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Penguin Classics, Mansfield Park (Penguin New Zealand)
Penny Gay, from the department of English at Sydney
University explains Mansfield Park in terms of a medieval morality play,
encapsulating characters representing different moral positions. Tony Tanner, a
Fellow of Kings College Cambridge, who wrote the introduction for the first
Penguin Classic edition of Mansfield Park in 1966, stated, that Jane Austen
used the theatricals in Mansfield Park,
“as a vehicle to explore the profound implications of,
“acting,” and “role playing,” for the individual and society.”
Katheryn Sutherland, Professor Fellow in English Literature
at St Anne’s College Oxford, explains in the most recent (1996) introduction to
the Penguin Classics edition,
“…the play poses questions which can only be construed as
subversive of settled values and order.”
Penny Gay, describes the characters in Mansfield Park as
characters in a Medieval Morality Play.
“we are encouraged to
think, at least on one level of our reading, of the Crawford’s as the World and
the Flesh (and possibly the Devil) the Bertram family as Pride (Sir Thomas),
Sloth (Lady Bertram), Avarice (Mrs Norris, also Self Conceit),Lust (Maria),
Envy (Julia, also Anger). (The minor character, Dr Grant is the incarnation of
the least heinous deadly sin, Gluttony.) Tom Bertram embodies Dissipation……
Edmund or Everyman, who consciously tries to do good but is tempted and falls…
and Fanny, the steadfast woman.”
Morality play characters.
Reproduced in H.W. Mabie, William Shakespeare (1900).
The morality
play is one of the three main types of vernacular
drama produced during the Middle Ages together with the mystery
play and the miracle play The action of the morality play centres on a
hero, such as Mankind, whose inherent weaknesses are assaulted by such
personified diabolic forces as the Seven Deadly Sins but who may choose redemption
and enlist the aid of such figures as the Four Daughters of God (Mercy,
Justice, Temperance, and Truth). It is easy to connect the name Mansfield with
Mankind.
Drama and theatre is really a much more positive and
affirmative experience than Austen portrays it in Mansfield Park. In Mansfield
Park she takes only one possible set of consequences. We know that Jane Austen
and her family loved home theatricals. She also loved to go to the theatre when
staying with her brother, Henry, at his address in Henrietta Street, Covent
Garden. She wrote enthusiastically in her letters to Cassandra about her visits
to Covent Garden theatre. To act, a person is taking on a role, trying out
situations, emotions and characterisations which might be alien to them. Love, hate,
murder, aggression, humour, fear, wealth, poverty and the whole gamut of human
experience can be play acted. Educationalists and psychiatrists think this a
good thing. Theatre can be used to explore moral and life issues in a safe
environment. People can confront mental issues and it can help them to recover.
Children at school can explore moral and life issues safely which helps them to
mature and develop as human beings.
Middlethorpe Hall (My idea of what the house in Mansfield Park might look like.)
(Published in the Middlethorpe House website: http://www.middlethorpe.com/)
Henry and Mary Crawford have been described as possessing
loose morals. In morality play terms they are the seven deadly sins, a form of evil.
The root cause of their dissolute attitude to life is suggested because of
their damaged childhood and upbringing. They are left as orphans to be brought
up by their libertine uncle, Admiral Crawford. As a result they have been open
to many unsavoury influences. They have experienced the debauched social life
found in London. Henry seduces, Maria
Bertram who is betrothed to the ineffectual Mr Rushworth. He flirts with Julia
Bertram and then makes her life a misery with his rebuttals. He makes a
concerted effort indeed for Fanny, who is unattainable to him and therefore the
greater conquest if achieved. Mary Crawford plays the temptress to Edmund and
almost achieves her goal. Their social skills may be described as play acting.
It is no coincidence that Henry is described by Austen as the best actor in
Mansfield Park and he himself exuberantly expresses his love of acting. Henry
Crawford tells everybody that he loves acting.
“I really believe,”
said he, “I could be fool enough at this moment to undertake any character that
ever was written, from Shylock or Richard III down to the singing hero of a
farce in his scarlet coat and cocked hat. I feel as if I could be anything or
every thing, as if I could rant or storm, or sigh, or cut capers in any tragedy
or comedy in the English language.“
This is an impassioned declaration. We, the reader, are
aware that he is the consummate actor. His whole life is an act. His pursuit of
Maria, Julia and eventually Fanny, and then returning to Maria is a game to
him, all an act. Richard III suave, sleazy, lizard like, cunning, highly
intelligent, is Henry Crawford, isn’t he?
Richard III 2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485
Shakespeare wrote his play, Richard III, around 1593. The play shows him as a Machiavellian character. Shakespeare was writing in Tudor times after all.
Shakespeare wrote his play, Richard III, around 1593. The play shows him as a Machiavellian character. Shakespeare was writing in Tudor times after all.
Fanny, and at first Edmund, only see wickedness and disaster
in the whole prospect of the play. In Mansfield Park, the theatricals are used
as a subversive element, not a positive thing. Austen reduces the theatrical
experience to something detrimental for the sake of the novel. The characters
and plot of Lovers Vows is unsuitable on a number of levels. The play is not
merely going to allow them to enact hypothetical situations. The parts are
closely allied to their own lives and secret and subconscious desires and so
becomes subversive.
Various forms of reasoning and persuasion, by first, Tom and
his friend Mr Yates, followed soon after by the Crawfords, encourage and
persuade different characters to take part. Edmund uses reason to counteract
their arguments, referencing what he thinks his father’s reaction might be. In
a way he takes on the head of the household role. The role Tom should take with
his father away. Edmund believes that
they are going to desecrate his father’s house. Maria Bertram, at first argues,
when Edmund suggests that she declines to take part in the acting,
” I really cannot undertake to harangue all the rest upon a
subject of this kind.-There would be the greatest indecorum I think.”
But later she says, and shows her real base instincts. Her
reasoning spectacularly loses all its moral high ground
“If I were to decline
the part, “said Maria, “Julia would certainly take it.”
Jealousy, one upmanship, the fear of not acting intimately
with Henry Crawford, Julia being with Henry instead, come to the fore in this
last desperate unguarded statement. She no longer argues on the high ground.
The greatest threat from the forces of persuasion are when
the whole group, including now Edmund, target poor Fanny, the last remaining
person without a part and who still does not agree to the play being staged.
Even Fanny gets to the point where she is about to capitulate. In a way this is
a foreboding of what is to come for Fanny. It is practice for the greater
danger she has to face later; the powerful persuasive forces of Henry Crawford
who attempts to marry her.
The Mansfield theatre (Wikapaedia)
In retrospect, the
future course of each character is so strongly set, the eventual failure to
perform the play merely delays the inevitable or even highlights what is
inevitable.
Lucy Morrison, Professor of English at Salisbury University,
points out Austen’s more general use of
drama, playwriting and acting in her novels. For instance, she
states, Emma was derived from a drama
based on the German playwright Kotzebue’s play, Reconciliation (1799). She
mentions the strong links between the characters and the moral and social
themes of the play and Austen’s novel. So it seems plays can be central to
Austen’s stories.
Lovers Vows, is a play by Mrs Inchbald, a celebrated 18th
century female playwright who adapted, Das Kind der Liebe (Child of Love) by
Kotzbue. It was first performed in England in 1798. The play relates the story
of a character called Frederick. A local baron, Baron Wildenheim who seduced
and abandoned a chambermaid, Agatha Friburg in his youth. The play begins with
Agatha living in poverty when her illegitimate son, Frederick, a soldier,
returns from war. She tells him his father is the Baron. Frederick goes out to
beg so that he can help his mother. In desperation he attempts to rob the baron
who he meets on the road. At first he doesn’t realise who his victim is.
Frederick is arrested. While in prison he reveals his identity to the Baron and
tells the Baron that his mother is still alive. With the aid of the pastor,
Anhalt, he persuades the Baron, who is widowed, to marry his mother Agatha.
Meanwhile the Baron’s daughter, Amelia, who is betrothed to Count Cassel a
brainless fop, has fallen in love with Anhalt and wants to marry him. The Baron
consents to his daughter’s marriage with Anhalt.
The Georgian Theatre in Bugle Street Southampton during Jane Austen's time in Southampton.
Some of the shocking aspects of this play which affect Fanny
and Edmund, are firstly the illegitimacy of Frederick. This suggests lust and
inappropriate behaviours on the part of the Baron and Agatha in the past. Also
there is the weakening of social barriers which might be disapproved of. The
Baron marrying Agatha and Anhalt, a mere clergyman marrying the Baron’s
daughter, Amelia are relationships which cross the social divides between the
aristocracy and the serving classes. The fact that Mansfield Park house is
actually being transformed into a theatre and being physically changed is also
a visual metaphor for social and moral disruption. Mansfield Park is no longer
an ordinary home with ordinary values, all be it a wealthy home with a rich
lifestyle. It is now a theatre where everything becomes unreal and social experiments
of all kind can take place.
Maria Bertram was to
play the part of Agatha and Henry Crawford to play the part of Frederick. They
have some intimate and emotional moments between mother and son which suggests
a strange sort of role play for these two. They also have many scenes together.
Baron Wildenheim was to be played by Mr Yates, Amelia by Mary Crawford ,
Anhalt, by Edmund and Count Cassel by Mr
Rushworth. The part of the Count for Mr Rushworth, ineffectual and slow to
understand is obvious type casting. The parts of Amelia and Anhalt reflect
Maria Crawford’s and Edmunds situation too. They have to act out their love
scene using dialogue heavy with meaning which would provide more opportunities
for Mary Crawford to entice and seduce Edmund. The fact that they both ask
Fanny to help them rehearse their parts, Fanny taking the opposite part each
time, has its psychological undertones.
The whole acting affair comes to a dramatic end and turns
almost into farce when Julia Bertram enters,
“….the door of the
room was thrown open and Julia appearing at it, with a face aghast, exclaimed,
“My father is come! He is in the hall at this moment.”
A theatre poster for the production of Douglas in Southampton.
When the participants in this ,”drama,” are debating which
play to choose and not being able to decide on any, a few of Shakespeare plays are suggested,
Macbeth, Othello and Hamlet. Other plays popular at the time Mansfield Park was
being written were suggested too, such as, Douglas, The Gamester, The Rivals
and The School for Scandal. It is evident that Jane Austen suggested these
plays for a purpose. Imagine if they decided on Macbeth, the murders, the
killing. Do any of them have thoughts and feelings about murder and dark
satanic powers? It is almost an exaggerated suggestion. Hamlet might be a
closer fit but then there is the killing too. Othello, involves subterfuge and
betrayal. Who amongst the Mansfield players could be an Iago or a Desdemona? We
might have our suggestions. Is Jane
Austen making a wicked joke about some deep psychological level the characters
in Mansfield Park are not aware of?
The play Austen mentions after listing the three Shakespeare
plays is, Douglas. It was written by John Home who was a Scottish minister and
writer. The plot includes the abandoned child of the nobility brought up by a
lowly shepherd called Norval whose name the growing child takes. There is
betrayal, suicide and murder involved along the way. There are some
similarities with Lovers Vows but without the love element.
The
famed actress, Sarah Siddons, played Lady Randolph in Douglas.
Douglas, incidently, was staged at the theatre in, Bugle Street, Southampton,
near Jane’s Castle Square house. A theatre poster for the production states
that on Friday evening of the 31st May 1811, Douglas was performed
by the pupils of Dr Whittaker at the Theatre, Southampton, to raise funds for, “The British Prisoners in
France.”
The
two plays, The Rivals and The School for Scandal by Sheridan, have titles that
at first would seem to offer an insight into the goings on at Mansfield Park, even more so than Lovers Vows. The Rivals and
the School for Scandal , are comedies that undermine the social mores of
Georgian society. But, to tell the truth, Lovers Vows fits much more closely
the scenarios being enacted in the characters real lives than any of these
other plays. However, it would have been fun to see some of the others Austen
lists, as the chosen production. To fit as closely the action, Macbeth would
require Austens plot to be entirely different and if examined, the other plays,
to be the right choice for Mansfield Park would also require a different story
to be set as the , “the play within the play.” Austen is really having a joke
with us all.
Mansfield rehearsals.
However, is Mansfield Park even closer to Shakespeare than
just the mention of some of his plays in the suggested list? Is the story of
Mansfield Park really a reformed, Midsummers Night’s Dream? It has been thought that Jane Austen’s novels centre on dialogue. Jane Austen’s
writing appears to be very close to play writing. We learn about her characters
through what they say and how they interact and all the action is in the
dialogue.
