Mansfield Park After A Re-read

Why It Still Remains My Least Favourite Jane Austen Novel

Portrait of Eugnie-Pamela Larivire by Charles Philippe Lariviere

Hello!!!

This is Joyie and welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet where I talk all things books!

This week’s letter is a little late because it was the week of our biggest festival of the year and I was away, celebrating with my cousins. But I’m back now. 

This week, I finished book three of Anna Karenina, but I haven't started book four yet. Have you been reading anything this week?

Today I want to talk about Mansfield Park. I re-read it in February and since then I've been thinking I'll write a post about it but I haven't managed that yet and somehow it's already October. Like how?

Anyway, this was my second time reading MP. The reason I re-read it was because it was my least favorite of all six Jane Austen novels, so I wanted to give it another chance. 

This story is centered around Fanny Price, a young girl born to poor parents and sent to live with her wealthy aunt's family at their estate. I don’t find her or any of the other characters in the story even remotely appealing, and I am, first and foremost, a character-centric reader. So for me, it falls rather flat. 

I generally tend to like characters who are morally conflicted. It’s easier for me to empathise with characters who make wrong choices, or at least struggle internally to make the right choices. When I see a character effortlessly making the right choices, I respect that, but I also find that a little alienating as I feel that that can never be me.

And Fanny for the most part is pretty flawless, at least internally.

Yes, she struggles to find her voice in a family where she’s hardly ever made to feel welcome. But in the story, she’s the ‘good’ character, surrounded by characters who are ‘bad’. The story doesn’t exactly demand her to change as much as it demands the characters around her to change and learn to appreciate her. Yes, Fanny does stand her ground when everyone around her is trying to pressure her into making a wrong choice. But to me that’s pretty underwhelming because that’s entirely an external struggle, internally she has never once shown any indication of even considering making the wrong choice. Because she is pretty much the moral compass of the story.

So, while I like Fanny, I don’t find her interesting. For example, I don’t like Emma, but I find her interesting as a character because she is flawed. 

That being said, upon my second read, I respect her integrity. I love her bond with her brother, William. And I love her dynamic with her uncle, Sir Thomas. I think theirs is my favourite relationship in the story.

However, I genuinely loathe Edmund. I don’t have a favourite Austen hero but he is definitely the one I despise the most. So while I’m not that invested in the romances in many other Austen novels (Northanger Abbey, Emma or Sense And Sensibility) this is the only one where I genuinely feel like it’s such a poor outcome for the heroine. 

So, upon my second read, MP still remains my least favourite Austen novel, but I do like it more than I used to. 

What about you? Have you read Mansfield Park? Do you like it? I'd love to hear about it!!!

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That’s it for today, I'll be back in your inbox next week.

Until then,

Joyie 🌻