More Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

published 1814

[excerpt]

What have you got on?"

"The new dress that my uncle was so good as to give me on my cousin's marriage. I hope it is not too fine; but I thought I ought to wear it as soon as I could, and that I might not have such another opportunity all the winter. I hope you do not think me too fine."

"A woman can never be too fine while she is all in white. No, I see no finery about you; nothing but what is perfectly proper. Your gown seems very pretty. I like these glossy spots. Has not Miss Crawford a gown something the same?"

 

 

comments: When I wrote about Jane Austen for the i newspaper earlier this year (here and here) I said this

‘Austen famously said that in Emma, she had created a heroine whom no-one but herself could like. Completely wrong – we all love Emma, and the heroine we don’t like is the dull and priggish Fanny Price.’

I was being deliberately provocative: because among Jane Austen fans, Fanny Price is one of the most divisive of characters. Some people love her, others (including me) don’t.

But, whether you say snog, marry, avoid in relation to Fanny, Mansfield Park is a fascinating book. Jane Austen was a game-changer in many ways: in advance of the modern debate on this topic, perhaps she felt her characters didn’t need to be likeable.

I don’t always expect to agree with the views of the writer Kingsley Amis (though he has fine things to say on the subject of James Bond), but he writes very perceptively about Mansfield Park, including this:

to invite Mr and Mrs Edmund Bertram round for the evening would not be lightly undertaken. More basically than this, Edmund and Fanny are both morally detestable and the endorsement of their feelings and behaviour by the author [makes MP] an immoral book.

Well! Sweeping. He goes on to discuss what he sees as the lack of logic and hypocrisy in the views and actions of Edmund and Fanny – very convincingly.

Other critics have pointed out that Jane Austen herself, in her letters, far more resembles Mary Crawford from the book than Fanny.

And it is hard to get too worked up about the horror of a few respectable friends doing some amateur dramatics in a private home…

But on the plus side, the structure, the characters, and the dominating presence of the estate all work well. All this is thrown into relief when Fanny briefly goes back to her squalid childhood home in Portsmouth to see what she is missing. I was intrigued by this word for the maid as she arrives:

Fanny was all agitation and flutter; all hope and apprehension. The moment they stopped, a trollopy-looking maidservant, seemingly in waiting for them at the door, stepped forward…

WH Auden also has his comments on Jane Austen:

 

You could not shock her more than she shocks me;
Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.
It makes me most uncomfortable to see
An English spinster of the middle-class
Describe the amorous effects of ‘brass’,
Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety
The economic basis of society

 

There have been wonderful discussions in the comments on various blogposts (Austen, Trollope) about ‘the economic basis of society’ in particular regard to the lives of 19^th century women. I’m hoping Mansfield Park will bring out more.

Come on, defenders and lovers of Fanny – tell me why I am wrong.

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For my piece on Jane Austen adaptations, I looked at the three film/TV Mansfield Parks, from 1999, 2007 and 1983. These are, I think, the only ones – it’s not an easy sell for commissioners, compared with the idea of another Emma.

My favourite was the 1999 version, directed by Patricia Rozema. This terrific film tackles the Fanny problem head-on, by making her more like Jane Austen herself.  We have Harold Pinter (of all people) playing Thomas Bertram, and Frances O’Connor is a gorgeous Fanny. The film takes on the secret issue of Mansfield Park: that the family’s money is based on the slave trade. It is not treated as it would be today, but Rozema was certainly trying. The writer uses some of Jane Austen’s non-canon writings (letters and juvenilia), nicely slotted in, along with a proposal event from JA’s life. There is a hint of lesbianism, and a not-too-graphic sex scene.

The film is absolutely beautiful to look at - plenty of white dresses, and although not much in the way of balls, the disastrous private theatricals add excitement. There’s a very clever casting trick: Lindsay Gordon Duncan (corrected, see below) plays both rich, lazy, Lady Bertram, and her poor broken-down sister, to hammer home how important marital choice is, and how random and long-lasting the effects will be.

The 1983 TV mini-series is very faithful to the book, and Sylvestre le Touzel does a good job, she is a satisfactory Fanny,  and makes the duller bits watchable.

Billie Piper player her for TV in 2007, with a debatable attempt  to make something more of Fanny. Piper is about as unlike most people’s idea of the book heroine as could be, but if you look at it as a variation or udate it’s all right. Nicely presented, high production values. And great cast, including Hayley Atwell is Mary Bertram.

Is it a problem that these are enjoyable films, but not really Austen’s Fanny? I’d argue no. If you want authenticity, read the books. Adaptations reflect the era they were made, rather than publication dates.

Lady with a letter NYPL.

The second picture is the ‘Rice Portrait’ which some people believe to be a likeness of the young Jane Austen herself.

Fashion illo of the 1810s from the NYPL