Novel’s plot ⟡ Is Austen an accomplice? ⟡ The issue of Slavery
Those who are familiar with Jane Austen’s unconventional and ironic heroines and have often fantasised about having tea with Lizzy Bennet (while laughing at her coquettish sisters’ nonsense) will probably have turned the last page of Mansfield Park with a sense of disappointment and perplexity. Was Jane Austen nothing more than a sour spinster, loyal to the morals of religion and the established orders of the patriarchal family? Was there – in the pages just read – a shy hint, or even an ill-concealed consent, to the ‘justice’ of slavery? These questions may have arisen spontaneously to the reader of Mansfield Park.
The novel’s plot
The novel was written between 1811 and 1813 and was first published in 1814. It tells the story of Fanny Price who, as the daughter of a loving but economically disadvantageous marriage, is entrusted as a child to the care of her rich aunt and uncle. In the wealthy Mansfield mansion, the young girl grows up with the knowledge and placid acceptance that she is inferior in social status, health and intelligence to her cousins. Treated superficially by everyone except her cousin Edmund, Fanny grows into a young woman and finds herself particularly fond of her cousin the latter. Then, as always happens in Austen’s books, new characters arrive to disrupt the balance of everyday life and shake the spirits of the protagonists.
A large part of the novel is devoted to the organisation of a play. Yet the play will never be staged, following the anticipated return of the strict, anti-theatrical “master of the house” – the uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram. Feeling that his “look of reproach” was “in any degree deserved”, Fanny as well severely – but inaudibly – criticises the idea of theatre. The scene serves – as many agree – as a cunning metaphorical device: it is the only time when the characters, protected by the fiction of staging, really say and do what they really want. Indeed, Fanny refuses to participate. At the same time, she dislikes worldly and charming Mary Crawford who prone to give her thoughts unrestricted verbality. Finally, Fanny looks with dismay at her cousins’ disreputable and, nevertheless, does not disclose her opinion to anyone. In truth, Fanny’s character remains silent, passive and full of unexpressed judgement towards her surroundings rather frequently. This judgement is not always ‘negative’: she worships her cousin Edmund’s religious morals/piousness and regards her uncle with reverential awe.
After a succession of events in which Fanny never takes initiative but, like a ‘perfect’ woman of her time, puts her head down and refrains from opining (even when explicitly asked to express her thoughts!), the last pages bring a hasty conclusion. Almost without the action of romance, Fanny obtains everything she could have ever wished for – cousin Edmund for a husband, the Bertram family as her own, a new social status and, ultimately, the mansion. We can even find ourselves sharing the view of Austen’s niece on the matter, who was “not satisfied with the end – wanting more Love between [Fanny] & Edmund”.
The key to reading Mansfield Park
At the end of the book, there may lurk an impression as if Jane Austen had bluntly raised as an ideal model the society she had, instead, criticised with subtle irony in Pride and Prejudice, published only a year before in 1813, and which she would continue to criticise in Emma, published a year after Mansfield Park. How is this possible? The dilemma has confused critics for years (one could say, for centuries!); until someone had an insight which, it must be admitted, is still shyly regarded today: the key to reading the book is to invert all truths!
What if much of what is in appearance ‘praised’ in the novel is instead an outpour of authorial critique? What if a personage, nay, the whole book, is but a satire in disguise? The essentially ‘good’ characters would thus become the ‘bad guys’: for example, think of the beloved cousin Edmund, who is so similar to the ridiculed Mr Collins from Pride and Prejudice. And just consider: the point of view throughout the novel is that of Fanny, who herself is a pro-tagonist we can hardly completely admire. Not only is she often submissive (in particular, to harshly conservative principles of her uncle), and has by her own admission little culture, but she is simply disingenuous at times.
It could be said that Austen’s is an (extremely) avant-garde writing experiment of ironic realism, perhaps only partially successful: as a technique, it would have been better understood a century later, but – superficially and efficiently good at satisfying common sensibilities of Austen’s time, unlike today’s – it did not necessitated such apprehension in the 19th century. That is why the novel has caused and continues to cause so much controversy.
Jane Austen and the issue of slavery
It has long been discussed that – and how – Mansfield Park also dealt with the issue of slavery, which was still practised at the time. In truth, the slavery-topic remains merely insinuated, and it is explicitly mentioned only once in the text, when Fanny talks to Edmund about a conversation she had with her uncle on the previous evening.
“I love to hear my uncle talk of the West Indies. I could listen to him for an hour together…” [Fanny to Edmund]
“But I do talk to him more that is used. I am sure I do. Did not you hear me ask him about the slave trade last night?” [Fanny to Edmund]
“I did – and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of farther.” [Edmund to Fanny]
Chapter III, Volume II
Aside from that, we already knew of Sir Thomas Bertram as a member of parliament with business in Antigua. No contemporary of Austen would have misunderstood the allusion: the ownership of a plantation worked by enslaved people. This source of profit apparently fed the Mansfield estate. Many readers have been outraged to believe that Austen through the professed ‘morality’ of the Bertrams’ society was also approving of the exploitation of slaves. Some have tried to argue that the detail about slavery was insignificant, but the details in Jane Austen’s novels are never casual. They are, on the contrary, carefully selected. Did Austen want to talk about slavery? Yes. But this creative choice does not make of her a supporter of slavery. Indeed, we know from letters to her sister that she had read and greatly admired the writings of Thomas Clarkson, England’s leading abolitionist.
So if you recall the inversion-of-truths mechanism, the authorial irony her protagonists must have embodied, everything makes sense: you’ll see more clearly the good “master of the house” turning into a terrible, hypocritical master of slaves, whilst Fanny’s amenable and unopinionated female figure is her own antagonist. In Mansfield Park, Jane Austen creates a delicate but sharp sketch of complex characters that populate her pages – and the world she lived in. Their truths ought not to be deprived of their privacy, their moral footprint does not need to fit the author’s. We are to remember that each work of fiction has its own reality and purpose.
Considering all this, it is not strange that the 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield Park receives a clear anti-slavery message, the characters in it are completely rewritten, and Fanny appears as a debonair and sarcastic young woman (indeed, a typical Austenian one of our modernity). But of course, to transport a story with such a profound irony onto screen faithfully would not be an easy challenge, and may not result exactly on par with more liberal means of words and imagination Jane Austen left us with in her book.
