Mansfield Park, ch. 37: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been

Credit to the singular Fernando Vicente. No way would
I leave out his rendition of William Price.

Now that Henry has left Northamptonshire, Sir Thomas is watching for signs that his niece is starting to miss her wooer. I think that his expectations are based on what they’ve always been based on: his desire for predictability and order. Fanny comes from a poor family; she has been courted properly by a wealthy gentleman; ergo, she has no logical reason to spurn him. I think we should also consider the snobbish side of Sir Thomas as well. When he offered to break his daughter’s engagement, his primary concern wasn’t that she’d fail to find a husband. Fanny, being poor, doesn’t (and perhaps shouldn’t, in his view?) have many options.

Meanwhile, our beautiful idiot boy is sad that Fanny doesn’t appear to miss her new BFF Mary. Ugh.

Fanny tries to process her feelings about Ed and Mary’s eventual marriage. She imagines a terrible fate for him, having a wife who doesn’t share his values. Logically, “if Edmund’s influence in this season of love had already done so little in clearing her judgment, and regulating her notions, his worth would be finally wasted on her even in years of matrimony.” The narrator diplomatically suggests that Fanny’s “persuasions” are biased, perhaps even extreme. She’s pretty much basing her dread for Ed on her own dread of ending up with Henry, and that causes her to forgo her “rational self.” Even so, I have a hunch that Fanny is thinking more rationally about Ed’s chances of marital bliss than Ed is.

But who should drop in for a visit but William, our favorite big brother? (Hey, look who he’s competing with for that title.) The newly-minted Lt. is only bummed that he can’t wear his uniform while off-duty and wishes he could show it off to Fanny. Which is when Sir Thomas gets his idea for how to teach Fanny to toe the line …

And isn’t it interesting that, while he discusses the idea with Ed, Sir Thomas hides the real reason for this plan?

“[H]is prime motive in sending her away had very little to do with the propriety of her

seeing her parents again, and nothing at all with any idea of making her happy. He

certainly wished her to go willingly, but he as certainly wished her to be heartily sick

of home before her visit ended; and that a little abstinence from the elegancies and

luxuries of Mansfield Park would bring her mind into a sober state, and incline her to a

juster estimate of the value of that home of greater permanence, and equal comfort, of

which she had the offer.”

Damn. That’s cold, Father Bertram. The use of “abstinence” instead of the more common “absence” strikes me as particularly dark, as if he thinks Fanny has developed an addiction. And how con-freaking-vienent that he has all but forgotten about the unlit fireplace in the East Room or the fact that her bedroom is in the attic, or the times Mrs. Norris has tried to undermine Fanny’s self-esteem right in front of him. I don’t think I’d cite any of those as examples of “the elegancies and luxuries of Mansfield Park.” I guess he can pat himself on the back for “wish[ing] her to go [home] willingly.” Thanks, Tom Sr.

Fanny doesn’t suspect any of this. She can’t wait to go home to her mother, father, and the herd of little siblings she has yet to meet. She imagines herself as being able to “feel affection without fear or restraint; to feel herself the equal of those who surrounded her[.]” She anticipates bonding with her mother and blames herself for having “alienated love” as a child (!) because of her “fearful temper” (!!). Lastly, she thinks spending time away from Ed will help her crush fade away, hopefully before he pops the question to Mary. William, too, can’t wait to “have her there to the last moment before he sailed” and paints a rosy picture of Fanny bringing her “nice ways and orderliness” to the household.

Lady Bertram frets (in a lackadaisical way) over missing her niece. “[S]he could not acknowledge any necessity for Fanny’s ever going near a father and mother who had done without her so long,” is a sentiment I can get behind. Then she follows it up with “... while she was so useful to herself.” Even so, there’s something appealing about her stubbornness here. Even the easy-going, muted Lady Bertram cannot be convinced (by the incessant Mrs. Norris, no less) that she won’t miss Fanny.

But before everyone leaves, Mrs. Norris tries to invite herself last-minute on the journey (“to travel post” means, among other things, all expenses paid). Though Mrs. Norris wishing to leave Mansfield is not in character for her—hence why she ultimately doesn’t go—her revere for saving money is in perfect keeping with her core values. As I re-read this, what struck me were memories I have of being envious of other people’s levels of comfort (some of my extended family went on expensive trips constantly, as well). But guess what? I was a teenager at the time. So I wonder if Mrs. Norris’s impulse here is not just out of greed, but is in fact a symptom of emotional arrested development. Last post, I made a running gag invoking the cinematic masterpiece Mean Girls, and now I realize that I shouldn’t have left out Mrs. Norris. Because she is the ultimate Wannabe: she broke ties with her sis Frances because of Frances’s anti-establishment streak, sucks up to Sir Thomas because of his wealth and power, and coddles her nieces because they are pretty and popular.

Holy shit. Is Tina Fey the Jane Austen of our time?

Chapter coming up: Fanny meets the whole fam-damily, Mr. Price welcomes his daughter by kicking her luggage aside, and no, Frances Price does not turn out to be the Janis Ian of the Austen-verse. (We all know that title belongs to Mrs. Smith from Persuasion.)