March 2024 meeting: Mansfield Park, Vol. 1

JASACT commenced the year with what has become a first-meeting-of-the-year tradition, a February meeting at the Oaks Brasserie. We like easing ourselves back into meetings with a relaxed gathering under the trees. This year we tested our brains on a selection of puzzles from the Pocket Posh Jane Austen 100 Puzzles book. After some early trepidation, we all came through with flying colours, though the character name anagrams did provide a bit of brain teasing.

We are now into the third year of our second cycle of slow reading Austen’s novels, which means we are up to Mansfield Park. In March, therefore, our focus was volume 1 (chapters 1-18).

Discussion

Mansfield Park is, for many, the most problematical of Austen’s novels. This may be because, as one member offered, it’s her first truly adult-written novel, given Sense and sensibility was probably started between 1795 and 1797, and Pride and prejudice first drafted over 1796 to 1797. By contrast, Mansfield Park was conceived and written at Chawton, between 1811 and 1813, by which time Austen had experienced some of life’s big blows. Compared with her first two novels, Mansfield Park’s characters are less appealing to some readers, and its themes more complicated. As a result, slow reads can not only bring new insights, but the occasional change of mind.

One member provided some publishing background that she gleaned from Christopher Browne’s Sensibilities article. The novel was initially published at the Austens’ expense so that Jane could retain ownership of the copyright. It was published in three volumes on the 10th May 1814 at 18 shillings, in an edition of 1250 copies, and was sold out by November of the same year. The second edition of 750 copies was published by John Murray in February 1816. They didn’t sell so well and by 1820, 498 copies were remaindered at 2s. 6p. As our member said, Who would have thought Jane Austen could ever have been remaindered? Not us!

So to our insights. We started with two brief comments mailed in from absent members. One shared that she had always focussed on the sort of fairy tale opening – “once there were three sisters” – without realising that the beginning is all about the trauma of relocating a child out of her home into another, about how Fanny must adjust not only to a new family but also to a new culture and be grateful for it! Austen explores, she wrote, the impact of this and its psychological consequences.

The other mailed-in impression came from a member who offered, among other things, the observation that Mansfield Park, of all the books, has the least number of admirable characters. It feels, she said, as though Austen had just had a surfeit of Bath and wanted to paint ‘real’ people as she saw them, with all their flaws (with the exception of Mrs Grant!) (Her first truly adult novel, in other words?)

Somewhat related to this idea were those of the member who has always disliked this novel intensely, so this time she listened to it, choosing an audio version by Juliet Stevenson. She felt that Stevenson “over-egged the characters” which made them feel like caricatures, and made her think the novel might be satire. Mrs Norris is exasperating, annoying, aggravating, unjust; Edmund is an unperceptive prig; Sir Thomas is happy to leave the children in Mrs Norris’ care, knowing their mother/aunt is not up to it; Austen is facetious about Maria and Julia’s beauty; and Mary is self important, self-centred, an “influencer” (which description we all liked), a “city-slicker” who is due to be punctured. So, satire, she again asked?

Other members’ impressions got more into the nitty gritty, looking at the characters and what they represent or tell us about people and society.

We all liked the suggestion that the three Ward sisters who open the novel represent three levels of society: Lady Bertram the well-to-do, Mrs Norris the genteel middle-class, and Mrs Price the poor. Sir Thomas feels he can bestow goodness on others, and Fanny appears as a Cinderella. Austen, it was suggested, then uses the play – the theatricals – to move people around, to show some of their true colours.

The novel, said another, offers rather a bleak view of marriage and families. She can see, she said, why it was remaindered! Also looking at the opening chapter’s introduction of the Ward sisters, she argued that we are given primarily a materialistic view of Maria Ward’s (Lady Bertram’s) marriage, that there is no evidence that Elizabeth (Mrs Norris) was happy in her marriage, and that, is is made clear, Frances (Mrs Price) married to disoblige her family.

Many reasons are given for Fanny’s relocation to Mansfield Park, but none involve consideration of her feelings (or that of her brother to whom she was close). Fanny had status as the eldest daughter in her own family, and suddenly she had none. In terms of Fanny’s family, there is no evidence outside of William that they tried to maintain contact with her, and again, besides William, she does not appear to miss them.

There is much focus on marriage, but it is all hard-hearted. Mary Crawford looks at Tom Bertram as a marriage prospect, but it’s a venal tick-the-boxes view with no consideration of feelings. It’s been suggested, this member continued, that Mary was inspired by Jane’s sister-in-law Eliza who flirted with two of Jane’s brothers, albeit she did marry one eventually.

Henry Crawford is a flirt who behaves with a complete lack of consideration towards the young Bertram women.

Rather like Mary, Maria actually makes a tick-the-box marriage decision when she accepts the wealthy Mr. Rushworth. Her reasons are material, but perhaps also involve a desire to escape her family. Certainly, no feelings are involved, argued our member, she is quite aware that he is a stupid man.

As for family feeling, there are few examples of warmth with the exception of Mary and Henry, Mary and Mrs Grant, and of course Fanny and William. Tom and Edmund show so real brotherly love, while Maria and Julia seem to get on – until Henry appears.

The novel presents different family structures: Fanny is essentially adopted out of hers; the Bertram family is intact but not happy (with no one seeming to miss Sir Thomas who is absent for this part of the book); Henry and Mary have been shunted around, somewhat, due to death first of their father, mother and aunt-in-law. All this prompted her to think about the impact of family on people. What we appear to have, our member said, was a microcosm of a certain class of society with which Jane was acquainted. Other members also, not surprisingly, referenced similar points regarding family, the importance of marriage, and Austen’s portrayal of society

Some members looked at specific characters. A couple specifically focused on Fanny, with one being interested in her status as niece and cousin. She’s partly accepted, partly not, but is seen as a second-tier in the family. Another talked of how in her first reading of the novel she’d been annoyed with Fanny, but had more sympathy for her this time. This read she saw Fanny’s understanding of the play and its potential impact. She agreed with those who suggested that Fanny suffered from trauma, from a sort of PTSD, in fact.

Edmund was the focus of another member’s reading of this first volume. He argued that in this volume Edmund’s behaviour is “not entirely honourable”, but that we must make allowances for first love, which can affect our values. Edmund is not yet ordained, but he sometimes preaches like a clergyman, and didn’t seem to always be entirely convinced himself of what he was saying. Edmund, he concluded, is rather insincere in this first volume and not an entirely sympathetic character.

Another member was interested in Lord Mansfield’s abolition of slavery. Was Austen presenting marriage as a form of slavery, with characters boxed-in, being directed as to whom they should marry? We agreed that this was worth thinking about as we read the next two volumes.

Several members commented on the issue of selfishness. Almost everyone, said one member, is self-absorbed, selfish, irresponsible, inconsiderate of other people. Even Edmund is, but he does recognise his failings with respect to Fanny (eg the horse riding story, and the rose picking incident which leaves Fanny with a headache).

For another member, this selfishness was her over-riding impression from this reading of volume 1. Indeed, it made her wonder whether the novel is intended to be a broader commentary on the selfishness, self-centredness, hedonism of the well-to-do, and how it leads to poor behaviour and carelessness of the needs of others, to immorality. References to selfishness recur frequently in this volume, including:

This, from Chapter 2’s discussion of Fanny:

Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort.

This from Mary on herself:

“… selfishness must always be forgiven…because there’s no hope of a cure.”

And, from chapter 14, Fanny’s observation of the would-be playmakers:

Fanny looked on and listened, not unamused to observe the selfishness which, more or less disguised, seemed to govern them all, and wondering how it would end.

Subsequent discussion explored the above a little more, but also included thinking about the idea of the novel as a farce; on its timelessness as a picture of arrogance, entitlement and privilege; and on the value of hearing it read. We also commented that this novel could be the closest we’ll ever get to an autobiography of Austen. Did, for example, her big “love” Tom Lefroy toy with her, like Henry Crawford does here?

We were pleased to have an American visitor in our midst this month, particularly as she’d done her homework and was able to contribute to the discussion.

Next month, we move on to Volume 2, or chapters 19 to 31.

Source:

Christopher Browne, “Jane Austen and her publishers”, Sensibilities, No. 67, December 2023