You Pierce My Soul (original) (raw)

I saw a link to an article on Mansfield Park posted on the Derbyshire Writers' Guild, and found it very interesting (and very long):

Jane Austen as Public Theologian

And here's my reaction to it (there are HP comparisons at the end):

The author does make some good points, but I don't think Mansfield Park is entirely concerned with the Church of England. (I also have some issues with his use of the concept of "roles," but I won't go into that) Rather, Austen wants us to recognize the difference between Fanny (and Edmund) and the rest of the characters, and to understand why her character is morally valid while the others are not. Fanny's goodness embodies Austen's idea of how people should behave.

This is the reason it is so hard to like Fanny. Austen's other heroines all learn lessons by the end of their stories, but in Mansfield Park, Fanny is the lesson. In fact, the whole novel is a lesson, one Austen obviously felt particularly strongly that the public should learn. It is very difficult to like a lesson such as this, because we want to think of ourselves as being righteous already. The character of Fanny (it is difficult to think of her as an actual person, as we think of Austen's other heroines, because she is the ideal) does not change, like Elizabeth Bennet must, or Emma Woodhouse. Instead, she causes others to change, and us to examine our moral priorities.

In fact, I still dislike Fanny, and I doubt I will ever learn to like her. I admire and respect her, and I would make choices similar to hers if put in similar circumstances, but since she is there to teach me a lesson, I cannot see her as a real human being.

The other principle reason I have trouble liking this novel concerns the assumption that adherence to the strictures of the Church will cure the social ills that plague the upper class, as typified by the Crawfords and the inhabitants of Mansfield Park. Since we live in an almost completely secular climate, as opposed to Austen's England, when absolutely everyone was supposed to belong to the Church of England, we recognize that one can be morally upright while not following any organized religion. This possibility may not have occured to Austen, simply because of the atmosphere she lived in. And people are people. Not everyone can be good. Teaching someone good morals doesn't guarantee that he or she will actually follow them. So that's that.

Also, while MP is certainly a very profound novel, I don't think it's any more profound than P&P, or Austen's other, less seriously inclined novels. We do learn lessons from these other novels right along with Lizzy, Emma, and even Anne Elliot, but we recognize ourselves in their mistakes and their humanity. This, too, is profound. It's just a little easier to swallow.

Now that I've practically written a novel myself, does anyone have any insights on this?

And would you agree that in the Wizarding World, Harry is the moral center, although (unlike Fanny) he is making mistakes and, hopefully, learning from them? The geography of Hogwarts (shifting staircases, hidden passageways, etc.) even puts me in mind of the geography of Sotherton, where, on their walk, Mary Crawford leads Edmund off the "great path" onto a "serpentine" one, and tries to tempt him away from his calling as a cleryman. The ability to use magic holds a great capacity for misuse, and Harry certainly doesn't mind breaking rules. Hopefully, he'll break them for the right reasons.

Thoughts?