Taylor Phillips
Dr. O’Farrell English 481 December 8, 2012 Mansfield Park: Class-based Colonialism in a Pre-Colonial World has long been a point of Jane Austen’s much-maligned novel Mansfield Park has contention for Jane Austen fans and critics alike. The novel’s problematic heroine, Fanny, remains a cipher even for close readers, with camps divided among those who see Fanny as a moral exemplar, a humorless killjoy, and a stereotypical infatuated female willing to do anything to impress Edmund. However, critics have found the novel equally p roblematic due to the economy of Mansfield M ansfield Park (the estate), the tangential t angential mentions of slavery and
slave uprisings, and Sir Thomas’ position as a moral authority within the novel. In this essay, I will examine the role of colonialism in Mansfield Park , paying
particular attention to how it works in conversation with Fanny’s growth as a character, from an unwanted waif into the effective mistress of the estate. e state. By offering a postcolonialist rereading of key passages, as well as an overview of the critical conversation regarding colonialism in the novel and some historical information, I will offer a reading of the novel that understands Fanny ’s relationship with the Bertrams to be a form of colonization itself that implicates the Bertrams within a classist project. I will argue that to
an extent, Fanny’s characterization can be read as a metaphor for colonialism itself , as well as opposition thereto; her alternate and a nd problematic presentation as both strong-willed
and a “weak willed” person corresponds to the ethical gray area of slavery and the lack of moral or ethical absolutes within the slave trade. To engage in this analysis, I will offer a
Phillips 2 thematic reading of key passages coupled with evidence from the critical conversation. First, however, it is important to offer a basic definition of what precisely we mean by colonialism. In 1990, Edward Said launched – or at least brought into the mainstream – conversations about the theme of colonialism in Austen’s work , as he used the prior work of Raymond Williams to address aspects of the novel that had previously been ignored.
“We should …regard the geographical division division of the world – after all significant in p olitically charged, beseeching the attention and Mansfield Park –as not neutral, but as politically elucidation its considerable proportions require. This question is not only how to
understand and with what to connect Austen’s morality and its social basis, but what to read of it” (Said, The Edward Said Reader 348). Said’s project was not to dismiss Austen’s
importance, but instead “to jettison simple causality in thinking through the relationship between Europe and the non-European world, and lessening the hold on our thought of the
equally simple temporal sequence” (Said, The Edward Said Reader 349). That is, Said’s understanding understanding of the novels of this era sought to achieve a mode of analysis that “is not temporal but spatial” (Said, The Edward Said Reader 349). Important questions in this mode include issues such as: “How do writers in this
period …situate and see themselves and their work in the larger world?” (Said, The Edward Said Reader 349). Said insists that as a partial answer to this question, “We…find them using striking but careful strategies, many of them derived from expected sources – positive ideas of home, of a nation and its language, of proper p roper order, good behavior, moral
values” (Said, The Edward Said Reader 349). The strategies used by Austen are of concern
Phillips 3 to us in this essay. However, before we engage in a detailed analysis of the text, it is important to ground our definition carefully.
Drawing on Edward Said’s canonical writings on colonialism, the practice of colonialism is defined in the Stanford Encyclopedia Encyclopedia of Philosophy as as follows: “colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one peop le to another” (Kohn).
In essence, one can understand “colonialism as a broad concept that refers to the project of European political domination from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries that ended
with the national liberation movements of the 1960s” (Kohn). This paper also works on the assumption that it is possible to read pre- colonialist works, such as Jane Austen’s novels, through a post-colonial lens that seeks se eks to illuminate relationships defined by domination and subjugation. Another fundamental assumption for this work is the idea t hat even within cultures, colonialism can occur, as we will see in my reading of Mansfield Park . During the time of Mansfield Park, however, Park, however, colonialism had not yet been defined. In order to contextualize what was truly thought about the practice, it is useful to engage in a study of the novel itself and to read it through this post-colonialist lens. By doing so, we
may uncover useful information regarding Austen’s own perceptions of the British Empire . Why Mansfield Park ? In addition to the plot’s specific mentions of slavery, it also spans the
longest timeframe of any of Austen’s novels. More interestingly, it is the only of Austen’s novels to depict a child heroine (or a heroine as a child). While other Austen heroines mature only through their progress in a novel of manners (e.g., (e .g., Elizabeth Bennett, Emma Whitehouse), Mansfield Park follows follows Fanny on a nearly lifelong journey – one that begins when she is weak and vulnerable and follows her through what is essentially a trajectory of power.
Phillips 4 Much of the way the first few chapters of Mansfield Park “works” is due to the contrast between the foreboding, impressive, stately mansion, and the frail, scared young Fanny. She is introduced to the reader in the following passage: Fanny Price was at this time just ten years old, and though there might not be much in her first appearance to captivate, there was, at least, nothing to disgust her relations. She was small of her age, with no glow of complexion, nor any other striking beauty; exceedingly timid and shy, and shrinking from notice; but her air, though awkward, was not vulgar, her voice was sweet, and when she spoke her countenance was pretty. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly; and Sir Thomas, seeing how much she needed encouragement, tried to be all that was conciliating: but he had to work against a most untoward gravity of deportment; and Lady Bertram, without taking half so much trouble, or sp eaking one word where he spoke ten, by the mere aid of a good-humoured smile, became immediately the less awful character of the two. (Austen 30)
Fanny is described in negatives: she has nothing to “disgust her relatives,” who seem to regard her as a primitive creature in need of “encouragement,” meaning education in the manners they prefer. Specifically, the characteristics that reflect the goals, values, and tendencies of the Bertrams – a “sweet” voice, a “pretty” countenance – grant her conditional admission. The narrator here makes an effort to use specific word choices that
immediately characterize the Bertrams’ benevolence as rather self -serving: Lady Bertram is only “the less awful character” of the two; Sir Thomas is only conciliatory. Their kindness extends only to the extent to which Fanny can adjust herself to her relations’ expectations. expectations. Indeed, later in the chapter, Fanny’s introduction to the Bertrams goes poorly, as the
distinction between their expectations and Fanny’s needs as a child far from her family leads to miserable experiences for them all: Mrs. Norris had been talking to her the whole way from Northampton of her wonderful good fortune, and the extraordinary degree of gratitude and good behaviour which it ought to produce, and her consciousness of misery was therefore increased by the idea of its being a wicked thing for her not to be happy. The fatigue, too, of so long a journey, became soon no trifling evil. In vain were the well-meant condescensions of Sir Thomas, and all the officious prognostications of Mrs. Norris
Phillips 5 that she would be a good girl; in vain did Lady Bertram smile and make her sit on the sofa… (Austen 81)
Read through a colonialist lens, these early chapters and passages reveal a discourse
of power relationships that mirrors the colonialist tendency or the “white man’s burden” (Kipling). That is, the hyperbolic relationship the Bertrams are atte mpting to establish reflects their perception that it is their duty or obligation, as members of the privileged class, to instill their own values into the weak, helpless Fanny, whose deficits are harshly described in this early chapter. Unaware of the larger socio-economic context that surrounds life at Mansfield Park, though perhaps aware of her relations’ own colonialist trend towards her, Fanny settles into a problematic, p roblematic, if materially improved existence amongst her cousins, aunt and uncle. The concept of free will is apropos to an examination of these passages, as some
could read the events as codifying Fanny’s lack of will as she gives up former habits and manners in order to attempt to fit in at Mansfield Park. Indeed, here it may be fruitful to
return to Said: “Almost all colonial schemes begin wit h an assumption of native backwardness and general inadequacy to be independent, ‘equal,’ and fit” (Said, Culture and Imperialism 80). Fanny’s relations are in effect “colonizing” her into their way of life, given their overt assumptions that she is backward and incapable of being equal with them without their tutelage. Later, when Sir Thomas leaves for the distant Antigua, his absence structures the lack of morality felt in the household, as a s seen when Fanny and Edmund object to the performance of a controversial play, Lovers’ Vows. Fanny exhibits an almost hyperbolic will here to make a largely symbolic stand against the performance of a play she felt was
Phillips 6 immoral (due to its depiction of adultery). The response to Fanny’s attempt to engage in
steadfast morality is Mrs. Norris’ harridan-like response: “’I am not going to urge her,’ hink her a very obstinate, ungrateful girl, if she replied Mrs. Norris sharply; ‘but I shall t hink does not do what her aunt a unt and cousins wish her —very ungrateful, indeed, considering who
and what she is’" (Austen 140). Read through a colonialist lens, this quotation serves as a sharp reminder that despite Fanny acting in accordance with the morals she presumes the Bertrams share, the most important features they see in her are her background and her origins. Susan Greenfield reminds us in her discussion of the nineteenth century literary
culture with which Austen would have been familiar that “it is worth noting that Fanny’s and Sir Thomas’s reaction to Inchbald’s play is the same reaction one would expect them to have to a suggestive novel. Novels N ovels were typically accused of representing and encouraging female misconduct, and what Fanny finds most objectionable about the play is that it
depicts female characters whose romantic experiences are [immodest]” (Greenfield 309). That Fanny’s morally-based and well-intended objection is received with such hostile reminders of her origins reiterates the colonialist project aspect of the novel: even the stand that Fanny takes, which should rightly be a credit to her character, is read by the colonialists as only a reminder of her lack lac k of gratitude and difference from them. Yet the reason for Fanny to have to exercise this moral stand is because Sir Thomas, largely the voice of morality at Mansfield Park, is absent – so he can instruct his son in the manners of running an Antigua estate:
Sir Thomas found it expedient to go to Antigua himself, for the better arrangement of his affairs, and he took his eldest son with him, in the hope of detaching him from some bad connexions at home. […]
Phillips 7 The necessity of the measure in a pecuniary light, and the hope of its utility to his son, reconciled Sir Thomas to the effort of quitting the rest of his family, and of leaving his daughters to the direction of others at their present most interesting time of life. He could not think Lady Bertram quite equal to supply his place with them, or rather, to perform what should have been her own; but, in Mrs. Norris's watchful attention, and in Edmund's judgment, he had sufficient confidence to make him go without fears for their conduct. (Austen 46)
Sir Thomas’ actions are carefully considered and he, as seen above, feels the utmost confidence in Edmund and Mrs. Norris as moral stand-ins. stand -ins. However, the threat of performing the immoral play creates a disjuncture between what Fanny expects from her family and what they do – it leads to a conflict between Fanny’s inner desires and the external values she must appear app ear to hold in order to maintain her position with the Bertrams. This creates a problematic hierarchy of morality and cause s the reader to call
into question Fanny’s actions: is her moral stand simply an attempt to emulate someone whose “off -screen” actions implicate atrocities? The moment at which Fanny exhibits her own will by refusing to perform in the play can ca n be read, through a post-colonialist post -colonialist lens, as a small act of subversion that is poorly received by the colonialists.
Indeed, Fanny’s actions are derided by Mrs. Norris and the Bertrams, and her will or desires are often dismissed – particularly when she rejects Henry’s proposal– as being childish or without thought, since she is urged to always consider the larger context, which
includes the strings Henry pulled to obtain William’s promotion. Fanny’s feelings are portrayed more explicitly here than in previous chapters: “ She was feeling, thinking, trembling about everything; agitated, happy, miserable, infinitely obliged, absolutely angry. It was all beyond belief! He was inexcusable, incomprehensible! But such were his habits
that he could do nothing without a mixture of evil” (Austen 265-266). Her feelings,
Phillips 8
however, are not validated by her uncle: “’I am half inclined to think, Fanny, that you do not quite know your own feelings’” (Austen 279). Again, a colonialist reading reveals that the Bertrams believe that they are so superior to Fanny that they even understand her mind and feelings better than she herself. The use of the word “know” here implies that Sir Thomas does know Fanny’s feelings; it is only the colonized subject that does not. It is in the dénouement of the novel that the work takes, in my opinion, its strangest turn. Fanny ultimately becomes the effective – though unofficial – mistress of Mansfield Park, and therefore is herself imbricated in the complex socioeconomic system of slavery. By this structure, read through a post-colonialist lens, Austen seems to depict not only a maturation of the character who began the story as a s helpless and unwanted, but a complicated means of portraying the post-colonialist situation: a legacy of hurt feelings, betrayals, and uneven power structures giving way to the asce ndance of a post-colonialist ruler. This is because ultimately, Fanny assimilates: she becomes the mistress of the estate in a dénouement that brings to a halt any nascent opposition to slavery that she might have felt , as well as any opposition to the Bertrams’ condescending aims:
In her usefulness, usefulness, in Fanny's excellence, in William's continued good conduct and rising fame, and in the general well-doing and success of the other members of the family, all assisting to advance each other, and doing credit to his countenance and aid, Sir Thomas saw repeated, and for ever repeated, reason to rejoice in what he had done for them all, and acknowledge the advantages of early hardship and discipline, and the consciousness of being born to struggle and endure.
[…] …[Fanny and Edmund] removed to Mansfield; and the Parsonage there, which, under each of its two former owners, Fanny had never been able to approach but with some painful sensation of restraint or alarm, soon grew as dear to her heart,
Phillips 9 and as thoroughly perfect in her eyes, as everything else within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park had long been. (Austen 408)
These final, conclusive sentences are damning not only of Sir Thomas, but of Fanny. Sir Thomas congratulates himself for his benevolence to Fanny and William, taking credit for all their actions, which he sees see s as consequences of his decision to extend the benefits of his privilege to them – that is, his decision to use use his class position to colonize colonize them. Yet
Fanny becomes the estate’s effective mistress, and suddenly everything “within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park ” was – and had been – perfect. Her ascendance to this role changes her view, as well as her rewriting of her own history, so that she now understands
that everything related to the Park is perfect, and she has always considered it so. Austen’s use of the “had been” tense in this final sentence is deliberate and intriguing, intriguing, as within this colonialist reading, this seems to indicate a totalizing process. With this final sentence, a colonial reading indicates that the process of colonizing Fanny has completed. The young girl who arrived at the estate is now a woman, not by dint of the passage of time, but due to her acceptance of and engagement with the workings of the estate.
Instead of asking hard questions to her uncle, and spurring the famous “dead silences,” Fanny is now fully a part of the project- a colonial subject who is now the colonizer. When reading the story through the lens of colonialism, col onialism, however, it becomes clear that in these passages, Fanny’s relationship to the power holders at Mansfield Park mimics
that of colonists’ relationships to indigenous people, and Fanny’s “betrayals,” with respect to the play incident and Henry’ s proposal, represent a reaction of someone at the limits of colonialist subjugation (albeit emotional and class-based subjugation). This pattern – especially once Fanny begins to assert her own will regarding what is right – seems a
Phillips 10 comment on the growing opposition to slavery in England in the early part of the 19 th century. In keeping with the idea of free will – an important concept in post-Enlightenment post-E nlightenment Europe – the theme of silence is also vital to Mansfield Park , and in keeping with certain political and discursive acts at the time with respect to the slave issue. However, this textual analysis can only be illuminated by triangulation with
prominent critical discourse on the subject. How have others incorporated Said’s reading of the novel into their own? How has recent historical research complicated, confirmed or
challenged Said’s claims? George Boulukos writes, as he amends Said’s interpretation interpretation of the novel, that he
seeks to “establish a detailed context for Austen’s reference to the slave trade , demonstrating that it called to mind a politics of ‘amelioration:’ ‘amelioration:’ a position on slavery that would have been familiar to Austen’s early nineteenth century audience. Proponents of this position held that slavery and colonialism were morally redeemable an d potentially even
heroic pursuits for men such as Sir Thomas Bertram” (Boulukos 362). All the text alludes to is the deafening silence in response to Fanny’s questions about the slave trade (“’Did you not hear me ask him about the slave- trade last night?’ ‘I did…it would have pleased your
uncle to be inquired of farther.’ ‘And I longed to do it – but there was such a dead silence!” (Austen 181-182)), and this silence creates a rhetorical contrast with the noise caused by
Fanny’s refusal to perform the racy play, as well as a lacuna that can be filled with others’ assumptions about this silence. As Boulukos notes, it is likely that this is due to the Bert Be rt rams’ rams’ adherence to the moderate idea of amelioration, which was defined by Markman M arkman Ellis as follows: Adjacent to these two discursive formations [pro-slavery and antislavery discourse] is a third position, called … ‘amelioration,’ that argued for
Phillips 11 the mitigation of the conditions of slavery, but not its abolition. Influential in the late mid century, this position has a distinctive voice of its own, that of the sentimental, and a precarious but coherent logic, which seeks to transform the peculiar asymmetries of power endemic to the slavery economies, but without destroying the ideology or economy of slavery. (Ellis 87)
Additionally, Deirdre Coleman understands the role of abolition within the society
of Austen’s novel as a relationship tied up not only with the heritage of Enlightenment philosophy and discourse, but also with gender:
In Austen’s work the slave trade and abolitionism play an important role in the analysis of power relations, especially those arising out of gender-based oppression. The abolitionist movement’s sentimental appeal to universal principles of liberty, equality and fraternity engaged several key philosophical and political issues, such as the imagining of kinship, claims to personhood, p ersonhood, and the vexed relations of equality and difference – relations which, galvanized by widespread agitation against slavery, touched not just on issues to do with class but with both sex and race, simultaneously. (Coleman 293)
Coleman’s understanding of the novel hinges on abolition’s relationship to other dominant discourses at the time; unlike Said, she understands the novel as being part of a Kristeva-like web of interconnected concepts, rather than a single text that can be understood through its relationships of space (Kristeva and Guberman). Other critics have attacked Said for what they feel is his omission of gender and class politics poli tics from his analysis of the colonialist project of Mansfield Park : “Said’s typing of Austen
is…symptomatic of a more general gender politics underlying his postcolonial project” (Fraiman 807). Other critics, such as Greenfield, claim outright that Austen had some interest in not only gender but in class issues: “By patterning her text after Inchbald’s [author of the scandalous play Lovers’ Vows], Austen marks both her interest in the play pla y as a f orm orm of literature and her sympathy with Inchbald’s critique of the gender and class
Phillips 12
system” (Greenfield 310). Yet it is Austen’s relatively privileged privileged position that allowed her even to engage in this critique, especially as the constraining features of the system (publishing anonymously, not having to work for a living) worked in her favor in order to allow her to offer a critique. However, my post-colonialist reading leads me to offer another a nother complication: While Said has been understood, reanalyzed, lambasted, and critiqued for errors, omissions, or inclusions, few have attempted to extend his understanding of colonialism to the issues of social class, class, yet a post-colonialist reading of the book reveals the Bertrams’ interest in Fanny to be a project stunningly similar to that of colonialism in its aims, methods, and goals, and particularly in the ‘infantilization’ of Fanny herself and the denial of her own emotions. Tantalizingly, Austen never exactly outlines Fanny’s specific beliefs regarding slavery, but the post-colonialist lens offered here offers the likelihood that Fanny’s antislavery or ameliorative stance stood in opposition to the Bertrams’ pro-slavery, or perhaps ameliorative beliefs. The question one is left with is who is sentimental and who would argue for radical change. These discursive stances reflect a larger issue with respect to the European perception of the slave trade at a t the time, which Debbie Lee describes as a consequence of distance, in keeping with Said’s definition of colonialism in these novels :
The truth was that slavery … was bound to ideas of proximity and distance. Before [the Somerset case], Europeans had been able to look with cold remove on the slave trade because of its sheer physical distance from them ….but more important than physical distance was psychological distance. Slave owners, up until the late eighteenth century, seemed to have both in their favor. They frequently argued that because of the geographical remoteness of the colonies from Britain, they were absolved of any crime against the Africans. The vast majority of people who were not slave owners felt even more psychologically remote…therefore, remote…therefore, it was psychological distance from the plight of slaves, not just geographical remoteness, that seemed an even more ironclad notion. (Lee 5-6)
Phillips 13
These dual notions of distance complicate the Bertrams’ situation in Mansfield Park , as the vast majority of the novel occurs within the estate’s boundaries; indeed, Fanny seems to have the widest traveling experience of any of the women in the story, and her lower-class brother William, due to his naval experience, gets to see many different areas. However, Fanny’s emotional connection to her uncle and his direct connection con nection to the slave trade put her in an awkward a wkward in-between position. The distance that protected her as a
“normal” civilian (i.e., one who was not close to anyone involved in the slave trade) was suddenly gone. The psychological distance seems to dominate here, rather than the spatial difference described by Said. Lee attempts to connect historical and intellectual milestones by aligning slavery and Romanticism, within which Mansfield Park is is presumably at least roughly situated (although Austen is rarely aligned directly with the Romantics, questions of genre are unfortunately outside the scope of this paper, and Lee’s concern is more historical than generic). Noting the prominent shared vocabulary among common Romantic works, Lee observes that “…although many of these writers may seem to be using the terms ‘slavery’ ‘slavery’
and ‘freedom’ in abstract and even universal ways, in the sense that everyone is a slave to something and seeking freedom from it, the terms are…grounded in the historical specificity of the transatlantic trade and plantation slavery, the st ories of which surround
these writers” (Lee 22). Lee uses primary historical documents to assert that many of the great writers of the age, even those concerned with human rights, were aware of slavery, and to varying degrees, they incorporated their concern with the issue into their own writing.
Phillips 14 To return to Austen, as well as to return to Said, it is clear that the tangential asides
referring to slavery in the novel are an attempt to grapple with what Lee calls “ the greatest is structured moral question of the age” (Lee 21). The concept of slavery in Mansfield Park is by its absence. This historical information illuminates our reading by offering se veral conclusions from which we can work to a deeper dee per understanding of Fanny as more than merely an atypical Austen heroine. While a fuller reading of the entire novel and its engagement with colonialism, post-colonialism, and the development of Fanny’s character is necessarily outside the space limitations, this essay e ssay has sought to provide a post-colonialist post -colonialist reading of Mansfield Park . Specifically, this post-colonialist reading allows us to conclude that Fanny’s relationship with the Bertrams functions as a sort of doubling or mimicry of anti -slavery or colonialist feeling at the time, particularly in the moments in which Fanny oppose s her aunt and uncle: The Bertrams have engaged in a class-based form of colonialism in their relationship with Fanny, and Sir Thomas himself has also directly engaged in the slave trade. To further complicate the situation, the entire novel unfolds at an estate – the eponymous Mansfield Park —largely funded by a socioeconomic system dependent on slave labor. The critical understanding of colonialism as being a spatial practice can be expanded upon with the example of Mansfield Park , which uses a practice of social class-based colonialism. Therefore, future work could consider expanding the mode of colonialism to include class-based colonialism, as seen in this story, to fully understand these discourses of uneven power relations and how they played out in nineteenth century Britain.
Phillips 15 Works Cited
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