Jane Austen

Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park (1814) follows Fanny Price, a quiet and sensitive girl sent from her poor family in Portsmouth to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, at Mansfield Park. Growing up as a dependent member of the household, Fanny is often overlooked and made painfully aware of her lower status, while developing a deep attachment to her kind cousin Edmund. The arrival of the charming and worldly Crawford siblings unsettles the household and exposes tensions beneath its respectable surface. Flirtation, romantic rivalry and questionable choices test the characters’ judgement and loyalties, while Fanny’s principles are repeatedly challenged. Through Fanny’s position as both insider and outsider, Austen explores wealth, marriage, social rank, morality and the difference between appearance and character. More serious in tone than many of Austen’s other novels, Mansfield Park asks what genuine integrity looks like when social pressure, money and desire pull people in other directions.