In MANSFIELD PARK, Jane Austen expands her sphere of moral vision. In her earlier novels, she focused on the relationships between marriage partners that were framed in a comedic context of how the typical English society of the late 18th century might complicate the likelihood of a series of happy marriages. In this novel, however, she abandons the world of light and trifling romantic comedy for one in which she shows the unpleasant underside of the genteel society that was so noticeably lacking in say, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. This dark underside includes a number of troubling aspects, all of which are antithetical to the world of light comedy.

First, Austen relentlessly considers the impact of the lack of moral values as a result of inadequate education of children. The patriarch of the Bertram family, Sir Thomas, dearly loves his four children but he has given them a profligate style of life without teaching them how to live that life without being corrupted by its debilitating disadvantage of conspicuous consumption. Second, for the first time in her writing career, Austen boldly places the theme of good versus evil squarely on the interaction of several of her characters. The virtuous Edmund, who is as priestly as the collar that he wears on his neck, is tempted by the lascivious charms of the amoral Mary, who sees in Edmund only a fleeting diversion. Further, Austen places London itself as a den of urban iniquity, the source of the theatrical evil that threatens the pastoral innocence of Mansfield Park. Third, she calls into question some basic paradoxes about the nature of character itself. Are peoples' characters fixed at birth or are they molded by environment? And when character is fixed, is it capable of change, and if so, by what, by whom, and to what extant? These latter questions come into play mostly in the person of Fanny, the outcast relative of the Bertram family who loves Edmund. She is presented as impossibly virtuous, but in the face of her open defiance to marry the rich Henry Crawford, she is labeled as an ingrate and worse. No one in that group perceives her virtue, but the readers certainly do. From where does this virtue spring? It cannot be genetic since several others of her family are woefully deficient in virtue. It cannot be solely the result of environment since, except for the equally virtuous Edmund, the others treat her as uniformly unwanted and unloved.

The answers to the above questions are raised, but only partially answered. Part of the problem in seeking answers to such eternal questions as love versus honor, duty versus obedience, and heredity versus environment in a novel is that this is a novel, and for Austen, a didactic one at that. Since she chooses to use a number of flat characters to represent allegorical archetypes of good and evil, their responses to their encounters cannot convey the full spectrum of thought that a more fully fleshed person might. Further the many plots--the love affair between Fanny and Edmund, the plots of the Bertram sisters, and the interweaving of the many strands of plot between the Bertram children--combine to cause the reader to zero in on these many threads rather than ponder their potentially more universal significances. What is lacking in MANSFIELD PARK is a pleasing balance and harmony among the many snipped strands of plot and theme which cry out for a splicing that does not occur even at the happy marriage of Edmund and Fanny. This imbalance, combined with Austen's atypical use of realism and pressing social concerns, and her lack of a truly engaging heroine along the lines of Elizabeth Bennett, make MANSFIELD PARK a dutiful slog rather than a joyous read.

i'm not as in love with this story as i was about Pride and Prejudice, but it's still austen and it's still an excellent read.

This is Jane Austen forey into more serious literature, and many of her faithful fans dislike it because of Fanny's, the main character, lack of romance. I beleive it may be one of Jane Austen's best novels. It is a more clear and accurate portrayal of the sensibilities of the time. It goes more into human nature especially about the heart and why people fall in love.
It is a simple story about a girl ,Fanny, who is taken in by her rich Aunt and Uncle. Fanny is an incredibly nervous person. Only her cousin Edmund can make her feel at home. She is raised very properly, although stiltedly because her uncle wants to be sure she realizes she is below their family. The entire family grows dependent on her. Fanny falls in love with Edmund who falls in love with another. I won't ruin anymore of the story. Read it!

real-time Jane Austen style. scary. I think a lot of other people have put more eloquently every little thing that is wrong and right about the novel but I would just like to add that to me there is a lesson to learn about Fanny Price; and she was a disappointment to me. I have to admit, I wanted her to fall in love with Crawford. I'm sorry if I let out the big endings but being Edmund's distant second best is not thrilling to me, not even lukewarm. I was hoping that in all of his confidings to her there would be a brush of the hand or starring into the eyes, you know, some moment of early unknown passion, SOMETHING to assert why he chooses her. But the cruel fact remains that good girl and good boy marry and what is so interesting about that?? This book is most likely a social metaphor meant by Austen but once Henry Crawford's gone, so is the book's draw. At one point in picking up Fanny and her sister at PTMTH he holds her to his heart and I'm thinking "big moment, forgetting themselves, a spark will be released, but Austen falls short. This book is too slow for me, and too long to be so slow. If you are writing a paper fo rthis book, it won't be difficult for you have a wealth of topics to grab onto, but pleasure reading is nice just once and never EVER again.

It's hard to review this book in the way that I prefer to: subjectively and unselfconsciously. I don't want to be particularly conscious of the fact that I'll be reviewing a book while I'm reading it - the reading should be for its own sake. Moreover since I'm not writing under any commission or compunction I should be unconcerned about reactions. I don't have the time for lots of rewrites, and if most of the point of the exercise is personal pleasure it's absurd if I'm writing as a chore.

However ... I can't shake the knowledge of approaching Austen as part of the canon of English Literature. Her sacrosanct words have been praised and pored over unreservedly for centuries and her fans are legion (a sister of mine could virtually site you chapter and verse of any sentence you read her). Offering an opinion of anything she's written places you in the sights of a whole genre - as opposed to, say, mentioning that you didn't enjoy the last Clancy thriller. It's like that old line about responding to a da Vinci: it's not the painting that's being judged.

So with all that baggage, onto the review.

It was refreshing to spend some time in a book so different to most others I read. Once you've got your 19th century language `sea-legs' (something that generally settles after a few chapters) the novelty is no longer an obstacle to enjoyment - quite the opposite. Moreover the structure of the book felt different: Austen has no problem having major characters suddenly virtually disappear, as with the Miss Bertrams. Also there's the usual pleasure of stepping outside the assumed values of your own century - there's nothing that quite highlights your own assumptions as reading those contrary ones of different times.

That being said, this book is quite didactic, stiflingly so in the first half where I was growing weary of the sheer volume of gratification I was supposed to gather by the constant belabouring of Mrs Norris' abundant shortcomings - or rather of her single, if major, shortcoming. I wasn't at all clear on whether we were meant to wryly smile at (the now unfortunately named) Fanny's naýve blanket moral condemnations of just about everyone except Edmund, or rather to similarly look down upon the characters with the assured condescension of the author herself. Did Austen so blithely judge, rank and dismiss those of her own acquaintance with the regal arrogance she did with these fictional characters? The right way to interact with society it appears is to almost instantly decide the quality of the character of the person you meet, and to not be swayed from your initial assessment: Fanny's severe and almost universal moral condemnations are utterly vindicated at the novel's unambiguous conclusion.

I suppose I found the ubiquitous censure uncomfortable: Wodehouse could poke fun at languid, self-indulgent aristocrats without requiring our contempt. To relish this Austen I feel you have to relish your smug superiority over most everyone.

Yeah, I suppose it's the smugness that dilutes the pleasure of this highly developed morality tale. Along the way we get an ably narrated window on two lifestyles of the early 19th Century. For all of Austen's theme that virtue overrides wealth (and, indeed, that wealth and indolence are a great danger for the young), class is massive: probably the first thing you need to know about a person, even before you know their character, is what they're worth. Have we changed all that much since then? I suspect so: at least now it's somewhat bad form to inquire about and discuss the relative incomes of your friends and acquaintances - here it's the very first thing that must be established.

Interesting to have as your heroine a shy, relatively inarticulate girl whose only assets are her high moral standards and personal integrity (oh, and she looks OK - but by no means the belle). Others fall by the wayside who show