Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict discussion

Sometimes making the innocent statement that one actually likes Fanny Price means a boatload of abuse is about to be dumped on you.

Let me just make clear that Emma is my favorite Austen heroine (for all her faults she is adorable); Elizabeth Bennet my most admired (she says what she believes and is the most thoughtful); but Fanny Price and Anne Elliot are the two heroines I identify with the most. I understand the long suffering put upon, dependable, overlooked character. Admittedly Fanny is not an exuberant, I can do anything sort of person. She’s timid and afraid of new things. But so am I.

I recently heard Fanny compared to a toad eater (or toad licker), which I found very cruel. And admittedly Mansfield Park is a difficult book and Fanny Price a difficult character to love. She is the anti-Emma, too full of her own sense of right and wrong, of duty and honor to be much fun. But I like her all the same.

To be honest, I've never really given much thought to Fanny Price. Like you said, Mansfield Park is a difficult book to love. I've read it once, and I probably won't read it again. In fact, I probably won't even watch the movie again. It's just so different from Jane's usual novels that it's very hard to read and even harder to like, in my opinion.

Your comment that Mansfield Park being different from the other novels is interesting because I find that Austen wrote books that are all different from one another. Obviously Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are the most alike, being essentially the story of two sisters in straitened circumstances who are both finding love and encountering obstacles along the way.

Persuasion is quite different, being about an older woman who gets a “do-over” with Captain Wentworth. Emma is different being a woman with superior means and at least at the beginning not superior sense. And Northanger Abbey being a Gothic send up.

And then there's Mansfield Park, which is weird in that it actually has some real connection with the larger world, what with Sir Bertram's interests in Antigua (cough, slaves, coughs), and Fanny's brother's commission in the Navy and his adventures at sea. And, of course, it’s a boatload of a book.

Of course I’m not familiar enough (or frankly at all) with Austen’s Juvenilia or unfinished works to say that her novels follow any sort of pattern.

Oddly, I found Emma a little harder to read than Mansfield Park, although I like Emma infinitely better. So I agree that MP is at the bottom of my list and probably at the bottom of most lists.

It's been a while since I've thought of Fanny, I'll have to meet her again soon!

I just wanted to add that Anne is my favorite of all characters. I guess I identify with her the most...and Persuasion is my favorite of all the books.

I have yet to read MP ... that is my next book on the list :) i hope i enjoy it as i have heard many varying opinions on it :S

Soph wrote: "I have yet to read MP ... that is my next book on the list :) i hope i enjoy it as i have heard many varying opinions on it :S"

I wish you the best of luck in reading this. I really hoped that I would like it better than I did. Of all the characters, I couldn't find one that I really liked.

I don't know if you read any Austen inspired fiction, but I really enjoyed reading Edmund Bertram's Diary by Amanda Grange as an alternate side of MP. Obviously, it's someone else's story of how Edmund sees the same events, but I enjoyed it none the less. I would recommend giving it a try after finishing MP.

Thanks Jennifer - I've heard about those have you read any of the other 'so and so's diary - Darcy for eg?

I've read both Mr. Darcy's Diary and Captain Wentworth's Diary, and I loved them both! I know that's it someone else's interpretation of how these characters would view these events, but I feel that they're very well written and well worth a try.

Thanks - I may try them next. :)

I never cared for Fanny, myself, but I actually really liked Mansfield Park. I devoured it - I think it took me a few days to read, tops. And that was back when I was a fourteen-year-old who could barely understand what they were saying.

I loved Fanny Price from the very beginning. Taken from her own family and thrown into unfamiliar surroundings with a cruel Mrs. Norris to tell her at every turn how inferior her status is and only kind Edmund to befriend her, she perseveres. Rather than reveal to Sir Thomas the inappropriate behavior of his two daughters towards Henry Crawford she takes it on the chin by simply telling him she cannot love Henry and his proposal of marriage. I consider her an almost savior-figure to the Bertrams, especially Sir Thomas. You must read Mansfield Park VERY closely to flush out the true character of Fanny Price.

I don't like Fanny very much. It's not her quiet nature that bothers me. It's her hypocrisy and inability to grow as a character that frustrates me.