Jane Austen discussion

Finally Fanny finds a friend in her sister Susan, but otherwise she isn't having a great time in Portsmouth. Guess who comes visit? Henry! But Fanny does start to warm to him...

I think, if Henry had continued to try, eventually Fanny may have almost warmed up to the idea. Or at the least she wouldn't have considered him quite so annoying. :-)

It isn't believable to me that after seeing Fanny's family of origin that he-HC still wants that connection. It just seems to far -fetched in rank and class obsessed England of that time period. It's one thing to have it pointed out repeatedly that Fanny is a " poor relation," but to see her with those parents and to see that house!

Also, I had to chuckle to myself when Fanny went into the postage-stamp sized "parlor" and looked for a door to use to enter the "real" parlor. I think the constant noise even made Fanny look at aunt Norris in a different light.

My take was Henry really had fallen for her. At least in his warped, selfish mind. Likely it had more to do with the fact that she didn't care for him AT ALL. What else could explain having met Fanny's insane parents and he still pines for her. :-)

I also find it rather humorous that during his pursuit of Fanny he actually starts turning into a not that bad sort of fellow. He even takes a stronger interest in his own affairs. Of course, Henry being Henry, that can't last forever.... ;-)

I wonder how Henry's relationship with Mary would end up after everything was all over? I would think THAT would finally put a strain on their relationship.

@Valshar

I'm not sure that I understand what will put a strain on MC/HCs relationship.

I think if Mary Crawford thought about things in a proper way it would have strained she and Henry's relationship, but I think she doesn't blame him for what's happened. Instead she blames Maria, and Fanny the most, but then also Sir Thomas for how he deals with it. Basically she blames everybody other than Henry!

In MC's eye, her bro can do no wrong. At one point, before Mary departs while saying goodbye, she tells Fanny that that feelings of the young women HC has hurt don't matter bec none of them (young women) are worth anything except for Fanny herself.

Yes, Mary does have a bit of a rose colored view of that rascal Henry. I'm just wondering if she'd finally get a clue on that front once it cost her Edmund.

But it probably wouldn't. :-)

@Valshar

I think that she has a rose-colored view of big bro and he can do no wrong bec he treats her well. They have a surprisingly good relationship. I think he knows what is right and what is wrong. However, his modus operandi has been to choose to amuse himself at other's expense--to do wrong.

Morally, Mary's options and views are lacking, but she is practical in most of what she says. If Fanny had accepted Henry's proposal he wouldn't have been in London and available to elope with Maria. Plus, if Sir Thomas had left Maria with HC perhaps a marriage could have been arranged, but without the leverage of her living with him, it doesn't happen.

Also interesting that Henry opts not to marry Maria as she was.. however Austen more eloquently put it, responsible for him losing Fanny.

Have to hand to Henry on that point. There is a guy so caught up with himself he blames Maria for HIS choice. As if he had no say in the matter! Unbelievable!! :-)

I think we all know people like that, who take no responsibility for their own decisions. Everything they do wrong is somebody else's fault, because (insert excuse here).

That's the real beauty of Austen's work. So many of the characters are like people we've all met. We've all known Henry's, Maria's, Lady Bertrams... I've even met someone best described as a Mrs Norris clone.

Except for the heroines. Haven't run into any Fanny's yet.

I've met men that are perilously close to Mr Knightley however. So perhaps there's still hope I'll run into an Austen-esque heroine at some point. I can dream anyway! :-)

I agree with you Valshar, it's one of the reasons I first fell in love with Austen's work, her characters are so real, which helps me relate to them and understand them and feel like I know them.

Just found an amazing passage in chapter 42. Jane Austen so rarely describes nature, and even more rarely for its own sake, instead of as a way to further the plot. "It was really March; but it was April in its mild air, brisk soft wind, and bright sun, occasionally clouded for a minute; and every thing looked so beautiful under the influence of such a sky, the effects of the shadows pursuing each other, on the ships at Spithead and the island beyond, with the ever-varying hues of the sea now at high water, dancing in its glee and dashing against the ramparts with so fine a sound, produced altogether such a combination of charms for Fanny, as made her gradually almost careless of the circumstances under which she felt them."

That is an amazing passage. It goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: Austen was incredible. :-)

@Abigail

What a lovely passage. Such description!

Yeah, it surprised me especially because scholars tend to say the JA wasn't influenced by the Romantic movement till Persuasion, that in the novels before she made some bows to notions of the Picturesque (what are young men to rocks and mountains, or however the passage goes in P&P), but without any real feeling. There's true love for the sea here, not just for seamen like her brothers.

There's a fascinating analysis of Mansfield Park in The Telegraph. Somewhat spoilerish, if you haven't finished the book.

An excerpt:

Mansfield Park is pioneering because it is a novel about meritocracy. Austen repeatedly emphasises the claims of innate merit and talent over social position and inherited wealth. At the beginning of the novel, Sir Thomas is keen that Fanny should know her social place; she is not to be considered “a Miss Bertram”. By the end he comes to acknowledge “the advantages of early hardship and discipline, and the consciousness of being born to struggle and endure”.

The novel is a profound exploration of the duty of parents to shape their children’s moral and spiritual development. It includes a father who is emotionally distant, his children “chilled into respect”. It reflects on the importance of home, the nature of a good education, the alienation of sons from their fathers. At the centre of the book is a displaced child with an unshakeable conscience. A true heroine.

Read the entire story here.

It's an interesting piece. I knew the Mansfield name was probably a reference to Lord Mansfield but I thought this bit was interesting:

'Jane Austen was being mischievous in using the name Norris for her villain. If the name Mansfield was synonymous with abolition, then that of Norris was known for its opposite. Robert Norris was an infamous slave trader and a byword for pro-slavery sympathies.'

Oh, I didn't know that about Norris! Just goes to show how much JA's contemporary readers would have picked up that we generally do not. I was looking for slavery references in the book during this reading, after seeing Belle and rewatching the Embeth Davidz MP, and the only overt one I found was when Sir Thomas came home and nobody was really interested in his experiences except Fanny, who asked him directly about the trade (an early indication of her confidence when it comes to ethical issues that underlies her timidity).

I really liked the excerpt you posted, Lady Wesley--it reinforces what has long been my view of all her novels, that natural merit is a central theme in them all. It's interesting because JA was supposed to have been a Tory, but she certainly loses no opportunity to undercut notions of the divine right of the privileged. Lizzy Bennet's remark about Darcy being a gentleman and she being a gentleman's daughter just sweeps away centuries of the distinctions of rank, as does JA's refusal to focus on how Mr. Bingley came to be a gentleman--he is one, and that's that. Of course, she doesn't go so far as to include the working poor in her notions of equality, but that's probably because education was so important to her, and only extreme radicals in her time would have gone that far.

Lady Wesley, thank you for the link to that
article. This was my first read of MP and aside from awareness of it as a JA title, I knew nothing else about the story itself or how the book is viewed.

I think what struck me is that although Fanny does think better of Henry Crawford during his visit to Portsmouth (and the narrator points out that it’s more down to the comparison of past and present company,) she does not doubt her previous judgement of him, she attributes it to his trying to improve himself. Also instead thinking of him as a possible companion for herself, she hopes that his continued improvement will make him realise that she wants him to leave her alone. Not quite what Sir Thomas had in mind.

@Andrea. You said you found it a little unbelievable that Fanny’s family would not have repulsed Henry but don’t forget they do at least try to behave better in front of him and besides from what Mary said the manners of her uncle and his friends leave something to be desired. Of course I’m sure he intended to spend little or no time with any of them in the future and her relations at Mansfield Park are good enough, along with her own manners, that he would not likely ever be embarrassed for her.

I don’t think Henry was so much in love with Fanny as the idea of being in love with her, he had decided that he would convince her that he deserved her and was determined to win. Going by some of the things he said to his sister previously I would also guess that his behaviour gave him a sort of sense of justified superiority, he would have taken pleasure in being able to show her that he was not affected by them. I do not think there was any actual improvement in him, he was too conscious of how he was behaving and what he was saying, and his actions were guided by intellect rather than feeling.

Jane Austen certainly gives us a more balanced view of the different classes than would have been expected at that time, where most of their abilities and behaviour are very much down to their upbringing and not the circumstances of their birth, although clearly some have more potential than others.