Mansfield Park

Description

Mansfield Park is Jane Austen’s third novel and the writing that has been considered by critics to be the least intriguing and, paradoxically, the most controversial of all Austen novels. Even so, the novel is still part of the Jane Austen canon and it has still been praised by numerous scholars for its morality as well as for the colorful characters the plot is centered around.

The novel starts out with the Bertram family, owners of the Mansfield Park mansion, taking in Fanny, a poor relative aged ten, to give her proper education. The story quickly becomes the story of Fanny’s upbringing and development. Being removed from the environment where she has spent all her childhood, Fanny is faced with numerous challenges – she not only has to get used to her new circumstances, but she is also treated like a poor and unwanted person by several members of the family, humiliations that she responds to in a self-deprecating and docile manner.

In order to become the decent upper class young lady she is expected to become, Fanny has to adjust to the view of life and the morals that govern the wealthy colonist Bertrams (the family’s money comes from the plantations they own in Antigua) and she must learn how to handle her new social standing. To make things even more complicated, the plot has a love line, too, a very gentle and quiet love affair that evolves along with Fanny’s character. Mansfield Park is definitely one of the most complex of all Austen novels, a text that opens up for lots of interpretations. It is probably this richness that has made it such an excellent choice for film adaptations – it was first adapted for television in 1993, then into a feature film in 1999, a radio drama in 2003, a chamber opera in 2011 and a stage play in 2012.
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