Fanny Price is My Hero
How Mansfield Park helps me make sense of myself and today.
I cannot stop thinking about Mansfield Park.
Since stepping away from formal employment a few months ago, I've had more time to read what interests me, and what interests me these days is anything that tells me I am neither alone nor crazy. In other words, anything that helps me make sense of myself and the increasingly ridiculous and horrifying world.
That said, I picked Mansfield Park from my audiobook queue as entertainment for a recent painting project. I was delightfully surprised, then, to discover that the more than 200-year-old novel does both with uncanny accuracy.
From the beginning, I identified with Fanny Price, the novel's quiet heroine. First, because Fanny is often characterized as something of a prig. I have always been a rule-follower and was somewhat fondly dubbed “Prudence” by my college roommate's male friends.
Second, Fanny rejects the attentions of Henry Crawford, a man she cannot trust but whom everyone admires and tries to convince her to accept. Here too, I could relate. Fanny comes through this assault more heroically than I did, and yet I felt a sense of personal vindication in Austen’s celebration of her successful resistance of a dubious suitor. I wished I could give Fanny a hug - understanding the almost superhuman strength of will her refusal required.
I also saw today's world in Mansfield, but I couldn’t immediately put my finger on why. So, I went searching for a good book review to help me figure this out. After wading through loads of reviews about how much readers loved or hated (mostly hated) Fanny and how Edmund is a sorry excuse for a romantic hero (no kidding), I was thrilled to find Anna Keesey's review of Mansfield Park in the LA Review of Books. I highly recommend reading the whole thing.
Anna Keesey’s review not only satisfyingly treats Fanny's refusal of Henry Crawford as an act of heroic resistance (endearing her to me from the start); she defines the central conflict of the novel as a battle between good and evil with Fanny standing between them. Keesey then gives that evil a name: subjectivity.
Whoa. A gong sounded in my brain. Upon reading that word, I sat still and had to steady myself as thoughts converged and light bulbs flashed. This idea grabbed onto a line of thinking that I had been following since reading Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis 18 months ago.
In Abolition, Lewis defines “subjectivity” as the idea that real things and ideas do not exist in and of themselves, but only in our minds. Subjectivity claims that waterfalls are not beautiful, he famously illustrates in his opening chapter; they only awaken beautiful feelings within us. The only truth, subjectivity claims, is in our heads.
Lewis then predicts that subjectivity will ultimately destroy humanity. At first I didn’t track with him. Why subjectivity? Aren't intolerance or greed or pride worse evils? Here's why: subjectivity, he argues, un-tethers humanity from reality.
Mary Crawford, Henry’s like-minded sister, illustrates this idea perfectly. As she, Edmund, and Fanny are walking in a wood, she observes that they must have walked at least a mile, to which Edmund asserts that it cannot have been more than a furlong (one eighth of a mile). Mary replies,
“Oh! I know nothing of your furlongs, but I am sure it is a very long wood, and that we have been winding in and out ever since we came into it; and therefore, when I say that we have walked a mile in it, I must speak within compass.”
“We have been exactly a quarter of an hour here,” said Edmund, taking out his watch. “Do you think we are walking four miles an hour?”
“Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.”
…He still reasoned with her, but in vain. She would not calculate, she would not compare. She would only smile and assert.
Note her defense. She makes no appeal to facts but complains that she is being personally attacked. Her internal perception, she implicitly argues, cannot and should not be challenged. She does not even attempt to argue with Edmund, only to overpower him.
Mansfield, I realized, feels so much like today because we are all Crawfords, claiming we are being attacked when our views are challenged, and ignoring any way of knowing except intuition. To be persuaded of anything, to change our minds, is seen as self-betrayal (by standards of subjectivity, worse than being wrong in the first place).
And when external standards cannot mediate a disagreement, we are only left with Mary Crawford’s strategy - power, such that winning arguments or culture wars depends not on who is right (how could anyone know?) but on who has the biggest personality, strongest army, or the largest social media following. The consequences of this trend, Lewis predicts, will be catastrophic.
I wish I could say that I don’t see Lewis’s prediction materializing every day. I see it when a politician brushes off criticisms about poor behavior and appeals to the size of their rallies for legitimacy. I also see it when minorities and oppressed groups have to prove their numbers to gain an audience for justice. I see it when I cannot have a conversation with loved ones about current events because there are no facts to which we can all appeal. There are no “grounds” for discussion, only opinions. Persuasion is out and power is in, which has the horrifying tendency, Lewis warns, to consolidate into smaller and smaller groups in place and time. This is terrifying.
And yet, I’m grateful to Mansfield Park, with the help of Anna Keesey and C.S. Lewis, for helping me explain some of what terrifies me about the world. It names an evil I’ve been unsettled by this decade or so, and this in itself is a consolation. I’m not crazy, and the world may be frightening, but at least it makes a bit more sense.
Fanny, Keesey observes, not only preserves her honor, but the honor of Mansfield as a whole, by not allowing the Crawfords to take over. For this, she really is my hero. Here is how I want to honor her:
May I be quick to look at my watch for measurement, regardless of how tired of walking I am; may I be open to persuasion and resist the temptation to treat contradiction as personal attack; may I have vision and courage to steer clear of characters who seek to seduce rather than persuade.
And may I find more who seek to do the same.
Recognizing this connection between Austen’s morality and Lewis's Abolition made me curious to explore more. I soon started reading Lewis's review of Austen's literary corpus and other writings about her, and there is quite a bit there to chew on in terms of what ethics and society looked like 200 years ago and why it matters that they’re different now.
Until then, I’m still here. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Tara! Very well written piece. I have not read this Austen book but just purchased it!
I thought this would be relaxing reading for 2 AM ( my time alone) but you have my mind going and now I will surely not fall asleep quick. The idea of subjectivity is interesting but as applied to the current state of things , was quite interesting. Thank you for writing this. Looking forward to more thought pieces! I’ll let you know what I think of the book!
This is wonderful, Tara. I must mull. I'm so glad you took this step! More soon.