Mansfield Park Reread Chapter 4

[tigerlily]

I can see why the Antigua estate would be brought up more in adaptations; one of the ways to retell a story is to look at what was hidden in the original, and it is relevant to the critiques of imperialism and racism that have become more acceptable in the mainstream than they used to be.

Not much of Fanny here. Fanny is excluded from the social treatment and experience given her female cousins; no surprise there, and also no surprise that she doesn't feel as if she should be included, because she wasn't meant to feel that way and has already been characterized as internalizing it well. Even Edmund compromises on this by trading one of his own horses and keeping hers under his own name. He expects that Fanny isn't worth the cost to his father, and he's probably right. And he seems to have no problem with that, so he's not just doing it to keep his father from getting angry.

Poor Maria. She was perfectly right, as far as her upbringing gave her to understand, to fix on someone with more money for a husband and work to get him. I suppose Edmund being the only one to object to prioritizing status and money - in this instance, because he certainly doesn't object all of the time, like with a lot of people who make these objections - is probably related to his affinity for religion.

Mary is like Maria, although more worldly. She will begin the novel with the same object for the same reasons, and fixes on a person she will later discard for another. At least she ends the novel better off.

Mrs. Grant's comment is interesting. More so than here and now (because I can only speak for where I live) marriage really was regarded as a natural fact of life and a deciding factor, especially for a woman. I can understand why she would say everybody is suited for marriage no matter what they say. It's something people are expected to resign themselves to, without actually putting it in such a negative way of course. And humans do adapt, even if not always well and even if the results aren't what I would call healthy from my vantage point. They have to make themselves suited in one way or another.