Perhaps I find her so relatable because I know what it's like to be shy and uncertain, and I also know what it's like to feel pressured to do something that goes against my moral and religious beliefs, and to deal with the scorn that accompanies that. "Beauty is fleeting and charm is deceptive, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."Įven a lot of people who love the book don't like Fanny, but I adore her. How good manners and education and all that is ultimately subject to corruption if it's combined with selfishness and lack of real principles. It's a book about moral compromises, about the lies people tell themselves, about the danger of ignoring real moral character in favor of charm and attraction (always a theme in Austen's books). I don't think I've ever read a book that had as many love triangles in it as Mansfield Park does. It's about a group of young people who are sort of artificially thrown together and isolated by dint of being in the country, with nothing else to do, and everything that results from that-all the hormones and youthful passions, clashing motives, different moral codes that are somewhat disguised by the polite mannerisms of the time. Like all of Austen's novels, it's a book about courtship-wise and foolish, moral and immoral. It's definitely not a pretty, sparkling kind of book like P&P is, and I understand why people have a hard time with it, but it's much more complex and morally nuanced.
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