What a heroine "should" be
Dec. 5th, 2011 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amelia_petkovaOr, my defense of Fanny Price
Time for some meta, people. Mansfield Park is not Jane Austen’s most popular novel. That honor seems to belong to Pride & Prejudice, with the follow-up probably being Sense & Sensibility. (Context for this discussion: I have read all three novels mentioned above, as well as Emma and Persuasion. I did read Northanger Abbey, but it was long enough ago that I don’t remember much of it.) Most of Austen’s heroines are clever, spirited, and can hold their own in a conversation. Fanny from Mansfield Park doesn’t fit that mold. She’s shy, quiet, and has somewhat fragile health. Many Austen fans do not care for Fanny. They think she’s boring. I feel the opposite: I think that Fanny is an awesome female lead in her own way.
I think that a lot of this argument comes down to our opinions of what we want a literary heroine to be. The reader tends to identify with the main character, and we like to identify with people who are brave, bold, eloquent, etc. It’s harder to identify with Fanny. Yet I think that she is a very realistic character when we think about her circumstances and upbringing. In most of Austen’s novels, her heroines have families who love them, even though they’re annoying at times. (For example, Mrs. Bennett does appear to care for her daughters even though she can be obsessive and annoying.)
Fanny’s character makes sense when you think about the following things: she leaves her parents at a young age to live with relatives who do not care much for her. Fanny’s aunt is off in her own world, her uncle is absent, her female cousins seem to treat her with indifference, and her aunt Mrs. Norris appears to actively disdain her. Her cousin Edmund is the only person who has affection for her on a regular basis. Fanny is treated physically well (with the exception of things like Mrs. Norris not allowing Fanny to have a fire in Fanny's rooms!) and educated, but that’s about it. At best, she suffers from benign neglect. It’s mentioned in the beginning of the novel that Fanny goes to her relatives when she’s nine years old and I think it’s safe to assume that she’s at least seventeen during the novel’s main action. That’s a huge portion of her life and formative years.
Taking all these things into consideration, it’s impressive how much Fanny is able to stand up for herself. When Henry Crawford proposes marriage, everybody approves of it. On the surface he’s a good match. But something about him rightly creeps Fanny out and she refuses. Her family thinks she’s being ridiculous and badgers her to marry Henry. They even send her back to her poor parents to change yet mind. Yet she never gives in. Fanny sticks to her decision and doesn’t budge. For a woman who has constantly been looked down upon and educated to be submissive, that’s badass.
I need to briefly talk about the 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield Park. We watched parts of it during my Jane Austen class. I can’t stand it. That movie drives me crazy. The part that kills me the most is when Henry Crawford is following Fanny around like a stalker after she’s been sent back to her parents. In a moment of weakness, she caves and agrees to marry him. Watching this, almost our entire class was screaming, “Don’t do it!” like when you’re watching a horror movie and the heroine is about to open the door to the ax murderer. Thankfully she comes to her senses the next day and breaks the engagement, but still. (My reasons for disliking to movie’s attempt to make Henry sympathetic can best be summed up in these lines of his from the novel—the bolding is my emphasis:
“But I cannot be satisfied without Fanny Price, without making a small hole in Fanny Price’s heart.”
“I must try to get the better of this. Her looks say, ‘I will not like you, I am determined not to like you,’ and I say, she shall.”
“I only want her to look kindly on me, to give me smiles and blushes, to keep a chair for me by herself, wherever we are, and be all animation when I take it and talk to her; to think as I think, be interested in all my possessions and pleasures, try to keep me longer at Mansfield, and feel when I go away that she shall never be happy again. I want no more.” What the hell, Henry?)
When it seems that everything and everyone is against her, Fanny sticks to what she will make her happy and what she feels to be right. That makes her as good as any other Jane Austen heroine.
Time for some meta, people. Mansfield Park is not Jane Austen’s most popular novel. That honor seems to belong to Pride & Prejudice, with the follow-up probably being Sense & Sensibility. (Context for this discussion: I have read all three novels mentioned above, as well as Emma and Persuasion. I did read Northanger Abbey, but it was long enough ago that I don’t remember much of it.) Most of Austen’s heroines are clever, spirited, and can hold their own in a conversation. Fanny from Mansfield Park doesn’t fit that mold. She’s shy, quiet, and has somewhat fragile health. Many Austen fans do not care for Fanny. They think she’s boring. I feel the opposite: I think that Fanny is an awesome female lead in her own way.
I think that a lot of this argument comes down to our opinions of what we want a literary heroine to be. The reader tends to identify with the main character, and we like to identify with people who are brave, bold, eloquent, etc. It’s harder to identify with Fanny. Yet I think that she is a very realistic character when we think about her circumstances and upbringing. In most of Austen’s novels, her heroines have families who love them, even though they’re annoying at times. (For example, Mrs. Bennett does appear to care for her daughters even though she can be obsessive and annoying.)
Fanny’s character makes sense when you think about the following things: she leaves her parents at a young age to live with relatives who do not care much for her. Fanny’s aunt is off in her own world, her uncle is absent, her female cousins seem to treat her with indifference, and her aunt Mrs. Norris appears to actively disdain her. Her cousin Edmund is the only person who has affection for her on a regular basis. Fanny is treated physically well (with the exception of things like Mrs. Norris not allowing Fanny to have a fire in Fanny's rooms!) and educated, but that’s about it. At best, she suffers from benign neglect. It’s mentioned in the beginning of the novel that Fanny goes to her relatives when she’s nine years old and I think it’s safe to assume that she’s at least seventeen during the novel’s main action. That’s a huge portion of her life and formative years.
Taking all these things into consideration, it’s impressive how much Fanny is able to stand up for herself. When Henry Crawford proposes marriage, everybody approves of it. On the surface he’s a good match. But something about him rightly creeps Fanny out and she refuses. Her family thinks she’s being ridiculous and badgers her to marry Henry. They even send her back to her poor parents to change yet mind. Yet she never gives in. Fanny sticks to her decision and doesn’t budge. For a woman who has constantly been looked down upon and educated to be submissive, that’s badass.
I need to briefly talk about the 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield Park. We watched parts of it during my Jane Austen class. I can’t stand it. That movie drives me crazy. The part that kills me the most is when Henry Crawford is following Fanny around like a stalker after she’s been sent back to her parents. In a moment of weakness, she caves and agrees to marry him. Watching this, almost our entire class was screaming, “Don’t do it!” like when you’re watching a horror movie and the heroine is about to open the door to the ax murderer. Thankfully she comes to her senses the next day and breaks the engagement, but still. (My reasons for disliking to movie’s attempt to make Henry sympathetic can best be summed up in these lines of his from the novel—the bolding is my emphasis:
“But I cannot be satisfied without Fanny Price, without making a small hole in Fanny Price’s heart.”
“I must try to get the better of this. Her looks say, ‘I will not like you, I am determined not to like you,’ and I say, she shall.”
“I only want her to look kindly on me, to give me smiles and blushes, to keep a chair for me by herself, wherever we are, and be all animation when I take it and talk to her; to think as I think, be interested in all my possessions and pleasures, try to keep me longer at Mansfield, and feel when I go away that she shall never be happy again. I want no more.” What the hell, Henry?)
When it seems that everything and everyone is against her, Fanny sticks to what she will make her happy and what she feels to be right. That makes her as good as any other Jane Austen heroine.
