Suspense and Austen: Part 2

Suspense and Austen, Part 2: What’s up with Mansfield Park?

Of all Austen’s books, the ending of Mansfield Park is the least easiest to guess. In Part 1 of this post, I discussed the suspense value of all the books, and why Mansfield Park has so much suspense value: the character of Henry Crawford.

He seems nearly the ideal Austen hero. He complements the temperament of Fanny, is well situated (and she has no fortune), has wit, and has family that might disapprove. However, he is dissolute, flirting with all the girls, and lacking strong principles. Yet, Mansfield Park has all the ingredients for Henry Crawford’s reformation as well. Fanny has strong enough principles and morals to teach him, his bad character is said to be caused by poor moral training rather than an bad temperament, Fanny’s dislike of him is immediate (usually a sign of ill judgment in Austen), and he is willing to learn better under Fanny’s teaching. He is also given as much time and thought as Fanny’s eventual husband, Edmund Bertram.

Edmund, on the other hand, does not seem ideal. He’s prosy and almost priggish, with a tendency to be more older-brotherly than friendly. His admiration for Mary Crawford shows poor judgment, though his appreciation of Fanny is admirable, and he is, like Fanny, too grave and solemn. It is remarkable, then, that Edmund and not Henry should marry Fanny at the end. The setup appears all in Henry’s favor, up to his trying to change and being kind to her family in Portsmouth. To be sure, his announcement of a good deed is not like, say, Brandon or Darcy’s letting their character show by itself, but then, Henry is more open and not fully reformed yet.

But it would be an easy task for Austen, one would think, to have Henry reform completely under Fanny’s influence, enough so that she can love him. Of course, then one has to think of Fanny’s love for Edmund. He cannot marry Mary Crawford unless she reforms, which would be too perfect for Austen, but she could have had Fanny grow to love Henry and become a sister to the heartbroken Edmund. There would be enough unhappiness while enough reasonable happiness to merit Austen, so the question is: why didn’t she do it that way?

While we can imagine that Fanny and Edmund will be happy together, could not Fanny have been just as happy if not happier loving a reformed Henry Crawford? She would make a fine mistress of Everingham with her practicality and talent for household tasks; and Henry, being inclined himself to company and entertaining (and providing that he truly loves Fanny), would make it almost unnecessary for her to be much in company. And as a perfect Austen marriage of two temperaments usually turns out, she would likely become more confident in company, while he would gain more gravity.

Perhaps Austen was planning to do it this way, and then thought the reformed rake plot too clichéd for her taste, and fell back on Edmund. Perhaps she decided that Henry Crawford was too far gone for her to heal in the space that she had left for him. Perhaps she used author’s prerogative and decided that she liked Edmund better. Perhaps all this speculation is just in my imagination.

And yet, Mansfield Park, of all the books, ends unsatisfactorily for me, and I will always wonder why Austen didn’t do more with Henry Crawford.