Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

For anyone who was ever made to study Jane Austen at school my plea to you is: give her another chance. At age sixteen (or whenever), when all you want to know about is next weekend, it's very hard to digest something like Austen where the highlight of most young girls' day is taking a turn about the room. When I was studying Pride and Prejudice I thought her writing was pointless and trivial, but now I really can't get enough. In my view Mansfield Park is her best novel (well perhaps parallel to P&P, although I'm being swayed by the TV version). As a caution DO NOT watch the recent film of Mansfield Park to gain any idea of what the book is ...

If you were to see the film released not so long ago, and then read the book, you might be forgiven for thinking the book a little lacking in action. And you'd be right, because it is. And this is where the film goes oh so wrong. Jane Austen herself named Mansfield Park as one of her greatest works, and yet it still lurks in the shadows of those more frivolous works such as Emma and Pride and Prejudice. Don't get me wrong - these are fantastic novels. My point is only that Mansfield Park equals them, and so deserves it's own share of praise. The story centers around a girl called Fanny Price. Her mother ran off with a sailor and her rich family ...

I, like many other young people have only read this Jane Austen novel as part of A-level studies. I love reading and am able to read anything from James Herbert to Shakespeare, so Jane Austen has never phased me at all. My main character, a female as in most of Jane Austen novels, is called Fanny Price and comes from a poor family so is sent to live with rich relatives on the estate of Mansfield Park. Fanny is portrayed as a very sickly person who often begins to feel tired and faint if outside for too long! Not at all what we would see from usual Heroine type characters. She isn't strong willed or broad minded but quite the opposite. She sinks ...