Aug. 10th, 2012

osprey_archer: (musing)
Even though it goes off at the end, Mansfield Park is my favorite Austen novel. This is partly on the strength of its own virtues – Mansfield Park is exquisitely well-observed and well-written – and partly because I feel it needs a champion: everyone else seems to despise the novel and its heroine, Fanny Price. What kind of heroine, they ask, can such a weak little nothing be?

Fanny Price is not weak. Lady Bertram is a weak character: guided in everything by those around her, without a thought of her own in her head. Fanny Price, downtrodden though she may be, knows her own mind. Everyone else may love the Crawfords, but Fanny knows they have no principles.

Readers seem to forget this fact, on the grounds that the Crawfords are so entertaining that their trail of destruction doesn’t matter. But really they’re rotten people, though they do it with panache. For goodness’ sake, Henry Crawford’s favorite amusement is making girls fall in love with him and then leaving them flat! This would be nasty enough in modern times, but given how few men girls met back then, he’s doubtless ruining some of their chances at marriage and happiness. Even if he hadn’t run off with her at the end, Mr. Crawford already pretty thoroughly wrecked Maria’s life.

Admittedly, she helped him out by engaging herself then marrying a man she knew she didn’t love, but that doesn’t excuse Henry Crawford from being a base cad. The idea that Henry Crawford isn’t so bad seems to rest on the ugly assumption that girls like Maria and Julia somehow deserve his machinations, because they were too silly to see through his scheming ways.

He might, in his way, have remained devoted to Fanny; but how long do you think that would have kept him from his favorite amusement of breaking women’s hearts? And how long could Fanny have borne to watch her husband flirt with and discard other women? I think the lack of consideration toward her, and the lack of principle in general, would have hurt her very much. She was right to refuse him.

And that refusal, again, shows Fanny Price’s strength. When she refuses the extremely eligible Mr. Crawford, the entire world falls on her head in condemnation. Her Aunt Norris sneers at her. Her frightening uncle lectures her on her ungratefulness till she cries, and when that doesn’t work, he sends her away from Mansfield Park with no definite date of return. Even Edmund, usually her champion, thinks her refusal is ridiculous. A weak person would crumple under such universal opposition.

Fanny doesn’t waver.

So Fanny Price is not weak. But she lacks entirely the two other stigmata of a modern heroine: feistiness and rebellion. No matter how outrageous her relations’ claims may seem, Fanny remains demure and obedient as long as none of her principles are threatened, and that drives modern readers up the wall.

I think it’s too bad. One thing I like about Austen is that her heroines are so different from each other: I like that Fanny Price, though less immediately winning than Elizabeth Bennett, can be a heroine too.
osprey_archer: (downton abbey)
Another entry in my ongoing quest to make everyone watch Downton Abbey: I present a link to A Downton World, which is Downton Abbey remixed with A Softer World.

It is all awesome, but this one is my favorite:

tumblr_lsitaaM9ay1r4599ro1_1280

(Sybil does not of course actually say this in the show, but it totally fits her character. This is why Sybil is my favorite. Except for maybe Branson. And Mary. And Daisy, because she's such an adorable goofball...okay, I totally love them all.)

Also! You know what would make a great Downton crack fic? Thomas Barrow, Vampire Footman. I mean, look at him. So pale and broody and evil! Clearly vampire material!

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