Archiwum
- Index
- Dominique Adair [Jane Porter] Hot for Teacher (pdf)
- Jane Heller Szczęśliwe gwiazdy
- Lesson Plan 133 Text
- Lois McMaster Bujold 06 Ethan of Athos
- Conrad_Linda_ _Magiczne_zwierciadlo
- Burroughs, Edgar Rice Moon 1 The Moon Ma
- Gordon_Barbara_ _Gwiazdy_na_ziemi
- Morgan Sarah Naszyjnik z brylantem 2
- Alan Dean Foster The Damned 03 The Spoils of War (v1.0) (Undead)
- Holly Lisle World Gates 02 Wreck Of Heaven
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- epicusfuror.xlx.pl
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Or rather, she is concerned to show that the one is dependent on the other. And this concern is clearly
figured in her presentation of the various characters.
Running through the central sections of the book is the tension between Henry and Mary Crawford on
one side and Edmund and Fanny on the other. The Crawfords are rich, witty, socially adept; they have all
the graces that make for pleasing company; they are full of life. Fanny and Edmund, on the other hand,
can claim none of these graces. When Fanny is introduced at the start of Chapter 2, it is almost entirely in
terms of negatives not much in her appearance to captivate, nothing to disgust, no glow of complexion,
no other striking beauty, etc. and this emphasis continues through the greater part of the novel; life, the
physical business of living, always seems slightly too much for her, whether it is a question of gathering
roses or riding a horse. Edmund fares little better. "There is not the least wit in my nature," he says, and
few readers would be inclined to disagree. No other hero and heroine in Jane Austen have quite so little
humor, quite so awkward a social presence. If she was worried that Pride and Prejudice had been
"rather too light, and bright, and sparkling", as she suggested to her sister, she has certainly found the
antidote in Edmund and Fanny.
The distance we have travelled from Pride and Prejudice can be measured in the repeated use of the
single word "lively." It would be an instructive exercise to trace it through the novel. When applied to
Elizabeth Bennet, it had carried the full force of the author's approval, but in the case of Mary Crawford
the connotations are altogether different. "Your lively mind can hardly be serious even on serious
subjects," Edmund tells her in one of several exchanges that draw attention to the conflict between
liveliness and moral propriety. It comes as no surprise towards the end of the novel to hear that Maria's
disastrous liaison with Henry Crawford began after she had gone to Twickenham with "a family of lively,
agreeable manners, and probably of morals and discretion to suit." To have lively, agreeable manners in
this novel is no recommendation. The phrase neatly sums up the opposition at the heart of Mansfield
Park between what is socially agreeable and what is morally right.
Ranged around the central quartet are all the other characters who manifest in one form or another the
besetting sin of Mansfield Park a concern for social proprieties that is unsustained by any moral
foundation. There is Lady Bertram, a picture of elegant decorum, but too enervated to have any sort of
moral existence at all; Mrs. Norris, surely the nastiest of Jane Austen's creations, who voices the
appropriate sentiments for every occasion but whose words bear no relation to her actions; Julia and
Maria, the Bertram daughters, who have acquired grace of manner but not of character. It is Sir Thomas
himself, in an important passage at the end of the novel, who finally acknowledges what has been wrong
with his daughters and, by implication, with his own direction of Mansfield Park. "He feared that
principle, active principle, had been wanting":
They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice.
To be distinguished for elegance and accomplishments the authorized object of their youth could have
had no useful influence that way, no moral effect on the mind. He had meant them to be good, but his
cares had been directed to the understanding and manners, not the disposition.
If readers end up asking what has become of Jane Austen in Mansfield Park, it is because she has
raised the uncomfortable possibility, which was to be more and more widely canvassed in the nineteenth
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century, that social style might be crucially at odds with moral substance. The Crawfords are intended to
be attractive, Fanny and Edmund are intended to lack sparkle. That's the whole point. To choose virtue
may mean choosing the less attractive option. One could divide the book's characters into those, the
majority, who are governed by their wishes and those who are governed by their obligations. For Jane
Austen there is an iron law of moral obligation that cuts clear across considerations of personal desire or
social attraction. Again and again the book sets what people want to do against what they ought to do
and judges them according to their response. Fanny alone consistently makes the right choice.
This is the main thematic link between two of the novel's most celebrated episodes, the visit to Sotherton
and the project to put on a play at Mansfield. There is no better example than the Sotherton outing of the
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