Mansfield Park

turning it over, suddenly exclaimed—"Lovers' Vows! And why should not Lovers' Vows do for _us_ as well as for the Ravenshaws? How came it never to be thought of before? It strikes me as if it would do exactly. What say you all?"

Moral-contrast architecture—Fanny's passive virtue against the Crawfords' charm, the Lovers' Vows theatrical scandal, Henry Crawford's failed courtship, Maria's elopement—structurally coherent though the heroine's inaction strains the marriage plot, so plot scores 82.

Fanny Price was at this time just ten years old, and though there might not be much in her first appearance to captivate, there was, at least, nothing to disgust her relations. She was small of her age, with no glow of complexion, nor any other striking beauty; exceedingly timid and shy, and shrinking from notice.

Fanny the timid moral center, Edmund the clergyman-in-training, Mary and Henry Crawford the metropolitan temptations, Sir Thomas the patriarch, Mrs Norris the poisonous benefactress—sharply typed within Austen's social grammar, so cast scores 86.

nothing, would awaken very wholesome regrets in her mind. He watched her with this idea; but he could hardly tell with what success. He hardly knew whether there were any difference in her spirits or not. She was always so gentle and retiring that her emotions were beyond his discrimination.

The long middle—amateur theatricals, Portsmouth visit, Henry Crawford's attentions—dilates more than Emma or P&P; the final disgrace-and-restoration volume accelerates but the courtship feels protracted, so pace scores 80.

About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.

Austen's mature ironic narration at full control—the opening genealogy of the three sisters, free indirect discourse on Fanny's inner life, the famous closing disclaimer a model of authorial tact—so prose scores 92.

About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.

Mansfield Park as moral geography—the great house, the parsonage, Portsmouth squalor as counterpoint, Sotherton and its chapel, the Antigua slavery income that haunts the estate's respectability—so world scores 90.

About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.

Ch.I opens on sisterly marriage economics—solid genealogical scene-setting rather than iconic declarative hook; narrative ignition deferred to Fanny's arrival and the Crawfords' entrance, so hook scores 78.

"Lovers' Vows! And why should not Lovers' Vows do for _us_ as well as for the Ravenshaws? How came it never to be thought of before? It strikes me as if it would do exactly. Here are two capital tragic parts for Yates and Crawford."

The passive heroine as moral test—comedy built on a protagonist who refuses to act—and the drawing-room introduction of West Indian slavery make this Austen's most ethically uncomfortable design; the theatrical-within-the-novel device anticipates metafictional play, so innov scores 84.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest. My Fanny, indeed, at this very time, I have the satisfaction of knowing, must have been happy in spite of everything.

The narrator's explicit refusal of punishment spectacle yields a muted double restoration (Fanny/Edmund, Mansfield repaired); satisfaction is moral rather than romantic, so ending scores 82.