What Mansfield Park is all about.

(Below is a review and summery of my book, Mansfield Park, that I stumbled upon. I figured someone out there might be interested in what my book is about. I also included a few of my book covers for you all to see. I hope you enjoy.)

The story Mansfield Park is a love-hate novel. It has all different kinds of emotions. Fanny, the main character, experiences a lot of the problem and hurt. In the beginning of the story Fanny Price is sent to live with her Aunt and uncle so that she can live in the upper class. She is abused by her other aunt, Mrs. Norris, who runs Mansfield Park. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, her aunt and uncle that own the estate and who she lives with, have two very unpleasant daughters named Julia and Maria. They are vindictive and egotistic and they want to marry into wealth and fashion.

Fanny also has two male cousins named Tom, who is the elder brother, and Edmund, who is the younger brother. Fanny finds herself falling for Edmund and he is trying to propose to her other egotistical cousin Mary. At first Mary is interested in Tom the older brother and the heir until she sees how tedious he is. She then finds herself attracted to Edmund but never seems to give him a chance to pop the big question. Meanwhile Fanny is giving him advice about what he should do to woo her and all along she is in love with him. This causes them to become more close and friendly. A friend of Tom’s named Yates visits the plantation proposes a play for the group to perform and everyone agrees to it.

Everyone but Fanny and Edmund think that it is a good idea. Fanny is shy and doesn’t want to perform and Edmund just hates acting. Mary and Edmund are forced to take part in fairly racy scenes and Fanny is forced to watch because she is required to take part in the play. Sir Thomas arrives back in town and finds out about the play and asks to see it. When it is preformed for him he says that he doesn’t approve at all and it is swiftly thrown out.

Edmund keeps trying to propose to Mary but she interrupts him the last minute every time and it ends up being for the best because he ends up falling for Fanny after all that time she had to wait. Meanwhile Henry is finding himself very in love with Fanny and decides to fancy her. He gets on her brothers good side by helping him into the war thinking that this would help him win fanny over. He proposes to her and she is discussed by the opportunity and quickly denies. This causes her family to be very upset for refusing a man of such wealth so they come to a decision to side her to live with her mother and father who are not of great wealth.

Later they allow fanny to come back and Mansfield park and bring her sister Susan. Edmund is very upset at this time because he finds out that Mary wants Tom to die of an illness that he receives and this causes Edmund to become very upset with her. Fanny is there to console him and they soon fall in love with each other.  Fanny and Edmund decide to marry one another and most of the group are very happy. Some however are not; Mary, Henry, and Maria are all cast out because of their behaviors and Mansfield Park live happily after that.

Revealing The Symbols in My "Black Sheep" Novel Mansfield Park

In my novel Mansfield Park, I included many symbols. Some examples were even symbols from my life. The three I am going to talk about were my greatest examples throughout the novel.

The first is revealed when the characters go to Sotherton and divide into groups. There is a symbol right there. The groups are a symbol and example of foreshadowing of how the characters will later have relationships with one another. Maria was in a group with Mr. Rushworth, her fiancé, and Henry Crawford, whom she loved. They went into the wilderness and came upon a locked gate. This gate was also a symbol. To Maria it is a symbol of marriage. This makes Maria suddenly have a feeling of restraint, and while her fiancé is going back to get the key she allows Henry to help her around the gate and lead her off into the distance to a hill. This action is foreshadowing of Henry later leading Maria into adultery.

The second symbol is much easier to understand, and much simpler to recognize in my book. The characters get a chance to have theatricals. In them, they play characters that are symbolic to the roles they would like to play in their own life. I did this as a reason to let the readers know what the characters were thinking, and also to let the readers in on the characters’ feelings. This would better help my readers to understand the characters as a whole.

The third symbol in the novel was actually a symbol having to relate to my own life. In my novel Mansfield Park, Fanny’s brother, William, sends her an amber cross. In my own life, my brother Charles sent me and my sister topaz crosses. There is another symbol relating to the crosses inside the novel though. Fanny needed a chain to go along with her cross to wear it to the ball. Mary gives Fanny a chain, but it turns out to actually be a present from Henry, her unwelcomed suitor. While this trick is going on, Edmund, the secretive love of Fanny’s life, buys her a simple gold chain. When Fanny tries the chains out, Edmund fits perfectly, but Henry’s does not. This symbol is clearly that Edmund will be perfect for Fanny, but Henry will not.

(I simply wanted to include the picture, for I feel it has all the elegance of my time period, yet it is different, it goes against regular customs, and could be considered a "black sheep" tea party like my "black sheep" book.)

Mansfield Park: Edmund & Fanny - "All My Life"

I found this video, and thought it was just fasinating! It is so cute with the characters I created, and mixed with your silly modern day music I thought it was quite a laugh, but also worthy of a sigh. Please enjoy, I sure did.

My Beloved Characters of Mansfield Park

Fanny Price is a young, modest girl who has come to live with her mother’s wealthy sister and her husband on the Mansfield Estates. Through their mistreatment of her, she is often reminded of her “charity case” status, and yet, she grows to be a modest, proper, beautiful lady who falls in love with her cousin, the son of her rather horrible aunt and uncle, with whom she has great patience.

Edmund Bertram is Fanny’s cousin and closest friend in Mansfield. He seems to be the only Bertram with a wise head and a benevolent heart. Being the second son, he chooses to be a clergyman. Though he is smart and compassionate towards Fanny, he falls blindly in love with Mary Crawford.

Mary Crawford is one of Fanny’s friends. She is of import because she is the object of Edmund’s affections and her brother attempts to sway Fanny’s affections. She is proud, cunning, and deceitful, and she believes society's propaganda that money is everything.

Henry Crawford, one of the antagonists of my beloved novel, is amiable but unoriginal-looking, and quite egotistical. He decides to entertain himself by wooing Fanny, and then he accidentally falls for her. He is impulsive and slightly illogical, I believe. Upon Fanny's refusal of his proposal, he proves his true nature by running off with Fanny's cousin (and Edmund's sister), Julia, who is already married.

What Mansfield Park Means to the World and to Me.

Mansfield Park, I have often been told, is my most controversial novel. I don’t quite understand this. I feel like it has a lot of similarities to my other stories, yet it is described as the “black sheep”. I meant for it to partially show what many of my other stories have showed, and that is the idea of following one's heart and not giving in to what society says one must do. Just because society says something might make one happy does not make it so.

I refused to marry for money, and I feel like Fanny would too. In many ways I feel like Fanny represents me. She embodies and lives by many of my beliefs and quite frankly much of my life. I wanted to show what I valued, such as familial relationships, education, passions for what one does, virtues, and also current happenings of society. I enjoy portraying the idea of power and illusion verses reality. I have heard much talk that this is my most… shall we say... risqué novel. I cannot say I did not mean to make this novel so complicated, it simply happened, and I have to say I am pleased. If it can show someone how I feel, but still get that person to think, then I am pleased.

My Life in the Regency Era

During the Regency Era, which somwhat overlapped the Romantic Period, men were generally the educated money-makers of the family. However, in my family, education was highly valued, and my father was insistent that both his sons and daughters be equally educated. In my day, marriage was the social norm, and it was often the only way for a lady to aquire economic security.

My father was one of the most influential people in my life. Though he died when I was young, he instilled many values in me. From his clergy man background, he taught me that the philosophes of the Enlightenment were wrong and ungodly. He taught me that the most important thing in life was Church, and I still hold to that today.

I grew up learning to value the beauties of nature and the individual. I was taught to appreciate creativity, imagination, and human emotions. I grew up intrigued by the separation of people because of society's set social classes. My friends and I, along with the rest of the people of my day, were intrigued by the possibility of geniuses and heroes both in reality and in fiction. I longed to understand how human thoughts and emotions played out when different conflicts arose.

It is because of these experiences and beliefs that I became a writer. I enjoy using satire to mock some of society's ridiculous customs, but I try to keep my writing styles eloquent and elegant. Some people have said that my writings mark a transition from neoclassicism to romanticism, and I think I must agree.



How My Life Began and My Journeys Since

                I was born on December 16, 1775 in the village of Steventon in Hampshire.  I was the seventh of eight children in our family. Since my father was a clergyman, we were fairly well off. I had a pretty fine childhood. I learned to read and write while I was homeschooled, and I greatly enjoyed our gigantic library that was full of all different kinds of books.

When I was 14, I began writing my first novel, Love and Friendship. When I was 19, I wrote Elinor and Marianne as a series of letters, which later became Sense and Sensibility when I rewrote it as an elegant novel. At 20, I began the novel I initially called First Impressions, which was later published as Pride and Prejudice. Around the same time, I was working on a novel called Susan, which later became Northanger Abbey.

With the help of my sweet talking brother I published Sense and Sensibility in 1811. Also in this year I created the novel Mansfield Park. My second novel published was Pride and Prejudice in 1813. In 1814, I created one of my most highly acclaimed novels, Emma, and in that year Mansfield Park was published. In 1816, I finished writing Persuasion, which was my last novel published in my lifetime.