need help with a modern American literature paper. ASAP.
B aldw in 1
Sam antha B aldw in
Professor G reene
English 425
15 M ay 2016
M arriage as a D ubious G oal in M ansfield Park
Jane A usten’s 1814 novel M ansfield Park begins and ends w ith the topic of m arriage. In
this regard it seem s to fit into the genre of the courtship novel, a form , popular in the eighteenth
century, in w hich the plot is driven by the heroine’s difficulties in attracting an offer from the
proper suitor. A ccording to K atherine Sobba G reen, the courtship novel “detailed a young
w om an’s entrance into society, the problem s arising from that situation, her courtship, and
finally her choice (alm ost alw ays fortunate) am ong suitors” (2). O ften the heroine and her
eventual husband are kept apart initially by m isunderstanding, by the hero’s m isguided attraction
to another, by financial obstacles, or by fam ily objections. The overcom ing of these problem s, 1
w ith the m arriage of the new ly united couple, form s the happy ending anticipated by readers.
Som etim es, as in a Shakespearean com edy, there are m ultiple m arriages happily celebrated; this
is the case, for exam ple, in A usten’s ow n Pride and Prejudice.
D espite the fact that M ansfield Park ends w ith the m arriage of the heroine, Fanny Price,
to the m an w hom she has set her heart on, her cousin Edm und B ertram , the novel expresses a
strong degree of am bivalence tow ard the pursuit and achievem ent of m arriage, especially for
1 See G reen, especially 17, and also H innant, for further description and discussion of
the courtship novel. G reen considers M ansfield Park a courtship novel, including it in a list of
such novels in the period 17401820 (16364). B aldw in 2
w om en. For Fanny, m arriage m ay be a m atter of the heart, but for other characters in the novel,
m arriage— or the desire for m arriage— is precipitated by, am ong other things, vanity, financial
considerations, boredom , the desire to “disoblige” one’s fam ily (A usten, M ansfield Park 5) or
sim ply to escape from it, and social and parental pressure to form a suitable m atch. A nd,
although readers are m eant to understand that Fanny’s desire for Edm und is based not on
financial am bition but on her “fond attachm ent” to him (75), the narrator m akes sure that w e are
also aw are of the poverty that Fanny has escaped by being adopted into her uncle’s household as
a child. W hen Fanny angers her uncle, Sir Thom as B ertram , by refusing an offer of m arriage
from the w ealthy H enry C raw ford, he sends her back to visit her struggling fam ily in
Portsm outh. It is plain to the reader, and seem ingly to Fanny as w ell, that she faces a difficult,
dreary, and perhaps dangerous life w ithout either an advantageous m atch or the continued
protection and support of her uncle, neither of w hich, at this m om ent in the plot, she can take for
granted.
If m arriage can have the effect of saving a w om an from econom ic hardship, it also can
have the opposite effect. The novel’s note of w arning about m arriage is sounded in the first few
sentences, w ith the com parative history of the three W ard sisters of H untingdon (Fanny Price’s
tw o aunts and her m other), beginning about “thirty years ago,” w hen the eldest sister, M aria,
although possessing an incom e of “only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate
Sir Thom as B ertram , of M ansfield Park, in the county of N ortham pton, and to be thereby raised
to the rank of a baronet’s lady, w ith all the com forts and consequences of an handsom e house
and large incom e” (5). From the beginning, readers learn the factors influencing the m arriage
m arket for the daughters of respectable country fam ilies in lateeighteenthcentury England. A B aldw in 3
w om an w as expected to bring a dow ry to a m arriage— and the higher the better. A s Elizabeth
B ergen B rophy explains, “D epending on the circum stances dow ries ranged from vast fortunes
and estates— especially if the bride w ere the sole heir of the fam ily— to a few hundred pounds
(or less), enough to help the young couple stock a farm or set up as tradespeople” (99).
M aria W ard’s £7,000 is, perhaps, not a vast fortune (her ow n uncle, “the law yer,”
com m ents that she is about “three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim ” to the m arriage
[A usten, M ansfield Park 5]), but it certainly represents a level of w ealth w ell beyond that
possessed by Jane A usten’s fam ily. A usten’s fam ily belonged to a class that the historian D avid
Spring has called the “pseudogentry” (qtd. in C opeland 132): “a group of upper professional
fam ilies living in the country— clergym en or barristers, for exam ple, or officers in the arm y and
navy” (C opeland 132). Y oung w om en in Jane A usten’s im m ediate circle could com m and
now here near M aria W ard’s £7,000, as one of A usten’s letters m akes clear. W riting to her sister,
C assandra, about a young w om an they know w ho is about to be m arried, A usten rem arks, “M iss
Lodge has only 800£ of her ow n, & it is not supposed that her Father can give her m uch,
therefore the good offices of the N eighbourhood w ill be highly acceptable” (“To C assandra
A usten” 27). Even M iss Lodge’s £800 w as beyond the reach of either Jane or C assandra A usten;
their father w as a clergym an w ho could not afford to provide dow ries for his tw o daughters
(Tom alin 80, 119). W ith the situation of the A usten sisters in m ind, the statem ent of M aria
W ard’s uncle on the sm allness of M aria’s fortune sounds ironic.
M aria W ard has som ething besides m oney, though: she has luck and, as w e are given to
understand, beauty. M oney, luck, and beauty, then, seem to be the factors determ ining w hether a
gentlem an’s daughter w ill m ake a m arriage that w ill im prove her ow n station in life and bring B aldw in 4
credit to her fam ily. W e can deduce that the future Lady B ertram w as beautiful as a young
w om an from the inform ation that som e of the fam ily’s “acquaintance” consider the tw o younger
sisters “quite as handsom e as M iss M aria” (A usten, M ansfield Park 5). W e also know Lady
B ertram takes great stock in her beauty because she feels affronted that M rs. G rant, the w ife of
the new parson w ho com es to live at M ansfield Park w hen Fanny is fifteen, has m anaged to
secure a good m atch w ithout the benefit of being “handsom e” (31). Further, rather
narcissistically, Lady B ertram takes credit for how lovely Fanny looks at her first ball: not only
does she rem ark that she, Lady B ertram , has been thoughtful enough to send her ow n
m aidservant to help Fanny dress (unfortunately too late to do anything for her), but, speaking to
Fanny w ith “extraordinary anim ation . . . she added ‘H um ph— W e certainly are a handsom e
fam ily’” (251, 307).
If the tw o younger W ard sisters are (at least according to som e) as beautiful as their
eldest sister, they seem not to possess the sam e luck as she. The m iddle sister, the future A unt
N orris, m arries a clergym an w ho has a connection to her brotherinlaw , and the tw o com e to
live at the parsonage on the grounds of M ansfield Park. The narrator com m ents, “M r. and M rs.
N orris began their career of conjugal felicity w ith very little less than a thousand a year” (5). The
overt point of the sentence is that, w ith a thousand a year to live on, M rs. N orris, w ho prides
herself on m anaging m oney, did not do so badly after all, even if her m atch is not as brilliant as
her elder sister’s. The reference to “conjugal felicity,” how ever, can only be m eant ironically
here: as the novel’s story unfolds, w e learn that M rs. N orris’s personality is one that banishes all
felicity from those around her. She is intrusive, m eddlesom e, stingy, selfaggrandizing, and
unkind to the niece w hom she cam paigned to bring to M ansfield Park. A lthough w e do not hear B aldw in 5
any further m ention of M r. N orris until he dies, w e can hardly im agine that the m arriage of these
tw o w as a happy one.
Frances W ard, the third W ard sister and the future M rs. Price, m akes the w orst m atch of
all. M arrying, as the narrator tells us, “to disoblige her fam ily,” she chooses a “Lieutenant of
M arines, w ithout education, fortune, or connections” (5). This choice leads directly to the life of
poverty and squalor that leads her, eleven years later, to ask for help from her w ealthier sisters,
from w hom she has been estranged since her m arriage: “A large and still increasing fam ily, an
husband disabled for active service, but not the less equal to com pany and good liquor, and a
very sm all incom e to supply their w ants, m ade her eager to regain the friends she had so
carelessly sacrificed” (6). W hen her eldest daughter, Fanny Price, w ho benefited from the help
M rs. Price sought from her sisters, returns to Portsm outh for a visit after alm ost a decade at
M ansfield Park, she is shocked by the conditions of her fam ily’s hom e: it is noisy, sm all, dirty,
and illordered, w ith children running about unsupervised, an overw helm ed m other, and a
drunken and inattentive father. A ll of this, the narrator m akes clear, is the result of M rs. Price’s
“im prudent m arriage” (362).
W ith the history of the three W ard sisters, then, Jane A usten dem onstrates the devastating
effect a bad choice in m arriage can have on a w om an’s life during an era w hen w om en had very
few econom ic options other than m arriage. M rs. Price’s m arriage not only doom s her to a life of
hardship and difficulty, but it low ers her social standing, and it also creates a distance betw een
her and her sisters that is never overcom e, even after there is com m unication betw een the
fam ilies once again. A s the narrator rem arks, reporting on M rs. Price’s lack of any real sorrow
over the new s of her nephew Tom ’s dangerous illness, “So long divided, and so differently B aldw in 6
situated, the ties of blood w ere little m ore than nothing” (397).
R eaders can sym pathize w ith Fanny Price in her quest to m arry for love, as the heroine of
a courtship novel should. Fanny rejects H enry C raw ford’s offer of m arriage because she neither
loves nor respects him . H er uncle’s astounded and enraged reaction to her refusal grieves her not
only because his anger is terrifying to her but because she feels that, as a “good m an,” her uncle
should understand and feel “how w retched, and how unpardonable, how hopeless and how
w icked it w as, to m arry w ithout affection” (299). Fanny w ill eventually be rew arded for her
steadfastness and m oral virtue; she w ill get to m arry the m an that she does respect and love, and
she w ill be m ore than satisfied to share w ith him the m odest incom e of a clergym an.
W ith the story of Fanny’s cousin M aria (Lady B ertram ’s eldest daughter and nam esake),
how ever, A usten gives us a critique of m arriage pursued for the w rong reasons. M aria does not
recoil from the idea of m arrying w ithout affection (at least w here m oney and status are to be
gained). There is never any suggestion of M aria’s having either affection or respect for her
fiancé, M r. R ushw orth, w ho is by all accounts an unim pressive m an, described as “inferior”
(185), lacking “m ore than com m on sense,” and “heavy” (37). R ather, M aria is attracted to M r. 2
R ushw orth’s ability to provide her “the enjoym ent of a larger incom e than her father’s, as w ell as
. . . the house in tow n, w hich w as now becom e a prim e object” (37).
M aria’s intention of m arrying the dull M r. R ushw orth w eakens only after she has been
exposed to the attentions of H enry C raw ford, w ho is everything that M r. R ushw orth is not:
lively, charm ing, good w ith w ords, flattering, and know ledgeable of the w orld. B ut H enry is also
2 H ere, heavy does not m ean overw eight, as w e m ight think, but probably “ponderous and
slow in intellectual processes; w anting in facility, vivacity, or lightness” (“H eavy,” def. A .V .18). B aldw in 7
given to toying w ith w om en’s affections. A fter arriving in M ansfield w ith his sister, the equally
charm ing and duplicitous M ary C raw ford, he flirts w ith both M aria and her sister Julia, pitting
them against one another. H e pushes furthest w ith M aria, to the point w here she thinks he is
about to propose to her.
W hen, instead of proposing to M aria, H enry C raw ford disappears from the neighborhood,
M aria accepts her fate. Even after her father, struck by R ushw orth’s deficiencies and M aria’s
obvious indifference tow ard him , offers her the chance to break off her engagem ent, M aria
assures her father she is perfectly happy. H er only desire now is to be free of her father’s control,
and to take refuge from her disappointed feelings in the splendor of being M rs. R ushw orth,
living a life of “fortune and consequence” (188). In case w e have any doubt about M aria’s
m otives for m arriage, the narrator, w ith breathtaking irony, tells us the follow ing:
In all the im portant preparations of the m ind she w as com plete; being prepared for
m atrim ony by an hatred of hom e, restraint, and tranquility; by the m isery of disappointed
affection and contem pt of the m an she w as to m arry. The rest m ight w ait. The preparation
of new carriages and furniture m ight w ait for London and spring, w hen her ow n taste
could have fairer play. (188)
If M aria’s m otives for m arriage are suspect and her feelings tow ard her spouse do not
bode w ell for their union, m ost of those around her are either w illfully blind to these things or
incapable of seeing them . The narrator is particularly scathing tow ard A unt N orris, w ho, w ith her
obsession w ith m oney, had been the one to encourage her niece’s engagem ent to the w ealthy
young m an: “no one w ould have supposed from her confident trium ph, that she had ever heard of
conjugal infelicity in her life, or could have the sm allest insight into the disposition of the niece B aldw in 8
w ho had been brought up under her eye” (189). The m ention of conjugal infelicity brings us back
to the ironic reference to M r. and M rs. N orris’s “career of conjugal felicity” in the opening pages
of the novel. Irony— in this case, a statem ent that says one thing but im plies the opposite— is a
technique that A usten uses throughout the novel. Surely the narrator is rem inding us here that
M rs. N orris know s very w ell w hat conjugal infelicity is, having in all probability experienced it
herself, and that her shepherding of her niece into a m arriage such as this one is all the m ore
reprehensible.
W hether or not M rs. N orris has heard of conjugal infelicity, her creator, Jane A usten,
undoubtedly had. The source of the am bivalence tow ard m arriage expressed in the novel m ay
very w ell be stories she had heard of the m arriages of friends and relatives. W hen A usten w as
only sixteen, she w rote a story based on the experience of her father’s sister, Philadelphia
H ancock, w ho at tw entyone, w ith no m arriage offers at hom e, left England for India in search of
a husband. C laire Tom alin, author of a biography of A usten, notes that it w as com m on practice
at this tim e for young Englishw om en of genteel birth but lim ited m eans to seek husbands am ong
the Englishm en populating England’s colonial territories, since in England “prospective
husbands looked for m oney as w ell as charm ” (17), w hich w as not necessarily the case in the
territories. Philadelphia’s daughter Eliza, ten years older than Jane A usten, had told her of
Philadelphia’s history, and, according to Tom alin, “Jane w as so struck by this part of her aunt’s
story that she incorporated it into her w riting that sum m er” (80). In A usten’s story, entitled
“C atherine, or the B ow er,” an orphaned young w om an w ith no prospect of a “M aintenance”
other than to “accept the offer of one of her cousins to equip her for the East Indies” travels to
India, although “infinitely against her inclinations” (qtd. in Tom alin 80). The story continues, B aldw in 9
“H er personal A ttractions had gained her a husband as soon as she had arrived at B engal, and she
had now been m arried nearly a tw elvem onth. Splendidly, yet unhappily m arried. U nited to a
M an of double her ow n age, w hose disposition w as not am iable, and w hose m anners w ere
unpleasing, though his C haracter w as respectable” (qtd. in Tom alin 81). The story m akes it clear
that by age sixteen Jane A usten w as aw are both of the existence of conjugal infelicity and of the
econom ic pressures that could lead a young w om an to exchange herself for a “M aintenance.”
M uch later, w hen she is alm ost thirtythree, A usten w ill w rite to her sister, C assandra, of one of
their friends, also thirtythree, w ho is about to m arry a clergym an of sixty, “Tom orrow w e m ust
think of poor C atherine” (qtd. in Tom alin 204). Tom alin notes, “She [A usten] w as learning to see
that spinsterhood, a condition w hich had for so long looked fearful, could be a form of freedom ”
(204). A usten did in fact ultim ately rem ain unm arried.
In M ansfield Park, the plot propels the heroine, Fanny Price, tow ard m arriage, even
though the novel gives us glim pses of conjugal infelicity. Indeed, m arriage is not alw ays the
m ost beneficial outcom e for a w om an in Jane A usten’s tim e. Even w hen “infelicity” in m arriage
w as not the problem , the prospect of constant childbearing could m ake m arriage a dangerous
choice for w om en. A t around the tim e that A usten w rote to C assandra of the im pending m arriage
of “poor C atherine,” Jane and C assandra’s sisterinlaw Elizabeth K night had just died, at the age
of thirtyfive, follow ing the birth of her eleventh child (Tom alin 205). The K nights w ere
extrem ely w ealthy, but m oney could not protect a w om an from the toll on her body and the
physical dangers of continuous childbearing during an era w hen birth control options w ere not
plentiful. In fact, as Tom alin notes, in the late eighteenth century “[s]eparate bedroom s w as the
usual form of birth control . . .” (7), but this m ethod clearly w as not alw ays used. B aldw in 10
In seeking m arriage to M r. R ushw orth, M aria B ertram is not driven by the fear of
poverty, in the w ay that Jane A usten’s friend C atherine m ost likely w as. N or is she m arrying a
w ealthy m an w hom she also happens to love, as A usten’s sisterinlaw Elizabeth K night did
(Tom alin 205). M aria is driven by the desire for m ore m oney than she already has and by vanity
(she w ill not let C raw ford, w ho has played w ith her feelings, see that he has w ounded her). H er
m arriage cracks w hen C raw ford, draw n by his ow n vanity and curiosity, reappears in her m arried
life and begins a flirtation w ith her, even after declaring his love for Fanny and his intentions to
behave honorably. M aria and C raw ford run off together, causing profound turm oil and distress in
the lives of all that are connected to them . The narrator describes the result as follow s: “M r.
R ushw orth had no difficulty in procuring a divorce; and so ended a m arriage contracted under
such circum stances as to m ake any better end, the effect of good luck, not to be reckoned on. She
had despised him , and loved another— and he had been very m uch aw are that it w as so” (431).
Just as in the account of the m arriage of M aria R ushw orth’s m other, Lady B ertram , “good luck”
is invoked here. H ere, though, the narrator m akes it clear that the “luck” of m aking a splendid
m atch m eans nothing if it is not accom panied by m utual affection and respect.
The unraveling of M aria R ushw orth’s m arriage is w hat eventually allow s Fanny Price to
m arry her beloved Edm und. Edm und, for m uch of the book, has been infatuated w ith H enry
C raw ford’s sister, M ary, despite her shockingly indifferent, even m ocking, attitude tow ard m any
of the things he holds dear, including his chosen profession as a clergym an. W hen M ary m akes
light of the adulterous behavior of his sister and her brother, though, it is too m uch for Edm und.
A s he tells Fanny later, “M y eyes are opened” (423).
Fanny and Edm und unite then, finally, but they do so against a backdrop of fam ily B aldw in 11
distress and disarray. M aria, deserted by H enry C raw ford, is banished from her father’s hom e as
a fallen w om an, w hile a younger daughter, Julia, has m ade a hasty and questionable m arriage.
Tom , the eldest son and heir, is slow ly recovering from a deathly illness brought on in part by his
excessive lifestyle. This som ber series of events seem s to overrule any sense of celebration that
readers m ight feel over Fanny and Edm und’s happy ending. A nd, as critics have noted, the
narrator tells us of the couple’s com ing together in an oddly offhand m anner: “I purposely
abstain from dates on this occasion. . . . I only entreat every body to believe that exactly at the
tim e w hen it w as quite natural that it should be so, and not a w eek earlier, Edm und did cease to
care about M iss C raw ford” (436). A s C laudia Johnson notes, the tone of this passage “obliges us
to consider their [Fanny and Edm und’s] alliance as a perfunctorily opted anticlim ax the narrator
w ashes her hands of, rather than a properly w ishedfor and w elldeserved union tow ards w hich
the parties have been m oving all along” (473).
O ne of the unspoken rules of the courtship novel is that there is only one right suitor for
the heroine, only one m an w ith w hom she could possibly be happy. This idea is called into
question in M ansfield Park, how ever. N ot only does the narrator tell us of Fanny and Edm und’s
com ing together in the oddly offhand w ay that Johnson rem arks above, but she also indicates that
things m ight have gone otherw ise, that if H enry C raw ford had not m ade his fatal blunder w ith
M aria, Edm und m ight finally have m arried H enry’s sister, M ary C raw ford, and that Fanny and
H enry m ight have then com e together: “W ould he [H enry] have persevered, and uprightly,
Fanny m ust have been his rew ard— and a rew ard very voluntarily bestow ed— w ithin a
reasonable period from Edm und’s m arrying M ary” (434). The narrator im plies, further, that
these alternative pairings, especially that of H enry and Fanny, m ight have been reasonably B aldw in 12
successful; in losing her, w e are told, H enry begins to understand that he has “lost the w om an
w hom he had rationally, as w ell as passionately loved” (435). H ad he com e to an understanding
of these feelings earlier and honored them , w e are encouraged to believe, the heroine m ight have
responded w ith “esteem and tenderness” (433). C onjugal felicity for the tw o, in other w ords,
w ould have been a distinct possibility, despite the fact that this is not the m atch that the story
seem s to have been leading us tow ard.
In M ansfield Park, then, despite the seem ing adherence to the conventions of the
courtship novel, am ong w hich are the ideas that m arriage is the culm inating joy of a w om an’s
life, that there is only one possible partner for the exem plary heroine, and that rom antic love is
the basis for m atrim ony, w e are given a view of m arriage that is highly am bivalent. A usten gives
a vivid portrait of the factors that can influence the young w om en of her tim e to choose a
husband for reasons other than love: econom ic pressures, vanity, com petitiveness w ith other
w om en, and the desire to either satisfy or rebel against one’s fam ily. She does this in a novel that
richly com bines com ic and dark strands, and through the voice of a narrator w ho is
com passionate and ironic by turns.
B aldw in 13
W orks C ited
A usten, Jane. M ansfield Park. Edited by K athryn Sutherland, Penguin B ooks, 2014.
. “To C assandra A usten.” Jane Austen’s Letters, edited by D eirdre Le Faye, 3rd ed., O xford
U P, 1995, pp. 2528.
B rophy, Elizabeth B ergen. W om en’s Lives and the EighteenthC entury English N ovel. U of
South Florida P, 1991.
C opeland, Edw ard. “M oney.” The C am bridge C om panion to Jane Austen, edited by C opeland
and Juliet M cM aster, C am bridge U P, 1997, pp. 13148.
G reen, K atherine Sobba. The C ourtship N ovel 17401820: A Fem inized G enre. U P of K entucky,
1991.
“H eavy, Adj.1 and N .” O xford English D ictionary, O xford U P, 2015,
w w w .oed.com /view /Entry/85246?rskey=aIe8O M & result=1.
H innant, C harles H . “Jane A usten’s ‘W ild Im agination’: R om ance and the C ourtship Plot in the
Six C anonical N ovels.” N arrative, vol. 14, no. 3, 2006, pp. 294310. JSTO R,
w w w .jstor.org/stable/20107392.
Johnson, C laudia L. “M ansfield Park: C onfusions of G uilt and R evolutions of M ind.” M ansfield
Park, by Jane A usten, edited by Johnson, W . W . N orton, 1998, pp. 45876.
Tom alin, C laire. Jane Austen: A Life. V intage B ooks, 1999.
