Mansfield Park Reread Chapter 2

[tigerlily]

And we hit the end of the setup!



Well, I've been reminded that English 19th century ladies were much more educated than I am today. But education is relative. They know what people found it relevant for them to know, based above all on their station and the image required of them. Fanny's ignorance, due to her own context, was attributed to her capacity to learn without further thought - and that context justified keeping her more ignorant and less accomplished than her cousins. I don't remember what I thought about Edmund on my first read, but the one who befriended Fanny sounds like someone I would have liked to have in my life at any stage and especially when I was a child.

It was Fanny's job to be the happy and grateful recipient; this was to be demonstrated by obliging and pleasing her relatives. By being inferior. The novel seems a study of good intentions, indifference, self-absorption, and the combined effect on Fanny, the story's center.

Comments

[talibusorabat]

The part about Fanny being stupid (as opposed to simply uneducated) made me laugh sadly. Kind of pathetic that it's still true.

The part with Edmund....didn't skeeve me out, exactly, because it was so damn sweet and he was so lovely, but I did find myself kind of uncomfortable knowing that the novel ends with them married. This chapter really emphasized how Edmund helped mold and shape Fanny's character, and I found it kind of unsettling. I mean, Emma runs into that issue too with Emma & Mr. Knightly, but it's easier to forget the age/power difference since Emma starts with Emma as an adult and not a child.

[tigerlily]

It is uncomfortable! I find it easier if I think of them as childhood friends, but the fact that Edmund was nearly a man just increases the power he already has as a son who is also well-regarded and superior to her thanks to his parentage. But, I actually find it easier to forget with Edmund, because I had forgotten he was seven years older; years later I can still remember Mr. Knightley talking about how he'd held Emma as a baby. At least Fanny is the one who is right and should have been listened to during the rest of the book.

It is pathetic! People are pathetic. It comes from natural self-centeredness and that insistence on hierarchy, especially for these people in that time.

[talibusorabat]

LMAO, I'm the exact opposite with Mr. Knightly. Like, I vaguely remember that scene at the end where he was like "I've loved you since you were 13", but I find it very easy to forget about. (I have a thing for banter.)

Randomly, but one thing I love that this is making me think about is how controversial Mansfield Park was among Austen's friends & family, and how many of them thought Fanny was insipid or she should have ended up with Mr. Crawford. Not that I share that opinion, but.... man, I can't words right now. Somehow knowing that on a meta level makes the book livelier for me.

[tigerlily]

I had forgotten that line, but the other one is the thing I remember most about Mr. Knightly. That and how he gives Emma a lecture that he ends up being right about. This pertains more to the next chapter, but I suppose I mind Edmund less because he starts and ends the book being wrong in his lectures to Fanny about things she doesn't want to do.

It seems a popular opinion! I wonder how much Austen predicted it.

[talibusorabat]

And I mind Mr. Knightly less because delicious, delicious banter. XD I'm a sucker for sarcasm. I also don't mind him being right because I don't get the impression that Emma would always do what he said from here on out because he had been right, the end.

WHICH IS NOT TO SAY MR. KNIGHTLY IS BETTER or turn this into a "which relationship is less problematic" discussion because that would be bullshit. They're equally problematic in the same way, but their problematic aspects are balanced out differently (Fanny's by the fact that she is right / has greater emotional intelligence, Emma's by delicious snark and the fact that she will always be who she is, right or wrong).

Which is true of all things, really. Everything is problematic to different degrees, and the question in all things is to what extent other things balance the problematic aspects out, and that balance is unique to every person.