Constancy and the Ethics of Jane Austen's 'Mansfield Park'

Appendix. Mansfield Park Plot Summary

259 259 Appendix Mansfield Park Plot Summary y The process of discovering a novel’s philosophic truths usually requires that we not only read but also reread the text. Mansfield Park, however, is generally considered to be Austen’s least popular novel—and Fanny her least popular heroine. Like Tom Townsend, the character in the movie Metropolitan (a film loosely based on Mansfield Park), some readers of this book who have heard of the novel’s controversial heroine may not have actually read Mansfield Park. This appendix provides basic plot information to support a reading of Constancy and the Ethics of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park for those who have not read the novel. The story begins with the marriage of three Ward sisters, marriages that create a tripartite estate under the stewardship of Sir Thomas Bertram, baronet of the Mansfield Park estate. Sir Thomas marries Maria, the middle Ward sister, and he assists the oldest sister, Miss Ward, in attaching herself to Mr. Norris, a respectable, if not prosperous, clergyman whose living Sir Thomas provides from the estate’s parsonage. The youngest sister, Fanny, however, marries a Lieutenant Price, “without education, fortune, or connections ,” and with the active meddling of Mrs. Norris, this imprudent act becomes the cause of a family breach that lasts ten years. At the end of that decade, an abundance of children and a scarcity of income teach Mrs. Price to repent the loss of her prosperous Bertram relatives, and the breach is repaired . The reparation causes Mrs. Norris (whose active nature always needs a project) to propose the adoption of Fanny Price, her sister’s oldest daughter , from her home in Portsmouth. Fanny’s arrival and education take place, and as the person in the family with the least status, she is routinely taken for granted and looked down 260 260 Appendix: Plot Summary upon if not mistreated by her cousins, Maria, Julia, and Tom Bertram, older son and heir to the estate. Only Edmund, the second son, is kind to her, and for this he receives perhaps more than his share of gratitude. Five years after Fanny’s adoption, Mr. Norris’s death engenders contingent situations for the family. Fanny fears a move to live with her Aunt Norris, who has never been kind to her; Edmund finds that the living he was to be given must be mortgaged to pay Tom’s gambling debts; and Sir Thomas finds that he must journey to his Antigua plantation to aid his straitened economic circumstances by shoring up its profitability. Tom’s prodigality, then, becomes the first cause for the arrival of the two most corrupting influences from outside of the estate: Mary and Henry Crawford. Mary and Henry Crawford enter the narrative when Dr. and Mrs. Grant replace the Norrises at the parsonage. They are the half brother and sister of Mrs. Grant, and they bring to Mansfield Park their sophisticated London ways and a taste for excitement. Henry Crawford influences both Maria Bertram , the engaged older sister, and Julia, the less attractive younger sister, with his flirtatious ways, while Mary Crawford’s charms entice a customarily steady and reliable Edmund into behaving inconsistently and even hypocritically , especially toward Fanny. Fanny, who idolizes Edmund, suffers as she observes Mary’s corrupting influence on him; moreover, Edmund’s growing affection for Mary makes Fanny jealous. Two significant episodes bring these influences and their immediate consequences to light. The first is the excursion to Sotherton, the estate of Maria ’s wealthy fiancé, Rushworth. It is an interlude during which Henry and Mary Crawford begin to tempt seriously the two Bertram siblings, Maria and Edmund. The second is the theatricals, during which they act out the seductive roles for which Sotherton provides the dress rehearsal. During these episodes, only Fanny watches and recognizes actual and potential evil, evil that even she cannot help sometimes being drawn into. Her development and practice of constancy helps her to avoid the errors of her cousins, although she suffers, most of the time, more than they do. Striving to do right, in fact, makes her more rather than less inclined to suffer. Sir Thomas’s return from Antigua puts an end not only to the theatricals but also to the Crawfords’ visible influence, but they leave destructive effects in their wake. The appearance of order has been restored to Mansfield Park, but not the reality. While secretly loving Henry, Maria marries rich but stupid Rushworth, a...