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Mansfield Park And Mary Crawfo Essay Research

Mansfield Park And Mary Crawfo Essay, Research Paper


The Character of Mary Crawford


It can be useful to examine the values and ideas of a novel through the character


and portrayal of one character. Mary Crawford is a character central to the themes and


events of Jane Austen s Mansfield Park. At all significant points in the play, barring only


Fanny s rescue from her parents, she is either present or involved. Through such a


character, a great deal about the morality and ideas so central to this book can be revealed.


However, examination of a character and the way that character is portrayed can become


especially useful when comparing a book to a film based on the same material. Through


the changes, or the similarity, in the portrayal of the character, it becomes again possible


to examine the values behind the production. Patricia Rozema s version of Mansfield


Park, made in 1999, projects modern values onto character living in the early 19th


century. This projection, however, is more appropriate then one might imagine, and is


almost necessary to make the character necessarily despicable.


Mary Crawford is a vitally important part of the story of Mansfield Park. She


provides one of the key complications in the plot and is essential in it s role as a study of


character and morality. She is also key in her role as a contrast to Fanny Price, the more


amiable of the female characters.


Before one can fully understand Mary s vital role in the unfolding of events at


Mansfield Park, it is first important to understand exactly who Mary is and where she fits


in to the story. The story revolves around the family that occupies the vast estate of


Mansfield Park. Years earlier, they had taken into their care the daughter of Lady


Bertram s sister, who had married below herself and now had many children and no


money. The girl, Fanny, had grown from the age of ten, in the household of Sir Thomas


and Lady Bertram, and their children Tom, Edmund, Maria and Julia. Some years later,


when Fanny reaches seventeen, the position at the parsonage of Mansfield Park is taken by


a Mr. and Mrs Grant. Mrs Grant, it seems, has two half-siblings by her mother s second


marriage, a Mr. Henry Crawford and Mary Crawford. The Crawfords come to live with


their half-sister, who introduces them to the Mansfield family. They become part of the


Bertram s closest circle of friends. Edmund Bertram, with whom Fanny has forged a


special friendship and has likely fallen in love, quickly finds himself attracted to the charm


and beauty of Miss Crawford. Julia and Maria Bertram, who has lately become engaged to


a rich fool nearby, both find themselves captivated by Henry Crawford. Maria moves


forward her marriage after realising that she has no hope of Henry reciprocating the


feelings.


Henry, however, feels strongly toward Fanny and eventually proposes. She refuses


him on the basis that she senses certain character flaws. Upon her refusal, Fanny is sent


away from Mansfield to live, once more, with her family in Portsmouth. When she again


refuses Henry, he removes himself to London, where he again meets up with Maria, now


Mrs. Rushworth, with whom he begins an affair. The whole scandal is discovered, and


Edmund goes to see Mary, who claims that it is not the action that is to be reproached, but


rather the discovery; and she largely blames Fanny for not agreeing to marry Henry,


claiming that he would not have acted in such a manner would he know to be risking the


affection of Fanny. Edmund then relinquishes his attachment to Mary, and returns to


Mansfield Park to later marry Fanny.


Mary is of importance for several reasons. One of the more simple and obvious


reasons for her inclusion was as a love interest for Edmund. A major theme in the story is


the struggle Fanny faces in the love she feels for Edmund, who does not reciprocate her


feelings. In order to make this struggle seem acute, Edmund must love another. Thus


Mary is introduced.


Mary is vastly different to Fanny. She is outspoken where Fanny is quiet. She is


sophisticated where Fanny is almost naive. For Edmund to appreciate Fanny s positive


qualities it becomes important for him first to value characteristics opposite to hers. When


Edmund finally discovers the true evil in Mary s character, he had scarcely done


regretting Mary Crawfords and observing to Fanny how impossible it was that he should


ever meet with such another kind of woman, before it began to strike him that a very


different sort of woman might do as well. 1 Therefore it seems that Mary s character is


fixed as she must be the total opposite to Fanny.


But Mary Crawford serves a much greater purpose in the novel then merely as


Fanny s competition for the affection of Edmund- her character also offers a striking


comment on morality. She is used in the novel to illustrate those of a certain moral code


and is utilised in the film to a similar purpose, though in a different manner. As in both


versions of Mansfield Park Mary is used as a character used to illustrate and assess


morality, it is possible to use this to examine the underlying morality of the book and film.


Perhaps the single incident that illustrates Mary as a character that illustrates a


certain school of morality is her reaction to the discovery o

f Henry and Maria s affair. In


Austen s original, the reader only hears of the incident when Edmund is relaying it to


Fanny. He tells of his visit to Mary upon his discovery of the misconduct of their relations.


Mary, Edmund tells, is more disturbed by the discovery of Maria and Henry s


wrongdoing, rather then the actions themselves. She speaks only of their folly in allowing


such an event to be known, and not of the certain evils of their behaviour. It is to this


Edmund reacts. She reprobated her brother s folly in being drawn in by a woman whom


he had never cared for….Guess what I must have felt. To hear a woman whom- no harsher


name than folly given!- So voluntarily, so freely, so coolly to canvass it! 2


In Rozema s version of this exchange, the Bertram family and Fanny are present.


This major alteration changes the content of what is said dramatically. While in the novel,


Mary condones the folly of their relations to Edmund alone, the film allows Mary to make


her speech to the whole Bertram family. She condones not their relations, to her their


behaviour seems both justified and natural, but the family in their reaction to it. She blames


Fanny for refusing her brother, claiming this largely caused Henry s action. She blames Sir


Thomas, for his overreaction to the situation. But what is most frightening is Mary s


wilfulness to welcome the death of Tom Bertram in order for Edmund to inherit the estate.


It is to this that Edmund reacts, not the lack of morality in Mary s character shown


through her acceptance of Maria and Henry s behaviour. Film critic Roger Ebert has


wrongly assessed Mary Crawford’s chilling analysis of the emergency, and her plan for


what must be , to modern ears, it sounds crass and heartless. In 1806, just such


conversations would have sounded reasonable, to people schooled to think of the family


fortune above any consideration of love or morality. 3 Mary Crawford s speech has been


largely fabricated for the film and was never spoken to the ears of 1806. The very point of


the speech was to make Mary sound cold and crass to a modern audience because the


very source of her character flaws in the novel is not sufficient for a modern audience- one


quite willing generally to accept adultery as a norm as Mary Crawford did. It becomes


necessary then, in order to fix her as an antagonist, that the director makes gives Mary


flaws that a modern audience can recognise- these being arrogance, materialism and a lack


of appreciation for human life.


Mary Crawford is of great importance to Mansfield Park because she provides the


necessary means by which Edmund can fall in love with Fanny. But both the novel and the


play are far more complex that a fairy tale love story. They meditate on the choice of the


individual to make certain decisions relating to their morality and the outworking of such


decisions. In order to suit the vastly different audiences that Rozema and Austen face,


those of 1999 and 1814 respectively, it becomes necessary to adjust the details of their


moral code accordingly. In the preface to a recent edition of Mansfield Park, it is noted


that Mansfield Park is remarkable for the three strands of morality running through it. Sir


Thomas represents the enduring, classical values of the 18th Century, Fanny the


beginnings of nineteenth-century social conscience and morality which are in stark contrast


to the moral ambiguities of Mary Crawford. 4 The moral ambiguities of Mary Crawford


in the novel are not a negative trait to a modern audience as they are common to the


experience of most people. So to compensate, and to maintain Mary s position as an


antagonist, she must be significantly worsened. It is to the same extent that, to cater for a


modern audience, Fanny must be significantly livened to increase her appeal.


One of the interesting aspects of Mary as a character is the fact Austen chose to


give her certain qualities that are admirable to the audience of her day. For instance, her


brazen approach to speech is an admirable quality. She also is a very friendly person, who


does not hesitate to show affection to Fanny, who is so decidedly below herself. These


character traits are exhibited in the 1999 film Mansfield Park, as well as added too.


Mary s homosexual tendencies are suggested by the film, an aspect of her character that


would appeal to an audience that largely embraces homosexuality. Two very provocative


scenes, including one where Mary undresses a very wet Fanny while commenting on her


remarkable beauty, certainly illustrate that Mary has a certain attraction to Fanny. This is


one significant moral adjustment that reflects on the rather significant changes in popular


morality that has come of late.


Mary Crawford herself is not an integral part in Mansfield Park. It is rather what


she represents that is significant. For this reason, it is important to change her moral code


in order to provoke the same feelings in a modern audience that were felt by the original.


It can then be supposed that Mary Crawford is not only a literary character responsible for


the prolonging of Fanny s agony, but represents one of little morality in both cultures.


Through Mary, then, it is possible to examine why and how literary characters must be


changed to suit the moral context to which they are aimed.

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