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2.1 Fanny Price’s Character and the Formation of Her Morals9
2.1.1 Fanny Price’s Character.9
2.1.2 The Formation of Her Morals9
2.2 Morals Reflected in the Mansfield Theatricals11
2.2.1 Different Attitudes and Behaviors Reflected in the Theatricals11
2.2.2 Morals Embodied in the Theatricals.13
3 Realistic Significance of the Morals in Mansfield Park16
4 Conclusion17
Bibliography28
1 Introduction
Mansfield Park is the most controversial of Austen's major novels. Austen's works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century realism. She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to her development as a professional writer. Her artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years into her thirties. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it.
Jane Austen feared that economic considerations would overcome moral considerations in human conduct. In Austen's works, the most amoral characters are the most economically motivated. While the connection between amorality and economic considerations is fairly clear, the relationship between personal appearance and moral worth, which was common in 18th-century novels, is more ambiguous. Moral improvement in Austen's works is not only for the characters but also for the readers. Her novels are intended to "instruct and to refine the emotions along with the perceptions and the moral sense.” (Jan, 1983: 3 ) Believing in a complex moral conscience rather than an innate moral sense, Austen felt that it was necessary to inculcate readers with proper virtues by portraying morally ambiguous characters from which they could learn.
Austen's works brought her great prestige and great honor because they were published anonymously. Although her novels quickly became fashionable among opinion-makers, such as Princess Charlotte Augusta, daughter of the Prince Regent, they received only a few published reviews. Most of the reviews were short, although superficial and cautious. They most often focused on the moral lessons of the novels. Sir Walter Scott, a leading novelist of the day, contributed one of them, anonymously. Using the review as a platform from which to defend the then disreputable genre of the novel, he praised Austen's realism. The other important early review of Austen's works was published by Richard Whately in 1821. He drew favourable comparisons between Austen and such acknowledged greats as Homer and Shakespeare, praising the dramatic qualities of her narrative. Scott and Whately set the tone for almost all subsequent 19th-century Austen criticism.
Because Austen’s novels failed to confer to Romantic and Victorian expectations that "powerful emotion authenticated by an egregious display of sound and colour in the writing", 19th-century critics and audiences generally preferred the works of Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Though Austen's novels were republished in Britain beginning in the 1830s and remained steady sellers, they were not bestsellers.
Austen had many admiring readers in the 19th century who considered themselves as a literary giant: they viewed their appreciation of Austen's works as a mark of their cultural taste. Philosopher and literary critic George Henry Lewes expressed this viewpoint in a series of enthusiastic articles published in the 1840s and 1850s. This theme continued later in the century with novelist Henry James who referred to Austen several times with approval and on one occasion ranked her with Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Henry Fielding as among "the fine painters of life".