Fanny Price and the Sentimental Genealogy of Mansfield Park

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

Fanny Price and the Sentimental Genealogy of Mansfield Park AmyJ. Pawl Critics have had a difficult time knowing what to make of Fanny Price. Lionel Trilling flatly declares, "Nobody, I believe, has ever found it possible to like die heroine ofMansfieldPark," Marilyn Buder, arguing for the importance of the novel in the Enlightenment "war of ideas," nevertheless concedes: "That Fanny is a failure is widely agreed."1 The negative reaction to Fanny began early.Jane Austen's mother "thought Fanny insipid," an assessment endorsed by CS. Lewis and otherswho focus on Fanny's meekness and passivity.2 Odier critics have made stronger charges, accusing Fanny notjust ofdullness but ofselfishness and moral dishonesty. To Avrom Fleishman, Fanny is "a weak woman with self-defensive and self-aggrandizing impulses"; 1 Lionel Trilling, "Mansfield Park," Vie OpposingSelf: Nine Essays in Criticism (1955; reprint, New York: Viking Press, 1959), p. 212; Marilyn Buder, Jane Austen and tlie War ofIdeas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), p. 248. 2 Jane Austen, Minor Works, ed. R.W. Chapman,vol. 6, Vie Works ofJaneAusten (1954; reprint, London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 432; CS. Lewis, "A Note onJane Austen,"Jane Austen:A Collection ofCriticalEssays, ed. Ian Watt (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963), pp. 25-34. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 16, Number 2,January 2004 288 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION KingsleyAmis similarly complains that Fanny is "made odious by a selfregard utterly unredeemed by any humor," calling her "a monster of complacency and pride" concealed under "a cloak of cringing selfabasement ."3Providing the fullestexpression ofthissense ofFanny's monstrosity, Nina Auerbach, in "Jane Austen's Dangerous Charm: Feeling As One Ought about Fanny Price," likens Fanny successively to DrFrankenstein, his monster, Grendel, and avampire, concluding that she is "a charmless heroine who was not made to be loved."4 A feminist perspective raises still other concerns aboutFanny's character. Making theby-now-familiarassumptionsaboutFanny's lack ofengaging qualities, Margaret Kirkham, inJaneAusten, Feminism andFiction, tries to save Fanny from herself by interpreting her as Austen's intended critique ofthe typical conduct-book heroine.5 The reasons assignedfor Fanny's failure are varied, but the critics' voices expressing puzzlement, disappointment, bemusement, and hostility create a chorus united in sounding a note ofdissatisfaction. MansfieldPark is a "problem novel" largely because Fanny Price is a problem heroine. Fanny's difference from other Austen heroines can best be understood through realizing her similarity to heroines of the eighteenth-century novel of sentiment. Fanny's personal traits, her family situation, and die relationship she has widi her uncle and fatiier figure, SirThomas Bertram, combine to make MansfieldParkin many ways typical ofthe novel ofsentiment. This is, ofcourse, surprising in an authorfamous for her mockery ofsentimental clichés; nevertheless, by noting the ways in which aspects of the sentimental novel are imported directly into MansfieldPark, I will demonstrate thatAusten's most puzzling novel is the product ofher attempt to take some forms ofsentimentalism seriously. Avrom Fleishman, A Reading ofMansfield Park: An Essay in Critical Synlliesis (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1967), p. 45; KingsleyAmis, "What Became ofjane Austen?," JaneAusten: A Collection ofCriticalEssays, ed. Ian Watt, p. 144. Nina Auerbach, "Jane Austen's Dangerous Charm," Mansfield Park and Persuasion, New Casebooks, ed.Judy Simons (London: Macmillan Press, 1997), p. 64. Margaret Kirkham,JaneAusten, Feminism andFiction (Brighton, UK: Harvester Press, 1983; NewYork: Methuen, 1986). MaryWaldron expands on Kirkham's claims bysuggesting that Fanny's imperfections should be viewed as part ofAusten's response to die unrealistic moral demands ofEvangelical fiction. See Waldron, "The Frailties ofFanny,"JaneAusten and tlie Fiction ofHer Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 84-111 . Another critic widi agood word to sayfor Fanny is Ellen Gardiner, who sees her as an informed critic, aversion ofdie Female Spectator. See Gardiner, RegulatingReaders (Cranbury, NJ:Associated University Presses, 1999), p. 136. SENTIMENTAL GENEALOGY 289 The very traits that mark Fanny as an atypical Austen heroine are those that bring her closer to the typical sentimental heroine. Our glimpse of Fanny's childhood induction into the Bertram family, including as it does dialogue and action as well as narration, is unique in Austen's novels. As Buder correcdy observes in passing, Fanny's "childish experiences, as innocent victim ofa callous household, are in...