Mansfield Park | Quotes

Mrs. Norris's proposal to foster Fanny at Mansfield Park makes her proud of her generous nature, but she deftly manages the situation: Sir Thomas will bear all the costs, Lady Bertram will stand in Fanny's mother's stead, and Mrs. Norris will take all the credit. This early description of her manipulations clarifies her self-serving character.

Henry Crawford rationalizes his flirtatious behavior around Maria Bertram as he assures Mrs. Grant and Mary that of course he prefers Julia to Maria. In fact, Henry has the charm and wit Rushworth, Maria's fiancé, lacks; Maria's behavior foreshadows her later unfaithfulness.

As Fanny travels to Sotherton, the narrator reveals her self-sufficiency. She can be content with the view through the carriage window and her own musings, in contrast to Mary, whose enjoyment comes from interacting with people. These lines hint at Fanny's suitability as a wife for Edmund.

Henry Crawford's words express the enthusiasm most of the young people feel about putting on a play—Tom later calls their feeling an "infection." Henry craves novelty, activity, and excitement. His words also suggest the risks of taking on roles requiring extreme or unacceptable behavior.

Mary Crawford scoffs at Mrs. Grant's concern for domestic details such as what is for dinner; these daily cares seem demeaning to her, but wealth, she hopes, will shield her from them. Because Edmund is listening, it is possible she is criticizing his career choice, too, since it will not bring him the "large income" she wants.

After Mary forces the unwanted gift of the necklace on Fanny, Fanny admits to herself that she is Henry's new love interest. He acts as a lover should—"gallant" and "attentive"—but his goal is dishonorable and cruel, she assumes. She has seen how he crushed Maria's and Julia's feelings.

As he does in most things, Henry goes to the extreme in his infatuation with Fanny. He is not just in love but "very much in love." His feelings run hot; his actions are forceful. The final phrase, however, reveals his love to be a matter of pride; that is, love of self. Fanny is a prize to win, not a woman to cherish.

Mary Crawford tries to persuade Fanny of her good fortune in being Henry's beloved, but she could hardly go about it in a way more calculated to upset and repel Fanny. Quiet, retiring Fanny is appalled, not gratified, by the thought of young women envying and gossiping about her and by the fact that Henry has attracted so many eligible young women.

As the narrator describes the Price household, it is hard to know what bothers Fanny most: the dirt and noise, the incompetence of her parents' management of the family, or the absence of William, who has asked Fanny to set things right while she visits the family in Portsmouth. Fanny realizes the task will be overwhelming.

Henry visits Portsmouth, determined to impress Fanny Price by his civil treatment of the Prices and his attention to matters at his estate. But he fails to consider her self-deprecating manner when he asks her to advise him on managing his estate. This sentence is her reply, which, out of context, sounds almost like an adage, but here, it is something of a rebuke. Henry is not reflective, readers know, but Fanny thinks he should pay more attention to his conscience.

Edmund Bertram's wrenching letter to Fanny, after he meets with Mary in London, reveals his love and fears for Mary and causes Fanny not only pain but anger. Edmund is young and in love for the first time; he sees Mary's flaws but blames them on her environment. Even after Mary fails to condemn Maria and Henry, later in the novel Edmund will choose to blame her upbringing and friends, not her.

These sentences are among Fanny Price's most passionate in the novel. Rarely does she burst out in anger or frustration, but here she speaks to Edmund, though they are apart, telling him to get the terrible deed over with—to propose to Mary. She assumes Mary will accept, so when she tells Edmund to "condemn" himself, she is accepting the misery that Mary will, in her opinion, bring to their married life.

Mr. Price's response to the news of Maria's desertion of her husband is extreme and violent, like the punishment he suggests. He startles Fanny, who knows her father as an unexcitable man. He even blasphemes (though the abbreviation obscures his oath). His reaction makes clear how unthinkably terrible Maria and Henry's running off is in the context of the novel's setting.

As Edmund Bertram reports to Fanny his final conversation with Mary, the jagged path of his words (interrupted by many dashes and exclamation points) reveals his distraught emotions. Mary's reaction to her brother's shameful actions is so tame, Edmund cannot get the words out to express his shock; yet he still blames "the world" rather than Mary herself.

The narrator comments wryly on Edmund's slow falling in love with Fanny, a woman he shaped during her childhood to be what he thinks women should be. He knew all along, the narrator says, that Fanny was a better choice than Mary. Free from blind infatuation, Edmund can approach love "steadily" and seriously, an approach that demure Fanny will appreciate but which seems to lack the fire of his feelings for Mary.