ljwrites | Fanny Price, stone-cold feminist (Reply)

It's no secret that Fanny Price, the heroine of Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park, is far from the most beloved Austenian heroine. Fanny has been called a moralistic prude who gets everything by doing nothing. She is evidently deemed not to be liberated and feminist enough, seeing how she was replaced in two different movie adaptations by laughing, athletic, and outgoing heroines who bear little resemblance to her original character.

Given this reception of the character, I was surprised to be electrified by Fanny when I started reading Mansfield Park. What I saw was not some smug, priggish pet but a girl who was thrust into materially comfortable but emotionally difficult circumstances, taken from her family and desperately shy and fearful in unfamiliar surroundings and among people who looked down at her as inferior and undeserving. It is mentioned that she was far from shy or shrinking as a child with her family in Portsmouth, meaning the separation from her family and being brought to her new circumstances were so traumatic that her entire personality changed during her formative years, perhaps permanently.

With the help of a sympathetic friend in Edmund she desperately found her own shape and mind in surroundings that relentlessly tore her down. Despite being looked down on as lowbrow she sought her dignity in adopting the values of her new home; despite being derided as stupid and timid, she read extensively and formed her own opinions. In the recent discourse about book ownership, in particular, it jumped out at me that Fanny bought books from the first moment she had spending money of her own.

Far from a passive character, then, Fanny worked tremendously hard at building a life, relationships, and self-worth in an uphill slog of a situation. Her work didn't end at self-improvement, either. At every turn it's mentioned how indispensable she is to her aunt the Lady Bertram, being kind of her secretary, assistant, and companion all at once. It is also brought up that her responsibilities to her aunt restrict her travel and other opportunities. So why do people call Fanny a do-nothing? Because the work she does is not deemed glamorous enough? Why are we so quick to dismiss this kind of emotional and everyday support work? Is it because they are primarily done by women?

It's worth noting that Fanny's pleasing her aunt and uncle wasn't just a matter of her personally being in their good graces, though that was important enough given that she was living under their roof. She was also safekeeping her brother Tom's interests, and through him her family's. Anything seen as defiance, ingratitude, or slovenliness on her part could in turn reflect on Tom and her whole family's prospects.

In this context, Tara Isabella Burton has written ably and succinctly about how Fanny's shyness and even her adherence to the ideals of modesty and propriety were compelled by the difference in class between her and her cousins. What's more, Burton points out, class privilege underlies the daring qualities and sparkling wit of better-loved Austen heroines like Elizabeth Bennet. Rich Elizabeth might not have been, but she was still a gentlewoman who lived with her family of birth. Fanny could not take the liberties or make the sharp observations more outgoing and appropriately "liberated" Austen heroines could, not without endangering her own and her family's futures.

The above discussion barely scratches the surface when it comes to how wrong Fanny's critics are about her, though; it is mere background showing just how astonishing it is that Fanny, despite everything going against her, refused Henry Crawford's courtship. It is the first time she was in open defiance of her uncle, and she is accused of everything from rank ingratitude to that scandalous quality her real-world detractors refuse to apply to her, independence.

How could readers miss Fanny's fortitude in rejecting such an outwardly suitable match, one that her uncle supported so strongly? Did they skip entire sections of the book where Fanny held out despite the united wishes of family whose graces she depended on? Did they miss the outright feminist message in lines like these?

I should have thought that every woman must have felt the possibility of a man's not being approved, not being loved by someone of her sex.

I think it ought not to be set down as certain, that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself.

Yes, the people who see her as insufficiently feminist and enlightened will discount it, saying it doesn't count (somehow?) because she refused Crawford out of her love for Edmund. But so what? Since when have we decreed that romantic love is inherently un-feminist? Besides, Fanny herself reflected that her refusal of Crawford wasn't only because of her crush on Edmund, but rather because she couldn't see herself with Crawford. Feminist enough yet? Or are her reasons too priggish and moralizing to be good enough?

Fanny's true crime is that she is not glamorous. She is not sharp-tongued, witty, or terribly unconventional in her thinking. I've met a lot of Fannys--staid and restricting in their views, not exactly scintillating company, but at the same time solid, intelligent, and warm-hearted. If I'm in a spot of trouble and need a friend there is none better than a Fanny, because she is steady and compassionate, and staunch in her support.

The lionization of Austen's flashier heroines, and for that matter fiery "liberated" heroines in general, has a lot more to do with wish fulfillment than feminism. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that! Wish fulfillment is awesome! However, I think we miss out on important insights by denigrating and erasing heroines like Fanny, the heroines that are in situations of disempowerment and survive that situation with integrity even though the deck is stacked against them in every way. Feminism doesn't only happen in situations of empowerment and agency; oftentimes it's about finding agency in imperfect and messy situations.

Fanny certainly doesn't fulfill a lot of wishes, whether to put someone down with the perfect bon mot or to be free and unencumbered in our lives. She is held back in so many ways, from her birth to the conventions drilled into her, but she still had the courage to find what power and happiness she could in a situation where she had so little. I think that's a victory worth celebrating, don't you?