Good And Evil In Mansfield Park

Fanny Price and Mary Crawford are the archetypes of good and evil in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. On one end of the moral spectrum we have Fanny, who throughout the novel displays a strong sense of selflessness and determination to do the right thing. On the other extreme we have the charming but amoral Mary, who brings to mind an image of Lucifer as he is commonly portrayed in popular culture - as a foul creature that appears in fair guises to beguile the souls of morally corruptible men and women. The struggle between good and evil is embodied by the two women's competition for Edmund's affections. Just as Eve was deceived by the serpent in the biblical account of Genesis, Edmund initially falls for Mary's charms, and although enough doubts surface in his mind to restrain him from proposing to her, it is only near the end of the novel that he really sees through the veil that she had draped over his eyes.

As one would expect, Fanny is dismayed when Edmund expresses romantic interest in her rival. What may not be expected is how little of her dismay appears to stem from pure jealousy. Above all, her reaction seems to be born out of genuine concern for Edmund's poor judgment:

"Could she believe Miss Crawford to deserve him, it would be - Oh! how different would it be - how far more tolerable! But he was deceived in her; he gave her merits which she had not; her faults were what they had ever been, but he saw them no longer. Till she had shed many tears over this deception, Fanny could not subdue her agitation; and the dejection which followed could only be relieved by the influence of fervent prayers for his happiness." (181)

Unlike Edmund, Fanny is unimpressed by exterior trappings, as Mary's almost equally amoral brother Henry learns when he attempts to win her heart. Although a woman of Fanny's stature would certainly benefit greatly from a marriage to a wealthy and upstanding man like Henry, wealth and social standing are not enough to elevate his worth in Fanny's eyes.

Mary, in contrast, places wealth and social standing on a pedestal. She claims to love Edmund, yet wishes that he would abandon the clergy in favor of a more prosperous job. When Tom's imminent death makes Edmund a likely heir to Mansfield Park, thus according him the wealth and social standing she wishes to enjoy, Mary reveals her evil heart in a letter to Fanny:

" 'Poor young man! - If he is to die, there will be two poor young men less in the world; and with a fearless face and bold voice would I say to any one, that wealth and consequence could fall into no hands more deserving of them. ... I put it to your conscience, whether "Sir Edmund" would not do more good with all the Bertram property, than any other possible

"Sir." ' " (294-295)

At the end of Volume I of the novel, Edmund's father Sir Thomas, who has been overseeing his plantations in Antigua, returns to Mansfield Park in the midst of rehearsals for a play, which in Austen's world is regarded as morally corrupt because it encourages actors to engage in otherwise inappropriate sexually suggestive behavior. Fanny is the only vocal detractor of the idea of putting on a play, as Edmund later explains to Sir Thomas, cementing her place yet again in the highest echelons of Mansfield morality:

" 'We have all been more or less to blame,' said [Edmund], 'every one of us, excepting Fanny. Fanny is the only one who has judged rightly throughout, who has been consistent. Her feelings have been steadily against it from first to last. She never ceased to think of what was due to you. You will find Fanny every thing you could wish." (129)

Everyone involved in the play knows that Sir Thomas would disapprove of the theatrics, as evidenced by their reaction to his arrival:

"How is the consternation of the party to be described? To the greater number it was a moment of absolute horror. Sir Thomas in the house! All felt the instantaneous conviction. Not a hope of imposition or mistake was harboured any where. Julia's looks were an evidence of the fact that made it indisputable; and after the first starts and exclamations, not a word was spoken for half a minute; each with an altered countenance was looking at some other, and almost each was feeling it a stroke the most unwelcome, most ill-timed, most appalling!" (121)

With this brilliant passage, Jane Austen establishes Sir Thomas as an authoritarian, almost God-like figure - the pillar of moral objectivity in a household where morality is cloaked in shades of gray. But Sir Thomas turns out to be more morally ambiguous than one might initially suspect.

When Fanny asks Sir Thomas about the slave trade, a "dead silence" descends (136), leading us to wonder if their lavish lifestyle at Mansfield Park