My Poor Fanny!

We are occasionally visited here at Bloody Nib Manor by Jane Austen. Such visits are always welcomed. Well, actually, the ever young Countess Nib usually finds some excuse to duck out of the visits because she finds Miss Austen not quite deep enough for her tastes. But that's what a university education and a taste for adventure gets one. The ever lovely Lady Nib looks forward to Miss Austen's visits eagerly, and especially enjoys Miss Austen's telling of Pride and Prejudice and Emma. Your truly, on the other hand, finds the recounting of Mansfield Park most rewarding and pleasing.

Let's face it. Lizzie Bennett and Emma Woodhouse are easy to like. Miss Bennett is sharp, ironic (in the good sense) and is intolerant of nonsense. Miss Woodhouse is charming, silly and is probably more like all of us than we would care to admit. Fanny Price, on the other hand, is often seen as dull, Dull and DULL. It's really quite unfair because poor Fanny is honest, sincere and transparent. She is, in a sense, Jane Bennett without the county wide fame as a beauty in a bad situation.

Some people dislike Fanny Price because she's always right. Others dislike her because she is not ironic or arch. But what they don't realize is that Fanny, after being proven right in her assessment does not parade through the grounds of Mansfield Park waving a flag and shouting, "I was right! You were wrong!". Or after she does the moral and Christian thing she does not sneer at the person who did the wrong thing. Fanny just goes on being right because she is right and doesn't realize that anybody with any lick of sense could be wrong. Fanny is one of those very rare people who actually lives the life she professes and professes her life by her life.

If you've read the novel you'll know that Fanny Price is almost like a rock in a stream. Life occurs around her while she seems to be immovable. And in her steadfast adherence to her Christian values (and Fanny is probably a much more conservative Christian than Jane Austen was) she reveals the silliness and stupidity of her cousins and the Crawfords. She does not point the long bony finger and say , "You're wrong." She simply says, "I cannot," or "I shall not." By implication she says, "I don't think what you're doing is a good idea and I'll have no part of it. But if you insist on doing a stupid thing, that's you're business."

The Crawfords are the societal termites in Mansfield Park, and Fanny sees through their glitz and glamour without realizing it. She senses that there is more iron pyrite about them than gold simply because Fanny has a good foundation. She's been through the mill in a way that the Bertrams haven't. Fanny is, to be crass, the Rocky of the Jane Austen ouvre'.

In the section of Mansfield Park dealing with the production of the home theatrical, Fanny is asked to play a part in the play. Fanny refuses and explains her refusal with the words, " I cannot act." And there is the charm of Fanny. She cannot act. The Fanny one sees is the Fanny one gets. Fanny will not act and she senses that there is something a little hinckey about people who can act. In times past professional actors, while patronized by the public, were considered somewhat morally suspect simply because person who could act the part of someone they were not was considered insincere and superficial. Amateur theatricals were considered, by some, to be the thin edge of the wedge toward a dissolute life. Ask yourself this question: Is Catherine Zeta Jones the hottie she portrays in films or is she the matron raising a child? Or does she even know herself? Fanny Price knows who she is and doesn't bother trying to be who she isn't.

Fanny Price is that, by modern standards, unpopular creature -- a sincere and honest person, and a Christian to boot. What's wrong with that?

If you're not the reading type I would suggest that you watch the BBC film version of Mansfield Park instead of the film version that came out a few years ago. It's more faithful to the book and is less infected by political correctness.

And next week it's Anne Elliot. Can any woman who marries a sailor be wrong?