Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Abstract

In Mansfield Park, Jane Austen continues to probe the world of the rural elite of Regency England. She does so by dramatizing the life of her heroine, Fanny Price, a character appealing in her complexity. At its publication in 1814 as Austen’s third novel, Mansfield Park proved greatly popular, a popularity that continued throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries. Later, the novel also became the focus of brisk scholarly debate, particularly in the postcolonial context of the last two generations, epitomized by the work of Edward Said. In Mansfield Park, Austen charts the life of Fanny from the age of 9 until 19, placing her firmly in the context of her times, the years immediately before the final defeat of Napoleon by Britain and the Allies at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. This period also saw the end of Britain’s participation in the Atlantic Slave Trade, in which it is suggested by Austen that Fanny’s patron and uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, has a heavy though insecure financial investment. By the end of the novel, Fanny has achieved her heart’s desire in marrying Sir Thomas’s younger son, Edmund, but not before having to endure considerable internecine conflict within her adopted Bertram family and their social circle.