character, and eventually recognizes Fanny's value, but only after a family crisis. Edmund, Fanny's love, almost marries her rival, Mary Crawford, but decides not to only after Mary botches a five-minute conversation. And none of these things happen if Sir Thomas' eldest daughter never abandons her husband on an adulterous fling. Think of the string of events that take place to create the ending! If only one of these events or characters are different, Fanny's in deep trouble! If Sir Thomas had the character of Mrs. Norris, Fanny would be on the street in no time. And while Austen constructed her book to ensure Fanny's happiness, she jumps the plot through so many flaming hoops that the end feels lame and forced.
3) "We must judge Fanny's morals in proper perspective; that is, from 1819, when Jane Austen wrote 'Mansfield Park.'"
A difficult statement that makes us question that very way we read. Should we bring our modern sensibilities to a reading of a book written almost 300 years ago? Should interpretation be based on our personal experience of the text? Yech and double yech.
But fortunately, Austen wrote other books, and we can judge her characters' morality not with our modern-day morals, but against her own.
And Fanny Price comes through like a prig.
One neat thing (among many) about Austen's books is the struggle in her women between security versus spirit. (Security to Austen means money.) Which only makes sense if we imagine how uncomfortable 1810s England was for a woman of Austen's intellect and profession, a woman who no doubt wrote novels desite its impropriety.
In "Persuasion," for example, this conflict is embodied in Anne Elliot, who loves a man her social circle disapproves of. She turned down his first marriage proposal on the advice of a family friend, but spends her life regretting the decision. And that's what the novel is about. Regret for not marrying Wentworth, for not loving, and for choosing convention over emotion. Now this is a conflict we understand. Who among us has no regrets?
In "Mansfield Park," convention and emotion agree. Which is pretty easy, actually, because Fanny exhibits so little of the latter. Fanny is spiritless. She passively watches the outcome of her life unfold before her. She does nothing to aid events along. She never laughs, jokes, or exhibits joy. I can only think that Fanny Price would be the object of disdain and pity by the other Austen heroines. And has anyone realized that Fanny resembles her aunt, Mrs. Norris? Can anyone doubt that after 30 years married to a parson, Fanny, too, will be sanctimonious and self-righteous?
Love Fanny or hate her, "Mansfield Park" still earns 5 stars.
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