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Mansfield Park
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Chapters 4-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Mrs. Norris sets her sights on finding Julia and Maria suitable husbands. The Bertram sisters attend many social events and balls. Meanwhile, Fanny remains at home, keeping Lady Bertram company. Fanny misses out on outdoor exercise when her old grey pony dies. Mrs. Norris thinks a replacement is unnecessary, but when Edmund returns from Oxford, he exchanges one of his own horses for one suitable for Fanny.
Tom returns from Antigua after a few months, but Sir Thomas remains in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, Maria attracts a wealthy but unintelligent suitor named Mr. Rushworth. Edmund has reservations about the match, but Mrs. Norris enthusiastically promotes it. The couple becomes engaged with Sir Thomas’s written approval, but he urges them not to marry until his return.
As Fanny turns 18, Mrs. Grant's half-siblings, Henry and Mary Crawford, arrive in the neighborhood. The Crawfords are a lively and charming pair. Having lost their parents at an early age, they lived in London with their uncle, Admiral Crawford. However, when the Admiral’s wife died, he moved his mistress in and instructed his niece to leave. Henry refused to let Mary move into his country house, so she moved in with Mrs. Grant. Miss Crawford is not entirely happy about moving to the country. However, she is animated by Mrs. Grant’s suggestion that she could marry Tom Bertram. Meanwhile, Mrs. Grant proposes that Julia Bertram would make a good wife for Henry. Mary laughs at the proposal, pointing out that many women have tried and failed to make her brother settle down.
Chapter 5 Summary
The Crawfords and the younger members of the Bertram family quickly become friends. The Bertram sisters fall for Henry’s charm, and Julia hopes to marry him. However, in a conversation with Mary and Mrs. Grant, Henry admits that he prefers engaged women, as he can flirt with them without fear of commitment. Laughing at her brother’s cavalier attitude toward love, Mary says he will eventually receive his comeuppance. Mary asserts that everyone is “taken in” by marriage, failing to see their partner’s flaws until it is too late. Mrs. Grant proposes that country life will cure her half-siblings of the skepticism they have acquired in London.
At Mansfield Park, Fanny is the only person unimpressed by the Crawfords. Mary asks Edmund if Fanny is “out” yet, asserting that it is confusing when girls who have not formally entered society behave as if they have. Tom agrees, relating how he unwittingly flirted with a young woman who was not out, thereby offending her elder sister. Mary concludes that Fanny cannot be “out” as she does not attend balls.
Chapter 6 Summary
Tom goes to Weymouth for the horseracing. In his absence, Edmund heads a dinner party at Mansfield Park, and Mary expects to be bored. Mr. Rushworth also attends and talks ceaselessly about hiring a landscaper to make “improvements” to his estate, Sotherton. Fanny quietly observes to Edmund that she does not like to see avenues of trees sacrificed in the name of modernization. When Henry reveals he has made many improvements to his own estate, Maria suggests her fiancé could benefit from his advice. A group visit to Sotherton is proposed.
Mary describes the difficulties she has experienced in transporting her harp to the parsonage. She is incredulous at being unable to hire a local horse and cart, as they were all needed for harvesting. Edmund is attracted to Mary. However, during the dinner party, she makes comments he considers inappropriate. She criticizes her uncle, the Admiral, and makes an innuendo about the “Rears and Vices” she encountered while staying with him (91).
Chapter 7 Summary
Edmund asks if Fanny noticed anything inappropriate in Mary’s conversation during the dinner party. Fanny admits that she was shocked by the same incidents as Edmund. Edmund concludes that Mary cannot be blamed for her upbringing and “lively mind.”
Henry frequently visits the Bertram sisters at Mansfield Park. Meanwhile, Edmund is often at the parsonage, charmed by Mary and her harp playing. Mary begins to like Edmund despite him not being the Bertram heir she sought. Fanny is dismayed at this development and surprised at Edmund’s interest in Mary.
Mary loves riding and is an excellent horsewoman. Edmund asks Fanny if Mary can borrow her horse, and they are gone most of the day. Left with no opportunity to ride, Fanny is upset that Edmund has forgotten her. When they return to the stables, Mary apologizes to Fanny, admitting she is irredeemably selfish. Helping Fanny onto the horse, the Bertrams’ coachman contrasts Mary’s fearless style of riding with Fanny’s initial terror when she first learned to ride. Fanny gives up her horse to Mary for the next four days.
Maria is angry when Mrs. Grant excludes her from an invitation to dinner at the parsonage. Mrs. Grant assumes Maria will be spending time with Mr. Rushworth, but the arrival of Maria’s fiancé is delayed. When Edmund and Julia return from the parsonage, Mrs. Norris admonishes Fanny for resting on the sofa, suggesting she is lazy. Edmund guesses that Fanny has a headache—a regular affliction she suffers from. It emerges that, despite Fanny’s fragile health, she has been gardening in the heat under the command of Mrs. Norris. Edmund berates Mrs. Norris for her thoughtlessness. He feels guilty, realizing Fanny’s inability to ride left her at the mercy of Mrs. Norris’s demands. He resolves not to neglect Fanny’s needs again, even if it means disappointing Mary.
Chapter 8 Summary
Discussions are held about the planned trip to Sotherton. As Lady Bertram does not wish to go, Mrs. Norris tells Fanny to remain home and keep her aunt company. However, Edmund insists on staying at Mansfield Park with his mother so that Fanny can enjoy the excursion. Finally, Mrs. Grant offers to sit with Lady Bertram so Edmund can also go to Sotherton.
On the day of the trip, Julia sits by Henry, who drives the carriage. Maria struggles to hide her jealousy. However, when they arrive at Sotherton, Maria is consoled by the size of her fiancé’s estate.
Chapters 4-8 Analysis
This section of the novel introduces the theme of Virtue and Vice as the Crawfords enter the narrative. The Crawfords’ disruptive effect on the younger generation of the Bertram family presents the couple as a potentially dangerous force. Austen quickly establishes that, while the brother and sister are superficially charming, they lack strong principles. The revelation that the Crawfords were primarily raised by their uncle—a man of many vices—alerts readers to their morally deficient upbringing. Mary and Henry’s dialogue frequently reveals their ethical defects. Henry’s professed preference for engaged women identifies him as a Regency rake, foreshadowing his later adultery with Maria. Meanwhile, Mary shocks Fanny and Edmund with her outspokenness and disregard for propriety. Restless, “[a]ctive and fearless,” Mary is presented as Fanny’s foil, emphasizing the latter character’s stasis, fragility, and fearfulness (97). As Fanny embodies virtue in the novel, readers can assume that Mary represents its opposite. However, critics have also observed that Mary’s lively characteristics somewhat resemble those of Austen’s earlier heroines, including Elizabeth Bennet, thus leaving room for nuance and interpretation.
Mary’s presence divides Fanny and Edmund for the first time. While the two characters usually share the same opinions and values, Edmund’s “admiration of Miss Crawford […] lead[s] him where Fanny could not follow” (95). Although Edmund notes Mary’s flaws, her charm inevitably induces him to overlook them. Fanny, whose moral development has been guided by Edmund, emerges as the better judge of character. The horse-borrowing incident illustrates how Edmund’s championing of his cousin is superseded by his attraction to Mary. Edmund’s increasing attention to Mary at the expense of Fanny suggests an unwitting choice of vice over virtue.
In Chapter 6, Austen uses the topic of improvements to explore the theme of Stability and Change. The discussion of improvements reflects the 19th-century fashion for landscaping country estates to make them more modern and thus aesthetically pleasing. Significantly, both Henry and Mr. Rushworth are enthusiastic “improvers.” Mr. Rushworth is keen to show off his wealth by creating fashionable grounds. Meanwhile, Henry’s track record as an “improver” reflects his role as a destabilizing force. His character enjoys rearranging landscapes, just as he revels in creating discord in the Bertram household. By contrast, Fanny and Edmund disapprove of changing the landscape purely for the sake of fashionable modernization. Fanny’s hate of seeing avenues of trees cut down reflects her appreciation of nature and tradition. The protagonist’s respect for the natural world and the established order is juxtaposed with Mary’s astonishment that she cannot hire a horse and cart to transport her harp during harvest time. Mary acknowledges that she finds such “country customs” baffling as, in London, “every thing is to be got with money” (89-90). Presenting London and Mansfield Park as polar opposites, Austen highlights how the Crawfords’ materialistic urban values clash with the harmony of rural life, which also speaks to the changing era as Britain experiences the beginnings of industrialization.
The theme of Love, Money, and Marriage remains prominent in these chapters. Maria’s engagement to Mr. Rushworth is presented as a loveless business transaction. Despite Maria’s contempt of his stupidity, she considers it “her evident duty to marry Mr. Rushworth if she could” (72). Maria’s jealousy of Henry and Julia is also dulled when she sees Mr. Rushworth’s extensive grounds, demonstrating the transactional nature of the match and Maria’s own desire for greater wealth. Initially, Mary is similarly mercenary in her attitude to marriage, setting her sights on Tom, the heir to Mansfield Park. However, Mary’s attraction to Edmund demonstrates that even she is not immune to the inconvenient demands of love.
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