SOURCE: “Closure in Mansfield Park and the Sanctity of the Family,” in Philological Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 2, Spring, 1986, pp. 211-29.

Mansfield Park is, above all, a novel not about the sanctity of marriage, but the sanctity of the family. In many ways it sets the two in opposition to each other. Familial relationships cross the generations, and, by emphasizing filial duty, may be defined as hierarchical; marriage, on the other hand, creates a relationship whose obligations remain rooted in the same generation, and thus may be defined as contractual. Responsibility is unevenly distributed in hierarchical relations: the younger generation (or, in some cases, younger syblings) owes the older generation, specifically the parents (and sometimes the elder brother), obedience and respect, while the older generation protects, and therefore retains proprietary control over, the rights and privileges the younger inherits. Responsibility in contractual relations, on the other hand, is based on an exchange of property or interest, so that each party both receives and owes. In one sense, the central theme of Mansfield Park concerns the integration of the contractual into the more primary hierarchical relationship.¹

This thematic concern emerges most clearly during closure, when Austen simultaneously resolves the two strands of the plot, which apparently work in opposition to each other throughout the novel.² On the one hand, the conflict centers on who will inherit Mansfield Park: the transference of the property represents the more important transmittal of propriety. Austen presents her position through a method I shall call the reversal and transformation of the generations. On the other hand, the story of the novel clearly remains that of a conventional comedy of manners: Austen carefully prepares Henry Crawford's courtship in such a way that his predetermined failure allows Fanny to win Edmund. This resolution she expected readers to accept, but precisely to this conclusion many critics object. Some have questioned the thematic implications of her closural strategy in general, but in no other novel do critics find fault with the structural correctness of the ending.³ Only Mansfield Park, I think, fails to provide closural satisfaction, and only here does Austen herself permit us to question the rightness of the ending by explicitly providing an alternative.

Thus, to understand why Austen insists on the superiority of the sanctity of the family over the sanctity of marriage, and in some ways opposes the two, we must consider these questions: Why is Austen's closural strategy—indeed the entire plot of the novel—based on a reversal and transformation of the generations? Why is an alternative ending, suggested by Henry Crawford's courting of Fanny, permitted to be nearly successful, only to be ultimately rejected, not so much by Fanny, but by Austen? What is the alternative ending's connection to the reversal and transformation of the generations? And, finally, why are some readers and critics dissatisfied with the ending, despite what I believe were Austen's intentions that the reader accept and approve the novel's close?⁴ Austen intended to provide a complementary and not an incongruent relationship with her readers, to use Torgovnick's terms.⁵

Readers have noted a degree of cruelty in the ending: Maria's flight with Henry Crawford and later abandonment, while perhaps thematically justifiable, hardly convinces many readers of its structural necessity; Sir Thomas's banishment of Maria seems, while again morally justifiable, rather harsh, especially considering, given Sir Thomas's recognition of his own failures, how judgmental Austen makes him appear; Mrs. Norris' self-imposed exile, although a consummation devoutly desired by all, is presented with almost malicious glee; reluctantly, Julia is permitted to reenter Mansfield; finally, the culmination of Fanny's and Edward's joy—a return to Mansfield—can occur only when the innocuous Dr. Grant dies. In the last chapter Austen actively condemns every one who opposed Fanny. In her other novels, by contrast, Austen lets the antagonists' disappointment or their realization of their folly suffice.

Aside from Fanny and those immediately connected with her—William, Susan, and Edward—none of the principals receives much joy. Even Fanny's final happiness grounds itself in illusion: no perceptive reader can accept Austen's claim that “… every thing else, within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park, had long been” perfect in her eyes.⁶ From her arrival at Mansfield until her temporary return to Portsmouth, Fanny has endured insult, suffered neglect and abuse, and been imposed upon and misjudged, even—sometimes especially—by those who meant most to support and advance her. Austen indulges, apparently, in an unexpected irony towards Fanny in the last sentence, an irony that seems misplaced, given how steadfastly she has maintained Fanny's judgment, despite its often cloying rigidity.

If Austen suddenly adopts an ironic attitude towards Fanny, it is an irony that pervades the final chapter, an irony that Austen turns even upon herself. Thus, Austen is uncharacteristically smug as she opens Chapter 48: she begins the second paragraph with “My Fanny.” Where else is Austen so possessive of her heroine? Furthermore, the first paragraph seems to establish the ironic tone: “Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore every body, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest” (446). Yet she in fact spends most of the chapter not restoring “tolerable comfort,” but dwelling on the “guilt and misery” of “all the rest.”

If we examine the relationship of the ending of Mansfield Park to the beginning, particularly in terms of our earlier questions, we will see that the apparent irony actually serves to unite the two plot threads into a thematic statement that explains why the sanctity of the family must supercede the sanctity of marriage.

The novel begins with a delineation of the status of members of one generation, and concludes with a reversal, or transformation, of the status of their inheritors in the next. Thus, the ending fulfills the expectations set forth in the beginning of the novel: it is clear from the beginning that Fanny and Edmund will wed, that the Crawfords are only superficially respectable, and that Maria and Julia are vain and thoughtless.⁷ That this almost painfully transparent plot more often frustrates than fulfills readers' expectations, although a plot based on the reader's foreknowledge of its conclusion tends toward, and ought to provide, satisfaction, results, I think, from underestimating the importance Austen placed on two strategies. First, narrative irony frames Mansfield Park. That is, the intentional discrepancy between what the narrator says she is going to do in the last chapter, “restore everybody to tolerable comfort,” and what she actually does, condemns the folly and illusion of all, including, however gently, Fanny, diminishes the value of the foreknowledge we have been given. The relative absence of this narrative irony throughout the story itself underlines its importance in the ending. However, narrative irony appears in the first chapter, although there Austen masks it, presenting it not through the narrator's voice, but that of the Machiavellian Mrs. Norris: “You are thinking of your sons—but do not you know that of all things upon earth that is the least likely to happen; brought up, as they would be, always together like brothers and sisters? It is morally impossible” (44). As it turns out, of course, the marriage of Fanny and Edmund is not only morally possible, but morally necessary. Further on, Mrs. Norris states: “It will be an education for the child said I, only being wih her cousins; if Miss Lee taught her nothing, she would learn to be good and clever from them” (47). The reverse is the case; Maria and Julia learn whatever they know about goodness and cleverness from Fanny. Though Austen never mentions their reaction to the marriage of their cousin and brother, surely the elevation of Fanny that results, as well as Crawford's reproach that Maria was “the ruin of all his happiness in Fanny,” must have forced them to reflect, with whatever varying degrees of bitterness and insight, on the causes of their respective change of status.

Narrative irony thus reveals the plot; it also reveals the closural strategy by drawing attention to the reversal and transformation of the generations that is as vital to thematic and structural closure as the marriage of Edmund to Fanny. Mrs. Norris functions as the mask for narrative irony in the beginning not only because, lacking both spouse and children, she represents the fragility of the link between the generations, but also because, without a family of her own and dependent on her relations, she ought—and appears—to serve as a voice for the sanctity of family over that of marriage. Yet, as we learn, the greatest deceit of this deceitful woman derives from her attempts to subvert family loyalty and exchange it for devotion to a suitor. The final irony towards Mrs. Norris occurs with her exile from the sanctity of the family, represented by Mansfield Park itself, to an ineffective substitute based on favoritism rather than duty.⁸

The purpose for masking narrative irony in the beginning but not the conclusion becomes clear: at the commencement of the story, the forces that undermine the sanctity of the family in order to promote the sanctity of marriage, and which necessitate both the reversal and transformation of the generations as well as the failure of Crawford's suit in order to preserve the primary sanctity of the family, are equally masked. In the ending, they are exposed, so that Austen need not distance herself further than the narrator's voice to reveal what has occurred thematically.

This returns us to the second strategy Austen uses as a counterweight to her otherwise conventional comedy-of-manners plot, and which serves to frustrate those who, from experience of other plots and foreknowledge of this one, expect no more than a traditional conclusion. For Austen is actually telling two stories, one, the courtship of a young girl, the other, the reversal and transformation of the generations. The two are held apart, only occasionally interweaving, throughout most of the narrative. During closure, however, they are combined, returning the reader to the beginning of the plot. Apparently, though, only one conflict—the courtship—is resolved, while the other is left seemingly unexplained, or, perhaps, unexplainable. It is almost as if Austen starts with two stories, but concludes only one.

Mansfield Park opens with an account of the fate of three sisters, the Misses Ward, and concludes with the history of the next generation, centering on, again, three sisters (in fact, if not legally). That Austen intends us to draw this parallel is clear from the choice of names: Maria Ward's eldest daughter is named Maria; her youngest sister's name is Frances (also called Fanny), and Frances's daughter—also named Fanny—becomes the third, youngest daughter of Maria's family. Oddly, the middle daughter of the first generation, who becomes Mrs. Norris, is never given a first name; the anonymity of Mrs. Norris's first name forms a curious parallel to Julia, who, though physically present, remains in the background throughout much of the novel. Thus, Julia is the only one who takes no part, active or passive in the crucial scene, the rehearsals for the play. In light of this and other parallels I will delineate, perhaps more than idle speculation suggests that Mrs. Norris was originally Miss Julia Ward.

What occurs, of course, is a reversal of fortune: Maria Ward marries Sir Thomas Bertram, and is “thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady” (41). Her daughter Maria also marries for wealth, with, perhaps, as much love as, though certainly more awareness than, her mother, but ends up disgraced and banished, losing all, including her lover. Mrs. Norris gives up hope of marrying as well, and becomes dependent upon her brother-in-law's generosity for her status, a situation that obviously aggravates her ill-tempered disposition and offends her vanity. Julia, too, in accepting Yates, settles for second-best, and, we may conclude, will be dependent on the good will of her father—and her brothers after him—for whatever status she has. Frances defies the family (as Maria Bertram does) and is banished. Yet her daughter Fanny succeeds in gaining entrance to Mansfield Park and wins the good opinion and rank her mother never had.

There are other reversals as well: part of the difficulty Fanny's mother encounters is a result of the profession of Fanny's father. Lieutenant Price, as a marine, was in a profession “such as no interest could reach” (41). At least, no interest of Sir Thomas could reach Lieutenant Price. Yet William, the second Lieutenant Price, gains the acceptance his father never could. In other words, in the second generation, Sir Thomas takes an interest in William, and admits him to the family, centered at Mansfield Park, despite his profession.

“Interest,” a term introduced on the first page, becomes a key for understanding how Austen intends the two plots to converge to resolve the conflict between the sanctity of the family and the sanctity of marriage. Sir Thomas has an interest in Fanny, in the sense that he has a right or claim on her loyalty, just as Fanny has an interest in Edmund, in the sense that she has a share in him, or participates in his fate. Here, the hierarchical and contractual relationships eventually merge. Further, Crawford attempts to gain an interest in Fanny; that is, he wishes to benefit her through the interest of personal influence, as well as benefit from her. Finally, Sir Thomas's troubles stem from misapplied interest, both familial and financial. In both cases he expects an increase or addition over what is owed, but in both cases fails to actively guard the principal, and so nearly loses that as well as the interest due him. Thus, we may state that the dual obligations imposed by the two types of sanctity, family and marriage, are equally satisfied only when the interest of each is properly placed in the hierarchy of relationships, and the interest of each converges, or can be manifested simultaneously.⁹

We may note other ways in which Austen reverses the generations: Lady Bertram is passive and indolent, Frances Price is introduced as high-spirited and independent. In the next generation, their eldest daughters have the characteristics not of the mother, but of the aunt. Fanny is passive and certainly lacks initiative. Her most salient characteristic seems the negative one of resistance: she resists participating in the play and she resists Henry Crawford. Maria Bertram, on the other hand, appears more like her Aunt Price—high-spirited and independent. And, like her Aunt Price, her spirit and independence leads to a wrong decision, one which excludes her from the family.

There is a similar, if subtler, reversal for each generation's middle child. Mrs. Norris begins as an accepted advisor, whose machinations the noble Sir Thomas, otherwise so perceptive, fails to see through, and ends in exile with her beloved Maria. Julia, begins, if not actually excluded, at least as the outsider in relation to Maria, but her schemes—culminating in the elopement with Yates—result in her acceptance back into the family. Both middle children are dissatisfied with their inferior status and attempt, through manipulation, to change their positions in the family. Both succeed in changing the estimation of the family—most importantly, the opinion of the head of the family—but both also fail to raise their status significantly.

Something happens to the men between the generations, as well, though the phenomenon is not as complex. The reason is clear: traditionally, women are the preservers and transmitters of the family. Whatever of value is to be maintained or transformed must therefore occur through and by the women, because the traditional role of women before and after, though not during, courtship emphasizes cross-generational relationships. As daughter and mother, and even as wife, the woman fulfills her duty by preserving the primary hierarchical, or vertical, relationships. The man, on the other hand, by establishing a contract, that is marrying, a woman, creates a horizontal, or same-generational relationship. Nevertheless, what occurs to the males also reinforces Austen's concern with what happens between the generations.

Thus, Tom and Edmund are more than the traditional elder and younger brother, the first-born a profligate and the second a man of morals and good sense, although Austen is drawing on a tradition as old as the Bible. The two brothers each inherit one side of their father's personality: Tom receives Sir Thomas's sense of patriarchal privilege—often hastily exercised as poor judgment—and liberality—in both senses of the word—while Edmund receives Sir Thomas's moral rectitude and aristocratic sense of propriety. Both must lose, through suffering, part of that inheritance to gain the rest. Tom's illness teaches him decorum, and Edmund's broken courtship provides him with a more realistic perspective. And, of course, we have already mentioned the difference between Lieutenant Price and his son, based on a reversal of pride.

Significantly, however, neither Mary nor Henry Crawford change in the course of the novel, nor do they alter what they have received from the previous generation. Henry is self-willed, self-seeking and stubborn, much like the Admiral, while Mary has learned from her Aunt Crawford the art of dominating and influencing self-willed, self-seeking, stubborn men, for, in many ways, Edmund is as self-willed and stubborn, if not entirely as self-seeking, as Henry. The Crawfords, then, are like catalysts in a chemical reaction: they change those they come in contact with, but remain themselves unchanged.

The circle of the plot, then, is actually a wheel with those who began on the bottom ending on top, those in the middle spinning around, and the Crawfords the force that pushes the wheel. All that is to happen in the novel is stated in the first chapter, only in reverse. A marriage between Edmund and Fanny is impossible, Fanny is to learn proper behavior from her cousins, and the distinctions of rank are to be maintained. Sir Thomas's judgment and moral guidance maintain the family, yet he is, for a large part of the novel, an absent patriarch, while Mrs. Norris, who begins as a trusted advisor—we must remember that she suggests bringing Fanny to Mansfield—is exposed as a conniving, mean-spirited woman.¹⁰

Clearly, Austen has carefully planned the transformations, all of which, we should note, involve hierarchical relationships changed through aborted contractual relationships. This brings us to the second question: Why is the failed alternative ending, Henry Crawford's winning Fanny, made so prominent, and in some ways, so desirable, a conclusion, and what is its connection to the reversal and transformation of the generations? Though Edmund never sees his relation to Fanny as anything other than that of an older brother, we are made painfully aware from the beginning that Fanny sees their relationship as something else, and ought to expect, by all the conventions of domestic comedy, that Edmund will see it, too. In other words, the marriage of Fanny and Edmund is supposed to satisfy the demands of the comedy of manners, yet the basic dissatisfaction with the ending results from just that conclusion and Henry Crawford's failure.

Thus, Henry Crawford's role as the agent of same-generational, contractual relationship reveals Austen's closural strategy. It also provides the essential clue to critical objection to her method of closure. That Henry and Edmund become friends is no coincidence: Henry is what Edmund would be if Edmund were an outsider. That is, both Edmund and Henry have an interest in Fanny. Edmund's interest begins as hierarchical—the cousin transformed into the brother—but becomes contractual—brother into husband, while Henry's interest always remains contractual. Henry feebly attempts to transform his contractual interest into a hierarchical one—a marriage between Henry and Fanny will not only include Henry in the Mansfield Park family, or kinship, but extend the Mansfield family by including within it Everingham. However, Henry's failure to fulfill his primary, hierarchical, obligations toward his own dependents, those at Everingham, dooms his courtship, his desire to contract with, and establish an interest in, Fanny. Here, as elsewhere in Austen, a man's property represents him. The house becomes a metonymy for the family.

This last point is crucial: Mansfield Park, unlike its predecessor, Pride and Prejudice, or its successor, Emma, takes place entirely within the family. Furthermore, there is less travel here than in the other two novels. Movement abounds in Pride and Prejudice, and although not as much ground is covered in Emma, we are quite comfortable in the Hartfield neighborhood. Not so here. Fanny's trip to Portsmouth is jarring and seems, appropriately, out of place. Significantly, Henry Crawford makes his greatest advances in Fanny's heart in Portsmouth, away from the family and Mansfield.

Henry is in reality as irresponsible as Darcy is supposed to be—and appears—away from Pemberley, though we are led to believe he is potentially as caring and protective as Mr. Knightley. Yet Edmund is the young, unpolished version of Mr. Knightley. Here, we might ask why Mr. Knightley's pre-marital guardianship of Emma doesn’t bother us, while the transformation of Edmund's similar relationship with Fanny does. After all, the age difference between Mr. Knightley and Emma ought to be a barrier as great as the kinship between Edmund and Fanny. An answer lies in our analysis of the relative positions of the two types of sanctity, family and marriage: Emma and Mr. Knightley are already brother and sister-in-law through the marriage of her sister to his brother. Further, Mr. Knightley's regard for, and interest in, Mr. Woodhouse is almost filial, and certainly no less than Emma's. The primacy of the hierarchical, family relationship is established before the courtship begins, and maintained after the suit is won. Thus, Mr. Knightley accepts and supports the primacy of Mr. Woodhouse's interest in Emma, even after she has agreed to marry him.

This, I think, leads us closer to the heart of Mansfield Park, and the essence of the problem for those critics who have difficulty with the ending. Mr. Knightley is not of Emma's family; Edmund and Fanny are closely related. While the order of importance of the two relationships must remain inviolate, they must also remain separate from each other, or the sanctity of one becomes subsumed within the other. For this reason, generational reversal and transformation becomes necessary in Mansfield Park, but not in Emma or Pride and Prejudice. In all three, however, closural strategy revolves, simply enough, around the question of family. Even Darcy acknowledges the prior interest of Elizabeth's family, though he is bothered by it; his concern for the differences in their families hinders his suit, and Elizabeth, torn by the conflict of interest, accepts Darcy only after they have resolved the problem of her family. Henry Crawford, however, does not acknowledge that the interest of the family is primary, and actually attempts to subvert it, as can be seen from the aborted enactment of A Lover's Vows.¹¹

Obviously, the play, which is the crucial central scene, is a complete muddling of events in the novel. The family is confused, and a bastard is introduced. Henry must play the bastard because it parallels, or prefigures, his role in the novel. A bastard is illegitimate because he represents a profanation of the hierarchical relationships. His claim on—or interest in—the family is contractual, based on the father's same-generational liaison, when it ought to be hierarchical, based on his cross-generational status as son. Further, a bastard's interest in—or claim on—the family must be rejected as illegitimate, for to accept this outsider who ought to be within must break the family, destroy the very essence of the hierarchical relationship that sustains the family. In short, the bastard desanctifies the family. Yet only through a steadfast, inflexible commitment to the primacy of the hierarchical relationship can a viable contractual relationship be created or maintained. That Fanny alone protests this confusion and degradation of the family is not surprising, any more than that she is best described as steadfast and inflexible, for she is unwaveringly loyal to the hierarchical relationships and structure of the family. She can be won only through an interest in her duty to Sir Thomas, and she wins Edmund only by refusing to be moved from her interest in her duty to the family's head.

The play, then, is the pivotal event of the novel, around which the wheel of the plot turns: as the characters adopted confuse the proper familial roles, so later events will result in a more proper inversion of familial roles. In other words, Lover's Vows, in an improper context, foreshadows the correct outcome of the plot—and everyone's schemes. Even the title has significance here, since the vows of a lover, particularly one such as Henry Crawford, are notoriously violated—or bastardized. Also, the instability—if not insincerity—of a lover's vows are to be contrasted with the stability and sincerity of vows of a family member.

Whatever transformations will—and ought—to occur during closure, as indicated by the novel's beginning, are here bastardized. Maria ought to marry someone like Yates, that is, someone willing to acknowledge, eventually, at least, the primacy of the family; instead she is seduced by someone who has no real family (Crawford, we will recall, is an orphan). Furthermore, in the play, Crawford, as bastard, reunites the family; in fact, Crawford, as unacceptable outsider, disrupts the family.¹² Also, the nobleman's daughter marries the priest; nobility and spirituality are united. But Mary Crawford is no more a nobleman's child than her brother. Such a union, therefore, is not an affirmation of family sanctity, but a violation of it. Finally, Julia, like Mrs. Norris, remains in the background, allowing the others to act out her own sense of displacement.

Into this quagmire steps the returning Sir Thomas, the hierarchical, patriarchal head of the family, who, by his very presence, sets things aright, to the consternation of the scheming Mrs. Norris and the glee of the petulant, but equally scheming, Julia.

Thus, Crawford's role, and the failure of his courtship, not only links both plots, but also resolves them. Austen herself was clearly aware of how desirable Henry's success was, aesthetically: “Could he have been satisfied with the conquest of one amiable woman's affections, could he have found sufficient exultation in overcoming the reluctance, in working himself into the esteem and tenderness of Fanny Price, there would have been every probability of success and felicity for him. … Had he done as he intended, and as he knew he ought, … he might have been deciding his own happy destiny” (451). Although authors occasionally call attention to an alternative ending to set off the real ending, it is not a technique Austen normally uses, certainly not as forcefully as she does here. Henry almost succeeds; his opportunity was real, something that cannot be said of Wickham, Mr. Elton, or even Mr. Elliot. If Henry is more than just a foil for the true suitor, as I believe he is, then we must seek another reason for Austen's rejection of this plausible and satisfying ending.

I suspect that readers dissatisfied with the ending want Henry to succeed; though at first he appears at best as a flirtatious, irresponsible young man, he quickly becomes more sympathetic. While he begins as a self-serving rake, much as his predecessors, such as Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility or Wickham in Pride and Prejudice, though not as overtly malicious as either, something occurs to him after the return of Sir Thomas. It is almost as though, denied the chance to act the role of the bastard in the play, he decides to abandon the part altogether, to see if he might find a way to establish a legitimate contractual relationship, and thus legally find a place in the familial, hierarchical relationship, a place he has never really had. Granted, his initial motivation is still selfish—Fanny's indifference wounds his pride, and he must recover: “I never was so long in company with a girl in my life—trying to entertain her—and succeed so ill! Never met with a girl who looked so grave on me! I have to try to get the better of this” (240). Yet he soon learns that the only way to gain Fanny's affection is to acknowledge the superior interest of the family. Thus, he turns from flattery to duty: he goes to London to convince his uncle, the Admiral, to help Fanny's brother, and, in so doing, affirms, for the only time in the novel, his own hierarchical, cross-generational relationship. Further, he is now willing to acknowledge that the sanctity of the family and kinship takes precedence over the sanctity of marriage, or its precursor, flirtatious courtship: “I will make her very happy, Mary, happier than she has ever yet been herself, or ever seen any body else. I will not take her from Northamptonshire. I shall let Everingham, and rent a place in this neighborhood—perhaps Stanwix Lodge.” In his conversation with Mary, he makes other comments that show his realization of Fanny's value results from an awareness of her role in the family. However, his final comment in the chapter where he reveals his love also shows that he has not, and probably will not, completely accept that hierarchical relationships must always have prior interest to contractual: “Edmund—True, I believe he is (generally speaking) kind to her; and so is Sir Thomas in his way, but it is the way of a rich, superior, longworded, arbitrary uncle. What can Sir Thomas and Edmund together do, what do they do for her happiness, comfort, honour, and dignity in the world to what I shall do?” (301) Thus saying, Henry sets himself in opposition to the family, something that Darcy, for all his disdain of Elizabeth's family, never does, and something Mr. Knightley could never think of doing. This is why he fails.

Crawford, like Darcy and Mr. Knightley, is an outsider; he is not a member of the family, but one who attempts to gain access by marrying the most vulnerable daughter. Fanny, Elizabeth, and Emma are all vulnerable not only because they are unengaged, but also because they are primarily occupied with other members of the family, rather than with searching for a mate. If not naive, they certainly make mistakes in judgment or evaluation.

The role of the vulnerable daughter deserves further comment. Clearly, she must be the central character in the conventional comedy of manners. Since her affections are unattached and her hand not engaged, she is the only legal object of attention. However, the vulnerable daughter must not be conquered, for that would mean status and propriety could be disregarded, and would represent the triumph of the illegal and illegitimate relationship. Rather, she must be won by suing for her hand, that is, a proper, legal, contractual relationship must be established. This, of course, is marriage. We must note, though, that marriage is the institution that maintains and transmits the family across the generations. Thus, the vulnerable daughter is also the focal point of the hierarchical relationship: since, as we’ve noted, the women are responsible for the maintenance and transmission of the family and its values, the vulnerable daughter alone, precisely because she is vulnerable, that is, unwed and unattached, may cause a breakdown in the family or disrupt the generational transfer through an improper or imprudent marriage. Furthermore, the vulnerable daughter faces a dilemma: if she does not marry at all, the family will dissolve, or, at least, its sanctity will be profaned. So, while she must always support the primary sanctity of the family, she must not allow it to dominate her so much that she refuses to accept the sanctity of marriage. This is the central dilemma of Austen's heroines, and, indeed, of all the heroines in a comedy of manners. Treatment of this problem can be varied and enriched, though, by altering one of the circumstances of the vulnerable daughter. That is, her affection can be initially or permanently attached, as with Fanny and Anne Elliott, respectively. Or, she can be engaged against her will.

However, Crawford differs from Darcy and Mr. Knightley in that Fanny's marriage to him will not result, as Elizabeth's to Darcy or Emma's to Mr. Knightley does, in an elevation of the family's rank. The transformation will be a lowering of status, not a raising of it, since he brings neither a greater title, degree of wealth, or social position.¹³ So long as Sir Thomas sees Fanny not as his daughter, but only as his niece and ward, a view he maintains until his own daughters, by adultery and elopement, abnegate their position, there can be no objection to the match, since a marriage between Fanny and Henry represents a rise in status for her family. Furthermore, he differs from Mr. Knightley in that Knightley, recognizing the superior claims of family to marriage, accommodates and acquiesces to the daughter's father. Darcy, too, recognizes Mr. Bennet's authority, albeit somewhat reluctantly and condescendingly. Of course, Henry Crawford also applies to Sir Thomas, but he does it backwards: rather than asking the father (in this case, the surrogate father, an important point to which I will return) to approve what has been agreed upon, Crawford wishes Sir Thomas to exercise a type of medieval feudal prerogative, forcing Fanny to marry him. By appealing to the father-figure, before he has won his suit with the vulnerable daughter he asks the father-figure to transfer his rights, and the vulnerable daughter to place the contractual relationship over the hierarchical, something she cannot and will not do. Clearly, if Fanny marries Crawford, he will remove her from the family, at least the family at Mansfield, something Mr. Knightley never intends or proposes. Even Darcy recognizes that Elizabeth must acknowledge her family and remain a part of it.

Not insignificantly, Sir Thomas is the only father of the three who shows any strength. Yet his strength, and willingness to make decisions for his daughters, is actually weakness, for by so doing he is at once attempting to maintain a feudal proprietorship over his daughters and break their primary loyalty to the family in favor of the outsider-suitor. Maria's marriage fails and Julia elopes because Sir Thomas has not instilled in them a proper regard for the sanctity of the family while nevertheless insisting on his rights as executor of the hierarchical relationship.

We must wonder how effective Crawford's suit would have been had he applied to Fanny's real father; part of Sir Thomas's error is that he assumes a role that is not his, one that is, furthermore, no longer plausible—that of feudal overlord. While undeniably Fanny's patron, he is still only her uncle, not her father, and her father is very much alive. This, I think, is one reason for the journey to Portsmouth: there, Henry comes closest to winning Fanny, and there is where Fanny's real family still lives. It is at Portsmouth that Crawford most resembles Darcy and Knightley, for at Portsmouth Henry is truly attentive of Fanny and, more importantly, her family. She is embarrassed to be seen with her family, and is chagrined that someone with the manners and breeding of Henry Crawford should observe how uncouth and ill-mannered her real family truly is. In this, Fanny resembles both Elizabeth and Emma: Elizabeth acknowledges the justice of Darcy's observations about her family, and has been constantly embarrassed by their boorish behavior; Emma is never blind to her father's almost effeminate eccentricities. Though both, like Fanny, are dutiful, all three are painfully aware of the position in which their families place them. Yet at Portsmouth, Crawford acts as nobly as Darcy and Knightley; he makes no comments, and, in delicate regard for the vulnerable daughter's sensibilities, seems to observe nothing indecorous about the family. This reinforces our earlier remark about transformation of status: while a move from Mansfield to Everingham must be seen as a descent, going from Portsmouth to Everingham is an elevation of rank.

However, Austen refuses to allow Crawford's suit and courtship to be anything more than a possible alternative. For her purpose, Crawford cannot be allowed to succeed; his suit must represent an attempt to establish the sanctity of marriage by violating the sanctity of the family. This is why, in the end, he does not do as he ought. His flirtation with Julia and Maria, and seduction of the latter, is meant to prove that Crawford is of the type that accept that to establish a marriage, the family must be broken. This, Austen clearly cannot condone.

That some of her readers might disagree with her manipulation of the plot would probably have shocked Austen, for one of Austen's points, I think, is that only when the family is inadequate, when it places insufficient priority and emphasis on the hierarchical relationships, does the outsider-suitor have a chance of succeeding, of supplanting, rather than supplementing, the hierarchical with the contractual. This is one reason, then, for the reversal of generations in Mansfield Park: to maintain—or reestablish—the proper order of the two types of generational relationships, the first must be reinstated and reaffirmed.

Yet the opportunity for a proper marriage exists, provided the outsider, in this case, Crawford, recognizes the hierarchy of sanctities. Crawford at his best recognizes this. Discussing Maddison, one of his tenants, with Fanny, he explains why he must go back to Everingham: “I must make him know … that I will be master of my own property. … The mischief such a man does on an estate, both as to the credit of his employer, and the welfare of the poor, is inconceivable” (403). In other words, the duty of the one in authority is first and foremost to his own—his own property and his own people. We may remark that Sir Thomas's will is thwarted and his role as family head subverted when he abandons his family—and Mansfield—to attend to business elsewhere. The patriarch must be true, or disappointed. Henry knows this, for in the same speech he says, “I do not wish to displace him—provided he does not try to displace me” (403). Yet, ironically, for most of the novel that is precisely what Henry tries to do—displace another. Consciously, frivolously, or unknowingly, until he starts to court Fanny by acknowledging and acting upon cross-generational relationships, all Henry's activity aims at supplanting first Rushworth, then Sir Thomas, and, finally, Edmund.

Austen includes the alternative to reinforce what ought to be, not to tell us what might have been. Crawford, because he will not—or cannot—respect the prior claim to sanctity of the family, ought not to be allowed to win Fanny. This, too, is why Edmund must win Fanny: his primary concern is always for the hierarchy of sanctity. His choice of profession shows this, and Mary Crawford's difficulty with the clergy stems from the same source as her brother's with the family.

We might go so far as to say the Crawfords represent a world where relationship is primary, whereas Fanny represents a world where property and propriety are primary. Not love, but duty, is the first criterion: Elizabeth falls in love with Darcy when she realizes that he is first of all a man of duty, loyal to his family. Emma's regard and love for Knightley stem from an awareness that he is guided by duty and loyalty to those dependent on him. In each case, the heroine accepts the one who, by recognizing the obligation he has towards his dependents, enters into the family, rather than disrupts it.

We now have the answer to why Austen's closural strategy—indeed the entire plot of the novel—is based on a transformation and reversal of the generations. What Mansfield Park is about, indeed, what Emma and Pride and Prejudice are also about, is transmission and continuation of status from one generation to the next. The essential question may be seen as, how is one to preserve duty, how are the vertical obligations to be maintained, when the children must leave, must, in a sense, abandon that to which they owe loyalty? The answer is simply that the outsider, the suitor, the one who represents the horizontal line of change, must enter into the obligations, accept the primary responsibility of the heroine to the previous generation, rather than to himself. If not, there must be a reversal and transformation of the generations from one to the next to maintain the order of the relationships and preserve property, propriety, and status.

We may conclude, then, with an understanding of why the ending bothers some critics: those who object to the ending do not accept Austen's premise that the sanctity of the family supercedes the sanctity of marriage. And in our confusion and frustration lies an insight to the greatness of the novel: Austen has raised a question that must divide every generation. That many of us find ourselves on the other side of the question from Austen only raises the value of her work, for a novel such as Mansfield Park forces us to consider whether we ought not to prefer Fanny, with all her inflexibility, to Crawford, despite all his energy.

Notes

1. See Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property (New York: Random House, 1983) for a discussion of marriage as an example of gift exchange, as opposed to a commodity exchange. His concept of gifts as objects bestowed and unobtainable by our own efforts exemplifies my idea of duty as a hierarchically defined relationship. Of particular interest is his chapter, “A Female Property.” As Hyde notes, “Property … is a right of action … a thing (or person) becomes a ‘property’ whenever someone has ‘in it’ the right of any such action” (94). Austen, perhaps in response to changing conditions, transforms marriage to an outsider into a commodity exchange. A successful suitor must first, therefore, gain admittance to the family circle, that is, be willing to replace commodity exchange with gift exchange. In Mansfield Park the kinship is more narrowly defined than in any other novel.

2. Alistair M. Duckworth in The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels (The Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1971) notes that the plot antagonizes readers because it “seems first to be moving in an accommodative direction, but … is then … wrenched from its natural course” (36). Duckworth thus recognizes that “any attempt to consider the novel as central to Jane Austen's thought” (37) must account for a plot that apparently is twisted to fit a thesis. However, if we see that Mansfield Park consists of two inter-related, but distinct, plots, then, although we may still dislike the ending, we cannot be dissatisfied with the novel's structure. Duckworth also calls Fanny “the representative of Jane Austen's own fundamental commitment to an inherited culture” (73), a position with which I strongly agree.

3. One of the strongest criticisms remains Marvin Mudrick's in Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery, (1952; rpt. U. of California Press, 1968).

4. Gene Koppel, in “The Role of Contingency in Mansfield Park: The Necessity of an Ambiguous Conclusion,” Southern Review 15, no. 3 (November 1982): 306-13, argues that “frustration and discontent are an important part—though only a part—of the aesthetic response to Mansfield Park,” since “a central theme of the novel—the essential contingency of human life—by its very nature must frustrate the reader's desire for the conclusion to appear inevitable” (306). While useful in many ways, I find this argument less than convincing for two reasons: first, since Austen, despite her use of irony during closure, satisfies her readers' expectations in her other novels, the claim she is intentionally confrontational here, remains doubtful without other evidence. Second, the argument that “All—the elements, the balances, and the readers' perceptions of them—are contingent” (311) strikes me as dangerously close to isogesis. All of Austen's novels, particularly Mansfield Park, emphasize that proper relationships must be moral and therefore fixed, not contingent.

5. Marianna Torgovnick, Closure in the Novel (Princeton U. Press, 1981). Although I don’t use Torgovnick's terms in this essay, I am greatly indebted to her analysis of closure, particularly the ending's relation to the rest of the novel and the author's relation to the reader during closure, for the direction of much of my thinking.

6. Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, ed. Tony Tanner (Baltimore: Penguin, 1966), p. 457. Subsequent page references are to this edition and are included in the text.

7. For a different, though not contradictory, approach to the relationship of the beginning and ending, see Gene W. Ruoff, “The Sense of a Beginning: Mansfield Park and Romantic Narrative,” The Wordsworth Circle 10, no. 2 (Spring 1979): 174-86.

8. Karen Newman in “Can This Marriage Be Saved: Jane Austen Makes Sense of an Ending,” ELH 50, no. 4 (Winter 1983): 693-710, recognizes Austen's ironic closural strategy, but forces her interpretation of its purpose. Significantly, her argument ignores Mansfield Park.

9. See J. G. A. Pocock, “Burke and the Ancient Constitution,” Politics, Language and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History (New York: Atheneum, 1971), pp. 210-12 for an insightful discussion of the political application of the term and its meaning for Burke. Burke's use of “interest,” and Pocock's analysis thereof form the paradigm of what I have called the hierarchical relationship. Also, Duckworth, ibid, pp. 46-47, discusses the concept of improvement and “veneration of traditional structures” in Burke and its usefulness to Austen.

10. See Peter L. DeRose, “Hardship, Recollection, and Discipline: Three Lessons in Mansfield Park,” Studies in the Novel 9, no. 3 (Fall 1977): 261-78.

11. For an excellent analysis of the relationship between the play and the novel, see Dvora Zelicovici, “The Inefficacy of Lover's Vows,” ELH 50, no. 3 (Fall 1983): 531-40.

12. The adulterous liaison between Crawford and Maria is a consequence of a violation of the social contract. In this regard, the introduction to Tony Tanner's Adultery in the Novel: Contract and Transgression, (Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1979), provides a thorough background for many of the questions about status and family discussed here.

13. I am using Tzvetan Todorov, The Poetics of Prose, trans. Richard Howell (Cornell U. Press), pp. 226-30, for my definition of the term “transformation of status.”