Slavery

Slavery

The background of slavery in the famous Austen novel Mansfield Park has attracted various perspectives and debates. Typically, the message about slavery in the book is short, but it has generated a commotion amongst learners, literary critics, and even the casual audience. Most of the views regarding the address of slavery in the novel are extremely contradictory, and a lot of what has been made out of this is sometimes inadequate. However, the concept of slavery has been vital to Austen’s novel in various ways. The slavery backdrop has helped Austen’s novel sparingly give some details regarding slavery, the slave life, and how enslaved people were perceived, not forgetting how women were used to demonstrate slavery continuation in an indirect approach.

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The inclusion of slavery in the novel is informative, and as an issue recognized internationally, this highly contributed to the novel’s fame. However, detailed explanations of slavery were not presented as some authors did. Equiano’s autobiography, for instance, gives a detailed explanation of the harsh slave encounters. A description in his autobiography states, “I looked around the ship too and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow” (Equiano 203). In Mansfield Park, the conversation between Fanny and Edmund tends to be based on the background of slavery. Notably, the conversation directly references the slave trade or slavery undertaken in the novel. This is the extract from the book. “Did not you hear me ask him about the slave trade last night?” “I did – and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of farther.” “I longed to do it – but there was such a dead silence!” (Austen 198). As such, the slavery talk was not that open.

Mansfield Park is a Eurocentric, post-abolition account intertwining with a gender relations analysis and postulating a territory of humanitarian interactions between enslaved people and enslavers. Consequently, considering the effective passage of the 1807 Abolition Bill, Austen initiates a novel colonialist fiction chapter. However, despite the point that Mansfield Park works against the concept of the conventionally ruthless and closed world of affairs, it entertains the emancipation alternative merely via the sound of low-key rebel assertions. To peacefully stage an impending society continuing British rule, Austen converts Thomas Bertram from a routinely domineering West Indian planter into a benign reforming land owner. Thomas is a plantation possessor in Antigua. Following the agitation condition in the Caribbean at the commencement of the 1800s, the paradox of the state forces textual explosions and contradictions.

Women have been used to show slavery continuation in an indirect approach. Fanny, as the main character, has been used to showcase various issues, and this is no exception. Greenfield says, “Fanny misreads her own political significance, proving perfectly incapable of understanding how she has redefined the boundaries of gender and rank” (307). However, at home, gender relations parallel and resonate with conventional power relations amongst colonized individuals and colonialists. Typically, European women denote the most unnoticeably and egregiously suppressed of scripts. They tend to embody African-Caribbean rebels and their class, marginalization, and gender victimization. Mainly, Mansfield Park tends to be involved with sustaining moral beliefs once faced with difficulties regarding estate management, wealth, and marriage negotiations. The story showcases the limits of social control that depend on manipulation, domination, and power abuse. Subsequently, Fanny Price is a victory in the novel, but she does not essentially depict an ethical ideal. The females that have disrupted the Mansfield estate tend to be marginalized to safeguard the preservation of the status quo (Baron 4). However, Fanny’s growing status is affirmed since she exemplifies an enslaver’s imagination of the thankful Negro, disheartening revolt and upholding submission to power. Additionally, Fanny’s association with the grateful Negro becomes problematic since it adopts the symbolic supremacy of slave-linked concerns. Nevertheless, its narrative role tends to dominate the story’s action and connotation and reveals oppression and subjugation that, in most cases, cover up as compassion.

Regarding the microcosm of plantation life, the novel validates the practical particulars of forced authority and the circumstances leading to rebellion; for authors like Austen, the most dominant link between colonialism and domesticity is the slavery metaphor (Coleman 292). Since Thomas tends to be absent from his West Indian plantation and British estate, the physical presence that his power depends on is recurrently endangered. Consequently, he necessitates a diplomat of his power in his absence. Fanny is the ambassador who voices displeasure, and even though the outcomes are rather limited, she embodies a suppressive force against rebellion. Acting as a type of thankful Negro, and a propagated literary of the 18^th-century image, Fanny exercises no recognized expertise and has limited power. Nevertheless, Fanny is a significant Sir Thomas’ agent since her submissive state signifies the standards for his endorsement against which other female characters are measured.

Additionally, the goal of women is to be married by wealthy men, and this is the conditioning of Mansfield Park’s women. Females are slaves to this conditioning and live their lives in misery to have a rich man. Fanny’s emotions toward marriage to Henry show nothing but slavery. Typically, the narrator’s terms in describing the feelings comprise “Revolt, painful alarm, terror, formidable threat, sudden attack, misery, wretched feelings, aching heart, distressing evil” (Austen 357).

I feel like Austen’s representation of the world of Mansfield Park is actual and very relatable in today’s world. I could feel the realism of the situations during that time as I read through the narration. Mansfield Park favored the wealthy, and the poor were highly discriminated against, and this is just how things were. However, Austen recognizes that this is not how things were supposed to be when Fanny had a happy ending while the other characters did not end happily. In today’s world, the wealthy have the same high recognition, contrary to the poor. Additionally, she does not approve of the undertakings of slavery, and again, in this, she takes an ethical stance.

In conclusion, the inclusion of slavery in Mansfield Park has been highly debated over the years and continues to attract even more debate. Typically, the inclusion of slavery in the novel is informative, and as an issue recognized internationally, this contributed to the book’s fame. Women have been indirectly used to show slavery continuation. At home, gender relations tend to parallel and resonate with conventional relations of power amongst colonized individuals and colonialists.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Mansfield park. Oxford Paperbacks, 1990.

Baron, Faith. Heaven defend me from being ungrateful!: gender and colonialism in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. Diss. 2006.

Coleman, Deirdre. “Imagining Sameness and Difference: Domestic and Colonial Sisters in Mansfield Park.” A Companion to Jane Austen (2009): 292-303.

Equiano, Olaudah. This is an interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano. Broadview Press, 2001.

Greenfield, Susan C. “Fanny’s misreading and the misreading of Fanny: women, literature, and interiority in Mansfield Park.” Texas studies in literature and language 36.3 (1994): 306-327.

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Mansfield Park is the center of the most significant critical debate about any Austen novel. Here is how Robert Tindal frames the discussion in a recent article:

Slavery

“One of the most influential readings of Jane Austen’s 1811 novel Mansfield Park is that of Edward Said, which focuses on the seemingly minor detail that the Bertram family owns property in Antigua at a time when slaves are still being used in the West Indian island’s sugar plantations, and that various members of the family are seemingly complacent about the fact. Said’s analysis, which is also one of the most memorable literary interpretations in his 1994 work Culture and Imperialism, has been criticized by those who would defend Austen against accusations that she was relatively indifferent to the issue of slavery. However, the issue is ambiguous because the novel is simply not transparent in its attitude toward slavery – not in the outlook of the characters and certainly not in the novel’s position toward slavery as a social institution.”

This essay prompt asks you to stake a claim in this debate, but rather than answering whether Austen or Fanny is pro- or anti-slavery, I would like you to consider the place of slavery in the story Austen tells. As part of your essay, I would encourage you to consider including any excerpts we read (William Beckford and Maria Nugent or Greenfield’s article might be helpful).

Your essay should answer this question:
How is the backdrop of slavery important to Austen’s novel and the story of the women in it? And how, in the end, do you feel about Austen’s representation of the world of Mansfield Park?