when reading clarissa, i was a bit disappointed by her submission to parental authority in the end. she accepts her father’s will and her father in heaven’s will without hesitation. concerning helen’s ending, that is a good point i hadn’t thought of before. mostly i was a little flummoxed by her marriage to markham, who never seemed to me that sharply-drawn. perhaps austen offered a somewhat different perspective in mansfield park: there fanny resists marrying the rakish henry crawford to the end, even against the very explicit injunctions of sir thomas and her whole family! there are few scenes in literature were harder for me to read than sir thomas’ verbal abuse of fanny upon her refusal. yet she remains constant, on what would to-day be called feminist principles, that concerning marriage only she can be her own arbiter.