Mansfield Park and Mary Crawfo

A detailed Summary of Mansfield Park and Mary Crawfo

It can be useful to examine the values and ideas of a novel through the character

and portrayal of one character. Mary Crawford is a character central to the themes and

events of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. At all significant points in the play, barring only

Fanny's rescue from her parents, she is either present or involved. Through such a

character, a great deal about the morality and ideas so central to this book can be revealed.

However, examination of a character and the way that character is portrayed can become

especially useful when comparing a book to a film based on the same material. Through

the changes, or the similarity, in the portrayal of the character, it becomes again possible

to examine the values behind the production. Patricia Rozema's version of Mansfield

Park, made in 1999, projects modern values onto character 'living' in the early 19th

century. This projection, however, is more appropriate then one might imagine, and is

almost necessary to make the character necessarily despicable.

Mary Crawford is a vitally important part of the story of Mansfield Park. She

provides one of the key complications in the plot and is essential in it's role as a study of

when Fanny reaches seventeen, the position at the parsonage of Mansfield Park is taken by

their half-sister, who introduces them to the Mansfield family. They become part of the

quite willing generally to accept adultery as a norm as Mary Crawford did. It becomes

Thomas represents the enduring, classical values of the 18th Century, Fanny the

rather the discovery; and she largely blames Fanny for not agreeing to marry Henry,

In Rozema's version of this exchange, the Bertram family and Fanny are present.

scenes, including one where Mary undresses a very wet Fanny while commenting on her

Fanny for refusing her brother, claiming this largely caused Henry's action. She blames Sir

Approximate Word count = 1688
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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