Mansfield Park/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Complete Monster: Mrs. Norris. Fanny, the heroine, has done nothing to her, but Mrs. Norris makes her life miserable anyway.
  • Derailing Love Interests: Edmund is generally a better person than Henry Crawford throughout the novel, but when Henry runs off with Maria, this seems substantially worse than anything we've seen from him so far. Some readers see it as Austen's attempt to justify Fanny's decision, while others see consistent moral development of character.
    • A lot of scholars see his escape with Maria Bertram in the Rushworths's garden as a premisce of elopement, or a sexual intercourse. It symbolizes, at least, his willingness to almost help cheating on Maria's fiance.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Serious scholarly version: Many critics are of the opinion that Mary Crawford is similar to Elizabeth Bennet. While both Lizzie and Mary are extroverted, fearless, and independent young women, Lizzie still has moral standards, comprehension and empathy that Mary notably lacks. Lizzie was an affectionate and snarky Spirited Young Lady, whereas Mary is a selfish Spirited Young Lady with no regard for the happiness of the people around her.
  • Fan Preferred Couples: Quite a few Janeites wish the novel had ended with Fanny/Henry Crawford and Edmund/Mary Crawford instead of Fanny/Edmund, despite that Austen always strives to show that true love arises from similarity of character and that bad boys will not change for a good girl.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Sorry, Jane, but some readers still judge Fanny Price and Mary Crawford by their first impressions.
  • The Scrappy: Fanny is the least popular of Austen's heroines - though sometimes competing with Anne Elliot.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: Mockingly between Jane and Cassandra Austen, according to their niece Louisa Knight.
  • Stoic Woobie: Fanny
  • Values Dissonance:
    • Kissing Cousins and the infamous Unfortunate Implications.
    • Some modern readers take the scene where Mary Crawford first tries to talk Edmund out of joining the clergy as her being Obviously Evil - assuming that joining the church meant a deep spiritual commitment and Mary was dissing that. However, in Austen's times, the clergy was one of a very few "respectable" professions (the others being law, medicine and the military) open to the younger sons of gentlemen, and so there were a lot of men taking orders less out of a deep religious sentiment than due to it being the best of those limited options.
    • The first of the early warning signs that Mary Crawford is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing seem less blatant when looked at through modern eyes. She makes an open criticism of her uncle. Also, Edmund is opposed to the play on many grounds-but one of them is the 'indecency' of his sisters being on stage in front of an audience. Something we would not bat an eye at today.