Aayvagam an International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research | Volume No. 4 | Issue 7 | August 2016 8 ISSN – Online: 2321-5259 Print: 2321-5739

The Theme of Love and Marriage in ’s Dr. J. Sobhana Devi Asst. Professor of English, S.F.R.College for Women, Sivakasi

The romantic period is a term applied to the literature of approximately the first third of the nineteenth century. During this time, literature began to move in channels that were not entirely new but were in strong contrast to the standard literary practice of the eighteenth century. It is intensely interesting to note how literature at first reflected the political turmoil of the age. And then, when the turmoil was over and England began her mighty work of reform, how literature suddenly developed a new creative spirit, which shows itself in the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and in the prose of Scott, Jane Austen, Lamb, and De Quincey. A wonderful group of writers, whose patriotic enthusiasm suggests the Elizabethan days, and whose genius has caused their age to be known as the second creative period of our literature. Jane Austen's time seems to have been a golden age for women writers. She is the first English writer who infused the novel with modern character through the treatment of everyday life. She takes love marriage as the central theme for her novels. Through her vivacious and spirited heroines and their social circles, Austen portrays English middle- class life. Almost all of her works explore the precarious economic situation in which women of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries found themselves. Her novels are the stories of marriage for love, financial security and social status. As a novelist, Jane Austen worked in a narrow field. Except for short visits to neighbouring places, she lived a static life but she had such a keen power of observation that the simple country people became the characters of her novels. The chief duties of these people were of the household, their chief pleasures were in country gatherings and their chief interest was in matrimony. It is the small, quiet world of these people, free from the mighty interests, passions, ambitious and tragic struggles of life that Jane Austen depicts in her six novels—Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. But inspite of these limitations, she has achieved wonderful perfection in that narrow field on account of her acute power of observation, her fine impartiality and self-detachment and her quiet, delicate and ironical humour. Her circumstances helped her to give that finish and delicacy to her work, which have made them artistically prefect. Novel-writing was a part of her everyday life, to be placed aside should a visitor come, to be resumed when he left, to be pursued unostentatiously and tranquilly in the midst of the family circle. Jane Austen takes love and marriage as the central theme for her novels. She considers love and marriage to be the fundamental problem of human life. Human nature in its essence unfolds itself through this most intimate of personal relationships. The theme of love is capable of highly emotional treatment. Jane Austen took a sober and balanced view of life. Love, in her novels, is never an explosive passion. Many of Jane Austen’s critics and readers have found her novels unreadable because they deal with a highly emotional theme in a very cold manner. Aayvagam an International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research | Volume No. 4 | Issue 7 | August 2016 9 ISSN – Online: 2321-5259 Print: 2321-5739

In Mansfield Park, the theme of love and marriage is tightly intertwined with female sexuality. She presents different kinds of marriages in the novel. There are four marriages that take place over the course of events and there are four significantly different views on marriage. Mansfield Park is centered on , the poor ward and niece of Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram. She is taken from her parents to be raised by her rich relatives and comes to Mansfield Park as a child of nine. It is a more socially- aware novel than Austen’s other works, focusing, as it does on the slave trade and the roots of the British upper crust’s wealth in corruption and exploitation. The story contains much social satire, targeted particularly at the two aunts, Lady Bertram and Mrs.Norris. Jane Austen was distrustful of emotional love and viewed it as a disturbing factor in human life. Her aim was to give an authentic picture of life of most men and women, being a mere prelude to marriage. Jane Austen deliberately robs love of all its romantic glamour. The readers find her taking in very practical view of life. Love in her novels, therefore always result in successful marriage. It is significant that Jane Austen suggested a sober view of love when in the romanticism, reason had yielded place to feeling and emotion. The oft quoted sentence from Jane Austen’s letter to Cassandra, “Now I will try to write of something else and it should be a complete change of subject ordination and I am glad to find your enquiries have ended so well” (qtd. in. Reddy 50) pointed to her concern with the principle that is to govern a genteel society, a concern that provides a clue to the understanding of the novel. When the novel Mansfield Park begins, a young girl named Fanny Price comes to live with her uncle and aunt, Sir . Fanny is a romantic heroine. Fanny grows up shy and deferential, caught as she typically is between members of the Bertram family. Fanny finds kindness in , which is the source of great solace and comfort for her. However, Edmund remains friendly and encouraging to Fanny and she gradually falls in love with him as she grows up. His active kindness, then and later, has a natural result, that “…she loved him better than anybody in the world except William; her heart was divided between the two.” (20) The arrival of the lively, attractive Henry and Mary Crawford disrupts the staid world of Mansfield and sparks a series of romantic entanglements. Mary is beautiful and charming. Edmund is fascinated by her, and speaks to Fanny of her the next day. They agree on her improprieties, but Fanny does not find her as charming as Edmund does. While Edmund falls in love with Mary, even neglecting Fanny sometimes in his attempts to please Mary. Mary finds Edmund’s company increasingly pleasant and his growing admiration for her increasingly troubles Fanny. Fanny fears that Mary has enchanted Edmund, and that has blinded him to her flaws. Fanny’s own secret devotion to Edmund is the one contrast attachment from the beginning to the end of the novel.

She regarded her cousin as an example of everything good and great as possessing worth, which no one but herself could ever appreciate….Her sentiments towards him were compounded of all that was respectful, grateful, confiding, and tender. (35)

Aayvagam an International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research | Volume No. 4 | Issue 7 | August 2016 10 ISSN – Online: 2321-5259 Print: 2321-5739

The feelings of Fanny herself are even more complicated. At this point, she is clearly beginning to feel a romantic interest in Edmund, although she cannot admit this to anyone, even herself. Abused by all and pulled in every direction, she must try to please everyone at once, leaving her in position where she cannot be herself, save perhaps at odd moments with the understanding Edmund. Very likely, Fanny annoys herself as much as she annoys us, and when the readers step back and look at her overall situation, she emerges as a very realistic and sympathetic character. The novels of Jane Austen abound in loving sisters and brothers. Fanny deeply loves her brother William. In the beginning of the novel Jane Austen, tells us that Fanny’s heart was divided between Edmund and her brother. There are many instances of Fanny adoration of William’s presents and also how much she likes to spend her time with her brother. When Tom was seriously ill, Edmund devoted all his energies to the nursing of his brother. There is real family feeling and affection between Mary and Henry and their half-sister, and there are many pleasant scene between them. Within the three hours of Mary’s arrival, Mrs. Grant unfolds her plan that her sister should marry Tom Bertram. Mary immediately sets her eye on Tom Bertram, and his large estate, although she finds him dull. She considers forming match with Tom Bertram, heir of a baronet. She finds him to be a suitable match for a young lady such as herself with afortune of 20,000 pounds. Despite her best efforts, Mary has made no progress with Tom, and she is disappointed when he leaves to Mansfield to Carouse with friends. However her feelings do not obey her financial goals as she finds herself preferring instead his young brother, Edmund Bertram. Though Mary Crawford is charming, she has certain immoral views and opinions which mean in the end that she loses Edmund. In Sotherton, Mary finds the idea of going chapel is disagreeable and, unaware that Edmund is to become a priest, makes snide comment about clergymen. She encourages Edmund to become a soldier or a lawyer instead, but to no avail. Edmund is also greatly upset when he discovers that Mary is opposed to him becoming a clergyman. But Edmund is still attracted to her despite her flawed reasoning and her generally disturbing outlook is proof that passionate love is not a positive thing in this society. Through the character of , Jane Austen presents the mercenary attitude of marriage. Maria Bertram, the younger sister of Edmund Bertram is engaged to a man whom she is marrying for money. She is engaged to Mr. Rushworth, an incredibly stupid young man with a large estate nearby. Rushworth’s visits have become frequent. seems attracted to Maria Bertram despite her engagement. He explained to his sister that, engaged and married, women are safe and therefore fun. During a visit to Mr. Rushworth’s ancestral estate in Sotherton, Henry deliberately plays with the affections of both Maria and Julia, driving them apart.

He did not want them to die for love; but with sense and temper which ought to have made him judge and feel better, he allowed himself great latitude on such points. (107)

Henry, if not handsome, is captivating. Both Crawford’s are lively and clever talkers. Maria believes that Henry is fallen in love with her and treats Mr.Rushworth Aayvagam an International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research | Volume No. 4 | Issue 7 | August 2016 11 ISSN – Online: 2321-5259 Print: 2321-5739

dismissively, provoking his jealousy. Although nobody is paying much attention to Fanny, she is highly observant and witnesses Maria and Henry’s inappropriate situations. While the triangle involving Maria, Henry and Rushworth seem more serious. Maria and Henry are always on the verge of actual involvement and they represent more comic situation. The park is not a house, so it can seem like a place where normal social rules do not apply. Maria’s flirtations with Henry are an indication of this. The passage of Maria and Henry around the locked gate reveals this. Maria and her two suitors wish through a nearby gate to the rest of the park, but the gate is locked. Rushworth returns to the house to get the key but Maria and Henry slip through the side of the spiked gate and go off alone together, to Fanny’s dismay. They violate the park together, a transgressive act. Their act is a penetration of previously locked-off space, which is clearly meant to be suggesting a sexual art. The spikes on the gate and the threat to Maria’s gown hint at the violence that Maria could possibly do herself by undertaking such actions with Henry. Although nobody is paying much attention to Fanny, she is highly observant and witnesses Maria and Henry in inappropriate situations. W.A. Craik comments that

Even when Henry is flirting with the Miss. Bertram’s - that is, all through the Sotherton visit and the play rehearsals- when Fanny is the only unbiased observer; Jane Austen modifies what Fanny tell us by telling things Fanny either cannot know or is too unsophisticated to see: thus we have enlightening glimpses of Maria and equally enlightening ones of Henry Crawford. (93)

Eventually, Edmund reluctantly agrees to take on the role of Anhalt, the lover of the character played by Mary Crawford. Besides giving Mary and Edmund plenty of scope for talking about love and marriage. Susila Singh says,

In the end Edmund, weakened by his infactuation for Mary, accepts the part of her theatrical lover and persuades poor Fanny to play the role of the cottager’s wife. (97)

The play provides a pretext for Henry and Maria to flirt in public. Fanny, however, continues to disapprove of her cousins’ activities. She cannot believe that Edmund has agreed to act, and she blames Mary for leading him astray.

I am sorry for Miss. Crawford, but I am more sorry to see you drawn into what you had resolved against, and what you are known to think will be disagreeable to my uncle. It will be such a triumph to the others. (153)

Henry, whom Maria had expected to propose to her, leaves, and she feels crushed, realizing that he does not love her. Mr. Crawford leaves Mansfield indefinitely to see to his estate and stay in London with his uncle, meanwhile Maria marries Rushworth. Although she neither likes nor respects Mr.Rushworth, she decides to go ahead and marry him, to escape the oppressive atmosphere of Mansfield and as a blame for her lost love Aayvagam an International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research | Volume No. 4 | Issue 7 | August 2016 12 ISSN – Online: 2321-5259 Print: 2321-5739

affair with Henry. With all this feelings Maria was quite impatient for the marriage. The couple quickly marries and departs for Brighton, and is accompanied by Julia. Henry returns to Mansfield Park and decides to amuse himself by making Fanny falls in love with him. He announces Mary that he intends to amuse himself by making the normally calm, unemotional Fanny, fall in love with him.

My plan is to make Fanny Price in love with me….I cannot be satisfied without Fanny Price, without making a small hole in Fanny Price’s heart. (225)

However, her genuine gentleness and kindness causes him to fall in love with her instead. Fanny responds to his criticism of her uncle with a strong rebuke, which seems to impress Henry. Because of Fanny’s sweet and forbearance, Henry gradually falls in love with her. Henry notes Fanny’s intense devotion to her brother and decides to use it to his own advantage. To try to make himself better in her eyes, he intercedes with his uncle, an admiral, to use his influence in Royal Navy to obtain a promotion for Fanny’s brother, William from midshipman to lieutenant. Henry Crawford’s interest in her stems from its recognition of the capabilities of her heart and her capacity for genuine feeling and even a deeply conceived essence of human personality. He decides that he is genuinely in love with her. Henry’s vanity has been wounded, as his sister spots at once, by Fanny’s lack of response to him. He is hardly sound basis for courtship and Fanny’s emotions remain unaffected. However, Henry is not discouraged. He continues to solicit her love. When she is in Portsmouth, Henry visits her and proves that he is more constant than she believed as well as demonstrating his acceptance of her family’s state. He thrills Fanny by telling her that, through his own exertions, her brother William is being promoted to the rank of second lieutenant on H. M. Sloop Thrush. As he continues, taking her hand, it dawns on her that his kindness is moral blackmail. She does not deflect the undesirable suitor in a matter of minutes; sincerely attached, Henry pursues her for weeks. Fanny remains resolutely opposed to the marriage, although her uncle reproaches her severely. Fanny’s uncle, Sir Thomas, is very displeased and demands that she should marry Crawford as he believes this to be a most advantageous marriage for her. Charles Murrah says that

Fanny’s uncle sends her home, it will be remembered, to think over her refusal of Mr. Crawford, hoping that a taste of something like poverty will change her mind. (27)

Maria was a married woman who left her husband, Mr. Rushworth, for Mr. Crawford whom she loved. What she does is a crime against her family and society. The marriage with Rushworth was to prove the ruin of Maria’s life. She eloped with Henry Crowed and he never married her. Edmund, the hero of the novel admires the virtue of Fanny Price but spends his time in love with someone else. Fanny loves, observes and suffers in silence, finding solace in Edmund’s frequent kindness to her. She preserves it just like Harriet Smith Aayvagam an International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research | Volume No. 4 | Issue 7 | August 2016 13 ISSN – Online: 2321-5259 Print: 2321-5739

preserving, her most precious treasures. Edmund is shocked to discover that Mary views the situation very differently from a moral perspective. Instead of considering Maria and Henry’s adultery as a horrific sin revealing shocking flaws in the character of the both Henry and Maria, Mary instead merely angry at the couple for their folly being so careless that they were caught. Moreover, she proposes a detailed plan for trying to bring both back into society. Finally, while praising Fanny and regretting that now, Fanny will never marry Henry, Mary also partly blames Henry’s decision to have an adulterous affair on Fanny, because she declined Henry’s proposal of marriage. Edmund is crushed to realize that Mary is not the woman he took her for, and leaves Mary’s apartment. He has returned to Mansfield, discouraged by Mary’s behaviour. W.A. Craik comments that,

Mary’s chief function is in relation to Edmund, of course, and her frivolity shows up his virtue, her false estimates of his conduct making it clear that, though rigid and humourless, he is not priggish. (111)

Edmund tells Fanny that he is too much in love with Mary to think of marrying anyone else. Edmund says that, She is the only woman in the world whom I can think of as my wife. Edmund is disgusted by Mary’s lack of moral outrage and concern for social standing, tells her so, and leaves, thus ending their attachment. A letter soon arrives from Edmund; Fanny is wanted at Mansfield immediately. Edmund will be coming to fetch her. Edmund tells about his disillusionment with Mary’s character and she comforts him. Edmund is extremely grieved by what has occurred but he eventually recovers and realizes that he loves Fanny. The marriage of Fanny and Edmund celebrates the ideal form of love: a compassionate relationship based on family. Marriage is the one of the few ways women can bring about a change in her status. Women would determine her status by marriage, thus climbing the social ladder, as that was the only opinion left to the women in Austen’s period. Vinita Singh Chawdhry aptly says,

Fanny’s mother had married a sailor who could not provide for her as he was a drunkard while her aunt Lady Bertram and her cousin Maria fared well by right kind of marriage. She has to find an ideal mate with whom she could find intellectual and emotional companionship. Fanny’s marriage to Edmund fixes her social position. (62)

Her marital status provided her a secure and prestigious place in her society. Jane Austen convinced that disappointment in love does not kill anybody and a second attachment is possible. Susila Sing says, “If Edmund had married Miss Crawford, Fanny Price would someday have accepted Henry Crawford.” (58)

Love gets short shrift in Mansfield Park, where marriage is best when it’s viewed practically rather than emotionally. For women, that marrying up-as Lady Bertram and Fanny do. For men, it means marrying a woman who is agreeable and pleasant- as Dr.Grant and Edmund do. The marriage between Fanny and Edmund reflects a successful Aayvagam an International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research | Volume No. 4 | Issue 7 | August 2016 14 ISSN – Online: 2321-5259 Print: 2321-5739

marriage. Their mutual understanding of each other strengthened the foundation of their relationship and led them to a peaceful and lasting marriage. As usual the opening chapter states the theme of the whole novel; it begins with the Ward sisters various marriages and their consequences. The Ward sisters marry men of very different social categories, fixes this constructed as the novel’s primary theme. Maria Ward moves above her designated social station by marring the baronet, Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park. The middle sister, Mrs. Norris, marries at a very socially appropriate station and the younger sister marries a common sailor, Mr. Price, who will in time become a unemployed drunkard. Jane Austen never considered love and marriage to be an exclusively personal affair. Marriage was a social institution and love and marriage, therefore, were to be considered in the larger social context. She disapproved of passion because its working involved a denial of all social claims. Edmund has become a slave to his passions; rather than seeking a loving companion, he has been charmed by coquetry and flirtation. Edmund is passionately attracted to Mary Crawford, but his concerns about her morals would only become more problematic if she were his wife. Maria, who was married to James Rushworth, threw every sense of propriety to the winds and in defiance of all social conventions, eloped with Henry Crawford. Inevitably, this resulted in her utter ruin. Fanny becomes the effective moral centre of Mansfield Park. Though Mary is charming, she has certain immoral views and opinions which mean in the end that she loses Edmund. Mary and Fanny actually have something in common: their precarious upbringings have left them in situations where a good marriage would be quite helpful. Fanny, however, does not think enough of money to sacrifice her morals for it. Mary is quite willing to do so, even going so far as to wish for Tom Bertram’s death to improve her situation with Edmund. Thus Jane Austen took a practical view of love and marriage. She approved only of love that resulted in the best kind of marriage. As they posses commonsense and have a practical attitude towards life, they are never disappointed in their love. Their love always resulted in prudent and successful marriage. Jane Austen is concerned with a problem of achieving a perfect marriage because marriage is the chief among the personal relations through which the individual develops his personality. ******* Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Mansfield Park. Delhi: A.I.T.B.S. Publishers & Distributers, 2004. Print. Chawdhry, Vinita Singh. “Social Status of Woman in the Early Novels of Jane Austen.” Jane Austen: A Feminist Vision. Jaipur: Yking Books, 2014. Print. Craik, W.A. “Mansfield Park.” Jane Austen: The Six Novels. London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1977. Print. Lascelles, Mary. Jane Austen and her Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Print. Murrah, Charles. “The Background of Mansfield Park.” From Jane Austen to Joseph Contrad. Ed. Rathburn & Steinmann. Minnepolis: U of Minnesota P, 1967. Aayvagam an International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research | Volume No. 4 | Issue 7 | August 2016 15 ISSN – Online: 2321-5259 Print: 2321-5739

Print. Reddy, T. Vasudeva. “Mansfield Park: Predilections Of The Ravelled Self.” Jane Austen: The Dilectics of Self-actualization in her Novels. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Limited, 1987. Print. Singh, Sushila. Her Concept of Social Life. New Delhi: S. Chand & Company Ltd, 1981. Print.