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Mansfield Park

Jane Austen

Why we're reading this: Pretty much everything Jane Austen did is a classic. Same with William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.
[close] Pretty much everything Jane Austen did is a classic. Same with William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

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Mar 18, 2014 David rated it it was amazing

Having recently read both Mansfield Park and Jude the Obscure, I realized that they are similar in that they both deal with essentially the same issue. While there are other themes in both, the theme they share is social ascendancy. Both novels show us what happens when an individual experiences or attempts to experience a transition from a lower to a higher social class.
Even though they deal with similar themes, there are significant differences between the two novels. First of all, they are se Having recently read both Mansfield Park and Jude the Obscure, I realized that they are similar in that they both deal with essentially the same issue. While there are other themes in both, the theme they share is social ascendancy. Both novels show us what happens when an individual experiences or attempts to experience a transition from a lower to a higher social class.
Even though they deal with similar themes, there are significant differences between the two novels. First of all, they are set in different eras, one at each end of the 19th century. Though both are set in class-conscious England, there is a difference in the eras of the settings. Mansfield Park, written by Jane Austen, was published in 1811, prior to the Victorian era in which Jude the Obscure appeared (1895). Another difference, of course, is the point of view of the authors. While in Jane Austen novels, there is always a happy ending with the two parties in romantic liaisons becoming “matrimonially connected”. Thomas Hardy usually portrays his characters as suffering throughout the story, and coming to a fateful end.
In each novel, the authors stick to their usual formulas. The heroine of Mansfield Park, Fanny Price, achieves a desirable marriage after being born into poverty, while Jude Frawley, the main character of Jude the Obscure, despite having the best of intentions of rising form the working class to the education class, never fully realizes his worthy aspirations, and, as the title indicates, dies in the same obscurity into which he was born.
With those differences in the two works in mind, there is a similarity in the principal characters, despite the fact that they are of different genders. First of all, Fanny Price is born into a poor family who, unable to provide for all of their children, sends her off to rich relatives. Likewise, Jude Frawley has an inauspicious start in life, in fact he is an orphan being raised by an aunt. Another similarity is that both Fanny and Jude see education as a way to improve their position in life. In fact, because education is really the only factor in their control, they do whatever they can by themselves to further it, while they can do very little about the social environments in which they find themselves, so far as the limitations the respective societies impose.
But there are distinct factors in the lives of Fanny and Jude that create slightly different challenges for them. First of all, in the world of Fanny Price, like most Jane Austen heroines, the only real way they can achieve social ascendancy is through marriage. On the other hand, Jude Frawley, being a man, cannot hope for any other conduit to his aspirations than through education. He aspires to attend the fictional prestigious university in the fictional city of Christminster, teaching himself Latin and Greek. However, he is distracted from his goal by his relationships with the opposite sex, including a bad marriage and an illicit relationship with a woman who bears him two children.

This brings me to perhaps the most interesting observation of all. The effects of Fanny’s and Jude’s relationships with the opposite sex on their social status are diametric opposites. While Fanny’s life is vastly improved through her relationship with the love of her life, Edmund; the effect of Jude’s involvement with the women in his life is nothing but detrimental. First of all, his marriage to Arabella creates so much hardship for him that he nearly gives up hope of ever attending the university. Then his love affair with Sue destroys whatever hope he had left of making something of himself. Sue and Jude’s relationship is pleasant for both of them, creating a family that to them is real, but is unacceptable in the Victorian society of the time because they are both married to others. In fact, the ostracism they experience is so severe it forces each to return to their legal partners and end their relationship.
It is certain that we sometimes make generalizations thorough literature that don’t always apply. The widespread view of the 19th century and before is that women have been limited by social constraints, while men have had greater opportunities open to them. But in considering Mansfield Park and for that matter, other Jane Austen novels, and Jude the Obscure, it seems that literature can also serve to point out all generalizations have their exceptions.

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