Happiness (Ch. 24)

In Chapter 24 we see Fanny and William united for the first time, drawing some interesting commentary from the narrator on the nature and causes of happiness.

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Is she Queer? (Ch. 24)

In Chapter 24 Mary and Henry are discussing Fanny Price, when Henry turns to wondering why he is not making any progress with Fanny Price.

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Was Fanny’s Love Realistic? (Ch. 24)

Some of Austen’s critics have difficulty following her counterfactual reasoning, as when she speculates about how Henry Crawford would have got on if Fanny hadn’t formed an early attachment to Edmund.

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What a Corrupted Mind (Chs. 23-4)

By the 23rd chapter (II.V) Fanny’s revulsion towards Henry Crawford becomes quite explicit, and this has been enormously controversial in 20th century criticism. Reginald Farrer in his 1917 essay called her a ‘prig-pharisee’ and professor Trilling in his 1957 essay on Emma agrees that many are ‘repelled’ by Fanny Price, that no essay he has [...]

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Idealistic Fanny and Materialistic Mary (Ch. 22)

Fanny’s conversation with Mary in the Grants’ shrubbery—the only casual conversation between the two rivals—resonates with contrasts. As Jane Stabler’s excellent notes remind us, Fanny’s stilted conversation reflects her discomfort in the presence of her worldly-wise rival that she has tried so hard to keep at a distance.

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Sir Thomas and Maria (Ch. 21)

The transposition of two passages in the chapter where Maria is married to Mr Rushworth had never struck me so forcibly before.

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Mr Yeats and Edmund on Sir Thomas (Ch. 20-1)

It is easy to dismiss Mr Yeats, ‘trifling and confident, idle and expensive’ (20.21) and therefore his thoughts, so it is as well to pay close attention to them.

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Sir Thomas Attends to Business (Ch. 20)

It was a busy morning with him. Conversation with any of them occupied but a small part of it. He had to reinstate himself in all the wonted concerns of his Mansfield life: to see his steward and his bailiff; to examine and compute, and, in the intervals of business, to walk [...]

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Lady Bertram (Ch. 20)

Austen seemed derive as much amusement from Lady Bertram’s indolence and inertness as Mrs Norris’s hyper-activity and interference. While more educated people tend to adopt more impersonal ways of speaking, Lady Bertram takes this to extravagant lengths, sometimes almost rendering herself a non-entity in her speech, apparently vacating herself entirely.

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Edmund’s Sober judgement (Ch. 20)

Edmund’s first object the next morning was to see his father alone, and give him a fair statement of the whole acting scheme, defending his own share in it as far only as he could then, in a soberer moment, feel his motives to deserve, and acknowledging, with perfect ingenuousness, that his concession had been [...]

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