one thing I hadn't foreseen when I really started my whole webseries-junkie thing was how much they would actually make me read. (
disclaimer: I do not say that watching a classic-derived webseries will make a non-reader read, nor would I recommend that method. like, so
no way. and of course, I would never, ever, ever
recommend watching instead of reading.)
but for me, knowing and loving the classics that people modernize and film makes them that much more amazing when I watch the series. these are great characters, with great stories to tell, and they've lasted, beloved, for the exact reason people want to make a modern version: it has a truth that lasts through time.
anyway, since the series always drags out when I'm following it real time, I end up forgetting little plot twists or wanting to know "was that in the book?" and I learned my lesson from
emma -- you can't just skim to find the part you want. I started by skimming and got bogged down repeatedly: by parts I didn't remember, parts I loved and wanted to read again, and overall got lost in the book and couldn't find what I was looking for. I ended up reading straight through and loving it all over again. so when I sat down last week (FIRST WEEK OF FREEDOM HOLLA) to read my long-neglected
mansfield park, I sat down to read straight through -- and I did. and it was delightful.
I think I've only read
mansfield once or twice before. I remember thinking jane austen was getting a little too tired in this one, because it was super-predictable without the sparkle of character that her other (similarly predictable) books had. and she also seemed to tire of the story all of a sudden, like, SPOILERS "hijinx, misunderstandings, long sad look from fanny, totally unrealistic clueless reaction from edmund, bla bla bla, detail detail detail...... and then they fell in love and got married and yay the end." END SPOILERS expecting this, I was pleasantly surprised to realize the depth of character that fanny (in particular) develops over the course of the story. the ending wasn't nearly so brushy-off as I'd remembered and there was one passage in particular that I found adorable and had missed my other peruses-through. (more on that later.)
everyone of course knows jane austen is a classic author; we were all assigned
pride & prejudice in high school, right? but I suppose I had never thought about what exactly made her works classics. having just finished thomas foster's
how to read literature like a professor, I've been viciously looking for deeper meanings and symbols, and it was this passage that really struck me -- I don't think of older authors as being so subtle and yet so blatant. here, somehow, the depth seemed almost modern, or at least not the witty-&-light-social-commentary I stereotype her.
and of course the more I thought about it, the more things occurred to me, so I ended up considering austen's whole social agenda here and I touched on that below, as well. I have never been a very organized writer. obviously.
(to catch you up: basically all the main characters are at sotherton, the rushworth's family property, for a day of hard partying [lol jk]. fanny price, edmund bertram, and mary crawford have split from the rest of the group -- "the rest" being maria and julia bertram, mr. rushworth, and henry crawford -- to take a walk through the woods. julia gets stuck talking to mr. rushworth's obnoxious mother; meanwhile, fanny gets tired and edmund and mary promise to be back soon, but they want to explore a little farther [to resolve a rather flirtatious debate]. she's left waiting on a bench for a long time, when the other part of the group [maria, mr. rushworth, and HC] show up. they want to go through a locked gate to another part of rushworth's property; he leaves to get the key. maria and henry have a conversation. I'm going to assume your familiarity with the relationships and dynamics between the characters.)
Miss Bertram began again. "You seemed to enjoy your drive here very much this morning. I was glad to see you so well entertained. You and Julia were laughing the whole way."
"Were we? Yes, I believe we were; but I have not the least recollection at what. Oh! I believe I was relating to her some ridiculous stories of an old Irish groom of my uncle's. Your sister loves to laugh."
"You think her more light-hearted than I am."
"More easily amused," he replied, "consequently you know," smiling, "better company. I could not have hoped to entertain you with Irish anecdotes during a ten miles' drive."
"Naturally, I believe, I am as lively as Julia, but I have more to think of now."
"You have undoubtedly -- and there are situations in which very high spirits would denote insensibility. Your prospects, however, are too fair to justify want of spirits. You have a very smiling scene before you."
"Do you mean literally or figuratively? Literally I conclude. Yes, certainly, the sun shines and the park looks very cheerful. But unluckily that iron gate, that ha-ha, give me a feeling of restraint and hardship. I cannot get out, as the starling said." As she spoke, and it was with expression, she walked to the gate; he followed her. "Mr. Rushworth is so long in fetching this key!"
"And for all the world you would not get out without the key and without Mr. Rushworth's authority and protection, or I think you might with little difficulty pass round the edge of the gate, here, with my assistance; I think it might be done, if you really wished to be more at large, and could allow yourself to think it not prohibited."
"Prohibited! nonsense! I certainly can get out that way and I will. Mr. Rushworth will be here in a moment you know -- we shall not be out of sight."
"Or if we are, Miss Price will be so good as to tell him, that he will find us near that knoll, the grove of oak on the knoll."
Fanny, feeling all this to be wrong, could not help making an effort to prevent it. "You will hurt yourself, Miss Bertram," she cried, "you will certainly hurt yourself against those spikes -- you will tear your gown -- you will be in danger of slipping into the Ha-Ha. You had better not go."
Her cousin was safe on the other side, while these words were spoken, and smiling with all the good-humour of success she said, "Thank you, my dear Fanny, but I and my gown are alive and well, and so goodbye."
in light of what happens later in the story, I was astounded at the parallels. just a few sentences later, julia shows up alone, frustrated at being left behind, and follows the two around the gate, another suggestive incident (yates, anyone?).
(note, there will be PLOT SPOILERS in abundance below. you've been warned.)
I don't think this passage needs much explanation, but I am going to
explain anyway point out some things I found interesting.
this is a blatant foreshadowing of maria's affair/elopement with henry later on. mr. rushworth (I keep wanting to call him rory x)) shows up very soon after this passage with the key -- the key, the enabler for the freedom that maria wanted, if only she'd waited. would it have been as sweet to her? of course not: maria wants the popularity and power that comes with being rich and beautiful, but she doesn't want the side affects of the path she's choosing -- in other words, marriage, and to mr. rushworth. she wouldn't ever have waited for his key, because what she wants is freedom to do what she wants (she's just like henry that way). it's not the gate itself, nor is it even marriage, but the societal rules for what a woman is supposed to be and how she is to behave that maria wants to avoid.
this incident also proves fanny's judgment in disliking henry. throughout the story, she doesn't like what she sees in him, but she can't ever come up with a solid example; because it's all like this. fanny "[feels] all this to be wrong" but can't quite put her finger on it, because they aren't
really doing anything
wrong, exactly, but it's the underlying principles (or lack of them) that she senses. and of course when they actually run away together -- bypassing the now-figurative gate of marriage and sex and fidelity and socially accepted boundaries -- they
are doing something wrong, and fanny's earlier doubts are proved correct. though maria ends "alive and well," perhaps her gown had trouble, when her reputation is unsalvageable by the end of the book.
nor does it need much highlighting that
maria is banished from society, while henry... nothing. henry's punishment "should in a just measure attend
his share of the offence [sic]," austen points out, but comments that "in this world, the penalty is less equal than could be wished;" henry receives no real societal censure. this double standard probably had implications for austen's writing: men of course could publish things, but single women? that wasn't so acceptable.
in a way, I think austen pitied maria. she is in a box, unable to be anything other than a woman under her father or a woman under her husband. she goes about getting out of that box the wrong way, but that doesn't make her situation less difficult. austen also found another way, but I imagine it wasn't easy for her, either.
though maria scorns fanny's prudish, fearful notions, it is that exact prudence that keeps fanny herself from falling when henry starts paying attention to her. fanny, on this other hand, doesn't do anything 'exciting' and may be considered a doormat, because she waits. she waits for edmund to come back; she waits for him to return her horse; she waits for him to ask her, to tell her, to talk to her, to help her; she waits to be invited, waits to be told what to do... but fanny is not afraid to speak up for what she believes is right (evidenced here in a small way).
whether fanny's pale quietness is your style or not, you can't argue that her waiting doesn't eventually gets her what she wants. by the end, fanny price has come into her own: recognized as virtuous, beautiful, worthy, she outstrips all the other females of the story as a paragon of all that's good -- worth more, even, than edmund,
a man, who was blinded by love as fanny was not. edmund becomes fanny's key (as writing became jane austen's?) and this quiet heroine proves her strength, by waiting, in eventually becoming more: more desirable, more respected, more happy than the other, more boisterous females. perhaps even than the other males.
I think jane austen has made her point.
