Mansfield Park Essay

To what extent is Mansfield Park a bitter parody of conservative fiction ?

There simply exists no critical consensus regarding Austen s novel Mansfield Park. Indeed critics tend to oscillate between two extreme camps, either heralding the novel as radical and reactionary (with feminist and ironic undertones to its domestic sentimental form) or instead lamenting its maintenance of conservative ideals and values. It has created what Amy Wolf describes as a critical tug-of-war[1] , with each seeing their own stance on the novel s problematic ending, characterization, didacticism, and Lover s Vows scene as key to explaining Austen s own ideological bearings. For Claudia L. Johnson Mansfield Park is firmly within the radical reactionary camp, subversively imitating domestic conservative fiction, in a pirate-like fashion, in order to turn its myths sour [2]. It is certainly true that Austen subverts and disrupts many conservative domestic discourses within the novel, introducing theatricality to the plot, upsetting the marriage plot and complicating any evident didacticism. Such subversion challenges traditional ideas of a patriarchal family politic, (with its Burkean sublime figureheads and beautiful modest females), and thus upsets conservative gender prescri ptions. However Johnson s use of the word parody is highly problematic, as it seems to imply that there are clear domestic conservative fictional conventions from which to deviate. In fact the traditional domestic novel is a highly dialogical and complicated form not to be so easily unraveled. Furthermore parody is simply too certain and overt a word to describe this novel s resistance to conservatism, and fails (much like most of the black/white this/that criticism on the novel) to take into account its deep complexity, internal contradictions and competing multiple narratives. Indeed one must always remember that Austen is subverting conservative fiction from within its very own form, due to the rigorous censure to which women novelists were subject. Such a box effect creates a strange pushing and pulling tension between opposing forces of negation and affirmation. It seems this novel has generated such critical debate due to its complicated containment of two competing impulses a surface one that seems to support conservatism, with all its gender dynamics, and a hidden subversive one that opposes traditional power structures. Thus we have a novel that contains a subversive subtext within a more traditional affirmative text. In this way Austen s novel is self-consciously inadequate and she sets her art to limits that in turn mirror exactly the limits she perceived as imposed on female experience[3] . Her mutiny is contained within the very form that seeks to suppress it, prompting Mary Brunton to call her a secret subversive[4] . Thus Austen s attacks on conservatism are not as aggressive as acts of piracy[5] , but are instead whispered and subtle because they cannot be anything else.

It must first be noted that the idea of parodying conservative fiction is highly problematic due to its assumption that there exists one neat conservative model against which we can measure Austen s subsequent subversion. Indeed in order to define Austen s anti-conservative-fiction discourse we must first grasp what is meant by conservative fiction. Conservative fiction is a highly vague term and is not in itself a defined genre. Therefore read in isolation it is hard to determine what conventions Johnson feels are being subverted. However Johnson elaborates on this point within her publication Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel, specifically calling attention to Austen s destabilization of notions of Sublime patriarchy and that of the feminine beautiful within the internal sphere of Mansfield[6]. Such ideas of a conservative family politic belong most prominently to the sentimental novel, and more specifically to its subgenre the domestic novel. Thus Johnson s statement can be taken more specifically to mean Mansfield Park as a parody of conservative domestic fiction .

However trying to ascertain domestic fictional conventions, in both their original and subverted form, in Mansfield Park is a sticky and difficult activity. This is due to the fact that the domestic genre, and in fact any literary genre, is part of a dynamic process rather than a set of stable rules[7] . Indeed novels actively engage with their own limits and are self-consciously aware of their own styles. Certainly the domestic novel itself is a sub-genre of the Sentimental tradition, which in turn was itself a reaction to the austerity and rationalism of the Neo-classical period[8] . Thus it as Robert Altar states that the literary genre systematically flaunts its own condition and has always been aware of its past, present and next move'#148[9]. It seems categories are self-consciously aware of what they stem from and that a consideration of custom will always lead to a consideration of an anti-custom and vice-versa. One cannot exist without the other. This co-existence of orthodox and subversive forces exists within Mansfield Park. Indeed Austen s utilizes the domestic form and then discreetly subverts its traditions internally. In this way her subversions are limited, as in the act of subverting these domestic conventions she remains in communication with them. Ironically therefore the extent to which parody can ever fully subvert is called into question. However her conservative conventions are equally limited in their ability to fully promote their dominant discourses, due to their internal ambiguities and inconsistencies. In this way Mansfield Park s conventions exist on so many multiple levels, that it is unclear whether they are negating or affirming domestic fiction in Mansfield Park. Black and white dichotomies do not work here and it seems that this text could never be simplified to either conservative domestic fiction or an overt parody of it. Narrative will always be met by counter narrative and this novel is involved in a battle of multiple and opposite forces.

Many critics have condemned this ambiguity in Mansfield Park, viewing it as Austen s failure to escape the enclosure and confines of her own conservative domestic form. Such critics view Austen s domestic novel limitations as corresponding with the limits imposed on the female experience itself. George Tucker acknowledges this disappointment, stating hostile critics have never forgiven Jane Austen for having limited the scope of her novels to pictures of domestic life [10]. Furthermore Barbara Freeman states that female novelists that write within this tradition are by no means exempt from the misogynistic structures that shape[11] . However such readings fail to take into account that Austen s ambiguity, regarding her orthodox/subversive bearings, is a necessary subversive tool. One must remember that her position as a female writer was highly unstable. Indeed she had already dared to pick up her pen, so her content could not be controversial if she hoped to get published. A.S Kharbe discusses this precarious writing position:

Most of the novel s written in the eighteenth century by women used the house as the central image, because, like their heroines, female writers were almost exclusively confined to the house [ ] Although female writers seized the opportunity for a subjective voice in their fiction due to their limited options, they were also aware aware of its disadvantages. They had to conform to expectation in order to be accepted for publication [12]

There is therefore an evident relation between women traditionally being granted limited authority within the home, and the limited agency granted to a female novelist who plays the domestic fiction game . Austen therefore had to find a way to register her resistance to patriarchal borders within those very borders. However in limiting her subversion she also paradoxically strengthens it as she draws attention to the conditions that make mutiny necessary. In other words in only-going-so-far with her domestic subversions, Austen in turn mirrors how the eighteenth century female could only-go-so-far in life. Thus Austen s resistance to conservative discourse is apparent not only in the content of her domestic novel, but also in the limits of that content.

Therefore domestic novel conventions in Mansfield Park have both affirmative and subversive functions simultaneously. Thus to define conservative fiction with regards to Mansfield Park s form is too problematic. John Swales template for understanding genre is helpful with regards this predicament when he states that the principal criterial feature that turns a collection of communicative events into a genre is some shared set of communicative purpose [13]. The critic Nancy Armstrong provides a clear illustration of the domestic novel s function when she describes it as Female writing__writing that was considered appropriate for or could be written by women in order to carryout a gendering of discourse[14] . Thus we must appropriate both Swales and Armstrong s definitions and understand conservative domestic conventions as that which reinforces a division between male and female versions of authority, and view as subversive anything that questions the validity of such a differentiation.

On the surface this novel seems a textbook example of conservative domestic fiction. Nancy Armstrong describes the domestic novel as a form that fosters private, self-regulating[15] subjectivity. Indeed the novel is predominantly focused on Mansfield s private internal domain and the Bertram family s own domestic circle [16]. It is true that Mary and Henry Crawford are main characters that exist outside this domestic sphere. However whilst they inhabit the narrative they live no further then the parsonage the Estate s extension property that is so near you only have to pass through a gate to get there (MP, 60). Furthermore Mary Crawford refers to Mansfield as a real park five miles round (MP, 41), which suggests it to be an enclosed domestic space separate to what lies outside it borders and only concerned with the business (MP, 54) of Sir Thomas and his close family. Indeed the house itself is so well placed and so well screened as to deserve to be in any collection of engravings of gentleman s seats in the kingdom (MP, 41). Thus the land is screened from its surroundings and firmly placed in its own domestic habitat. This sense of an inclusive domestic sphere is further heightened by the fact that Austen only writes eleven main character parts in this novel considerably less then in her other novels. It seems therefore that initially Austen creates the ideal conditions for Sir Thomas domestic tranquility to thrive, as for him this familial bliss means that which shuts out anything external to his beloved family party (MP, 164).

Therefore Austen seemingly presents us with an unmistakably conservative figure of Sublime Patriarchy in Sir Thomas Bertram, Master at Mansfield Park (MP, 330). Indeed Tony Tanner notes that Sir Thomas is cast in the mold of a guardian of traditional authority[17] . Furthermore Douglas Bush recognizes Mansfield Park as a model of patriarchal order, exemplifying the spirit of hierarchy and the assumption of male primacy over the female. Sir Thomas is the principle patriarchal figure[18] . Indeed Sir Thomas initially apparent family pride echoes the Burkean ideal that family love is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affection[19] . Furthermore throughout the novel it is Sir Thomas that is the sole-provider for the novel s female characters. Indeed one must note the significance of the Ward sister s last name. The word Ward means someone placed under the protection of a guardian figure. Indeed Mrs. Norris is wholly dependent on the generosity of her brother in law after her husbands death, as is obviously his wife Lady Bertram and more indirectly Frances Ward who sends him Fanny and receives friendly advice and provisions (MP, 10) from him. Furthermore Fanny, Maria and Julia are also indirectly Wards due to matrilineal inheritance. Austen thus reveals that despite the private realm being the chief sphere where female power is asserted[20] , it is the Patriarchal figure of Sir Thomas who creates and funds this internal realm. Thus on first glance we are presented with a traditional domestic structure - a local sphere regulated by a larger patriarchal power.

Further meeting our expectations of the domestic novel. Mansfield Park is centered on the marriage plot and keeps in line with its regulatory patterning. Indeed all other sub-plots, such as the Crawfords presence, Tom s illness, Sir Thomas Antigua pursuits and Fanny s Portsmouth home, are either eclipsed by, or shown to lead up to, the final marriage of Fanny and Edmund. This novel s dominant preoccupation with marriage is apparent from its opening sentence where it is announced Over thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward of Huntington, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park. (MP, 1) Marriage is therefore the surface text s dominant and initial preoccupation. Furthermore this opening sentence seems to conflate conservative gender dynamics with marriage, by describing how Maria Ward is lucky enough to win some sort of great patriarchal power package'#150 a man and his large house. Throughout Mansfield Park there many different nuptials are mentioned. There are the sensible proper weddings (MP, 179) of Fanny and Edmund and Mr. and Mrs. Norris, the status-seeking marriages of both the elder and younger Maria Ward, the scandalous marriage of Frances Ward to Mr. Price and the controversial failure of Maria and Henry Crawford s adulterous elopement. The surface pulse of this novel is therefore matrimonially fuelled just as we expect from a traditional domestic text.

Furthermore the use of words such as fixing and education in the opening pages of Mansfield Park introduces a conservative didactic tone. Such a theme of schooling and use of the language of correction is reminiscent of the eighteenth century conduct manual.This is emphasized further through the central character of Fanny, who is so modest and well behaved that she seems to have walked straight out of a conduct book. Indeed Fanny is passive, subservient, silent and prefers to remain anonymous in most situations- everything these conduct-novels recommend. These qualities furthermore seem to prevail at the end of the novel and Fanny remains unchanged. In aligning Mansfield Park with such works Austen seems to take seriously the domestic novel s responsibility to be a vehicle for sound doctrine[21] .

Therefore in numerous ways Mansfield Park seems to conform to the conventions of domestic fiction by enforcing gendered discourses[22] that differentiate between male patriarchy and female passivity. However on closer inspection this conservative structure is fractured and flawed. Indeed this text is riddled with inconsistencies and ambiguities that contradict its dominant surface discourses and force its reader to question the validity of such conventions. It is thus in what Austen fails to mention, address or complete that her subversion lies, as she draws attention to the limited ability of conservative fiction to fully capture the female experience.

Indeed cracks are evident within the internal patriarchal structure of Mansfield Park, due to Austen s problematic characterization of the eldest Bertram son. Sir Thomas Bertram is physically absent for most of the novel and as such all patriarchal power is temporarily vested in his first son, and Mansfield s primary heir, Tom. However, despite Tom s status as a sort of master-by-proxy Austen exiles him to the novel s margins and allows him very little self-representation. Tom does not feature in any of the novel s central plots, and although he amasses large and dramatic debts Austen s narrator does not dwell on them or him for very long time at all. Furthermore even when the play is shown to be his idea, Tom takes a minor part in theatricals. Instead of managing the estate in his father s absence he spends most of his time at fashionable pubs, gambling away his inheritance and keeping company with eccentric theatre-folk. It is worth noting that the only time we see Tom take on a masterful role at Mansfield is when he organizes a make-believe theatrical production. In this sense his role as leader is reduced to nothing more than a frivolous position of fun, artificial in its authority and highly limited in its influence. However Tom is so inconsequential to the novel s narrative that it makes no attempts to justify his behavior and the only explanation the narrator provides us with is that he is careless and extravagant (MP, 17). Thus the affirmative text robs Tom of the chance to translate his social transgressions into any clear stand and he is left unexplained and simplified. Tom is dismissed from the surface text s plot because he refuses to be the figure of authority that it expects. Indeed the narrative even threatens to kill him off unless he changes his ways and there is a sense that if the illness had not sobered him (MP, 387) he would have been completely expelled from the novel. Thus the surface text refuses to engage with Tom because he poses a threat to its conservative patriarchal structure and as such he must be overlooked. However the alert reader is aware of this peculiar disregard for Mansfield s main heir and questions why Austen has left such a gap within the narrative. In other words in ignoring Tom Austen guarantees that we will not. Furthermore Austen troubles the narrative s dismissal of Tom by having him missed in his absence. Indeed Mary Crawford laments that when Tom is not around the soup would be sent round in the most spiritless manner, wine drank without any smiles, or agreeable trifling, and the venison cut up without supplying one pleasant anecdote about my friend such a one'#148 (MP, 46). Such descri ptions of Tom s fun- loving nature so contrast with the boring Edmund who has nothing to say (MP, 46) that we, the readers, too lament Tom s absence from the narrative and agree with Mary that Mansfield becomes a very flat business (MP, 46) without him. Thus Austen makes us question the validity of any discourse that dismisses such an entertaining character and highlights the strangeness of Tom s narrative marginalization. Tom suffers at the hands of the narrator s editing because he a conservative convention gone wrong and a patriarchal power defeated by its own expectations. However critics have viewed Tom s reformation as evidence of Austen s conservatism, viewing it as a way for her to give patriarchy a second chance and an opportunity to right itself. Indeed Jo Parker states, It takes a brush with death to make Tom Bertram a better man[23] and Peter C. Giotta argues that Austen first must have Tom undergo a transformation, becoming steady and quiet before she can install him securely as Mansfield s heir[24] . However, this is simply the conservative text s neat solution to the Tom Problem and does not address the novel s problematic ending. Indeed far from leaving Tom as the secure heir, the novel abruptly ends leaving Tom unmarried and with no evident female love interest. Thus Austen, through the character of Tom, does not safeguard the possibility of a certain and patriarchal Bertram bloodline .

Patriarchal order is further challenged through Austen s problematic insertion of theatricality into her text. Critics that view Austen as conservative variously interpret her inclusion of the Lover s Vows rehearsal as a response to Gisborne s notion of acting as flagrant impropriety , as an Anti-Jacobin/Anti-Sentimentalism gesture to highlight dramatic corruption or as a device to advocate female modesty[25]. However these views are problematic as they rely on the orthodox surface text s version of a pure and ordered Mansfield that can then be sullied by negative theatrical forces and then clean once more when these forces are defeated. However we have already seen evidence that Mansfield has deep internal problems prior to the theatrical escapade, and thus this theatricality merely continues to dismantle an already crumbling patriarchal order. Indeed Edmund explicitly alludes to theatricality as a threat to male authority when he says that the play would be taking liberties with my father s house in his absence (MP, 113). This threat stems from the fact that the theatricals create a disruptive and liminal space where traditional binary oppositions between female authority/patriarchy and public/private spheres are upset. Drama is by its very nature a public form of expression and thus will disrupt Mansfield s fa ade of an enclosed domestic tranquility (MP, 164). Furthermore the theatricals allow for an indirect exploration of a specifically female form of anarchy. Indeed the critic Castle acknowledges this fact when he states that the the masquerade threatens patriarchal structures due to the fact that Normative sexual relations in the fictional world may be overthrown, and female characters accede here to [ ] strategic control over male associates.[26] . In this way the theatricals allow Austen to explore that, which cannot be overtly expressed female sexuality. To perceive these subtle subversions we must like Juliet McMaster, perceive Lover s Vows as a way by which Austen provides a paradigm for the novel [27], and explore the apparent correspondence between Fanny and the play s character of Amelia. Both women find themselves in a similar dilemma, propositioned by men they do not love and in love with the men that they look up to for example. However, in picking the scene where Amelia expresses her love to Anhalt, Austen by contrast reveals the extent to which Fanny cannot articulate her own desires. Furthermore Fanny is forced to watch Mary Crawford, who is playing Amelia, directly express her own desire and say to Edmund what she cannot. This has interesting consequences for the text s strict differentiation between moral woman, like Fanny, and immoral women, like Mary Crawford. Indeed on the surface this text reveals Mary to be a wanton threat to domestic tranquility. However Mary retains her agency and power in rejecting conservative constraints. In contrast Fanny suffers due to her inability to voice her own sexual wants. Indeed she has to wait until Edmund feels anxious to marry her, instead of nudging him slightly earlier in the game. Through the device of the theatricals Austen thus upsets the clear differentiation between suitable and unacceptable versions of femininity.

Furthermore Austen s characterization of Fanny as a conduct-book-heroine is highly problematic. Indeed although the affirmative text seems to reward Fanny s internalization of conservative ideologies, the subtext reveals a women so constricted by convention that she almost disappears. Fanny s obscure status is marked from the opening of the novel when she is picked out by chance from Mrs. Price s superfluity of children (MP, 8) and merely described as one child out of her great number (MP, 8). Our first impression of Fanny is therefore as a faceless number and child amongst a general mass of similar others. However our picture of Fanny does not significantly improve as the novel progresses as she is mostly described though negatives. We lean that she has no glow of complexion, nor any other striking beauty and that she was not vulgar and yet there may not be a little sulkiness of temper (MP, 9). Thus we learn more about what Fanny Price is not than what she actually is. We cannot therefore concretely picture her in a physical sense and she literally seems a no-body. Fanny s restriction is made further explicit when on discussing her move into the Bertram household Mrs. Norris states that she and the rest of the family will never be equals and that they must make sure they draw exactly the right line of conduct (MP, 8). Thus a line is literally drawn between Fanny and her cousins, firmly restricting her to a sort of no-place. This differentiation is then made physically explicit by her confinement to a little white attic room situated liminally between the girls and the housemaids (MP, 7). Fanny is therefore suspended in a no-place oscillating somewhere between family member and servant. She simply does not seem to belong anywhere, a fact that is further emphasized when we recall the narrator s earlier observation that Mansfield Park and Fanny s Portsmouth home are so distant and so distinct from one another that hearing of each other s existence (MP, 3) is almost impossible. We therefore have a young lady who no longer exists to her old family home, and yet does not have a clear position within her new one either. Thus despite Mrs. Norris frequent protestations that Fanny remember her proper sphere (MP, 195), Fanny Price does not seem to have a clear social position. Her boundaries are indistinct, and she is often relegated to the margins of her community simply because no one knows where to place her. Thus paradoxically this novel confines and locks Fanny into somewhere that does not exist. By staying true to conservative ideals Fanny no longer fits into the world. In light of this confinement Mary Crawford s question regarding whether Fanny is out, or is she not? (MP, 42) takes on a whole new meaning. Indeed Fanny is very far from being out anywhere, so imprisoned is she by the text s narrative.

Fanny is not only imprisoned by convention but also rendered totally passive by its hand. Certainly Fanny does not really do anything in this novel and Austen presents us with a central heroine that is rendered static by her commitment to conservative conventions. Fanny s time is often spent idling away all evening upon a sofa (MP, 63), shrinking away from company and hiding amongst her books and plants in her tucked away room. Even the walks that offer her some sort of external exposure are often compromised by her weak disposition, headaches and tiredness. Furthermore so great is Fanny s stagnation that she lives in a cold room for most of her life because she is incapable of lighting her own fire. It is as Tony Tanner describes that #147Fanny is a girl who triumphs at doing nothing, she sits, she waits, she endures.[28] . Even Fanny herself notes her inactivity, observing that life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings. It is however Fanny that is a busy nothing (MP, 93), taking up almost 425 pages in Mansfield Park and yet doing very little with it. It is certainly telling that the only women in the novel that abides by the limits put upon her is almost a non-reality, and we note that becoming an immobile nothing is the price Fanny pays for being a piece of gendered discourse. To be nothing, do nothing and exist nowhere seems a harsh bargain. In this way Austen subtly inverts Fanny s function as a moral example indeed she is not an affirming representation of feminine modesty but instead an example of the punishment inflected on those who too strongly internalize conservative fiction gender prescri ptions. Thus if the novel s surface seems to celebrate Fanny s modest virtue, Austen s subtext condemns the environments that render Fanny a no-one suspended in a no-place.

In reducing Fanny to an immobile absence in this text, Austen simultaneously collapses her significance as the novel s primary didactic exemplar. Indeed Austen reveals an intrinsic connection between Fanny s inability to take action and that of her failure to remain true to her moral principles. This inability to act on principle is shown to be a specific product of Fanny s obedience to patriarchal discourse in the form of Edmund s will. Indeed repeatedly in this novel Fanny s submission to the wishes of her beloved Edmund means that she compromises her own ethics. This effect is most apparent when despite her dreadful uneasiness regarding the decency of the play, Fanny quickly yields and agrees to participate on perceiving Edmund s look of fond dependence on her nature (MP, 153) Edmund therefore is merely another manifestation of a limiting patriarchal authority in this text. In this way Austen troubles the notion that women need the moral guidance of men and shows the flaws in a system which allows women s taste to be encouraged (MP, 18) and their judgment corrected (MP, 18) by men whose own morality was questionable. Indeed Edmund makes Fanny act against her principles, falls in love with a woman who is entirely unsuitable for him despite his piety. He is therefore hardly the ideal teacher for Fanny. By underlining the instability of Fanny s morality in the face of corrupt patriarchy, Austen thus reveals the double standard of a conservative discourse that makes it impossible for women to live up to the ethical standards that it expects of them. Thus paradoxically the affirmative text s maintenance of patriarchal discourse harms its own depiction of female virtue.

Austen attacks patriarchy, furthermore, through her troubling of the theme of marriage. Indeed with the exception of Fanny and Edmund s nuptials at the novel s close there is an unsettling absence of positive marriage in this text. Indeed Maria s status-seeking marriage is a disaster, leaving her at the novel s end in a warped sort of domestic un ion with the awful Mrs. Norris. Lady Bertram, like Fanny, almost ceases to exist in this text. Indeed she goes from being the dynamic individual that had once captivated Sir Thomas to being a debilitated shell, consistently depicted loafing on the sofa, sleeping, dozing and half asleep. Even Mrs. Price who marries for love is not rewarded with happiness, but instead her sexually-charged marriage leads to her having multitudes of hungry children that she can ill afford.

The final chapter of Mansfield Park seems to resolve all issues and reward Fanny s conservatism through her marriage to Edmund. However this ending is incongruous and rapid, with its first line let other pens dwell on guilt and misery, I quit such odious subjects (MP, 421) signaling a strangely flippant tone that is inconsistent with the rest of the novel. It is almost as though Austen panicked at the end, recollected that she was supposedly writing a traditional domestic novel and thus promptly called everything to a close. Furthermore are we to accept that Fanny s virtue has triumphed and that all is resolved when Edmund finally becomes anxious to marry her? Indeed their un ion is unsettling incestuous, as these characters are basically brother and sister. Certainly, it may be described as the most unsexy marriage to ever take place, when we take into account that it can be predicted in advance thanks to Fanny s having Edmund as her only companion at hand in her isolated Mansfield existence. The narrator states that it was quite natural (MP,421) that Edmund she want to her marry Fanny, but what exactly is natural about this is unclear. The happy domestic resolution of the novel seems unsettlingly close to Edmund settling for the next best thing, made worse by the fact that this happens to be his lonely adopted only sister and only comfort (MP, 397). This sense of incest is also problematic as their marriage does not seem a progressive act but instead seems to keep it all in the family . Thus instead of their marriage facilitating a branching out of their domestic enclosed sphere it merely seems to double back within itself. Fanny does not break out of Mansfield through her marriage but merely locks herself more tightly into its structure.

Thus Austen seems to communicate that both Mansfield and the domestic novel itself are restrictive patriarchal structures. Despite the determined nature of Austen s ending, she leaves her readers with many questions and the same sense of disquiet that has haunted the whole text. In this text we perceive both a heroine and an author constrained by the borders of a corruptive Master discourse. Austen simply does not have enough agency to be create an overt parody but instead is forced to hide her subversions in subtle gaps and ambiguities. This is an author as limited in her writing as Fanny Price is in her lonely attic room. However her limits are self-conciously lurking underneath the texts orthodox surface and in this way she communicates the limits of the wider female experience.

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[1] Amy Wolf. Epistolarity, Narrative and the Fallen Woman in Mansfield Park . Eighteenth-Century Fiction 16 (2005): 403 Accessed December 10 2011 http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/ecf/vol16/iss2/6

[2] Claudia L. Johnson. Jane Austen Women, Politics and the Novel. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 97

[3] Sandra. M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. Introduction. "Jane Austen." `The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Tradition in English. Eds. Gilbert and Gubar. (New York: Norton, 1985.),205-208.

[4] Mary Brunton. Discipline. (London: Taylor and Francis, 1986), 375

[5] Claudia L. Johnson. Jane Austen Women, Politics and the Novel. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 97

[6] See the above for a more detailed discussion of Austen s subversion of Burkean ideals.

[7] John Frow. Genre. (London: Routledge, 2006), 10

[8] J.E. Luebering. English Literature: From the Restoration through the Romantic Period. (New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2011), 107

[9] Robert Altar. Partial magic: the reading of the novel as a self-conscious genre. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 85

[10] George Tucker: Jane Austen the Woman: Some Biographical Insights. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995), 76

[11] Barbara Freeman. The Feminine Sublime. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) , 79