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Mansfield Park |
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| Book: Paperback | 129 x 198mm | 480 pages | ISBN 9780141439808 | 27 Feb 2003 | Penguin Classic |
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Edited with an introduction by Kathryn Sutherland
Contains the original introduction by Tony Tanner
Based on the first edition text of 1814
Chronology and further reading
Introduction
(An exclusive guide to Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, written by Karen Joy Fowler and excerpted from The Jane Austen Book Club)
Northanger Abbey was written in the late 1790s, but published only posthumously. It is the story of a deliberately ordinary heroine named Catherine Morland. The book is divided into two parts. In the first, Catherine travels with family friends, the Allens, to Bath. There she meets two brother-sister pairs—John and Isabella Thorpe, and Henry and Eleanor Tilney. Her own brother, James, joins them and becomes engaged to Isabella. Catherine is attracted to Henry, a clergyman with witty and unorthodox manners.
General Tilney, father to Henry and Eleanor, invites Catherine to visit them at home; this visit makes up the second half of the book. The General is at once solicitous and overbearing. Under the spell of the gothic novel she has been reading, Catherine imagines he has murdered his wife. Henry discovers this and sets her humiliatingly straight.
Catherine receives a letter from James telling her that Isabella has ended their engagement. General Tilney, upon returning from London, has Catherine thrown out, to make her own way home. It is eventually understood that Catherine and James had been mistaken for people of great wealth, but the situation has been clarified.
Henry is so outraged by his father's behavior that he follows immediately after Catherine and proposes marriage. They cannot proceed without his father's permission, but this is finally given in the happy madness of Eleanor's marriage to a viscount.
Discussion Questions
Mansfield Park was written after a silence of more than a decade. During this period, Austen moved several times, saw the deaths of her father and a potential suitor, and became the dependent old maid we find so often among her more pitiable characters. The Napoleonic Wars continued; England embarked on imperialistic adventures. Austen followed both with interest. Do you see evidence of these things in the novel?
At the heart of its plot, Mansfield Park has three sisters. What kind of family life do you imagine would account for Mrs. Bertram and Mrs. Norris and Mrs. Price? Find something good to say about Mrs. Norris.
Fanny is an Austen heroine who, throughout the course of the book, has nothing to learn. In this she stands in sharp contrast to Emma Woodhouse. Do you like Fanny as well as you like Emma? Less? More?
In one of the book's most famous scenes, Fanny sits wilted in the heat at the Rushworth's estate, while the other characters come and go around her. Discuss the ways this epitomizes the entire plot of the book.
The various roles played in The Lover's Vows often result in Austen characters who are, under the cover of the play, allowed to act in ways more congruent with their real natures than polite society permits. They perform themselves.
Meanwhile, William H. Galperin suggests that, when Fanny Price insists she cannot act, she is actually demonstrating her "inability to know one is always acting." Galperin speaks of "a fundamental duplicity in which one literally performs one's inability to act." Think about this until your head explodes.
Plato has suggested that one cannot be both a good actor and a good citizen. What do you imagine he meant? Discuss the relevance of this to Mansfield Park.
In most books, the villains are identifiable through their mistreatment of the hero/heroine. In Mansfield Park, the Crawfords are among the tiny handful of people who see the value of Fanny Price. Are they ever unkind to her? Why is Fanny so little moved by their interest and esteem? In your opinion, is any of this esteem genuine?
The Crawfords are superficially the most attractive characters in the book. Where do their virtues become vices? Answer the same question with regard to Fanny and Edmund.
Kingsley Amis said, "Edmund and Fanny are both morally detestable and the endorsement of their feelings and behavior by the author...makes Mansfield Park an immoral book." Do you agree? Is there any difference in your mind between Austen herself and the book's narrator?
Earlier Austen novels suggest a society in positive transformation; earlier heroines struggle towards the possibility of improvement. In contrast, Mansfield Park is about a society threatened with transformation. Fanny Price makes no positive movement. She protects Mansfield Park by her resistance, by her refusal to change. In the end, the society represented by the estate of Mansfield Park will not and cannot be saved? What in that society seemed valuable to you? Is there anything to regret about its loss?
‘These modern editions are to be strongly recommended for their scrupulous texts, informative notes and helpful introductions’
Brian Southam, the Jane Austen Society
Chapter I
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.
All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match,
and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least
three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it.
She had two sisters to be benefited by her elevation;
and such of their acquaintance as thought Miss Ward and Miss
Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria, did not scruple
to predict their marrying with almost equal advantage.
But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune
in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.
Miss Ward, at the end of half a dozen years, found
herself obliged to be attached to the Rev. Mr. Norris,
a friend of her brother-in-law, with scarcely any
private fortune, and Miss Frances fared yet worse.
Miss Ward's match, indeed, when it came to the point,
was not contemptible: Sir Thomas being happily able
to give his friend an income in the living of Mansfield;
and Mr. and Mrs. Norris began their career of conjugal
felicity with very little less than a thousand a year.
But Miss Frances married, in the common phrase,
to disoblige her family, and by fixing on a lieutenant
of marines, without education, fortune, or connexions,
did it very thoroughly. She could hardly have made
a more untoward choice. Sir Thomas Bertram had interest,
which, from principle as well as pride—from a general
wish of doing right, and a desire of seeing all that were
connected with him in situations of respectability,
he would have been glad to exert for the advantage
of Lady Bertram's sister; but her husband's profession
was such as no interest could reach; and before he
had time to devise any other method of assisting them,
an absolute breach between the sisters had taken place.
It was the natural result of the conduct of each party,
and such as a very imprudent marriage almost always produces.
To save herself from useless remonstrance, Mrs. Price never
wrote to her family on the subject till actually married.
Lady Bertram, who was a woman of very tranquil feelings,
and a temper remarkably easy and indolent, would have
contented herself with merely giving up her sister,
and thinking no more of the matter; but Mrs. Norris
had a spirit of activity, which could not be satisfied
till she had written a long and angry letter to Fanny,
to point out the folly of her conduct, and threaten
her with all its possible ill consequences. Mrs. Price,
in her turn, was injured and angry; and an answer,
which comprehended each sister in its bitterness, and bestowed
such very disrespectful reflections on the pride of Sir
Thomas as Mrs. Norris could not possibly keep to herself,
put an end to all intercourse between them for a considerable
period.
Their homes were so distant, and the circles in which they
moved so distinct, as almost to preclude the means of ever
hearing of each other's existence during the eleven
following years, or, at least, to make it very wonderful
to Sir Thomas that Mrs. Norris should ever have it
in her power to tell them, as she now and then did,
in an angry voice, that Fanny had got another child.
By the end of eleven years, however, Mrs. Price could no
longer afford to cherish pride or resentment, or to lose one
connexion that might possibly assist her. A large and still
increasing family, an husband disabled for active service,
but not the less equal to company and good liquor, and a
very small income to supply their wants, made her eager
to regain the friends she had so carelessly sacrificed;
and she addressed Lady Bertram in a letter which spoke
so much contrition and despondence, such a superfluity
of children, and such a want of almost everything else,
as could not but dispose them all to a reconciliation.
She was preparing for her ninth lying-in; and after
bewailing the circumstance, and imploring their countenance
as sponsors to the expected child, she could not conceal
how important she felt they might be to the future
maintenance of the eight already in being. Her eldest
was a boy of ten years old, a fine spirited fellow,
who longed to be out in the world; but what could she do?
Was there any chance of his being hereafter useful to Sir
Thomas in the concerns of his West Indian property?
No situation would be beneath him—or what did Sir Thomas
think of Woolwich? or how could a boy be sent out to
the East?
The letter was not unproductive. It re-established
peace and kindness. Sir Thomas sent friendly
advice and professions, Lady Bertram dispatched
money and baby-linen, and Mrs. Norris wrote the letters.
Such were its immediate effects, and within a twelvemonth
a more important advantage to Mrs. Price resulted from it.
Mrs. Norris was often observing to the others that she
could not get her poor sister and her family out of
her head, and that, much as they had all done for her,
she seemed to be wanting to do more; and at length she
could not but own it to be her wish that poor Mrs. Price
should be relieved from the charge and expense of one child
entirely out of her great number. "What if they were
among them to undertake the care of her eldest daughter,
a girl now nine years old, of an age to require more
attention than her poor mother could possibly give?
The trouble and expense of it to them would be nothing,
compared with the benevolence of the action." Lady Bertram
agreed with her instantly. "I think we cannot do better,"
said she; "let us send for the child."
Sir Thomas could not give so instantaneous and unqualified
a consent. He debated and hesitated;—it was a serious charge;—
a girl so brought up must be adequately provided for,
or there would be cruelty instead of kindness in taking
her from her family. He thought of his own four children—of his two sons—of cousins in love, etc.;—but no sooner
had he deliberately begun to state his objections,
than Mrs. Norris interrupted him with a reply to them all,
whether stated or not.
"My dear Sir Thomas, I perfectly comprehend you, and do
justice to the generosity and delicacy of your notions,
which indeed are quite of a piece with your general conduct;
and I entirely agree with you in the main as to the propriety
of doing everything one could by way of providing for a
child one had in a manner taken into one's own hands;
and I am sure I should be the last person in the world to
withhold my mite upon such an occasion. Having no children
of my own, who should I look to in any little matter I
may ever have to bestow, but the children of my sisters?—
and I am sure Mr. Norris is too just—but you know I am
a woman of few words and professions. Do not let us
be frightened from a good deed by a trifle. Give a girl
an education, and introduce her properly into the world,
and ten to one but she has the means of settling well,
without farther expense to anybody. A niece of ours,
Sir Thomas, I may say, or at least of yours, would not
grow up in this neighbourhood without many advantages.
I don't say she would be so handsome as her cousins.
I dare say she would not; but she would be introduced into
the society of this country under such very favourable
circumstances as, in all human probability, would get her
a creditable establishment. You are thinking of your sons—
but do not you know that, of all things upon earth,
that is the least likely to happen, brought up as they
would be, always together like brothers and sisters?
It is morally impossible. I never knew an instance of it.
It is, in fact, the only sure way of providing against
the connexion. Suppose her a pretty girl, and seen by Tom
or Edmund for the first time seven years hence, and I dare
say there would be mischief. The very idea of her having
been suffered to grow up at a distance from us all in poverty
and neglect, would be enough to make either of the dear,
sweet-tempered boys in love with her. But breed her up
with them from this time, and suppose her even to have the
beauty of an angel, and she will never be more to either than
a sister."
"There is a great deal of truth in what you say,"
replied Sir Thomas, "and far be it from me to throw any
fanciful impediment in the way of a plan which would be
so consistent with the relative situations of each. I only
meant to observe that it ought not to be lightly engaged in,
and that to make it really serviceable to Mrs. Price,
and creditable to ourselves, we must secure to the child,
or consider ourselves engaged to secure to her hereafter,
as circumstances may arise, the provision of a gentlewoman,
if no such establishment should offer as you are so sanguine
in expecting."
"I thoroughly understand you," cried Mrs. Norris,
"you are everything that is generous and considerate,
and I am sure we shall never disagree on this point.
Whatever I can do, as you well know, I am always ready
enough to do for the good of those I love; and, though I
could never feel for this little girl the hundredth
part of the regard I bear your own dear children,
nor consider her, in any respect, so much my own,
I should hate myself if I were capable of neglecting her.
Is not she a sister's child? and could I bear to see
her want while I had a bit of bread to give her?
My dear Sir Thomas, with all my faults I have a warm heart;
and, poor as I am, would rather deny myself the necessaries
of life than do an ungenerous thing. So, if you are not
against it, I will write to my poor sister tomorrow,
and make the proposal; and, as soon as matters are settled,
Iwill engage to get the child to Mansfield; you shall
have no trouble about it. My own trouble, you know,
I never regard. I will send Nanny to London on purpose,
and she may have a bed at her cousin the saddler's, and the
child be appointed to meet her there. They may easily get
her from Portsmouth to town by the coach, under the care
of any creditable person that may chance to be going.
I dare say there is always some reputable tradesman's wife
or other going up."
Except to the attack on Nanny's cousin, Sir Thomas no longer
made any objection, and a more respectable, though less
economical rendezvous being accordingly substituted,
everything was considered as settled, and the pleasures
of so benevolent a scheme were already enjoyed.
The division of gratifying sensations ought not,
in strict justice, to have been equal; for Sir Thomas was
fully resolved to be the real and consistent patron of the
selected child, and Mrs. Norris had not the least intention
of being at any expense whatever in her maintenance.
As far as walking, talking, and contriving reached,
she was thoroughly benevolent, and nobody knew better
how to dictate liberality to others; but her love of money
was equal to her love of directing, and she knew quite as
well how to save her own as to spend that of her friends.
Having married on a narrower income than she had been
used to look forward to, she had, from the first,
fancied a very strict line of economy necessary;
and what was begun as a matter of prudence, soon grew
into a matter of choice, as an object of that needful
solicitude which there were no children to supply.
Had there been a family to provide for, Mrs. Norris might
never have saved her money; but having no care of that kind,
there was nothing to impede her frugality, or lessen the
comfort of making a yearly addition to an income which they
had never lived up to. Under this infatuating principle,
counteracted by no real affection for her sister,
it was impossible for her to aim at more than the credit
of projecting and arranging so expensive a charity;
though perhaps she might so little know herself as to
walk home to the Parsonage, after this conversation,
in the happy belief of being the most liberal-minded
sister and aunt in the world.
When the subject was brought forward again, her views
were more fully explained; and, in reply to Lady Bertram's
calm inquiry of "Where shall the child come to first,
sister, to you or to us?" Sir Thomas heard with some
surprise that it would be totally out of Mrs. Norris's
power to take any share in the personal charge of her.
He had been considering her as a particularly welcome
addition at the Parsonage, as a desirable companion
to an aunt who had no children of her own; but he found
himself wholly mistaken. Mrs. Norris was sorry to say
that the little girl's staying with them, at least
as things then were, was quite out of the question.
Poor Mr. Norris's indifferent state of health made it
an impossibility: he could no more bear the noise of a child
than he could fly; if, indeed, he should ever get well
of his gouty complaints, it would be a different matter:
she should then be glad to take her turn, and think nothing
of the inconvenience; but just now, poor Mr. Norris
took up every moment of her time, and the very mention
of such a thing she was sure would distract him.
"Then she had better come to us," said Lady Bertram,
with the utmost composure. After a short pause Sir Thomas
added with dignity, "Yes, let her home be in this house.
We will endeavour to do our duty by her, and she will,
at least, have the advantage of companions of her own age,
and of a regular instructress."
"Very true," cried Mrs. Norris, "which are both very
important considerations; and it will be just the same
to Miss Lee whether she has three girls to teach,
or only two—there can be no difference. I only wish I
could be more useful; but you see I do all in my power.
I am not one of those that spare their own trouble;
and Nanny shall fetch her, however it may put me
to inconvenience to have my chief counsellor away for
three days. I suppose, sister, you will put the child
in the little white attic, near the old nurseries.
It will be much the best place for her, so near Miss Lee,
and not far from the girls, and close by the housemaids,
who could either of them help to dress her, you know,
and take care of her clothes, for I suppose you would not
think it fair to expect Ellis to wait on her as well as
the others. Indeed, I do not see that you could possibly
place her anywhere else."
Lady Bertram made no opposition.
"I hope she will prove a well-disposed girl,"
continued Mrs. Norris, "and be sensible of her uncommon
good fortune in having such friends."
"Should her disposition be really bad," said Sir Thomas,
"we must not, for our own children's sake, continue her
in the family; but there is no reason to expect so great
an evil. We shall probably see much to wish altered
in her, and must prepare ourselves for gross ignorance,
some meanness of opinions, and very distressing vulgarity
of manner; but these are not incurable faults—nor, I trust,
can they be dangerous for her associates. Had my daughters
been younger than herself, I should have considered
the introduction of such a companion as a matter of very
serious moment; but, as it is, I hope there can be nothing
to fear for them, and everything to hope for her,
from the association."
"That is exactly what I think," cried Mrs. Norris,
"and what I was saying to my husband this morning.
It will be an education for the child, said I, only being
with her cousins; if Miss Lee taught her nothing, she would
learn to be good and clever from them."
"I hope she will not tease my poor pug," said Lady Bertram;
"I have but just got Julia to leave it alone."
"There will be some difficulty in our way, Mrs. Norris,"
observed Sir Thomas, "as to the distinction proper to be made
between the girls as they grow up: how to preserve in the
minds of my daughters the consciousness of what they are,
without making them think too lowly of their cousin;
and how, without depressing her spirits too far,
to make her remember that she is not a Miss Bertram.
I should wish to see them very good friends, and would,
on no account, authorise in my girls the smallest degree
of arrogance towards their relation; but still they cannot
be equals. Their rank, fortune, rights, and expectations
will always be different. It is a point of great delicacy,
and you must assist us in our endeavours to choose exactly
the right line of conduct."
Mrs. Norris was quite at his service; and though she
perfectly agreed with him as to its being a most
difficult thing, encouraged him to hope that between
them it would be easily managed.
It will be readily believed that Mrs. Norris did not write
to her sister in vain. Mrs. Price seemed rather surprised
that a girl should be fixed on, when she had so many fine boys,
but accepted the offer most thankfully, assuring them of her
daughter's being a very well-disposed, good-humoured girl,
and trusting they would never have cause to throw her off.
She spoke of her farther as somewhat delicate and puny,
but was sanguine in the hope of her being materially better
for change of air. Poor woman! she probably thought
change of air might agree with many of her children.
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Author interviews
