In Defence Of Fanny Price

I cannot relate to Fanny. I have known women who are similar to her, who put up with terrible people and circumstances then never say anything back to their tormentors. I prefer heroines who stand up for themselves and fight back, either 3verbally or physically.

Things pretty much just happen around Fanny in the novel. I find her passive, weak and boring as day-old boiled rice.

Sure she stands by her beliefs, but being lauded for turning down a cad with money shouldn’t be the best thing she ever did in the book. Why didn’t she tell her uncle about Henry’s real character? Her fans claim it’s because she didn’t want to get her two cousins in trouble with their father and that she didn’t want Henry to be affected too.

And what happened after she turned Henry down and she was sent back to her impoverished family? Henry ran away with her skank of a cousin and the other cousin eloped with another man. Scandal galore for the Bertram family.

The problem for me is that Fanny did not take any steps to intervene. She knew she was right about the Crawfords, but she did nothing to warn the others. If she was so afraid of Sir Thomas, why didn’t she tell Edmund about Henry’s behavior toward her cousins? I’m not saying she could have predicted Maria’s fall from grace, but she could have at least given Maria’s brothers or father an idea that Henry was not to be trusted.

The book’s male lead is also not interesting. Edmund is a boring, uptight man who talks about morals but acts like a hypocrite when it comes to Mary. And I never bought his change of affection from Mary to Fanny. He needed a clergyman’s wife who would share the same beliefs as him and be content with whatever income he receives. How convenient that his besotted meek cousin fits the bill.

I have to make a comment as Mansfield Park is the novel that introduced me to the brilliance of Jane Austen long before Colin Firth emerged in his wet white shirt. I love Fanny for her strength of character and faithfulness to what she believed to be right. Her behaviour is a sign of her gratitude to her Aunt and Uncle Bertram and I admire her that she did not express any resentment toward her Aunt Norris’s insensitive treatment. I love her uncle’s statement to Aunt Norris that her lack of attention to Fanny actually was a good thing as it didn’t help his own daughters. I have to say in all honesty I am not a big fan of Elizabeth Bennet and love Fanny much more. Yes Edmund was beguiled by Mary Crawford but at least he saw that Fanny was by far superior in the end. I can forgive him as he was so kind to Fanny when she first arrived at Mansfield as a child. She only loved him and could never marry anyone else. Bravo Jane for your wonderful insight into human character and for giving us such a variety to enjoy.

Funnily enough, Fanny has always been my favorite followed by Anne Elliot then it’s probably a tie between Elizabeth Bennet and Elinor Dashwood. I like Emma the least. I found Fanny’s moral fortitude to be endearing.

When this Fanny versus Mary question came up in my reading group, all elderly, mostly women, I paraphrased the question of who would you prefer as a dinner companion, to who would you prefer as a daughter-n-law? That made a difference! No one wanted Mary Crawford; they knew she wouldn’t be faithful.

She was so damn meek and mild she drove me potty

There’s no question that Fanny, as a person, is virtuous. Nobody can question her virtue, her backbone, her behavior. But Fanny is not a person, she’s a fictional character, and that obligates her to be interesting or entertaining, and I find Fanny as interesting as cold mashed potatoes.

Rather than comparing perfect Fanny with the incomparably quick-witted Lizzie or flawed but entertaining Emma, let’s compare her with an Austen character she’s most like, Elinor Dashwood. Elinor is long-suffering; without her, Elinor’s mother and Marianne would be poor, living beyond their means; in a less deftly-written novel, they’d be practically ready to sell Margaret into servitude to meet their expenses. Elinor’s gentle wisdom goes far in keeping her mother’s emotion-based-behavior, if not Marianne’s, in check. Without Elinor’s kindness, wisdom, and gentle charm, people would be at each other’s throats, emotionally overwrought, and broke.

Elinor deserves her happy ending because she’s done so much good for her family and her friends. (I still think she’d be a better match for Colonel Brandon, but what can you do?) Fanny’s not a bad person, but she’s boring, and her happy ending is ending up with the least desirable, least deserving, most boring of Austen’s so-called heroes, and ending so bland that I’d rather have cold mashed potatoes.

Had there never been a Fanny Price, I suspect some people would look down their noses at Elinor; but we have Fanny, who is a limp dishrag of a character because she’s neither compelling nor interesting, she’s not funny, and she doesn’t seem to see what’s funny in others’ folly. Being morally upright alone, with no other characteristics, is fine for a tertiary character, but a heroine must have verve.

Both Elinor and Fanny are shocked by people’s bad behavior and seek to turn them toward better, but where Elinor is a benignly stalwart grown woman, Fanny is an implacable child, one with good moral underpinnings but little real joy. She might have gotten along with Mary Bennet more than any other Austen character, but at least one can laugh at, if not with, Mary. (That said, if Mary Bennet read any Jane Austen novels, there’s no doubt she’d prefer Fanny (and Anne, and Elinor) to Elizabeth, Emma, and Catherine).

Fanny provides no charm, no amusement, no appeal…and this Austen reader finds this far more grievous a sin than an unchaperoned date or letters to a gentleman to whom one is not engaged. I can forgive Lizzie’s quick and false assumptions, Emma’s lack of self-awareness, Catherine’s childlike inability to discern fantasy from reality, or even (oy, vey) Marianne’s overwrought emotions. But I cannot abide a character who never makes me laugh, or with whom I could never share a laugh. Too much moral virtue, and too little of anything else, is a poor recipe for a protagonist. Pass the hot sauce or take away the mashed potatoes.

I remember navigating a fledgling World Wide Web in the mid-nineties just in time for the opening salvo in what came to be known as the Fanny Wars. Although Fanny isn’t as outwardly engaging as the Elizabeths and Emmas, I think both of those heroines would appreciate Fanny’s character, discretion, and discerning judgement. My dissatisfaction is that Edmund doesn’t deserve her.

The thing about Fanny that is most impressive is her adamant refusal to do things she perceives as “Wrong”. She is very much on the “straight and narrow path” and no one is going to pressure her to do otherwise. This is admirable consistency for a person who is basically shy and timid — it seems that insignificant little Fanny has a backbone of steel — beneath her unassuming exterior there is more strength than one would expect.

Fanny Price is an observer of the people around her, intuitively knows goodness in them when she sees it and is the only character in the story who recognizes the Crawfords for the delightfully charming but shallow predators that they are. I think Fanny’s innate goodness is probably why people dislike her. Lizzie Bennett IS a tough act to follow. I read somewhere that Jane Austen alternated virtues in her heroines (starting with Elinor and Marianne) and its probably not by chance that Fanny lacks the charm and quick wit of Lizzie Bennett, her predecessor, and is careful before making judgements. Lizzie, on the other hand, was quicker to judge and very sure of her own opinions. Unlike Lizzie, Fanny was not given the line, “before today I never knew myself.” and will not have to regret anything she’s ever done. I love Fanny for her goodness in the face of adversity. It’s easy to be kind and thoughtful when things are going your way, but Fanny remains true to what’s right and just even when the deck is stacked against her. Bravo!

Fanny the least loved Jane Austen character? Say it isn’t so. For me each character is looked at in her own merits. Fanny was the lesser cousin taken in by the suggestion of self righteous Aunt Norris. She meant it to be sort of a kindness but she wasn’t kind to Fanny herself. She would not put herself out to even think of Fanny in any other way than the way she did, lesser than. But at that time, status and class were the judge of all and Fanny learned her place and role in the family very early. And as the novel progressed and ended, we see that the whole family sees she was right all along and know her true worth. She won the fair Edward and took her place in society. A vicar’s wife was not a lofty place but it was an honorable one. And I love Fanny for uprightness and moral character. These qualities are not in too many women today.