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 Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

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Kate
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Kate


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Join date : 2008-06-12
Age : 46
Location : Pico Mundo

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PostSubject: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen   Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Icon_minitimeThu Mar 12, 2009 2:13 am

Our second pick for this month:

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen 0141439807.01.LZZZZZZZ

In order to help Bittner reach her goal of finishing her unread books, we've chosen another Austen classic. By the time next month comes around we should be more than ready to throw a few hungry zombies into Jane's plots!

Quote :
This new edition places Mansfield Park in its Regency context and elucidates the theatrical background that pervades the novel. At the age of ten, Fanny Price leaves the poverty of her Portsmouth home to be brought up among the family of her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, in the chilly grandeur of Mansfield Park. She gradually falls in love with her cousin Edmund, but when the dazzling and sophisticated Crawfords arrive, and amateur theatricals unleash rivalry and sexual jealousy, Fanny has to fight to retain her independence. This new edition places Mansfield Park in its Regency context and elucidates the theatrical background that pervades the novel.
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Kate
Admin
Kate


Posts : 208
Join date : 2008-06-12
Age : 46
Location : Pico Mundo

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PostSubject: Re: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen   Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Icon_minitimeThu Mar 12, 2009 2:15 am

I found a new site- ReadingGroupGuides.com and added our little book club, and took a survey in hopes of winning us some free books! Although they did not have a group discussion guide for Heart and Soul yet, they did have one for Mansfield Park, so here it is:


1. Mansfield Park was written after a silence of more than a decade. During this period, Austen moved several times, saw the deaths of her father and a potential suitor, and became the dependent old maid we find so often among her more pitiable characters. The Napoleonic Wars continued; England embarked on imperialistic adventures. Austen followed both with interest. Do you see evidence of these things in the novel?

2. At the heart of its plot, Mansfield Park has three sisters. What kind of family life do you imagine would account for Mrs. Bertram and Mrs. Norris and Mrs. Price? Find something good to say about Mrs. Norris.

3. Fanny is an Austen heroine who, throughout the course of the book, has nothing to learn. In this she stands in sharp contrast to Emma Woodhouse. Do you like Fanny as well as you like Emma? Less? More?

4. In one of the book's most famous scenes, Fanny sits wilted in the heat at the Rushworth's estate, while the other characters come and go around her. Discuss the ways this epitomizes the entire plot of the book.

5. The various roles played in The Lover's Vows often result in Austen characters who are, under the cover of the play, allowed to act in ways more congruent with their real natures than polite society permits. They perform themselves.

Meanwhile, William H. Galperin suggests that, when Fanny Price insists she cannot act, she is actually demonstrating her "inability to know one is always acting." Galperin speaks of "a fundamental duplicity in which one literally performs one's inability to act."

Think about this until your head explodes.

6. Plato has suggested that one cannot be both a good actor and a good citizen. What do you imagine he meant? Discuss the relevance of this to Mansfield Park.

7. In most books, the villains are identifiable through their mistreatment of the hero/heroine. In Mansfield Park, the Crawfords are among the tiny handful of people who see the value of Fanny Price. Are they ever unkind to her?

Why is Fanny so little moved by their interest and esteem?

In your opinion, is any of this esteem genuine?

8. The Crawfords are superficially the most attractive characters in the book. Where do their virtues become vices? Answer the same question with regard to Fanny and Edmund.

9. Kingsley Amis said, "Edmund and Fanny are both morally detestable and the endorsement of their feelings and behavior by the author . . . makes Mansfield Park an immoral book." Do you agree? Is there any difference in your mind between Austen herself and the book's narrator?

10. Earlier Austen novels suggest a society in positive transformation; earlier heroines struggle towards the possibility of improvement. In contrast, Mansfield Park is about a society threatened with transformation. Fanny Price makes no positive movement. She protects Mansfield Park by her resistance, by her refusal to change. In the end, the society represented by the estate of Mansfield Park will not and cannot be saved? What in that society seemed valuable to you? Is there anything to regret about its loss?
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