If you neither know nor care about Fanny Price, you can stop reading now...
(Ok ok, here's a quick recap : Fanny Price is the heroine of Jane Austen's book Mansfield Park. Fanny and Edmund are cousins, Fanny's in love with Edmund. Enter Mary & Henry - a delightful brother and sister pair who completely outclass Fanny & Edmund in likability. Mary pursues Edmund, Henry pursues Fanny but the boring couple ends up together and the exciting brother & sister are disgraced.)
Broad mindedness is a virtue very much in fashion today. Yet nothing is so amusing as the narrow mindedness of the fashionably broad minded.
Fanny Price is a quiet, intelligent girl with strong morals, what one would call a "good" girl. But unfortunately good girls are no longer the thing. Heroines today are feisty, out spoken, slightly unscrupulous and (adorably) self involved. And for all our pretensions to liberality, we aren't really accepting of different-ness. Only of the one specific kind currently sanctioned by popular culture. Quirky, rebellious, bitchy girls are cool but demure, shy girls are unacceptable even though nowadays they are in reality more "different" than the other kind.
Criticisms of Fanny fall into two categories; the first is that "Mary should be heroine". I honestly don't understand this train of thought. If Jane Austen had wanted Fanny to sparkle in contrast to her rival, she would have made Mary less appealing. If she had wanted a saucy heroine with sparkling eyes, she would have written Pride & Prejudice. Fanny is Fanny and Mary is the vamp for a reason. Each of Jane Austen's novels are about a human failing, and by the end of each book the failing human learns a lesson. Emma is about vanity, Pride & Prejudice is about - well, you can guess. Mansfield Park is about seduction. Mary and Henry come to Mansfield and seduce (metaphorically) everyone including the reader. Detractors criticize the book for having two such delightful characters as its villains, but seducers are always delightful - to start with. By the end of the book their evil side is revealed (well, as evil as any Jane Austen character could be). Mary can't put aside her greed even for the sake of Edmund's love. Henry, for vain, selfish pleasure, seduces a married woman he isn't really interested in.
Mary and Henry are a metaphor for 'Society' with a capital S. You know; the one Oscar Wilde said is only criticized by those who can't get into it. It is dazzling and brilliant, it is delightful and exciting, it is beautiful people in skimpy clothes and colourful cocktails and shiny lights and loud music and lots of laughter. It brings excitement and pleasure. What it doesn't bring is happiness. Just like Mary and Henry. Edmund and Fanny are the "countryside" to Mary & Henry's "London" - less glitzy, less glamorous but of real, lasting sterling worth.
Mary and Henry are also a cautionary tale. They do have a shot at real happiness. Beneath the superficiality they have substrata of kindness, love and what Jane Austen calls "moral taste". These qualities surface when they retreat from Society to the more sedate but wholesome company of Edmund and Fanny. And almost overcome their weaknesses. Almost. But they go back to Society and get sucked into its depths of shallowness. And lose that one chance of real happiness they had accidentally stumbled upon.
If this were Hollywood, the same lessons would be learnt but in a different manner. Mary would give up all ambition of a rich husband and be satisfied with Edmund. Henry would reform, give up his playboy lifestyle and marry Fanny. And all the Mansfield Park haters would be satisfied. Personally I think Jane Austen wrote a better story line, certainly less saccharine and probably more realistic. How many playboys have really reformed and settled down because they met the 'right girl'? And if they do, why should their past unfaithfulness be so conveniently forgiven? And how many women, brought up in luxury with expensive things, have turned on a dime and settled into hardworking, frugal, happy homebodies? Jane Austen's books may be called romance novels but she was far too perceptive to have romantic misconceptions about human nature.
So where is Fanny in all this? The second criticism is that she has no positive traits, that she is washed out, negative, passive and yet somehow annoyingly flawless and always right. There is some justification here: Austen's books always follow the same pattern - blunder, lesson, happiness. Usually it is the heroine who commits the blunder. At Mansfield Park it is the other residents who misjudge Mary & Henry while Fanny is never deceived. The book does give a credible reason for this - Fanny is the mousy quiet person who sits in a corner observing everything and participating little. So much easier to avoid deception when you have an outside perspective rather than being the one the deception is aimed at. But yes, it is not completely unfair to claim that Fanny is "always right". But flawless? Only a completely non-shy person could see no flaw in her excessive timidity. True it doesn't lead her into any single tragic event but it is like a giant boulder on her fragile shoulders, wearing her down all the time. And make no mistake about it, the author is fully aware of this burden. Jane Austen knows her Fanny as well as she does her Emma or Marianne, and paints her with a gentler but equally perceptive touch. Witness a time when Fanny pauses before joining her uncle in the living room : "she paused for what she knew would never come, a courage that the outside of no door had ever given her". As for positive traits - her quiet determination to do the right thing in the face of all opposition is very much that. A silent hero, if you will, one who doesn't claim the center of attention but quietly, persistently follows the path she believes in.
Of course, nothing I say can make Fanny more entertaining than she actually is, and every time I read the book I root for Fanny and Henry getting together and leaving Edmund to Mary. But the book is brave enough to not just hand me the easy ending I want. You know, just like real life. If Fanny is boring, she is neither less good nor less real for that. And the author's sharp tongue amply compensates for Fanny's bland one, the book itself is a classic gem of satirical wisdom.
Re-read it with an open mind and you will find such a difference between your expectation and your experience as "time is for ever producing between the plans and decisions of mortals, for their own instruction and their neighbours' entertainment".
