Mansfield Park, ch. 34: The Perfect Role

The one and only C.E. Brock.

Back from visiting his friend, Ed has a couple of surprises in store for him—not least of which is a sweeter, kinder Mary who has decided to stay at the Grants’ longer. (We haven’t heard from her since her tonally-off letter to Fanny, but we’ll get the whole story soon.) Henry’s still hanging around? Check. William got a promotion thanks to Henry? Check. Henry also asked Fanny to marry him? Check.

Fanny said no? Ed’s reaction is basically: Don’t worry, Dad. It’ll take. We just have to give it some time.

… And if you’re feeling disappointed in Ed, well, you’re not alone. Ed joining Team Henry almost the minute after he’s introduced to the idea of Hanny is a big sticking point with a lot of readers. It’s not easy, at first glance, to reconcile Ed, Fanny’s secret soulmate with Ed, enthusiastic supporter of Fanny’s admirer. And, yeah, there’s no good way to spin that. That being said, let me try to give some context. First of all, I advise you to look at Ellen Moody’s thoughts on the subject (her answer references a conversation between Ed and Fanny in a later chapter). Second of all, Ed’s optimistic meeting with Mary is “enough to set his heart in a glow, and to bring him home in the properest state for feeling the full value of the other joyful surprises at hand.” The “other joy” in this case is Henry falling for his complete opposite and pledging himself to her. And if one Crawford sibling is capable of such a change, then why not the other?

That might go some way in explaining why “[w]ith such powers as [Henry’s] ... and such a disposition as [Fanny’s], Edmund trusted that everything would work out a happy conclusion.”

Once he sees the two of them in action the next evening, though, Ed starts to have doubts. He’s sure that “Fanny was worth it all; he held her to be worth every effort of patience, every exertion of mind.” Yet other than the “embarrassment” and “confusion” she exhibits, there’s no direct and “immediate encouragement” in her behavior toward Henry.* Interesting that Ed should come to this conclusion, given that Mary spent most of their courtship giving encouragement only as it pertained to Ed’s career track. She wasn’t exactly making it easy for him to propose, so what did he do? He stopped trying. And yet he continues to play wing-man for Henry.

After dinner, Henry reads a few passages from Shakespeare while Fanny succumbs to the eargasm that his voice produces. His talent and her appreciation of it—“[h]is acting,” after all, “had first taught Fanny what pleasure a play might give”—is presented as a perfect fit, even a good basis for a relationship. Ed certainly sees it as a sign that Fanny’s into Henry despite her protests. Deidre Shawna Lynch offers some insightful commentary about the particular play he’s reading from, Henry VIII: “[Austen] would not want readers to miss the resemblance linking Henry Crawford to his namesake, the king whose philandering made history.” Saucy. Additionally, Lynch suggests, Fanny can relate to the king’s first wife, Katherine, a role that became “one of romantic period Britain’s most influential representations of female virtue in distress.” Yowza. Not a good relationship model.

The two men continue to talk about, well, talking. Henry’s speech about Shakespeare is remarkably timeless—how many of us can truly remember the first time we encountered a Shakespearean reference? However, Henry’s aside that he cannot remember whether he’s seen a certain play or just heard about it from someone else is more in keeping with his general carelessness. Randomly, Henry muses to Ed that he’d like to be a “distinguished preacher,” which even Ed has to laugh at, though Henry would insist on only having “a London audience.” What a snob! Henry’s all, yeah I could sermonize for, like, two days out of the year for novelty’s sake. Fanny shakes her head in pity. Like a shot, Henry’s in her space, needling her: “Did you think me speaking improperly, lightly, irreverently on the subject? Only tell me if I was. Only tell me if I was wrong. I want to be set right.”

Hey, Henry, we all have our kinks, so no judgment there. But Fanny is “vexed” and “grieved” by Henry’s persistence and Ed’s encouragement of it, respectively. “How can you, Sir?” she demands with her “modest gentle nature.” Hammering home Fanny’s gentleness is Austen’s way of explaining, in part, why Henry thinks he has an in with her, but I think we can acknowledge that this explanation doesn’t play well in this post-#MeToo era.

Anyway, Henry zeroes in on the current issue, or at least part of it: his acknowledgement that he isn’t very consistent in his behavior. (This is a fault that Fanny once found in Ed.) She parries that “it was a pity you did not always know yourself as well as you seemed to do at that moment.” But Henry, who “derive[s] spirits” from the challenge Fanny presents, doesn’t give up. He vows to prove himself: “My conduct shall speak for me—absence, distance, time shall speak for me … that as far as you can be deserved by anybody, I do deserve you.” (The balls on this guy to insist that he’s entirely at her mercy while having, demanding, all the power in their interactions. Grr.)

Only that’s not what she said. She doesn’t want devotion; if anything, she wants Henry to level up in self-awareness and realize what he wants. Instead, in his haste to play the role of fervent admirer, he simply declares that he will change one of his core personality traits. But he’s not even listening to what Fanny said! So much for trying to be “he who sees and worships [her] merit.” He just sees a blank-slate Madonna figure.

Speaking of lacking self-awareness, Henry goes ahead and calls Fanny by her first name (even though they aren’t engaged) and dresses up his justification in sweet talk. I can’t help it that you’re so beautiful and perfect that I must ignore good manners and propriety. Did I already say “Grr”? Because I’ve got another “Grr” in me.

Chapter the next: Ed tries to console Fanny, but between his renewed hopes for Mary and his bias for the Crawfords in general, it’s pretty much a disaster.

*Austen has a lot to say about the conduct of courtship in her novels. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy mistakes Jane Bennet’s calm and gentle manner as indifference towards his friend. But here, Sir Thomas and Henry Crawford mistake Fanny’s calm and gentle manner for confusion (and her refusal for naiveté). Many of Austen’s characters only see what they want to see.