Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Fannie Price is one of my least favorite Jane Austen heroines. To be sure, she has had a hard life—sent at the age of ten to live with well-to-do relatives, who were not particularly happy to have her. Her cousin Edmund is a friend, but her female cousins are the typical Mean Girls of the era, catty, insulting, and not caring about much beyond their own fashions and prospects. But Fanny is a wimp and a ninny, afraid to speak up and doesn’t spend her time in self-improvement. She moons after Edmund, who is besotted by the flashy and questionable Mary Crawford. There is a brief mention of slavery at the dinner table, which is how the family’s fortune is maintained.
Fanny is sent to Portsmouth to stay with her family—there are many children and her father is a coarse drunkard. Henry Crawford, who has decided to pursue Fanny as a lark, pursues her to her home and ingratiates himself to her family. But Fanny has grown too fine for her family, and wants to return to Mansfield Park.
There are at least three film versions of Mansfield Park. I watched the 1999 version, which was quite an eye opener. Fanny was described as a “spirited girl,” which I certainly would never call her after reading the book. Dispirited would be more appropriate. But in this film, Fanny interrupted, flirted, kissed in public. Slavery played a central part in this version, with Tom arguing with his father about the family’s treatment of slaves in Antigua. There were also a couple of scenes between Fanny and Mary Crawford which had lesbian undertones, surprising to say the least.
Some of the actors are familiar to anyone who watches BBC programs. Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey) was Rushworth. Charles Edwards (Michael Gregson on Downton Abbey) was Yates. Francis O’Connor (Mr. Selfridge) was Fanny. And Harold Pinter (the Nobel prize winning playwright!) was Sir Thomas.
There was a tv series of Mansfield Park in 1983. In this one Fanny was a plain and timid young woman, more in keeping with Austen’s original character.
Samantha Bond (Lady Rosamond on Downton Abbey) plays Maria Bertram.
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