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Cinderella
Meets Hamlet: Jane Austen's Mansfield Park
by
Marilyn Green Faulkner
Jane Austen
is a reader's writer. By reader I don't mean those who pick up a
best seller on vacation and breeze through it, or news junkies who
read the paper from cover to cover every morning. I mean serious
readers of fiction, you know, the types that live partly in the
real world and partly in an imaginary world peopled with the characters
from myriads of books devoured through the years. This kind of reader
sometimes has difficulty remembering whether Emma Woodhouse is a
character in a novel or a girl he dated in college. Jane Austen's
novels, with their wealth of detail and finely drawn characters,
offer a feast of delights for those who love a well-written novel.
In her lifetime
Austen's books were not tremendously popular. Though she is often
lumped with Bronte, Dickens and Gaskell, she preceded the great
Victorian authors by several decades, and thus her stories reflect
a world as yet untouched by the industrial revolution. Austen's
novels are gentle rambles through great estates where the gentry
have dinners, balls, and various family crises. Emma does her match
making, Elizabeth Bennett spars with Mr. Darcy, and the Dashwood
sisters debate the merits of various poets. In other words, not
much happens. Charlotte Bronte had little patience for Austen's
restrained, ironic style, and complained to a friend,
"Her business
is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes,
mouth, hands, and feet. What sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly,
it suits her to study; but what throbs fast and full, though hidden,
what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of life and
the sentient target of death - this Miss Austen ignores..."
Bronte's contemporaries
disagreed with her assessment of the gentle lady's work. Tennyson
ranked Austen "next to Shakespeare." Sir Walter Scott read her novels
several times each and envied her descriptive powers, and Mrs. Gaskell
(eminent Victorian author and Bronte's biographer) was an ardent
admirer. Though it is true that Austen's emotions are as tightly
circumscribed as her plots, hemmed in by invisible barriers of class,
wealth and convention, she reaches the human heart by a route unfamiliar
to a passionate soul like Bronte. It is through the very details
of mundane existence that Austen leads us to central truths about
life and love. Her restraint can be deceiving. It is not Austen's
aim to blast apart convention and custom, but rather to reveal a
world of emotion through irony, humor and suggestion. Like many
women authors of that century, Austen's novels were published anonymously,
and it is only in the last one hundred years that she has been recognized
as one of the greatest writers in the world.
Mansfield
Park was published just after Sense and Sensibility and
Pride and Prejudice in 1814. It is the story of a poor girl
who is brought into a great family as an act of charity, and ends
by inheriting the central position as mistress of the estate. Fanny
Price is an unusual heroine, defined more by her inaction than her
actions. In an artistic masterstroke, Austen borrows Shakespeare's
device of the play within a play. Fanny's wealthy cousins and their
guests prepare to stage a play, Lover's Vows, in their father's
absence, and through this process truths are revealed about their
duplicitous natures that influence the remainder of the drama. Like
young Hamlet, Fanny refuses to act, either in the play or in the
backstage dramas that surround it, but keenly observes the actions
of those around her, and forms her opinions about whom to trust.
Modern critics
have found much to discuss in Mansfield Park, from Lord Bertram's
involvement in slavery to the troubling relationships in Fanny's
natural family. As always, Austen touches upon difficult issues
without hammering them. Take, for example, her examination of the
effect of Fanny's years at the Bertram estate on her feelings for
her family. When, after several years' absence from her humble home,
Fanny returns to her parents and siblings in Portsmouth, she expects
to find real happiness. Instead, she is appalled by their coarse
manners. This is no romanticized English peasant cottage, but a
dirty, depressing hovel that literally nauseates its former inhabitant:
"She sat in
a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of moving dust; and her eyes
could only wander from the walls marked by her father's head, to
the table cut and knotched by her brothers, where stood the tea-board
never thoroughly cleaned, the cups and saucers wiped in streaks,
the milk a mixture of motes floating in thin blue, and the bread
and butter growing every minute more greasy than even Rebecca's
hands had first produced it." (pp. 362-3)
Wealth and education
have created a new Fanny Price, who, like Eliza Doolittle, is poor
but now unfit for a life of poverty. She must determine a new sense
of self. For a woman at the turn of the eighteenth century this
could only be accomplished through marriage. Like Cinderella, Fanny
must be rescued by the handsome prince, and Austen does not disappoint
us. Mansfield Park is a fascinating study of English life
and manners, with wonderful insights into the role of the English
clergy in that society. It examines the role of money in our lives,
showing how the opportunity for wealth and education change our
expectations and even our emotional ties. The clever use of playacting
in the story reveals the hypocritical character of Henry Crawford
(ironically one of the most likeable characters) and illustrates
the breadth of Austen's literary powers. Finally, for those of us
who are just plain addicted to novels, it's a great story that ends
with our heroine living happily ever after. For a serious reader,
it doesn't get much better than this.
Mansfield Park
is the Best Books Club selection for September. Join the discussion
by clicking on bestbooks@meridianmagazine.com.
October's selection will be: How
Green Was My Valley, by Richard Llewelyn
Readers
comment on Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn:
Some thoughts
on Mark Twain
The time has
come the walrus said
To speak of
many things, of ships and shoes,
And sealing
wax, of cabbages and kings,
And why the
sea is boiling hot,
And whether
pigs have winds.
Mark Twain
did not write this, Lewis Carroll did. But Mark Twain could well
have written it because he shared with Lewis Carroll that wonderful
logic of craziness, that only a keen eye and a deep and loving appreciation
of the weaknesses of man can bring. I never think of Mark Twain
without thinking of Lewis Carroll. From the beginnings of their
careers, although so very different, they thought in much the same
way, Only a mathematician of Carroll's caliber would have devised
a pen name by translating his own name into Latin, reversing it
and then translating it back into English! and only a writer and
lover of steamboats would have chosen the leadsman's call which
signified the shallow water that leads to danger. Their pen names
became people in their own right.
Both men shared
a sense of humor that shows in all their writings. Their humor was
very different, Twain's was wry, dry, and could be biting in its
wording and approach; Carroll on the other hand was whimsical, childlike
(and I mean this as a compliment), and contained great logic disguised
as nonsense! Although they lived in different countries, they lived
essentially through the same period of upheaval; Carroll in the
last of the Industrial Revolution, the Victorian Era and the building
of Empire, and Twain through the violent flowering of the United
States, and the first hints of coming greatness.
For all their
similarity of writing they lived very different types of lives,
Carroll a retiring bachelor, Fellow at Oxford's Christchurch college,
and a brilliant mathematician; Twain, an internationally known person
of enormous cultural, literary, and political influence, but they
are linked in immortality by an overweening sense of fun, discerning
perspective, and a satirical sense of craziness. I wish they could
have met, I know that they would have enjoyed each other.
Toujours la difference, toujours la meme chose. Phil
-----
A few nights
ago, after I tucked my two littlest kidlets into bed, I lay down
for some precious reading time. Soon, my husband was looking at
me in amazement, as giggle after giggle kept bursting out, until
tears were falling down my cheeks. I was near the end of "Huckleberry
Finn" and the snakes, rats, and spiders Tom and Huck collected for
Jim, were the cause of my discomposure. I enjoy Mark Twain's humor,
but even more, I love his heart.
I am lucky
to have a biography of Mark Twain written for young adults, by Clinton
Cox and published by Scholastic. I bought it several years ago for
my oldest son. I've discovered that to understand someone as complex
as Mark Twain, and why he wrote and said the things he did, it's
important to "step into his shoes", and see the world as he saw
it.
"Huckleberry
Finn" isn't a perfect book--personally, I would have liked to see
a more dignified way for Jim to gain his freedom in the end--but
Mark Twain wrote the truth, as he saw it.
All of his life,
Mark Twain denounced the acceptance of violence, ignorance, and
bigotry. He attacked church, state, school, and even parents for
their hypocrisy. Mark Twain had been taught as a boy that helping
a run-away slave was "a low-down thing" God would punish "with everlasting
fire." In his heart, like Huck, he knew it wasn't truth. Mark Twain
used his gift of humor to teach truth, and aren't we grateful that
he did?! Elizabeth
-----
I asked
the members of the book club if there is a way to mix humor and
religion:
I think that
there is a difference between doctrine and tradition when one is
talking about religion. When traditions or lesser rules become the
guiding force in a religious belief, then it is subject to humor
because it loses its focus. Things that are false or arbitrary seem
to attract a humorous approach, at least by those who can see clearly.
It isn't just a rejection of that which is established, but of that
which is not true to the original message. Cindy
-----
Very, very interesting
exploration. The first observation is that of course humor is part
of the religious experience, especially if the comedian is a presenter.
John Bytheway is practically every kid's icon, and he didn't win
their hearts by hammering doctrine at them. Yet look at the doctrine
he has instilled! I think any successful presenter will tell you
the material has to be at least 1/3 entertaining in order to be
engaging enough to have any impact. It would be interesting to study
whatever body of thought or discipline is "out there" regarding
the Holy Ghost. We know a little bit, sort of, about what does and
does not invite the spirit, and humor seems not to be one of them--at
least at first flush. Yet I remember a cousin commenting that she
remembered very clearly every testimony born at a meeting that took
place 4 years ago because the spirit was so strong there it enhanced
her ability to learn (maybe the same phenomenon as the School of
the Prophets.) But this also happens with a really good joke. As
I think about this more, I don't think I know very many people who
are truly "bright" who are not also witty. Are there exceptions?
Kathy
-----
If you can't
laugh at religion never go on a Church mission!! You would never
survive.
It would be
interesting to share with your readers the origin of Mark Twain's
nom de plume - also his greatest quote from his autobiography "
A truly brilliant man is a man who makes a damn fool of himself
only once a day" Phil
-----
I do agree that
we can benefit from the ridicule of a skeptic--I am much more thoughtful
about blessings on the food as a result of the little dig in Huck
Finn about grumbling over the vittles. But it also does bother me
because I know that at times I have been shaken by this same type
of ridicule and caused to question the very foundation upon which
my life is built. I guess if we didn't want to be tried in this
manner, we should have voted for the other plan. PHD
-----
Finally,
one last comment on our wonderful July selection, The Keys of
the Kingdom, by A.J. Cronin:
I had a bit
of a search, finding "Keys of the Kingdom". I was hoping to find
my own copy, rather than one from a library, and now, after having
just completed it, I REALLY wish that I had my own copy. This book
was a Life changer! To experience the integrity of such a priest
as Father Chisholm is to make one resolve to be a better, more compassionate
and courageous leader. And, of course, I am wanting to read more
of A.J. Cronin. Thank you for including this extraordinary book
on your Book List. Linda
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