Student Question
Choose a significant relationship in Mansfield Park and explain its importance.
Quick answer:
One of the most important relationships in Mansfield Park is that between Fanny and Edmund. As Fanny is being raised in the household of Sir Thomas Bertram, the father of Edmund, the young cousins initially relate like brother and sister. Each of them becomes temporarily involved with another person. Fanny falls in love with Edmund first, and then he learns that she is a fine person whom he loves and admires. In the end, they marry.
Throughout Mansfield Park, the developing relationship between Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram is a central thread in the plot. Fanny, whose parents are poor, goes to live with the well-to-do Bertrams, her aunt and uncle on her mother’s side. Edmund, their second son, plans to become a clergyman. At first, her cousin, who is six years older, seem like a big brother. As she grows up, Fanny’s relative poverty puts her at a disadvantage socially, and she is encouraged to make a good match with Henry Crawford. Meanwhile, Edmund becomes interested in Henry’s sister, Mary, but then, he breaks off their relationship. When Fanny realizes she loves Edmund, she feels that she cannot tell him and must wait for him to declare his love.
The changes in their relationship are as much concerned with their relative opinions of the other person’s character as with their social and financial circumstances....
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
Edmund’s sisters tend to look down on Fanny because of her poverty, and for a long time, he does not realize how frivolous and thoughtless they are. His admiration for Mary is diminished at much the same time his eyes are opened to his sisters’ true characters, and he faces the fact that he cannot marry a woman he does not respect. The challenge for Fanny is to keep silent as her love for Edmund deepens. It takes a while for him to see her as an adult woman, no longer a child, and to gain an appreciation of her fine qualities.
What is the significance of a key relationship in Mansfield Park? Does it serve a didactic purpose or just entertain?
A relationship that stands out is that between Edmund Bertram and Mary Crawford. The two meet after Mr. Norris dies, and the Grants move into the parsonage. Mary is a younger half-sister of Mrs. Grant, who stays with her.
Edmund quickly falls under the spell of the lovely, witty, talented, and ever-entertaining Miss Crawford. Fanny, through whose eyes the story is told, watches the relationship unfold with dismay. She is primed to be prejudiced against Mary because Fanny loves Edmund and sees the other woman as a rival. Nevertheless, Mary's worldly views and tolerance of vice are stumbling blocks to the relationship. Much of the novel's plot turns on whether Edmund marries the dynamic Mary or the virtuous Fanny.
The relationship is meant to be entertaining but, more than that, to serve a didactic or cautionary purpose. Mary has been brought up badly in the household of her admiral uncle and exposed to so much immorality at an early age that it has damaged her in Austen's eyes. Because her values were warped early in life, she throws away happiness with both hands when she finds it in Edmund. She values money and a worldly position too much: she loves Edmund but also wants him to pursue a career other than country clergyman, one with more money and prestige so that they can shine as a couple in London society. She also wants to brush over Maria and Henry's adultery: she is not concerned with it, only with hiding it. Her inability to value what is most important in life leads her to lose a chance for a deeper happiness with Edmund that transcends the shallow world she has always known.
Mary, it should be noted, is a controversial character. Another reading would be that this judgment of Mary as warped is Fanny's condemnation of her rival and that Mary is the better of the two, who escaped marrying a prig in Edmund. In either case, differences in moral values between the two characters are explored for didactic purposes.