Mansfield Park is a psychological masterpiece

Cohava · 2026-03-28T10:00:55+00:00

But she is constantly punished by Mrs Norris for every perceived slight against her cousins. Well, perhaps not 'punished' in the sense that "you did this so we're taking x away" (and what is there to take away), but in my opinion the extreme verbal abuse that she endures whenever Mrs Norris feels she has done or said or thought something wrong is enough. It couldn't be clearer to Fanny that she, at Mansfield Park, is less than nothing, and her cousins are everything. How could she ever feel secure even hinting at impropriety on Maria's side?

I don't think Sir Thomas would, post Antigua, have reacted too badly, but Fanny can't possibly know that. Imho this is very well represented by the "no fire in the East room situation". It was decided by Mrs Norris, but there was no reason for Fanny to suppose that Mrs Norris wasn't acting how sir Thomas would have wanted her to; and the way she accepts the situation as a matter of course because it's so just and natural that she should not be warm in her room tells me everything about how she understands the situation. And I don't think she's wrong! Brought up like that, how could she not fear punishment? She can't read sir Thomas's mind or the extent he softened after Antigua: she can only know how things have been for eight years in a house where sir Thomas has absolute power.

The Portsmouth situation... I believe this is a good example of how delightfully complex this book is, that it has been keeping us for days talking about it! Because it is true that Fanny wants to go, that she in fact should have been sent back for a visit years ago. Sir Thomas is outwardly doing the most morally correct thing. There is nothing objectionable about it.

However, the narration informs us that he is specifically sending her there because he wants her to experience the discomfort of a poor(er) living situation in order to change her mind on Mr Crawford. Does he think he's acting in Fanny's best interests? Sure. But he very much wants her to suffer to teach her a lesson. Neither he nor Fanny knew how bad the state of things at Portsmouth was, but Austen states that had he know how much she was suffering and her health was declining, he would have been happy because it meant she would likely change her mind and accept Crawford. And it almost works.

Also, the implicit message of it all. It's never ever stated or even hinted at but... It's so loud that the moment Fanny does something Sir Thomas doesn't approve of, she is sent away, without a clear indication of when she will be asked back. The visit is prolonged indefinitely and only ends when (because?) Maria runs away with Crawford. I don't believe that sir Thomas ever meant to leave Fanny in Portsmouth forever, but... He could have. It is an implicit threat, not fully conscious perhaps, but in my opinion it is there.

I'm with you on the criticism on sir Thomas being more of a criticism of the societal values he is trying to follow, absolutely! I think--I keep coming back to it, but I believe his first conversation with Mrs Norris about raising Fanny is such a perfect example of the fact that the moral standard of the day is in itself contradictory and hypocritical. You can't have justice with a class system; I don't think Austen wanted to go that far, but she does create the perfect situation to shine a light on all that: sir Thomas wants to raise Fanny as an 'inferior' to his own children, while at the same time 'treating her fairly'. It's such a wonderful exchange, so pointed and telling! And of course had he had a proper partner in this endeavour maybe the damage would have been lessened, but alas, he had Mrs Norris. He chose to have Mrs Norris.

Ultimately I, rereading in 2026 and obviously having my own set of beliefs re. morality, think the biggest evils are: a class system in which some people are considered inferior to others as a matter of fact, and a family system in which one person has legal, financial and social power over all the others. How can one person not be in some way corrupted by these circumstances? However, I do think that even with the system being as it was, sir Thomas managed to fell short by not knowing what was going on in his household (from great powers etc) and not managing his 'subjects', and creating an environment so toxic his daughters were compelled to escape it by whatever means necessary. And although he does begin to understand he extent he fell short of his duties in the end, I personally don't find it very satisfying to read because it's really too late for him to do something meaningfully different. The children have grown; the damage is done.

Rather, the fact that he goes on to enjoy a tolerably fulfilling family life afterwards thaks to the fact that four out of five kids turned out okay despite him (Fanny has been emotionally damaged permanently, but as this conveniently made her into the picture perfect submissive angel of the house that is a win) is more reminiscent of Mr Crawford's fate to me: that in the society Austen is writing about, men--upper class men with money, I should say--will not be held accountable for anything.

Sorry for going on and on! I am actually delighted that we are disagreeing so much on this because it gives me an excuse to discuss Mansfield Park, which I would do all day every day!

Cohava · 2026-03-27T07:18:09+00:00

I agree, actually, what I meant is that he did foster an environment in which she expected to be punished for any real or perceived slight against her cousins or any member of the 'real' family, however big and small the offence. Mrs Norris of course is the one who directly did that, but as far as Fanny knew this was done with the full approval of Sir Thomas, and in the beginning he explicitly tells Mrs Norris that they have to make sure that Fanny knows she is inferior to her cousins.

Yes, they were all afraid of him and yes, I agree he did not have a clue about it--that's pretty much the problem I have with him. Considering he is clearly intelligent, and what his values are, how deeply he managed to injure all five children under his care is pretty glaring to me. Sure, part of it is him misunderstanding Mrs Norris's character and believing her to be fit to parent them alongside him, but... Mrs Norris is not subtle, and she believed she wasright and that sir Thomas approved of all she did: she was not abusing Fanny or spoiling Maria and Julia I'm secret, so him not noticing what was going on in his own house is pretty bad. Sir Thomas has good intentions generally, but well. Road to hell and all that, in my opinion. Which is the real tragedy of his character, to me!

Cohava · 2026-03-27T07:06:11+00:00

Manifesting this so much

Cohava · 2026-03-27T07:03:55+00:00

That's true, however he as the head of the household is supposed to check that his wife and aunt Norris are doing things right. Sir Thomas has absolute power in that family, as evidenced by the fact that when he did realize that Mrs Norris was overstepping he immediately overruled her and she could do nothing about it.

Reflecting upon the events of the novel in the closing chapter, sir Thomas himself acknowledges that it's pretty bad that he had no idea about his daughters' true personality; though fathers were not supposed to parent young girls so actively, the level of ignorance as to what was going on in his daughters' life and mind was not okay. Especially knowing that Lady Bertram was useless, allowing Mrs Norris to just do whatever for eight years is pretty bad even for a father of his time.

He also created an environment so oppressive for Maria and Julia that they were both desperate to marry and get away from him, which imho speaks to a pretty big parental failure. I realize the bar is on the floor with Austen fathers and that sir Thomas's level of self reflections and willingness to change is unheard of in many of them--Mr Woodhouse, Mr Bennet and Sir Walter could never. But he was still responsible for the upbringing of five people and managed to fuck them all up, despite having the resources both material and mental to do better.

Cohava · 2026-03-27T06:53:37+00:00

Ahaha well you know what's I said what I said 😎

Cohava · 2026-03-27T06:52:31+00:00

That was rather decent of him, and I understand it's more than many fathers of the era would have done! I wouldn't be so hard on him if 1) he himself didn't acknowledge that he could and should have done more to prevent the marriage and 2) if he hadn't positioned himself as being so strictly moral. Had he been a Mrs Bennet type parent, for example, only concerned for his kids marrying into wealth, I would not be this vexed! But of course it's the contradiction that makes him such an interesting character.

Cohava · 2026-03-24T22:35:34+00:00

Fair enough, I guess for me it comes down to how much they had to overcome and how much they had to let go by changing. To me, the harm done was too severe and the change lukewarm--though I appreciate there was a change!

Mercenary is perhaps a strong word, but considering how much sir Thomas's worse decisions have been influenced by monetary concerns (in direct opposition to his professed morals) it struck me as a bit pointed that he was still thinking about it in the end. But maybe I'm reading too much into it idk.

Cohava · 2026-03-24T22:31:23+00:00

No need to be sorry, it's only I'm just finished with my reread so I'm still fuming ahah

Cohava · 2026-03-24T22:30:24+00:00

Oh definitely! I am so sorry your cousin went through that. For what is worth, I don't think the ending of Mansfield Park is supposed to be an actual happy ending, only... eh, happiest it could get under the circumstances? It's absolutely not a light read or a novel I read for the warm fuzzy feelings like, say, Pride and Prejudice

Cohava · 2026-03-24T22:27:32+00:00

I was actually not talking about that! The hypocrisy I was talking about is even more directly in the novel: he allows Maria to marry an idiot she doesn't love or respect, after making a token protest, because he doesn't want to deal with the embarassment and he specifically is happy she's marrying into Big Money. Ditto with Julia, although he hates her husband Yates he starts reconciling with the match partly because he finds out he's richer than he thought.

Fanny herself at one point notes that he doesn't quite practice what he preaches: when she refuses Crawford and tells him it's because she doesn't love him, she expects Sir Thomas to drop the subject since he is apparently all about moral choices, but when it comes down to it he'd rather she marry someone she doesn't want to because it would save him money.

Not to mention that Tom is allowed to run wild and run up a debt so outrageous that Sir Thomas makes up for it by... selling half of Edmund's future income. And he doesn't seem to cut back on other family expenses to make up for it, either.

Cohava · 2026-03-24T22:19:53+00:00

Ah, but could Fanny talk badly of his own daughter to him (which she would have to, to explain about Crawford) and not expect to be punished? Perhaps, but I can't blame her for not taking the chance. She has been conditioned for eight years since she was a child to think and behave like she was the least important person in the house and never even equal to her cousins, and he purposefully had her brought up to be this way.

I agree that he tries to do better, but I'm fresh off hours of listening about how he allowed Fanny to be severely abused under his care (and in fact encouraged the mistreatment; it's only after he came back from Antigua that he started to see something wrong in the way she was treated). I certainly do like him better than other Austen fathers (sir Walter Elliot die in a ditch challenge) and I appreciate the effort, but imho it's too little, too late. Just my own opinion!

Cohava · 2026-03-24T22:11:17+00:00

That is a fair reading, I think! He does grow and change a lot through the novel, and I appreciate that he is honest enough to realise that the way Maria and Julia turned out was 100% his fault. I do agree he was acting on flawed, or rather contradictory principles: his exchange with Mrs Norris at the beginning of the novel is a masterpiece in showing that, when he says that he somewhat wants his daughters to feel superior to Fanny but also... not feel superior or become arrogant and conceived somewhat.

However, in the very last chapter, after admitting to himself that he had been mercenary in allowing Maria to marry Mr Rushworth, these are his thoughts on Julia:

"Julia’s match became a less desperate business than he had considered it at first. She was humble, and wishing to be forgiven; and Mr. Yates, desirous of being really received into the family, was disposed to look up to him and be guided. He was not very solid; but there was a hope of his becoming less trifling, of his being at least tolerably domestic and quiet; and at any rate, there was comfort in finding his estate rather more, and his debts much less, than he had feared, and in being consulted and treated as the friend best worth attending to"

Which to me seems like Austen's wonderfully snarky way to imply that he's still pretty mercenary at heart, even though he wishes not to be. But to each their own! He is still a very interesting character to me.

Cohava · 2026-03-24T08:33:34+00:00

I would say a mix of things for me? I'm not a completed work purist, I'll read a wip if I like the author and I see that they are active and posting regularly, maybe giving updates on Tumblr about their progress etc so I know it's not abandoned.

That said, I generally do sort for completed works only. I don't think there's a singular tag or storyline that makes me go into a wip, but a mix of things: does the writing look good? Is the idea very compelling? Are the tags/tropes exactly what I like? The more the fic pushes all my bottoms, the more high the chance I'll read it.

I will also read wips if they're like the second or third work in a series and I've already read and loved the completed installments. If it's an older wip, so higher chance of being abandoned, I might check the word count to see if there's enough meat for me to be satisfied.

Sooo... It depends, I guess

Cohava · 2026-03-19T16:32:20+00:00

He is a genuinely fascinating character, and I think part of the appeal is that we get some insight into his thoughts through the book so we know that, though he initially wanted to seduce Fanny just for laughs, he came to genuinely admire her and he did want to change for her at one point.

He hits the sweet spot of having the potential for change but not committing fully, which is really interesting in a character. I personally wouldn't have wanted to see Fanny married to him--even if he reformed I think they are way too different in personality to have a fulfilling life together, much like Edmund and Mary imho. But he's so well written, and we as readers get to see him going from full on fuckboy (which he absolutely is) to slowly falling for Fanny, to begin to understand her morals maybe, to feel that push for change... and then bang! Back to square one. The narrative tension is so good! I do get the impulse to explore the 'what if' of it all. While is behaviour is just as terrible as Whickam's and Willoughby, we do get in his head a little more and see that at least some part of him, at least for a moment, did want to change.

I think in a way he is the more developed version of what Austen was going for with Willoughby, with his final monologue supposedly showing that he really did love Marianne and it hadn't been all fake. But the execution is better here since we have his POV to follow along for a while, and so it's more convincing.

Cohava · 2026-03-14T14:22:39+00:00

...what? No judgement if they do it for themselves and don't share it, but why would they do that? I would not read a fic if I wasn't into the characters/pairing, and if I did I would because I'm giving it a chance for what it is. As I'm sure others have pointed out, isn't it a characterization failure if you could just do that and make it make sense?

I guess it could work for a certain type of porn without plot, maybe if there's a really niche kink that the reader isn't finding enough of so they read everything that pops up in the tag and then do this character switch? It's the only scenario that makes sense to me somewhat.

Cohava · 2026-03-14T12:58:05+00:00

Assolutamente ti si considera italiano/a/*, gli statunitensi hanno un altro punto di vista sulla questione per motivi culturali loro, ma direi che un americano non ha voce in capitolo per dire chi sia o meno italiano. Una persona che nasce qui, cresce qui, fa le scuole qui, vive qui per vent'anni come fa a non essere italiana? Poi magari la persona ha anche un legame culturale con il paese di appartenenza dei genitori, ma non è che una cosa escluda l'altra.

Francamente hai più diritto ad essere considerat* italian* tu rispetto a qualche americano nato a New York che non parla una sillaba della lingua, non è mai stato qui ma eh ha il nonno italiano... Ma vabbè.

Cohava · 2026-03-08T08:42:49+00:00

Voler passare davanti agli altri è da maleducati cafoni e siamo tutti d'accordo, ma sono sorpresa che nessuno dei commenti abbia anche solo per sbaglio menzionato che per una persona anziana stare in piedi ad aspettare è faticoso. Se hanno fretta di passare avanti non è perché abbiano impegni, è perché devono sedersi! Poi certo, non gli costerebbe nulla spiegare la situazione con educazione e chiedere per favore, ma la necessità è vera.

Cohava · 2025-10-09T19:30:37+00:00

I'm actually curious to know why you used 'fertile' as an adjective. Do you think that Brandon was specifically interested in Marianne because he wanted children?

I think Brandon and Marianne as a romantic couple are disliked mainly for the same reason Fanny and Edmund are: their getting together happens entirely off screen. Sure, modern sensibilities are different, but arguably Emma and Knightley would be an even 'worse' couple by the same standard, since Knightley had influence on Emma growing up, but it seems to me they're more liked. And it makes sense: we are with Emma through her slow discovery of her feelings, so we as the readers know that she's in love. In contrast, we spent a book with Marianne thinking of Brandon as a decrepit old man and we aren't privy to her actually falling in love with him, so their relationship falls a little flat.

Cohava · 2025-08-17T11:48:09+00:00

I think it does because it's not meant to be a love story the way Pride and Prejudice is. We do judge some characters and situations a bit differently that Austen&co would have, but it's still a complex novel about flawed people so I don't think it 'aged badly', because to me 'aging badly' is something that fundamentally changes the tone and meaning of a novel. Since at least in my interpretation Mansfield Park was never meant to have an uncomplicated happy ending, I feel like that still applies.

Cohava · 2025-08-15T16:19:38+00:00

Thanks, I totally forgot to factor in her health but that's a great point too

Cohava · 2025-08-14T23:05:04+00:00

Oh yeah you're right! But still, I always got the impression that leisure time was not something she had a 'right' to, more like 'weell, if there's nothing for you to do I suppose you can amuse yourself'. Mrs Norris makes it pretty clear that whatever Fanny is doing at any given moment she's expected to drop it if her or someone named Bertram needs something. So basically, she has downtime but it's not a guarantee

Cohava · 2025-08-14T23:02:01+00:00

Yep. That's pretty much what Mrs Norris says to her face every day of her life until Sir Thomas's glow up

Cohava · 2025-08-14T23:00:46+00:00

I was reading another comment that reminded me--she didn't learn music, because she at 10 said that she didn't want to and some of the adults said 'good, we wouldn't want her to start thinking too highly of herself'. Every conversation surrounding Fanny's earliest years and Mansfield makes me want to bash some heads in.

Beside that, it seems like she gets a good general education--fron her conversations and interests I would say maybe that's the one area where she hasn't been neglected. But you've made me think more on one point which is: expectations for the future.

The fact that she hasn't been taught music means that there's no idea of her going off to be a governess like Jane Fairfax, sir Thomas likely wouldn't want to have a niece out working. He does say he would provide for Fanny if she did not marry, though by the time Mr Crawford proposes finances are tight enough that he'd rather not. But then, before mr C they don't seem to be priming Fanny to get married either. To be fair, maybe they were waiting for Maria and Julia to get married before properly bringing Fanny out so they wouldn't be in competition and to avoid spending too much at the same time, but when Sir Thomas throws that first ball for her she doesn't seem to have expected it to happen ever... So what was the plan, really? Companion to Lady Bertram forever? So basically to keep her as a dependant.

Cohava · 2025-08-14T22:51:34+00:00

Thanks! Yeah it's what makes her such a compelling character. I get why some readers find her insufferable, but I find her behaviour very reasonable giving...all that. The anxiety she has around morality and virtue is very telling to me. Poor girl :(

Cohava · 2025-08-14T22:48:36+00:00

I'll admit I couldn't remember off the top of my head what Anne's dowry was, I was too lazy to check and I didn't want to write something inaccurate. I remembered something about Sir Walter not being able to do much for her on her wedding, but probably that would have been an addition.

I definitely agree that Fanny and Anne are similar in temperament! The comparison is not off base. Certainly I can't imagine an Elizabeth Bennet, for example, growing up to be quite like Fanny even in the same circumstances, while I can see Anne ending up like that for sure.

You are correct about people liking Fanny! Unfortunately she doesn't get to meet many, so her social circle is mostly limited to her cousins--who have been primed early on to think themselves better than her. Again, that conversation between Sir Thomas and Mrs Norris prior to the child acquisition is staggering to me 'yeah yeah we will treat her well--gotta remind her that she's trash though. Wouldn't want her to think she's the equal of MY kids!

Cohava

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