I am rereading Mansfield Park and I am very much enjoying the character studies Jane Austen provides. One more thing that interests me is how religion and especially Mary Crawford’s dislike of clergyman is such a prominent feature in the book. When Mary remarked the following, I could not help but think how very modern we would think such notions today. And how I think if you ask the general population, her ideas of former times are exactly how we think about Jane Austen’s time. I know that our conceptions of religion, the idea that you could be secular, originated at the end of the eighteenth century, but somehow I never expected to find it in the work of Austen.
At any rate, it is safer to leave people to their own devices on such subjects. Everybody likes to go their own way – to choose their own time and manner of devotion. The obligation of attendance, the formality, the restraint, the length of time – altogether it is a formidable thing, and what nobody likes: and if the good people who used to kneel and gape in that gallery could have foreseen that the time would ever come when men and women might lie another ten minutes in bed, when they woke with a headache, without danger of reprobation, because chapel was missed, they would have jumped with joy and envy.
Austen was so brilliantly acerbic.
I’m sure you’re right. And of course, we know that Austen must have met some pretty questionable clerics. Think of Mr Collins. By the way, have you seen the film of ‘Mansfield Park’ that came out perhaps seven or eight years ago? Perhaps not entirely true to Austen, but asking some very interesting questions about where the Mansfield Park money came from.
I read an Austen biography, that approached her from a Christian perspective. I believe her father was a minister, and he shared alot of his theological thoughts with his daughter, and she also rubbed elbows with alot of clergy, so her approach makes alot of sense.
I think this is one of the issues that makes MP hard for modern readers. Mary makes a lot of sense to us – in several ways – and she does represent the “new” city world, whereas Fanny and Edmund represent stable country values. There are some arguments that suggest that this was written at a time of great instability in England – the effect of the Napoleonic Wars and some economic downturns – and that Austen was therefore arguing for stability.
And, she does present Edmund as a “good” minister who cares about the pastoral aspects of his role which, as we know from Austen, was not necessarily common among her clergy. I think she was also arguing for that – for the clergy to “be” clergy. For many it was a job that a gentleman could do, rather than a commitment or calling.
Nice post Iris.
Isn’t it amazing how we keep discovering these little tresures every time we read Austen.
I always felt some sort of sympathy for Mary Crawford. Her downfall was to say out loud what everyone else was thinking
Whisperinggums points out the historical reading that has always illuminated passages like this to me. A post as a clergyman was called “a living.” Many modern readers understand how easy it was to get such a living and not be at all capable of performing the job from hearing the story of Wickam in Pride and Prejudice (the one who “ruins” and then “has to marry” Lizzie Bennett’s younger sister–you get the story about his promised place as a clergyman from Mr. Darcy).
I remember reading a theory that Mary Crawford is supposed to be the real heroine of Mansfield Park. I think it’s interesting that maybe Jane Austen could put her own views into the mouths of her characters as a way of spreading them to a wider audience – something a woman in the early 19th century wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do otherwise.
I’m painfully slow at reading but trying to improve.
By the way Iris, out of interest how long does it take you to read a book? You seem to get through them so quickly
Yes I’ve always found Mary’s view on religion interesting and I’ve often wondered whether Austen herself was religious. In her selected letters I noticed a marked reference to faith towards the end of her life.
Interesting. It’s been so long since I’ve read Mansfield Park that I’d forgotten all about this. If I get around to a re-read, I’ll have to remember to look out for Mary Crawford’s views. They do sound more contemporary than one might have expected.
I’ve been thinking about this post over the last few days while trying to figure out how religion played into the works of another writer (Evelyn Waugh). He’s drawn pictures of non-religious people that are far more sympathetic than his pictures of some of his religious characters, despite his own commitment to conservative faith. In some ways it seems Austen might be similar.
[I think this is one of the issues that makes MP hard for modern readers. Mary makes a lot of sense to us – in several ways – and she does represent the “new” city world, whereas Fanny and Edmund represent stable country values. ]
Why would country values be considered “stable”?