The “Fanny Price Wars”: Jane Austen’s Enlightenment ...

Women's Studies, 45:275¨C290, 2016

Copyright ? Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 0049-7878 print / 1547-7045 online

DOI: 10.1080/00497878.2016.1149031

THE ¡°FANNY PRICE WARS¡±: JANE AUSTEN¡¯S ENLIGHTENMENT FEMINIST

AND MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

MARIJA REIFF

University of Virginia, Charlottesville

After Jane Austen completed Mansfield Park, she sought her family¡¯s opinion of her

newest novel and its protagonist. The results were not encouraging: ¡°her mother

found the virtuous heroine ¡®insipid¡¯¡±; her nephew George ¡°disliked Fanny [Price],¡±

the heroine; and even Cassandra, Jane¡¯s sister, tried to ¡°persuade Jane to let her

[Fanny] marry Henry Crawford¡± instead of Edmund, Fanny¡¯s actual matrimonial

choice (Tomalin 225). Since Mansfield Park¡¯s publication in 1814, other readers have

echoed these responses, and Fanny Price is widely considered to be Jane Austen¡¯s

most unlikeable heroine. One hundred and forty years after its publication, Lionel

Trilling famously wrote, ¡°Nobody, I believe, has ever found it possible to like the

heroine of Mansfield Park¡± (220), and contemporary critics tend to agree, calling

Fanny Price ¡°priggish, lifeless, unattractive, and censorious¡± (Sturrock 12) and

¡°rather prudish and initially unattractive¡± (Teachman 71).

It is not just members of the academic elite that dislike Fanny, though.

Consumer reviews on are filled with comments such as ¡°The protagonist

is a loathsome little priss¡± (¡°A Lover of Good Books¡±), and the webmasters of

, a Jane Austen fan site, specifically request that new members should

¡°avoid exacerbating needlessly and gratuitously¡± the ¡°Fanny Price wars¡±

(¡°Miss Fanny Price¡±), thus indicating that debate over Mansfield Park and its heroine

is still very much alive today.

However, there is a great deal of evidence that Austen ¡°was aiming at something beyond easy approval¡± in her creation of Fanny Price and Mansfield Park

(Todd 75). Unlike her earlier works, ¡°in Mansfield Park Austen is deliberately writing

against the grain of her audience¡¯s expectations¡± (Gay 98), and many scholars

speculate that Fanny Price is Austen¡¯s experiment with a totally new type of heroine.

Some critics theorize that Fanny is Austen¡¯s experiment with a ¡°contemplative

heroine¡± (Emsley 128), while others believe that she is Austen¡¯s endorsement of

conventional female roles (Sturrock 13). Most notably, Marilyn Butler argues in her

landmark book Jane Austen and the War of Ideas that Fanny Price is a symbol of antiJacobin thought (i.e., anti¨CFrench revolution) and that Austen was ¡°attempt[ing] to

use the inward life of a heroine as a vehicle¡± for ¡°conservative thinking¡± (249).

However, others believe that rather than experimenting with a meek and conservative heroine, Austen was experimenting with a more progressive and outspoken

protagonist. Margaret Kirkham writes that Mansfield Park is ¡°Austen¡¯s most ambitious

Address correspondence to Marija Reiff, University of Virginia, Department of English, 219 Bryan Hall,

Charlottesville, VA 22904. E-mail: mer3dv@virginia.edu

275

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Marija Reiff

and radical criticism of contemporary prejudice in society and in literature,¡± and

she concludes that Fanny Price is a reluctant feminist who ¡°is forced, despite herself,

to stand up for those rights which her moral nature, not her own wish, impose upon

her¡± (119, 106). Carol Shields reiterates this wary endorsement of a feminist Fanny

Price by saying that, by the end of the novel, ¡°she shows growing signs of independent thought¡± (xii).

There is another way, though, of interpreting Austen¡¯s work that combines

these various conservative and progressive viewpoints: to see Fanny as Austen¡¯s

experiment in creating an Enlightenment feminist. While this view would ostensibly

mirror those of contemporary feminist critics who embrace a more progressive view

of Fanny Price, Enlightenment feminism is markedly different from contemporary

feminism. In fact, Mary Wollstonecraft¡¯s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the

foundational work of Enlightenment feminist philosophy, endorses a feminism that

is surprisingly conservative.

Although Wollstonecraft wrote her work near the end of eighteenth century, it

still draws interest and criticism today. Claudia Johnson calls her a ¡°liberal feminist¡±

(363), and when Wollstonecraft is presented to students, her life fits the mold of

what a contemporary audience might expect from someone of avowedly radical

tendencies: she had illicit love affairs, tried committing suicide twice, and gave birth

out of wedlock (Habib 339¨C40). However, scholars who look at Wollstonecraft¡¯s

work after examining her life may be surprised; far from being an advocate of free

love, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman ¡°comes close to arguing that women have no

innate sexual desires at all¡± (Poovey 358), and ¡°her descriptions of female comportment at first seem as though they would not be out of place in virulently misogynistic literature ¡­¡± (Johnson 365). Wollstonecraft¡¯s values, then, do not strictly align

with present-day feminist principles, and many of her deepest beliefs are ¡°dead

letter¡± to modern scholars (Taylor 376).

There is no written evidence that Austen read Wollstonecraft, but there is a

great deal of circumstantial evidence that she was influenced by A Vindication of the

Rights of Woman and that she sketched Fanny Price to resemble the ideals

Wollstonecraft detailed in her seminal work.1 Through understanding

Wollstonecraft¡¯s Enlightenment feminist principles and examining their parallels

1

There is no direct proof that Jane Austen read Wollstonecraft¡¯s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman because

there is no evidence that her father owned a copy, as Lauren Gilbert clarifies. She writes, ¡°I contacted Jane

Austen¡¯s House and Museum, Bath Central Library, Jane Austen Centre, and Chawton House Library. No catalog

of Rev. George Austen¡¯s library is known to exist. (Jane Austen¡¯s House and Museum does have a copy of the

inventory of the contents of the Steventon Rectory but no catalog of his books.)¡± However, Gilbert goes on to say

that Austen most likely did read Wollstonecraft¡¯s book because ¡°The Bath Central Library indicated that A

Vindication was on the catalog for Marshalls Circulating Library on Milsom Street dated 1808 ¡­ since A

Vindication was published in 1792 and was a well-known work, this argues that the book was probably available

via a circulating library when Jane Austen lived in Bath, or visited in London or other cities.¡± Gilbert concludes

that ¡°Jane was profoundly influenced by Ms. Wollstonecraft¡¯s work.¡± Miriam Ascarelli agrees with this conclusion,

arguing that since ¡°Austen, like Wollstonecraft, was tuned into one of the hottest issues of her time: women¡¯s role

in society,¡± it is probable ¡°that Austen was familiar with Wollstonecraft¡¯s work, even though Austen never

mentions Wollstonecraft in any of her novels or in the letters that have survived.¡± Biographer Claire Tomalin

also cites facts showing that Austen most likely knew of Wollstonecraft and her work because both knew Sir

William East. East was a neighbor of Austen¡¯s uncle, and his son was a pupil of Austen¡¯s father. East was also

Wollstonecraft¡¯s benefactor and kind friend (Tomalin 158).

The ¡°Fanny Price Wars¡±

277

to Fanny Price, we can gain a greater acceptance and appreciation for Austen¡¯s

controversial heroine, and the ¡°wars¡± can be reconciled between those readers who

despise Fanny¡¯s conservatism and those who admire her nascent feminism. By

seeing Fanny Price as a heroine inspired by A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,

the conservatism of the protagonist can be viewed in the larger context of

Wollstonecraft¡¯s liberal feminist philosophy. Especially in Mansfield Park, the position that ¡°the novels of Jane Austen, Wollstonecraft¡¯s contemporary, are the most

obvious example of a conservative recuperation of Wollstonecraft¡± becomes defensible, and the implementation of Wollstonecraft¡¯s beliefs can be seen quite clearly

(Kaplan 346). In understanding this conservatism as an intrinsic part of

Wollstonecraft¡¯s progressive tract, the true nature of Austen¡¯s experiment shows

itself, and Fanny Price is revealed to be an Enlightenment feminist.

At the outset of Mansfield Park, these radical feminist influences are not

obvious. When the young Fanny Price arrives at Mansfield Park, she is anything

but an outspoken, independent woman. She is ¡°exceedingly timid and shy,¡± and she

has not been educated well, either: the young Fanny can ¡°read, work, and write, but

she had been taught nothing more¡± (Austen 43, 48). With her diffidence and

inexperience, Fanny Price, instead of resembling a Wollstonecraft-inspired heroine,

¡°conform[s] to many of the features of the conduct book young lady, being modest,

quiet, delicate, passive, religious, and dutiful¡± (Sturrock 13). However, the ideas

about comportment that the conduct book writers advocated were antithetical to

Wollstonecraft¡¯s beliefs. Wollstonecraft declared that ¡°women are ¡­ degraded by

[the] mistaken notions of female excellence¡± that these writers encouraged (14). In

his Sermons to Young Women, Dr. James Fordyce, one of the most famous of the

conduct book writers (and whose writings are used by the fatuous Mr. Collins in

Pride and Prejudice), encourages women to behave with ¡°Christian meekness¡± and

declares that female piety is best achieved by ¡°a modest, susceptible, and affectionate mind¡± (205, 46). While Fanny, with her weakness and passivity, begins Mansfield

Park as a model Fordyce heroine, the novel details her ¡°progress toward[s] power¡±

(Auerbach 110), and she makes advances in becoming an outspoken, freethinking

woman.

For Fanny to become a feminist in the style advocated by Wollstonecraft, two

external changes are essential: she must develop herself mentally through education, and she must develop herself physically through exercise. By cultivating a

strong body and mind, Fanny develops the courage and fortitude necessary for

asserting herself as an independent woman who defends herself and her feminist

principles.

One of the key beliefs that underlies A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is that

women must be educated so that they can reason and make the correct moral

choices independently (Habib 342¨C43), and Jane Austen demonstrates this principle through showing the positive effects of Fanny¡¯s education. When the young

Fanny arrives at Mansfield Park, she is largely uneducated and inexperienced, and

her ¡°timidity¡± is often correlated with her ¡°ignorance¡± (48, 50). While Fanny is

educated with the Bertram girls after her arrival, Aunt Norris specifically states to

Maria and Julia that ¡°it is not at all necessary that she should be as accomplished as

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Marija Reiff

you are;¡ªon the contrary, it is much desirable that there should be a difference,¡±

thus indicating that Fanny should always maintain a subordinate position in the

family (50). However, Fanny does receive a good education because her cousin

Edmund recognizes ¡°her to be clever, to have a quick apprehension as well as good

sense, and a fondness for reading, which, properly directed, must be an education

in itself¡± (52). To aid in her learning, ¡°he recommended the books which charmed

her leisure hours, he encouraged her taste, and corrected her judgment; he made

reading useful by talking to her of what she read, and heightened its attraction by

judicious praise¡± (52). With Edmund as her tutor, Fanny receives the sort of

educational foundation necessary to become an Enlightenment feminist.

However, her education does not end with Edmund¡¯s teachings. Instead, Fanny

furthers her own education when she becomes a teenager. After Miss Lee, the

governess, leaves, Fanny acquires her east room, thus symbolically becoming her

own governess. She fills it with ¡°her plants, her books ¡­ her writing-desk,¡± and it

becomes her place of ¡°immediate consolation¡± where she can gather ¡°some train of

thought at hand¡± (171). In other words, the east room becomes her place where she

can read, write, and, most importantly, think without the interference of anyone

else. Perhaps more than anything else, Fanny¡¯s use of the east room signals her

willingness to educate herself independently.

Fanny¡¯s self-education continues when she is sent home to Portsmouth, too. In

her home city, which is full of uneducated ¡°coarse¡± men and ¡°pert¡± women, she only

has one person to whom she can turn to for society: her sister Susan (396). Despite

her lack of education, Susan has somehow formed ¡°proper opinions,¡± and Fanny

endeavors to be ¡°of service to her¡± (399, 397). Thus Fanny begins the tutelage of her

sister that will improve Fanny as well. Fanny joins a library and ¡°inspires¡± her sister to

love learning, an education that gives ¡°a material advantage to each¡± sister (400, 399).

This continuing education corresponds with Fanny¡¯s mental, moral, and physical growth. Wollstonecraft was deeply concerned with the education of women, and

many of her most famous works take up this cause. Women become ¡°degraded,¡±

writes Wollstonecraft, because they have a ¡°want of understanding¡± (82). When a

woman becomes educated, she has the ability and the strength to act with morality

and virtue. As M.A.R. Habib writes, for Wollstonecraft the ¡°injurious consequences

of women being given such a haphazard education ¡­ [include] that women are

unable to act as genuine moral agents: without the power of reason, they cannot

make moral choices and are disposed to blind obedience of whatever power

structure can claim authority over them¡± (342¨C43). When Fanny actively pursues

her own education, she takes up Wollstonecraft¡¯s challenge to be ¡°prepared by

education¡± to continue the ¡°progress of knowledge and virtue¡± (6).

Besides education, the other external factor that is necessary for Fanny to grow

into an Enlightenment feminist is the development of her body through exercise. As

a young woman at Mansfield Park in the beginning of the novel, Fanny usually ¡°sat

at home the whole day with one aunt,¡± and when her one form of usual exercise,

horseback riding, is denied her, Fanny ¡°is in danger of feeling the loss in her health¡±

(64). This loss of health has led some critics to believe that Fanny suffers from a

disease called chlorosis, an iron-deficiency anemia caused by physical inertia that

The ¡°Fanny Price Wars¡±

279

was common in adolescent girls (Takei 2). People of Austen¡¯s era may not have

regarded this disease as undesirable, however, because they viewed physical indolence in women favorably, believing that women were supposed to partake in the

¡°cult of domesticity,¡± which ¡°stressed that women¡¯s place was in the home doing

light work and engaging in relatively passive recreations¡± (Struna 57). This view was

circulated through conduct books whose authors equated this frailty with femininity,

going so far as to criticize women who were too athletic and robust (Takei 4). As

John Gregory wrote in Father¡¯s Legacy to His Daughters, a conduct book from the

1770s, ¡°We so naturally associate the idea of female softness and delicacy with a

correspondent delicacy of constitution, that when a woman speaks of her great

strength, her extraordinary appetite, her ability to bear excessive fatigue, we recoil

at the description in a way she is little aware of¡± (qtd. in Takei 4).

Remarkably, then, based on the climate of the time, Edmund is not pleased

that Fanny¡¯s lack of physical exertion is making her ill. Instead, he decides that she

must exercise and declares to his mother and Mrs. Norris that ¡°Fanny must have a

horse¡± (65). However, Austen¡¯s brazenness extends beyond having a man insist on a

woman¡¯s physical robustness. She goes on to use Fanny¡¯s physical weakness and ill

health in an unexpected way: she demonstrates how they correspond with Fanny¡¯s

submission and reticence, and she shows that this inertia makes Fanny almost

pathologically unable to assert her desires or opinions (64).

This correlation between physical health and mental strength (or lack thereof

on both parts) is especially highlighted in the scene in which Fanny picks roses for

Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris on a hot day. Fanny gets a headache and feels ill after

this exercise, and Edmund thinks that Fanny¡¯s fatigue has been caused by her

inability to go horseback riding for four days. But Fanny admits to herself that her

spirits have been low and that ¡°the pain of her mind had been much beyond that in

her head¡± (100), implying that it is not simply the lack of physical activity but also

her disturbed mental state that have combined to make her ill. Critic John Wiltshire

supports this reading of Fanny¡¯s health, writing, ¡°It is impossible to separate Fanny¡¯s

psychosocial development from her bodily and sexual condition¡± (63¨C64). While the

link between bodily strength and mental health would not gain wide recognition

until the late Victorian era (Bending 209), Wollstonecraft herself hinted at such a

conclusion in A Vindication when she writes, ¡°Dependence of body naturally produces dependence of mind¡± (47). Through her prescient theories, Wollstonecraft

indicated that she believed that physical and mental health were inextricably linked,

and Austen displays a similar belief in her portrayal of Fanny Price.

It is at Sotherton that the indolent Fanny experiences one of her first bouts of

physical exertion. She rides ¡°ten miles there, and ten back¡±¡ªa prospect that

deterred Lady Bertram from attending the outing¡ªand on an ¡°insufferably

hot¡± day, Fanny climbs ¡°a considerable flight of steps¡± to see Sotherton¡¯s ¡°wilderness¡± (101, 115). While this is certainly not a great feat of physical prowess, it is the

beginning of an establishment of a connection between a strong body and a strong

mind for a woman to whom ¡°every sort of exercise fatigues her so soon¡± (119). Not

surprisingly, one of Fanny¡¯s first minor moments of assertion occurs when she

chimes in on the discussion of improvements at Sotherton and says, ¡°Cut down an

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